Bitcoin Forum

I just recently re-discovered bitcoins. I heard about them about a year ago but never really looked into it. (really wish I would have) Looking at things now, GPU mining is nearly pointless and Ive noticed a lot of FPGA manufacturers are stopping production because of the possibility of ASIC. It looks like the days of affordable mining operations are over.

Being a newcomer, is there any point in trying to join in or did I miss my chance?

I currently have a 4850 and a 5850 running which has given me a total of about 2.5BTC...

not if you have cheap electricity.

GPUs are going for about 33% less than they were a couple months ago.  it's good times

If you buy at the right price, gpu mining will still pay itself off and then some before ASIC hits. And then you'll have the resale (or re-purposing) of the cards.

Well I got my two "new" 5850's today, makinga total of 3 hashing right now for just over 1GH/s. I just re-purposed my HTPC/file server that never was used. Total cost in it is about $500 (3x 5850's, pcie cables and a bigger psu)

We will see what happens I guess...

they'll probably pay for themselves by the time asic extinct them, even if they don't you'll still profit once you sell them though don't count on getting more than 2/3's what you paid for them.

yeah, i suspect they'll drop in value a lot once they become totally useless for bitcoin mining

still, though... considering how cheap you can pick them up, and if you have electricity under 10c (preferably under 7-8c), i think it's a good investment

especially if those ASICs arent available until january or something.  then you get the winter months (well, depending on location).  makes up some for the 1/2 blocks

for jan & feb my elec bill was essentially the same as the year before

I seriously think you did not miss the bus. BFL may not be very far in the ASIC process. It will probably take about a month for timing and power constraint development for them to figure out what power and controls make their devices the most stable. After that, they are basically ready to do some mass manufacture and then delivery so once you see power/watt numbers posted, it will be about a month after that before the first devices hit the streets.

They have not yet done that (which would almost certainly require revision of hash rates to more exact amounts, probably with over-specification, as that has been their goal all along). So when you see them update their hash rates and power numbers to be more exact, that's when you know they are about to deliver a finished product and have basically one month left before difficulty explodes. If you are purchasing prior to that point, you're helping fund the R&D for a chance at a better delivery time.

Keep in mind, several FPGA miners are expecting a better ROI than one year because of the threat of ASIC and the blockchain halving, so as it becomes more and more clear that these miners are coming out *and* being delivered, the price is going to continue to rise. You may be better served by buying coin and selling it just as people start getting their BFL SC products delivered. At that point you can use the money to purchase whatever ASIC products are available, though you will likely see a ridiculously high ROI, but not nearly as high as all the early adopters that only bought a couple when you were able to purchase in bulk.

Just echoing everyone else. I'm gambling on GPUs being viable for the next ~6 months. I'm not buying up anymore GPUs(sitting around 17 GH/s) but I'm definitely not selling them either. With the reward drop I'll re-evaluate and either liquidate on eBay for dirt cheap or mine them in to the ground if they are still profitable in 2013.

If you are willing to take the risk, you may also want to look in to a pirate passthrough. I have a pirate account with a small deposit. The interest off that deposit pays for the power and rent of my second mining facility. Power isn't a huge issue at 1-2 GH/s but it does add up and it's nice having coins that I mined pay off the powerbill.

In the end it's a fun hobby. If you gamble with things you don't mind losing then you can laugh it off if the cardhouse falls down.

This, its never to late to jump on board  the bitcoin train.

Im looking at up grading my rig with 2-4 7950's soon, Id expect to be breaking even in 2-4 months (using an already paid for 3x 5970's to help out).

I beleive the general consensus is right, I have asked in my own thread about this, As I have a 1GHs rig and wanted to know what to do, As in upgrade/FPGA/ASIC mixture of all three, And I will be mining my cards untill it won't even pay the electricity, I say go for it, Keep your cards going, See if you can fit another in there at little cost as possible, and collect those coins!

I threw some money out and bought a handful of bitcoins and decided to mine until its not profitable. Maybe if Im lucky ASIC wont be as big as they claim, at least not yet.  8)

I wouldn't worry about ASIC until someone shows some pictures of them starting with BFL. Lets see if they can deliver.

Im willing to bet a competitor will beat them to the punch  ;)

I surely hope so. I don't like waiting 2 months for a product that should be in stock. It's bad business. At least paypal was added to the preorder payment options. I probably won't order more than one single sc though.

Coinlab would like to make it possible for GPU miners to continue to be able to profitably earn bitcoins even in an ASIC dominated mining environment.  If you are concerned about the decrease in profitability for GPUs that will accompany ASICs, you may be interested in Coinlab's new pool which offers a dollar-denominated earnings guarantee that will let you keep mining profitably.  Here is a link to the original thread if you are interested in the program https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99643.0