Bitcoin Forum

I'm expecting there will be a nice bell curve, with an emphasis on the lower speeds.  Feel free to change your vote if you change or modify your mining hardware.  Have fun!   ;D

Why you didn't just used a log scale?. This is nosense.

Because then I would only have 10 MH/s, 100 MH/s, 1 GH/s, and 10 GH/s.  And that wouldn't give very many options.

No. A logarithmic scale can be divided as finer or as coarser as you wish.

I tried to make the divisions so that they would separate the most commonly reported hashrates.  Why would I want to use a log scale for this?  Why would the hashrates of different miners fall into a logarithmic pattern?

Roughly around 1400mhs . Hope to be by 10GHs by the end of December.

If you already know approximately the distribution of the hashrates then this poll isn't going to tell you anything new. A logarithmic scale don't needs a logarithmic distribution to make sense. The irregularities of a graph in a regular scale convey useful information, irregular distributions in an irregular scale don't. Pick any book about basic statics!.

This is just a poll for fun.  And yes, you can still get useful information from an irregular scale.  I've taken Statics, but I think you meant to say Statistics.

Indeed, thanks for the correction. :)

It does not he a timeline though ;)

I have 2x5770 + 3x 6970 mining ;)

I have 5 x6970 coming next week.

I have 32 x 6970 coming the week after ;)

And I have 40 x 6970 coming 2 weeks after ;)

Do you know something the rest of us don't?

Just hoping Bitcoin rockets up in price, eh? 

And you must be hosting those rigs in a building outside your home -- you can't exactly draw that much power at a residence.

I mean, there are plenty of guys on here content to make "a little", mine for fun, mine to pay for a % of new hardware which will be used for gaming, etc.
But you're obviously in this as a business, to make money plain and simple.

The 130-150 day payoff doesn't hold you back at all?

Besides the fact you physically won't be able to get your money back for 4 or 5 months (with no difficulty increases), we're also not factoring in the value of one's time -- I mean, unless you're unemployed, it's going to take some of your otherwise productive time to build all those rigs.

It made sense in late May when profitability was through the roof -- it WAS worth one's time to build and mess with rigs.

But now, it only makes sense for EXISTING operations to continue, perhaps strategically expand here and there.  Mining just isn't THAT profitable anymore, and it's still plenty risky.

Has anyone noticed that BTC haven't been over $14.20 for several days? And now the price is finally moving -- to $13.80.

Like I said, risky. Risking a few hundred bucks makes sense. But starting a business -- this late in the game? A bit foolhardy if you ask me.

2x 6990's —> 1500-1600 Mhash/s :P

Well, lets jsut say it is less risky than some of the other items. I have the hugh luck to actualyl run a business ;) Result is that I now buy wholesale.

This is my "dc-0" plan that long looked for a reason to go into existence. I need some volume to make it worthwhile, including having industrial power which where I am requires me to take 63 amps and some minimum amount ;)

Plus I am not unemployed - to a degree where I can be happy to say that this whole oder if it is a total loss is a dent in my income for this year, but one that is... manageable. Time? Yes, 2 people working on that full time at the moment ;)

I dont really see that as "end of the line". The goal is to add a half rack (8 computers) every month for the foreseeable future, more and more financed by the mining income.

If it fails I am stuck with
* A lot of hardware to sell of
* A decent tax write off
* An experience that cost me maybe 2 months savings

;) Not all that bad. The worst is a total crash in a month that measn I have no real write off but used hardware ;) And a really good experience. I may take chance to move that into an import business ;)

If I am right, I run this into the 16 full rack (16 computers each) setup next year.

IMHO it has always been risky getting into mining.  At this point in the game though there's significantly less risk than there was for early adopters.  At least now your gains/losses can be somewhat accurately gauged, whereas back then it was a total gamble.

All investment of any kind is risk. Bitcoin mining is one of the least risky I've seen. In fact if I were less lazy I could essentially finance a huge undertaking like NetTecture, without use of almost any personal savings, and it would require bitcoin to crash and burn almost completely within about a month of my purchase for me to be out any significant capital. And to be fair, 40 6970s (I can't buy wholesale like he can, but I'll use his numbers) is essentially a job.

I enjoy bitcoin, but not enough to devote that kind of time to it however. Close, but not quite. If I didn't have to move states I might consider it heh.

Wholesale is not really that much cheaper then mail order.  In many cases, newegg=wholesale or within 5%. 

There really is no scenario where buying that much hardware NOW will pay off better then buying bitcoins.  The only way you could come out ahead is if difficulty goes down dramatically while price stays the same.  That simply will not happen.

If you buy JUST a video card and put it in an existing system it may pay off.  Buying a system you already wanted and putting it to mining can take down some of your purchase cost and make it worthwhile.  Buying a bulk load of systems can not pay off anymore.  You will loose more in depreciation then you will make back in the first few months.  Over the longer term the payout will be lower and lower and will not ever cover the full price of the hardware+electricity.

Currently at about 1GH/s will be at 2GH/s in about a week.

Only 12 Gh/s... 2-3 Gh/s more coming soon these days... Wating for 5970 and couple of 5870's to arrive  ;D


All you said sound total nonsense to me  ??? So if i listen what you say i will achieve nothing... I am unemployed and this is my chance to gather money at the moment then i have to do this and to buy equipment as much as i can... Now i am considering about making about 500pcs. of 5830 order soon... 6 months payoff is perfect in many ways so i cant understand why you are so scared of 130-150 days ?!?!?

Careful there.  Sounds an awful lot like you're predicting difficulty and the price of the BTC.

Six 6970s @ 420Mhash each.

2.52Ghash

I'll tell you why -- because I have no guarantee Bitcoin won't be selling for $5 by then, with much higher difficulty than we have today.

I've looked at the fundamentals, and there is certainly a case for pessimism. This isn't about being positive myself, because if the reality is that Bitcoin is not going to take off, I'd better face the reality rather than put my head in the sand.

There is a huge upward curve Bitcoin faces if it's to "survive", "take off", "come into its own", pick your phrase.

Not just old people, heck a HUGE portion of our peers aren't touching Bitcoin with a 50 foot pole. For mining or otherwise.

Does anyone here go to other discussion boards to see what "outsiders" think of Bitcoin?

"pyramid scheme"
"bubble"
"scam"

are words that come up.

Yes, I like Bitcoin, I personally want it to succeed, I am personally invested in mining equipment (so don't get me wrong), but I also am objective enough to see the challenges we face.

There just isn't enough REAL STUFF to buy with Bitcoin right now. It's mostly miners and traders holding (hoarding) Bitcoin hoping the price goes up. If a great number of traders/miners ever give up, the price is going to drop several dollars within hours. And then your 150 day payoff will instantly become 300 or 450 days -- if not infinity.

If it's really a free lunch, we haven't seen the end of people adding new hardware -- and if this thread is any indication, we have some MAJOR hardware set to come online in the next month. I wouldn't even say we only have to face 10% difficulty increases. Another 50% increase isn't out of the question.

It's almost like we had the "boom" in early June, then when difficulty seemed to "level off" another echo boom -- smaller than the first, but still significant.

As long as unemployed (as well as employed) people can make easy money by sinking a few thousand dollars, you'll have more and more difficulty increases.

Matthew

You are correct.....  but you can run the business analysis on the most possible outcomes to see what is a good move and what isnt. 

If the price of bitcoins go up and difficulty goes up, buying the coins would be the best move.


If the price stays within the range of 10-20 and difficulty continues to rise slowly then mining still does not make sense FOR NEW FULL MACHINE RIGS. 

If the price of bitcoin tanks, (no matter what difficulty does) then you loose money on either mining or purchasing.

A final scenario of price staying even or rising and difficulty lowering will not happen due to the competitive market and new miners joining.

There is no scenario with any odds of happening that puts mining better then buying FOR NEW FULL MACHINE RIGS.

+1 Littleshop

Some sanity in this thread.

THe problem is that the risk is not so high for some of us.

Little Dude busys cards in a shop, pays sales tax on everything, has a cooling problem and a problem when things dont work out. Selling stuff on ebay he bought expensive.

MiningCorp has industrial electricity - I possibly undercut 75% of the people here by more than 30% on their their electric price nce I go online. He also has buys stuff in bulk, and does not pay sales tax on the stuff he buys. On top, if thigns go out he has enough stuff to make it a used sale of some dimension (so it is worthwhile putting the stuff up nicely) and writes off the loss anyway from taxes.

HIGHLY unfair but heck, this is how life is ;)

Here is something for you to think of. I am opening a data center for mining + hosting (mining equipment mostly). This costs  me money - quite a lot. Well, happens I live in a low age country on top, so, not SO much.

The price difference between the electricity in my office and the one in the data center (one has normal end user price, no sales tax due to some legal blabla in there - the aoffice is part of a very large appartmetnt, so I can not deduct sales tax) and the electricity in the data center pays for the data center rent. After 3 months, when we reach the 32 machine limit, it does so twice. Economy of scale. Still not super ccheap, but I will make a business offering hosting to people that dont have industrial pices and live in another close country (10km from the border) and they will save 33% of their electric cost (after all things included) and I will provide hosting, 24/7 admin on site etc. and make a profit from that. Plus no noise and cooling problem for them ;)

Economy of scale can be a bitch, and for something like mining it is.

This is the main problem of small miners.

To stay on topic: right around 2GH/s.  Its was cobbled together out of every last part I had laying around, ATI cards I could trade my Nvidia cards for, and a few $109 video card purchases.  I'm mining for fun.

I got in a few days before the top.  By the time my money would have cleared Dwolla and got to an exchange, I would have bought at the worst time possible if I went long coins.  I'd be down some 60%.  Instead, the rigs are paid for and I'm operating at a net profit minus power costs.  Having traded Forex in the past, I never would have considered purchasing while the price was violently moving up.  Especially like it did, in a perfect 5 wave impulsive move right out of a book on Elliot Wave Theory.  Thats the time to scale out of positions purchased earlier.

Its puzzles me that almost every analysis I read about the future of mining and Bitcoins focuses on linear combinations of linear price and difficulty movements.  For example, "if the price moves up", "if the price moves down", "if difficulty moves up" etc.  They also seem to isolate the machines utility to mining while assuming 100% depreciation right away.  Wouldn't a more complete analysis not make these assumptions?  I'm still reading posts which insist that 50% difficulty increases are happening right now every time it changes.

If you are trying to build a trade plan around Bitcoin trading and mining, try and model the non-linear dependence of difficulty and price balanced with the impact of money flow into the limited number of coins.  Consider cyclical patterns where network hash rate and difficulty go sinusoidal for extended periods.  Plan what you are going to do in discontinuous situations like a lurking ASIC developer mining up 10 million coins in a two week period before a difficulty change can save them.  Think about other ways of making money with the rigs.  Decide if a mix of coins and mining is the right strategy for you.  Think about starting the next big thing.

All of that being said, its clear why the price shot up to $30+ USD: A pile of money moved in on a limited number of coins.  I still think theres a world of money waiting to move in.  The technology just has to mature far beyond where it is today.

Cheers.

Was 135 UltraHashes/s last month. Now up to 215 UH/s ;D

Wow!!

1.21 JiggaHashes?!?

Wow, there are alot more 1 - 5 GHz than I thought there would be.

Bump for more votes

seems the bulk are in the same boat Ill soon be in.. casual miners @ 1 to 5 gigs (Im at 900 mhash currently). most of my rigs serve double duty: mining (or folding) plus something else.

I had 2 systems that were already in use 24/7 and due for video card upgrades anyway, so I just went with slightly higher horsepower ATI cards than I was originally going to go with. 6870 for the day to day rig, 6770 for the HTPC. dropped a 5830 into an old P4 rig thats a dedicated miner and may add the old 4850 (was in the day to day rig) into it when I get my PCIe cable extensions and my antec 550 treo RMA come back. 4850s are just profitable enough ATM (for me) to add it in and it should just about give me 1 ghash total.

to add more power I would need another box. but Im planning to build a storage box with server 2008 anyway (planning to move to centralized NAS for ease of backups, 3 terabytes spread across 5 rigs is a pain to backup individually), so I would go with a mobo with a lot of PCIe slots. move the 5830 and whatever into that.

for me mining is just a way to help finance more toys and help with folding costs :)

But profits from mining are supposed to be declared if this is in fact a business.  The IRS may not be able to track the BTC sales, but they sure can track the $ transfers into a bank account.  And if you have a net income of $100,000 or more and write it all off ... they sure will.