Bitcoin Forum

1.The difficulty is starting to have huge increases again while the price is going DOWN, it already is below 300 !
2.My estimate is that next difficulty is going to be above 15 % and the others following will be somewhere around same level !
3.Soon NEXT GENERATION ASICS will be launched and the difficulty will start raising even more, we might see 30-40 % + increases in difficulty,
and the miners we bought now will be absolute, with no chance to EVER ROI.

With all these, let's just ask ourselves:
Is it still worth mining bitcoin right now ?

absolutely.

I am  Looking forward to  a 200 dollar coin price and 50xxxxxxx diff by my birthday the end of January.


Ask me why?

"absolutely" like in it's worth mining ?
by end of jan diff will be more than 50, you shall see !

It depends on who (or where) you are.
Keeping with the numbers so far, if the network difficulty is 50B, 1GH/s can be expected to earn roughly BTC0.00000042 per hour. At $200 per coin, that's ~$0.000084 per hour.

Assuming we're using the newest mining tech @ ~0.2J/GH (supposedly coming to market soon), your electricity/hosting/cooling costs would need to be less than $0.42 per kWh to make a profit (which is just about everyone). So, yes, it's still worth mining Bitcoin.

But when will it no longer be worth it for grand-scale industrial miners? If we shoot for the best (er..worst?) case scenario using 0.2J/GH, $200/BTC, $0.01 / kWh, difficulty would need to be equal to or greater than 2 trillion (something like 14.5 EH/s ..or 14,500 PH/s) in order for them not to be profitable anymore. Assuming mining gear never becomes more efficient than 0.2J/GH and their expenses never go below $0.01 per kWh, the only other volatile variable is the price of Bitcoin. If the price goes up, the difficulty may still go up since miners can still make a profit.

OK, why?

well I am 100% sp20.   I turn a profit at  diff of 50xxxxxx and btc 200 usd but many people do not make money at those numbers so  i would think a diff of 50xxxxxxx and a price of 200usd would force a leveling of diff.
like  we had between nov 5 and dec 30.

do you turn a profit because you're 100% sp20?

why do others don't make money at those numbers and you do?

should i buy 2 sp20's? I have 24 hours to decide.

It's hard to say, people were thinking the same thing when the price of BTC dropped out of the $600 range and difficulty kept going up as more mining started up. One thing that I noticed is that even with the lastest asic miners, the power requirements keep going up with it. So, I don't think until the power efficiency is addressed, that the next gen asics will really impact things.  I stopped mining bitcoin alone back in March of last year and started mining altcoins and buying other crypto (ripple/stellar/etc) along with it.

Bitcoin mining isn't doomed at all, but lots of small players will be driven out of the market.

Its the same old story, for most people mining at home on a moderate / expensive electricity tariff its not profitable even with efficient hardware. If you have cheap electricity and efficient hardware than you maybe returning a small profit but I don't see that continuing for much longer.

Its winter here and if my miners weren't providing supplementary heating to parts of my house I'd switch them off and sell them. They are costing more to run than they're mining and that's been the same for the past few months. I don't mind at the moment though because of the heat they produce. Come the spring they're gone though it pains me to say, however electricity here in the UK is right up there with the dearest in the world.

Well it does waste a lot of electricity, and we've mineless coins now.

So you are not investing in new mining equipment?

How much GH/TH is your current setup doing?

No I cant afford to unfortunately, I only got into mining a year ago or so ago so missed the early easy mining. I'm running 2 x Asicminer Tubes @ 850 GH each so 1.7TH total. I could sell them and buy some S3's but its not worth the hastle for what I'd save on running costs. These tubes are running nice and steady and quiet after changing the fans which is a massive plus for me as they're in my office at home.

yeah you are far higher then my winter rate of 13 cents a kwatt (then figure heat use in the winter at 3 cents)  so from now until May my power is 10 cents a kwatt.

 In may the summer rate is 16 cents and no heat benefit I will be done. Unless btc jumps really high in price.

It all boils down to btc price really doesn't it. Shame its so low at the moment and I don't know if it will ever go much higher, especially in the near future.

I'm running about $0.25 a k/watt which is a killer. But to be honest by running these tubes its cheaper overall than heating my office, kitchen and dining room 24/7 by alternative heating methods when you take into consideration the bitcoin return. I live in a very small cottage hence why 2 tubes heat my office and take the chill off the kitchen and dining room. Its not a big house by any stretch of the imagination lol.

You don't turn a profit until you have covered the cost of your hardware and electric. When do you think that will happen?

Mining is not dead for the right people. the ones who care about thier business as a long term income generating business. But the difficulty will slowly flatten out or maybe even go down if enough miners get out of the game. Specifically miners who do not sell thier equipment for others to purchase loosing money in the sale but rather just shut them off until Bitcoin goes back up :) this way people are not just passing Hashpower around but completely removing it from the network for a while.

If difficulty doubles, it means that effectively the value of bitcoin mining equipment is cut in half, which means that either the price of bitcoin needs to double, or machines need to get cheaper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXU8w336oGs  ;D ;D

I would also add that besides the value of the mining equipment is "cut in half", more importantly the income derived from it is cut in half. This matters a great deal to some folks in that their expenses to actually run the mining equipment (e.g. electricity, salaries, rent) may exceed the income. That's when folks are actually losing money the longer they run. For some operations that can't be done for long.

What were to happen if someone was putting on a machine onto the BTC network that would put the next difficulty up 15% or more, what would happen then?
I feel that it's had to happen a lot, but I've never really looked into it very much.

Not only will difficulty continue to increase but block reward will halve again to 12.5 towards the end of the year from what I understand.

I think the next "halving" will actually be in 2016. Since it's "block count" based, it's date is determined by the pace at which blocks are mined. The last estimate I saw was July 2016, but if difficulty continues at this pace (meaning mined faster than "desired"), that will probably pull it earlier into 2016.

I think that's what he was meaning, if the difficulty keeps doing what it's doing combined with people gaining more miners that has such a high hash-rate, it may push the block rate to go faster than people want, making the block half faster than what we anticipate.

Yes sorry I should have made it clearer, that's exactly what I meant. Block halving should be middle of 2016 but the way things are going could feasibly be early 2016 or even end of this year.

Its 2016 June, not end of this year so there is still plenty of mining to go.

Everything is doomed.  Everyone dies in the end but we just keep on living!  Seriously though, bitcoin mining has been successful and spawned massive economic impacts in all sorts of sectors.  GPU makers love it, private businesses love making asics...well the list goes on.  It doesn't matter if it's doomed because it's already been a huge success... kind of like life.

if price continues to drop, the mining farms are doomed..

Right now at ~$290 the profit is low until it starts to pick back up in price, most miners are just burning more energy than they can produce profit because of per BTC being so low to the difficulty being so high.

Any math to back that up, or just speculation?

At the risk of being flippant, this is the "Speculation Group" after all.

Using any one of the "profit calculators", current Bitcoin price and difficulty levelgenerally yields "long to infinite time to recover cost". Low electricity cost and and efficient mining makes it possible in individual cases.

One more point to add. Nobody that i is currently mining today thinks that Bitcoin will remain at $290 forever. If they did, they would get what they could and exit the Bitcoin space, including selling the coins they currently hold.

Bitcoin as a currency/commodity fails if it never climbs above $290.

That's true, but you don't need to mine if you want to speculate and you don't need to speculate if you want to mine. They're really two independent processes.

I would also be willing to bet that a "speculator" is expecting Bitcoin to go above $290. If they thought it was capped at $290, there wouldn't be much point in speculating, would there?

I wouldn't say mining is doomed, but if people are actually trying to make a profit from mining they are going to have a hard time. They will need to keep on buying new hardware to meet up with difficulty demands. ATM it is hard for some miners to make a profit with this price btc is at. Most miners have to options to hold btc's or to sell them to pay for electricity. If miners are able to hold them until 2016 I think the price will rise before the halving like what usually happens with coins.

Well, short sellers will. They have dominated the market for the past year, and will continue to sell other peoples' coins on margin all the way to the bottom if they can. Many do not care about Bitcoin much as a tech, but want to make money. Lots of them are not even particularly skilled traders. Shorts are at an all time high and will probably get squeezed big time in the coming months. It will have a spring like effect.

It wont be doomed if price raises...

It all depends how much you pay for GHS and the maintenance costs. The next difficulty is only slightly rising and who knows how much the next difficulty will be. It will likely raise again slightly.
I think you are likely to ROI if you buy GHS now at less than 0.0015 with low maintenance costs.

As soon will come the new and more power saving miners. Smarter already selling their SP20

http://perearstike.ee/osta/SP20x60.1.jpg

This fella must have free electricity as well. We are coming really close to cost of production.

I second that. Mining is doomed because of Chinese manufacturers.

Before they sell you the equipment they are mining and raising the difficulty level.

I suggest to STOP buying Chinese equipment so the BTC price will go up instead of fall down.

This has been going on since the dawn of ASIC mining. Boycotting manufacturers won't stop them from producing hardware and mining with it.

Wow, just look at that BTC difficulty start to plunge!  Another day or two of this and I'll have to fire my nanofury back up :p

Won't this slow down the confirmation times?

The difficulty changes every 14 days, if the mining hash go down, the difficulty is likely to go down when it changes.
Until then it is likely to slow down the confirmation time a little bit until the next difficulty changes.

in case u guys didnt hear! -25% cex difficulty inc soon

cex who? ? ?

Yeah right! like few ph, like 1 or 2 percent of the network!

for sure all miners over 1w/ghs will have to close unless they run free electricity...

If you already paid your miner and you dont want to sell it or can't sell it you can consider that you are paying to buy for new bitcoins, maybe with a premium.

picolo dont be greedy bro ! I knw u investd ur life saving in cloudminr :D

No they won't.

I am certain there are people like me who are still running machines that are getting 1w/GHs. I have 5THs of SuperJupiter modules still running along with other more efficient gear. I'll run at a loss for awhile, hoping that the price of BTC will rise again soon. Although I did shut down my S2 and my remaining Bitfury rigs yesterday.

But I'm not holding my breath. :(

Something to consider would be an efficient heat-pump (reverse cycle) A/C. You will pay roughly a 1/3 of the cost the miners run at the current market rates. Consider the cost of the miners and the cost of an A/C system. Comparable for a small cottage.

Correct but the major manufacturers have already mentioned the US$200 limit. ie. if BTC hits or falls below that, it is the end for some manufactures. The manufacturing process costs more. Currently they are operating on very small margins. Don't be surprised to see one or two close or be sold to others who think they can turn them around. This was expected.

If you run at a small loss, you are buying BTC with a premium. What price of BTC do you need to mine and break even?

I'm not buying BTC at any price. I'm only mining because I already have the gear... at a loss or otherwise.

why would u mine at a loss? makes no sense. may as well sell your gear.

You ARE buying BTC at a price of the cost to produce the coins you mine (electric, space, etc).

I've just sold one of my rigs but still have one running to keep the chill off downstairs for my dogs while its cold because I may as well earn some coin for the power than just have the heating on. I certainly wouldn't be buying hardware or bitcoin even if I had the money at the moment. Also with electric so expensive here even the latest, most efficient miners are running at a loss.

It makes sense you are not interesting in buying new equipement then but I think the price of BTC is so low that it's a good buying opportunity.

Yes but it's still worth a try !

We could argue semantics all day, lol. You say I'm buying BTC. I say I'm mining.

It's winter. Miners generate heat. Sure, my electric bill is higher than it would be without mining. But my gas bill is lower. If I'm actually mining at a loss, it's minimal and nothing that concerns me yet. I run my most efficient gear 24/7 but cycle my 1w/GHs miners off and on when I need the extra heat. I have a couple of old Bitfury rigs in my bedroom that make really nice, quiet space heaters at night.

And selling 1w/GHs miners is a nice thought. But the reality is... they aren't worth shit.  ;)

Whats the average earning here if having around  2TH/s Would it even be worth mining at all ?

This will give you a rough idea (keep in mind that difficulty goes down tomorrow):
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

2 THS would give you 0.1701 BTC /week (-mining maintenance costs) at the next estimated difficulty that will start in 2.6 hours.

Cloud mining is always doomed unless roi is less than 6 months & the profit would be from selling the miners... Not from making coin...

To keep you cloud in compassion would mean no extra electricity to mine the same amount of coin @ the same rate of sale....

Currently not..... mining above the $500 mark would be...

U keep upgrading as long as the miners didn't keep rising in cost...