Bitcoin Forum

What do you think?

If you want to buy ASIC equipment answer is maybe, for other equipment answer is no.

Definitely Asics

I think it comes down to how cheap you can get electricity for.

Do some math

Ruh roh Rorge!

Mining is a form of speculation.  You are speculating on the future exchange rate level and the future difficulty level.  GPU mining is only a slightly less risky form of speculating on bitcoin that by bitcoin bitcoins outright but because you can always sell your GPU hardware for game playing and other non-mining purposes, you won't lose everything.

But to take out a bank loan to buy specialized bitcoin mining hardware, ... that's going to be hard to justify.

If you have savings or sufficient discretionary income to cover the loan repayment should there be difficulties, and just want to take advantage of the low interest rates, then that's possibly one of the few instances where doing so makes sense.

But look back to October of last year:
 - http://blockchain.info/charts/miners-operating-profit-margin

There were literally tears and disgust from miners who had invested in GPUs and rigs -- they were not only losing money on each hash (as the cost of electricity was greater than the revenue obtained from mining), they hadn't sold their bitcoins that were mined when the value was much higher -- amplifying their losses.

There's nothing saying we won't be back at $4 or less again.  Maybe FinCEN starts taking action, or the banks kick out all the exchanges?   Or simply, the block reward drop in December is particularly brutal on miners?  

We dont know.  But using other people's money to gamble is something that usually doesn't end well.  (well, unless you are a bankster and have the Bernank in your pocket then you actually get a huge bonus for doing that).

Been watching the prices the whole year and it's been stable at $5-6, don't see much of a risk there. The difficulty rating will definitely be going up, but I will have close to 1 terahash or more if I take out a loan so I'm no small fry.

You do not get it. IF BFL deliver on their promises, then with 1 terahash you WILL be a small fry.

What are you blubbering about with this "IF" BFL delivers? When have they never delivered?

ALSO... if you had 1 terahash the entire 2012 year, then you would have made over 1.6 million according to most bitcoin calculators out there.

This. Everyone else has the same idea you do, and the pre-orders for those devices are an insane number. You will NOT be the only guy farming at 1 terahash once these devices are released to the public. This makes the action speculation, which is always dicey when "gambling with someone else's money".

Thank you kindly, that's what I was thinking as well. The difficulty rating and total network hashrate will go up.

Yup, although most likely not everyone currently mining with a GPU will bother upgrading to ASIC, so when ASICs are there the mined BTC will get spread over fewer people (so much for the mass adoption...). I'd say buy what you can afford, but borrowing money for this sounds a bit risky.

I personally think GPU mining is going to go the way of the CPU mining in the next couple months.  I am surprised it has not happened yet since the talk of the FPGA/ASICs started last year. 

The jump between GPU and FGPA/ASIC isn't the same as between CPU and GPU: "everyone" has some GPU, not everyone has an FGPA/ASIC. GPU can be bought at your usual local retailer, FGPA/ASIC have to be ordered from the other side of the world. You can resell a GPU and do other things than mining on it, you can't really with FGPA/ASIC. So, not surprising that the transition isn't as brutal: the average Joe doesn't get an ASIC...

With the jalapeño at $149 my grandma will be buying them next LOL

By the time the supposed jalapeño reaches the market I am sure your grandma would be long gone. :P

Hell of a gamble if you ask me. There are safer investments you could make.

The funny thing is Ive always wanted a usb coffee warmer.

I'm not saying it's expensive nor complicated, I'm just saying it's a pure investment in BTC: you can't do anything else with it. No playing, no reselling, just mining. So I'm pretty sure there won't be as many people with ASICs as there have been with GPUs (proportionally to the global reach & value of Bitcoin, of course).

This is also a key factor. With my GPU farm, if BitCoin crashes or becomes worthless for whatever reason, I can recoup my cost still for the value of the GPUs. The same cannot be said about BitCoin-optimized specific ASIC/FPGAs, which would likely become worthless as they have no intrinsic value of their own.

I got into mining in December and only really started to go dedicated the past few months. I already had a 6950, 6450 and 6770m. I bought a 5830 for $80 and the rest of the system was already in my spare parts.

Personally, I wouldn't risk much. I could probably resell the GPU at $80 and I will not buy a GPU for more than 3 months ROI. The only reason I got a single jalapeno is because I had the spare BTC I had already mined and I have a lot of fun mining so I want to remain the small fry I am now later my multiplying my hashrate by 4. I figure if everything goes to shit, no loss for me.

It's a matter of risk assessment. I do it because it is fun but I wouldn't risk much and I advise the same. That said, who can tell the future? Some good points were made either way:
-network rate will increase if BFL delivers. ie, 1/2TH is the new GH
-If something goes to shit, be it insane difficulty increase or major value drop, you won't be able to pay off your debt
-The ASIC will have very little resale value because not many people use SHA256 dedicated hashing processors
-A lot of people may drop out if GPU mining becomes worthless and the majority of the network hashrate will be in the power of the remaining. Perhaps this will lower the total to make it profitable to them?
-There's still that drop to 25BTC reward.
-What about that time period where not many people have had their ASIC delivered yet? Except unless you pre-ordered, it might be too late for that for you.
-What are your electricity costs?

Here's my big question: How much are you looking to invest and do you plan on maintaining it all yourself?

50-100k loan

Impossible to maintain it myself

Well, sounds risky to me, but it's your call after all. I guess you'll find people trying to discourage you from buying ASIC so that their own ASIC will be a higher % of the network ; personally I haven't made up my mind yet but if I do get one it will be the 3.5GH/s thingy and nothing more, which probably won't get me as many BTCs as I already have (not that I have much though ^^). So basically I wouldn't be mining much anymore and my interest would rather be that there is still a high number of miners to secure the network and keep the BTCs I have valuable, so to anyone willing to buy ASIC I'd say go for it ^^

Might be worth it, but you need to take in account that the 50 btc prize for solving a block will be cut in half to 25 btc in approx. 5 months or less.  Many are speculating that will cause deflation and the value of a coin will raise as a result.

LOL


True, how ever for $149 I know a lot of guys that would take a crack at buying one and figuring out if they could mod it or if it really has just one use.  There are very talented "engineers" out there that can reverse engineer the tech and use it for something else.

Yeah, sure, I guess for quite a few tech enthusiasts there are various fun ways to reuse the thing, but I think we're getting far away from the average Joe now aren't we? ;)

Good point lol

new units will def be out by october

So about 2-3 mini-rigs = 2-3TH/s?
I'll maintain it for you :P

NO. DO NOT TAKE OUT A LOAN TO SPECULATE. Well unless you can afford to lose all the money plus interest.

yes i can afford to lose and dont know how you're going to maintain them? only way is if I make them water cooled?

No. Its speculation. Speculate with money that you can afford to loose. Stay debt free.

Seriously, if you don't read the whole thread at least read the post just above yours...

what is this debt free you're talking about? how old are you?

most average people have credit card debts...

Err... depends on countries I guess. Here people take loans but usually don't use the so-called "credit" cards to get them.

What do you mean? And what are you talking about water cooled?

The latest versions of BFL units can be water cooled

I don't know anybody that can take out a loan of 100K and then not worry about the problems it could cause if they default on the loan.  Unless it's a private loan maybe...

I wouldnt say getting a bankloan to mine is a bad idea, but I wouldnt mine bitcoin... :)