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Why even bother to mine with a few minres and earn a couple of dollars a day.  Mining is only worth it if you can build a big farm with a lot of capital.  Most of you guys are better off working a regular job and just buying crypto.

What's your cutoff for a small-timer-miner?

It’s fun as a hobby and still possible to earn a small profit even if you’re mining at home. A few bucks a day still amounts to quite a bit of extra cash in the long run, and you can use profits from mining to expand on your current operation and build upwards from there. I already work a regular job and get paid, mining is just extra on top of that and it’s more interesting than simply holding.

False..!
I used to mine some LTC back in 2013..with 3 Radeon 280x .. mined 2 LTC/day for a few months.. So i was getting 4-5$ per day..

Look how much this worth right now...

In Nov 2016 a six card rig could mine several ETH a week. If you held most of the coins you mined, you made a lot more than a couple dollars a day. Of course if you bought ETH back then when it was $10 and held, you likewise did very well, but buying Crypto outright is a lot riskier than mining. Those that bought coins at the end of last year when they were at an ATH are currently down significantly. For many of those coins it will be a long time before they reach that ATH again if ever. Those that were mining during that time are still profitable.

Because small time speculative mining is hugely profitable,, accumulate tons of small marketcap coins via mining and hold until you can sell for a large amount.

Often times there isn't liquidity to purchase these coins on exchanges, so mining is the best answer.

i.e. I mined ZER (zero) on a 6x 1080ti rig for several weeks, making about 20-25 coins/day. Later sold those coins for 10$/coin (200-250$/day).

 ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)  ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)  ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)  ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)  ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)  ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)

Or do all 3? Define "big farm with a lot of capital" please. lol

I consider myself a small timer as well and agree with you that there is a huge effort in maintaining several cards operating + noise + heat for relatively small rewards. But it's very addictive!

Hobby....

Great Community....

Just because you are the biggest doesn't mean you can't play.

That's the hope most miners have today in my opinion, sure it may be a dollar today but who knows what it may be a few months or years down the road, there still is a lot of new money yet to be introduced. Mining requires no work at all. You buy some gpu's and they work for you, how is that NOT enticing to some people?

Sure, some people aren't even pulling Ghz, but mining is still profitable and money is money.

I think most people just do it for fun, or possible for some people even very tiny profit of few usd can be good enough given the average salaries in the places they live. We shouldn't judge

I am a wannabe small timer, and I want to do it for the fun of learning something new.

You can either look at mining as a hobby or a source of income as the primary driver.

I think even for a dollar or so a day it's a pretty fun hobby to mess around with, learn more about hardware, tech, and the crypto space in general.

The way I see it, people weren't buying and mining en masse before the market exploded.  It will calm down once earnings fall back below the cost of electricity.

Your hobbyists will still be there, however at that point, I believe there would be better uses for their equipment rather than racking up huge electric bills on long bets.

You are absolutely right. I got ROI for my rig last year. I've decided to keep mining untill the miner dies.
I don't want to invest more money in crypto, so that's why I don't buy. Let us hope there's a future for bitcoin, and that it goes up in value soon.

The "fun" and "learning" will be over soon.. I was like that too in the beginning.

Ya but the point is you could of spent the time you used on mining to work other jobs or make more cash and buy way more than 2 litecoins a day back then.  So it kind of makes mining pointless for small timers.

Were you under the impression that people here just built one rig and watched it all day, and didn't have a job?  How would they have afforded to build a rig in the first place?

What a moron.

B/c buying coins with credit card is too expensive now with cash advances fees now being added by mastercard/visa,  So i can still buy gpus on credit cards, the miners avg cost buy in constantly, and not get charged for cash advance.

As others have said, small time mining is a subjective term, but anyone who has a mining rig that is earning a couple of dollars a day has 1 or 2 cards.  Most certainly they are already working, independently wealthy, a student, homeless, or any other status.  Yes the argument can be made that the time spent setting up your mining rig could be spent working somewhere else.  Guess what though, after the time spent working equals the time the time spent building your rig, you need to either keep working to earn more, hope whatever you invested in rises, or SPEND MORE TIME reasearching the market so that you can trade your investment.  Lets not forget the time you would have to spend looking for this job, and the freedom you would lose having to work a set schedule.  With mining you dictate how much time you spend and when you spent it.

Also do not forget that almost all miners who have large operations more than likely started out small.  Most things in life do not get large immediately.

paying around 200$ electricity/ 12rx 580 rig/month, earning around 1000-1500$/ Rig/ Month....yeah completly worthless without big farm.

2015, My 2x7970 in crossfire bought used ~150$ each were mining 2 ETH/day
wich was something like 2$/day

So why not ?  :P

If you have good credit, I would buy mining equipment with credit cards (find one with 0% interest for 24+ months) and use that card for your mining expenses. I get as many reward points as I can this way.

That is like me having 3 jobs at that point.

1. main job that I would not quit
2. mining (5 rigs and will continue to grow)
3. reward points paying for vacations or other fun things I wanna do (I am not paying anything really from my own bank account at that point)

All this can be done and if you did it the right way (paying off each month).

You sir, are an idiot. Telling people to buy this stuff on credit is far and away the dumbest piece of advice you can offer anyone. If you are too poor to buy a mining rig, putting one on credit will just put you more into the hole. It takes money to make money and buying mining equipment on a credit card is the perfect way to dig yourself into even more debt.

I agree with the other guy , your an idiot.  Buying HIGHLY SPECULATIVE things with credit is extremely stupid and can leave you flat broke and in debt.

Dad's small loan of a million dollars :)

Most small-timers have jobs or they wouldn't be able to survive. It's something fun to do while earning money without too much effort.

Yeah, so, six cards running (2x 1050, 2x 1060, 1x 1070, 1x 1070ti), and even with prices not being as high as they were, I'm typically pulling about $250/month. That's Just GPU money. I don't even bother calculating what I bring in w/ my CPUs or POS mining. I work a decent paying desk job, and can actually watch my pools/exchanges while I'm there. I grew up in a, let's say, less than wealthy family. While this may not be everyone's experience, I'd still mine if I barely turned a profit based just on the fact that it's passive income.

A lot of business started off with loans and debt and take a few years to be above water.  I see this quite similiar but on a smaller scale.  I have no regrets maxing out my CC :) .  NO risk no reward. :P .  Heck GPU prices even gone up.  Their is really zero risk mining but also gains are not as lucrative as buying.

Imagine if you decided to hold off on buying gpus last year, You would have missed the whole rally and paid double for gpus now. Fundamentals will say never fund things on debt but the stats and facts will always tell a different story.  Best time to mine will always be months ago, not months ahead.

Nah, I already work 50+ hours a week in IT. Are you suggesting I should get a second job? I suppose I could find second shift server admin or help desk, but I'd rather have a life. Mining+stock market+Swagbucks type phone farm earns me thousands in passive income a year. I think I'll use "that other time" to do something I enjoy rather than worry if my investments aren't earning as much as another 20 hours of work a week would. Plus I fall to see how anyone involved with tech and investments could not find mining interesting to say the least.

Idiot? Really? are you telling this without getting into water did you, if you're into it the story changes, started my 1st rig year 2016 on CC's with decent low interest, already ROI'd and paid in full. have now additional 5 rigs ;D


People are really speculative, doing business is not only if you have money in your pocket, sometimes you need guts to get things done.

Don't let your selves get discouraged by FUD and posts like this. Stay positive. They've been saying #miningIsDead for months now and yet here we are.

If you look closely, many people have also said they've already ROI-ed on their rigs. Its all a matter of perspective. Yes there are plenty risks involved but i for one am happy taking the risk with my mining rigs. More than 50% done ROI on 3 rigs here.

I think some people are mining because they are hobbies, although the profit is not much. but if the benefits are collected over a long period of time the results are also quite unruk used in expanding your current operations and build up from there.  ;)

Its obvious alot of people are jaded on here and want you to quit mining so they can get more profits. People need to chill out and let us small time miners have some fun.

yeah, if you want to build a big farm like the Genesis farm, with a lot of capital. I know for atm, build one RIG not cheap, maybe have another way like buy part by part from hardware. for a problem income whether profit or loss, it depends on from the management miners on his income.I have 5 Rig and the mining profit enough big in my country. and I still worked like usually.

I been thinking the same thing. At what point is it considered a farm? Currently have 3 1070ti, 11 1070, 1 1080. Currently mining zencash at this very moment its bringing in ~$900 a month, and I pay .10 kwh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Garage

small timer

You still haven't defined small timer. 

And this seems like a baited reactionary question.  But I'll bite

I have 3 rigs and soon have 4. 

If I bought crypto and it went to nothing.  What would I have.....nothing.

If I bought mining equipment and crypto went to nothing.  What would I have?  Assets that I could sell on ebay to limit my losses. 

It's called stability and once you get it going.  Just check in on it a few times a day to make sure its running.

Small mining farm has its benefits where we can switch to different coins easily as well as difficulties in running small farm is much lesser. This then bring the issue of how many people required to run the farm as most of us mining here operates solo. It is mostly one or two man shows. No of rigs can ranges from up to 50 rigs for one person to handle as well as all the available electricity supply. Small miners can hodl coins better as the risk is lower and thus has potential benefits in longer term.

What's a small timer?

Make a few K a month here but even if I only made $300 how is that not worth bothering for?

Shitty threads like this is why I hate reading this shit hole, buncha fuckin money hungry retards all about profit instead of the projects.

Loserville.

Hey all you guys who responded to this - I think maybe the OP was from a big hairy guy about 9 feet tall who traditionally lives under a bridge or in a dungeon......

what the means of small timer? (skip..)
he/she isn't miners. if you ever experienced mining coin ETC, when at that time Fork 1:1 become ETH coin, At that time I only had 1 RIG and I get profitable comparable to 2 VGA R9 290. one case else example when a mining Zcash, first release software for Equihash Algo (because when Zcash released, still CPU based). since then I mining Zcash for 2 months and I have profit can buying 1 RIG again complete (only in my country). and until at this time, I still do mining on Ethash Algo and so far still profit after paying the electricity.

if you suggest better a regular job and just buying crypto. I feel that's less precise because a regular job also not necessarily better than a miner from in terms of income. the different of miners can full a control their income without must wait for a monthly salary and said 'hello boss every morning'. and expect the boss to give a bonus in every month and Christmas day.

simple, even if you only get 1 cent profit it is still worth it.
but you are right, dont bother mining, there are too much miners anyway.
lay down your algorhytmic shovels and enjoy life.
work couldnt get any easier....

Theres many reasons for small timers to mine.  Profit is still profit.  How does mining effect whether they have a job or not.  If you do it right it can be a set it and forget it type operation and profit is still profit.  Money aside, people including me are interested in the process and crypto in general and this is one of the main blocks of crypto.  Also if we let farms run everything that kind of defeats "decentralized" world we are in.  It also keeps me up to date with all the coins and the economy in what is going on.  Plenty of reasons beyond profit driven for miners small or large to keep going....

Absolutely correct THIS is just fine.

Did morons even read the critical last part of this post before responding?  He's PAYING IT OFF EACH MONTH.  Therefore, not going into debt to fund this.

Putting expenses on credit cards and then paying them off monthly to get the rewards is one of the smarter things you can do to maximize savings.  He's got this figured out.

I'm not a small time miner, but here's my 2cts.

1. Working an average job, with an average pay and getting stuck in traffic every day like every other average looser out there is not what I call better off. Granted, it gets you a stable revenue.
2. Most of us, small, average or big time miners do this for a variety of reasons. We do it as a hobby, we do it because it actually pays the bills. But honestly, I think we all do it simply because we all secretly hope that the coins we mine will one day get us out of point #1 so we can do something else with our lives than spend it working 8-5

My guess is the little hobby miners are the only ones that will "survive" the incoming difficulty tsunami.

A good and precise answer, we do have all our reasons and the fact that mining still profitable and helpful to those who understand it, I think OP is not a miner itself but just looking for some analysis, those who have small rigs and still manage to continue are still believing that someday the value of what they are holding will be mooning, as long as it can pay electricity bills and the rigs still working and surviving that's still a good news for small miners like us.

That doesn't make any sense mate...the higher the diff, the more difficult it becomes for a small time miner to get coins and make it worthwhile, unless the price of the coin itself rises enough for it to make no difference.

If people would have read the entire post instead of jumping to conclusions that in living in debt they would have seen that information. I pay off my credit cards that could get interest each month so that I never pay anything "extra" besides what I use. The stuff I have on 0% interest credit cards is always paid off before the time frame that I could get charged interest on it (example 24 months 0% interest $20000 on credit card would have 20 payments of $1000 and would be paid off before the expiration of the 0% APR).

that is called smart financing.

I work in the financial industry and there are many strategies people can do to benefit other area of there lives (i.e. not spend as much money). The reason why people get so crazy about credit cards and hearing this stuff is because they are not disciplined in there own financial lives in my opinion.

I think the same, first time I read something so arrogant on this forum.

maybe you fucking arrogant cunt should to go and learn more about crypto if you need a whole farm to make good profit

If a small timer can spot the perfect coin, and mine the shit out of it, and secure it then forget about it, me might be well off in 10 years.

It's more of a gamble, but there are incentives.

This.

A small miner can act as a fundamental long-term trader/investor by mining the right altcoins as they are entering the market and essentially securing what could be considered the new world equivalent of stock in a promising new company.

I was bored and needed a new hobby...  ;D

Amen!  ;D

I started out as a small miner and a hobbyist with my single Nvidia GTX 1060 in my home. I started in November 2016 where this card was making about 0.0013 BTC daily and I immediately fell in love with this and soon after with money I made from mining added a new GTX 1060 in March 2017. So on I started and have made this home mining rig with 2 GTX 1060 and 4 GTX 1050 ti in two separate PC-s, I have room for another 3 cards but that is not important.

What is important is that during July 2017 me and some friends have invested together and have built 25 mining rigs or 5 mining rigs each. This maybe is not much as a big fish but sure adds up even here in Europe, as that is 1300 EURO net profit excluding electricity cost for 5 rigs that we have each one.

What I want to say is that if I and my friends were not experimenting and were not small timers in the beginning we would have nothing right now. As they say, ONE HAS TO START SOMEWHERE and in Bitcoin world you start wherever and whenever you can no matter how small you are when you start.

It's only going to get worse from here on out.  The big boys are coming and setting up massive farms and eventually the little guys will be left with pennies as the difficult increases tremendously.

Meh, as long as new coins keep coming out with friendly gpu algos, this won't be that much of a problem.

Many people only refer to WTM, but many coins aren't listed there. Just doing a bit of research can allow you too mine good coins with good potential that not everyone's mining.

I have 38 video cards.  My goal is to keep adding more until I can turn this into 100k a year mining facility.  Does this make me a small time miner?

I can live off my mining rigs currently.

interesting, i have a 1080gtx, every month i make about $20, the old saying $20 is $20! i run my PC 24/7 anyway so its not a big deal for me

I have a small dedicated rig and my gaming machine running 24/7 - costs me £100-£110 a month in electric and was making after electric 800 a month profit. Cut that in half at the moment but 400x12 is still £4800 a year profit - thats a decent holiday for little work. Well little work now its all working ok! As others have said build it, leave it earn and carry on with day job its a nice little bonus!

& as paid in Bitcoins which im HODL, hopefully will go back up to higher profits come summer time..

GPU mining was never meant to be done with many gpus in one location, cause that is bad when we think about network decentralization, imagine if every gamer in the world could use your gpu for mining and only one gpu for each algo, that would be amazing, the cryptoworld would be a much better place right now. I hope the next generation of cryptocoins kill the gpu farming idea cause is a terrible idea which does not help anything really and you greedy bastards that only think about increasing your gpu farming would have to change the way you view cryptocoins.

I think people take it too seriously. You don't have to have big farms - just run your GPUs when you're not using them, and have them pay for themselves.

Payouts are half the amount dollar wise and gpu prices are twice as much compared to last year. Yet people are still trying to gpu mine?  There's plenty of bitmain asics that will give better returns.

Because it's dollars they would not have - there is no point to NOT mining with gear if you already have it.

I suspect even most small-scale miners pull in a lot more than "a couple dollars a day" anyway - that's SINGLE GPU territory in many cases.

Also, why do you ASSUME they don't have a "regular job"?


And to be blunt about it, GPU mining right now is a LOT more profitable on a $/watt basis and in some cases on a $ per dollar INVESTED basis than most ASIC return, with a lot lower risk.


38 cards is what I'd call "medium scale home miner" or "very small scale pro", depending on the specific cards. 18 1080 ti > 38 RX 460....

Buying parts to build GPU rigs with is not "highly speculative", as there will be SOME remaining value to the parts even if profitabilty collapses.
Buying COIN with a credit card would be "highly speculative".

Hint - the "big boys" were here long before YOU started mining.
If you know HOW to make your rigs efficient, and are located in an area with low-enough cost electric, you CAN compete with them - lower overhead for starters - even as a fairly small operation.

If you're a SMALL scale part-time miner, you don't HAVE overhead, or barely have any.

I really want to have a go a mining to better understand the concept. Fully understand that it's not going to be profitable, however it could work to mine newer coins that could increase in value.

Im a small farm and the amount of work that I have to do to consistently make money every month is freaking my boggling. Mining is here to stay. You dont have to start off big buy one and keep adding. Thats what I did. Btw i dont have a big farm

I would say someone is an idiot too is they bought coins with credit. I have never bought COINS with credit.

I have bought all my gear with credit and then paid off the credit because that's what financially responsible people do... So the 22 new GPUs and Mobos and PSUs I bought before the mad rush of GPUs and other equipment was well worth it. $10,000 total in gear and electrical services and already $7,000 is paid back. so the $3000 I still owe have 10 months to pay that off without interest and I am using the reward points from that purchase to go to the ocean for a week with my family in 2 weeks.

Most people are NOT financially responsible. that is why banks are not allowing people to buy crypto anymore with there CREDIT CARDS.

but then again, I'm sure everyone here who says people are idiots for using credit are probably the ones with horrible credit, or lack of financial knowledge. Not there fault though, in the USA, people don't want to teach people how to be financially responsible anymore. Schools do not teaches about how to use credit or banking services anymore and most people are left on there own to figure it out.

I am not an licensed financial advisor so I would never give someone specific advice for there situation, but I can show people a million ways to make credit work for you as long as you are responsible to pay it back.

I bought bitcoin at $2200 and all my mining gear on credit cards.  I even borrowed half of my 401k to buy eth at $50. Nearly maxed out my credit cards

Lets say I have no regrets using credit or borrowing from 401k. .  And I am financially responsible and have a 800 plus credit score.

All is paid off and yes it was a risk at the time but looking back it was the best life changing move I've made.  If all went south I would still be okay but struggle a bit, so it was a risk i could afford to lose.

I however no longer recommend using credit card to buy coins since you pay cash advance fees on it now on top of coinbase fees etc.  No longer an option worth thinking about.

I have started mining with a r9 380 2Gb in 2016 around the eth hard-fork, I remember shitheads yelling around here "POS is gonna be here soon, mining is dead" .
The only regret that I have is that I traded most of the eth mined wayy too early for more gpus, still that's not a bad outcome :)

If you where a small miner 10 years ago , and mined only 100BTC with a few gpu's , and saved that 100 BTC , what's that 100 BTC worth today ?

If you where a small miner and mined a 100 ETH in 2013 easy with a few gpu's, and seaved that 100 ETH , what's that 100 ETH worth today ?

And there is to many examples like those above to write it down in this topic ...

Think this way , then you are going to understand why is worth mining as a hobby just with a few gpu and save those coins ...
its a kind of lottery , but you might can hit a jackpot ;) If you already have a hardware why not using that hardware for mining ...
I think a lot of us started as a hobby miner ...

How would you classify a 2000 GPU mine?

asic = shit warranty

gpu = good warranty

most of my gear is now gpu due to asic warranty policy

2000 GPU is baller.   ;D

Most of us "Small time miners" dont do this becourse we are chasing profits. Its an great complicated hobby to use our minds on. but fyi "small time miners" dont do it full time, atleast i dont. I got a regular job and if we count the last 3 years of "SMALL TIME MINING" ive made as much from mining as ive done from my daily job only due to HODL and smart investments.

i was looking for a name for my mining company and you just gave me a great one.  Small time mining LLC

Some people mine because they like to tinker with machinery. Like a hobby. It's interesting.  Yeah, we can all go get jobs, cash our paychecks and buy coins.  Wow.  How interesting is that? Not very.

Mining is a project, and if you like to work on computers, it's cool.  It's also good experience for young people, because it's similar to building servers.  If you use Linux, you get to learn an operating system that lots of people don't know much about.

It's like saying to the small family farmer - "Why are you bothering to raise animals on your ten acres of land?  You could go get a job in a factory, make twice as much money and then go visit a petting zoo and visit animals. It sure seems pointless for you to raise your kids on this tiny farm when there's all these amazing companies that own millions of acres of land and feed millions of people. Companies like Monsanto.  Why bother, when there is Monsanto feeding all of us?"

You see how kind of dumb and lifeless this argument starts to sound?

Because I like the equity in my rigs if all goes to hell. If I buy coin, and all goes to hell, I'm left with nothing.

I used to think ASICs were way better but I actually worked out that each one of my 8 gb rx580s gives me the equivalent earnings per day as 2 T/Hs of my bitmain ASICs. I'm small time I guess, but I want coins, and I don't want to pay cash for them. And I enjoy the selection process, reading about coins, selecting coins, targeting coins, and of course, mining coins. And HODLing coins, that too. And watching the prices of coins I have but have no intention of selling. And scouring the interwebs for gpu deals. Hell I guess I like pretty much all of it, even some of the stuff I bitch about sometimes.

Like mining is a full time job if you have a few miners. You set it up and it runs. So you can perfectly work normally next to having a couple of rigs. And buy coins that you are not mining.

and not all is about money, you can have fun looking some new things up and learn about new interesting things.

This post is sooo true, all you small time miner's should just pack up shop and shut down...spec mining is not worth doing at alll. Period.  ::)

I have > 2000 GPU's in action right now :)

I admit I would like to see higher daily returns on mining, but I think it's fun, and I like the idea that my coins will be worth more some day. Similar to how people reminisce about the good old days when you could easily mine bitcoins, although I don't expect my altcoins to go up as much as bitcoin did, I still think I can pick up a few hundred alt-coins a day and they will be worth significantly more in 1 year.  I suppose it's not for everyone, but I enjoy it.