Bitcoin Forum

I have free electricity, and will for another two years. So I'm contemplating buying some S1s and mining, but can't help but think it would be better to buy and hold the BTC.

Any advice?

Mining is for suckers.  Buy, unless you want to do it for fun.

Mining = pure speculation, while starting with a big fat loss
Holding Bitcoins = pure speculation, but you won't start with a loss

Mining can be an interesting hobby, but don't expect to get your initial costs back.

The only exception is, when you have the skills, knowledge and equipment to construct
and build your own, high efficient miners at low costs. You can sell them per pre-order
to collect money for your material costs and mine with them. Once your machines are
hardly profitable anymore, you can ship those preorders. THAT'S how you make money.

If you have free electricity, you may break even in 9 months or so.

Never buy a pre-order, though.

Just buy btc directly and hold.

Even with S1's? It just doesn't seem like it based on their stats.

Those guyz are posting in mining speculation and they tell you to don't mine. Don't listen to them. Do your maths and enjoy.

I cannot mine in summer even with free electricity. The heat generated is too high and I dont want invest in better climatization just to run minners  :D

I bought a 600 gh/s rig last year. I got it two weeks ago. ( It was a pre ordered thing) If I would now spend this money then I'll get about 7-8 BTC. In 10 month mining I suppose to get the same.  In the end it is the same money. If you want to be a miner - mine, if you want to have coins - buy.

Sounds like another victim of BFL.

You can do your math with a profit calculator. Just set the electricity cost as zero, and check if you can get profits.
IMO, it is better to buy bitcoin directly.

So nobody should mine?

I wonder who's securing the transactions then.

It depends on current situation. If you want to buy more than you can mine of course you should buy.
Mining is safer once you have pulled out of it the initial investment.

When price of BTC is low, you just buy it outright.

When price of BTC is high, you mine the shit out of it.

Easy enough to remember.

I am looking to buy 3 Antminer S1's, and I don't have any electricity costs - Just gauging, do you guys think it would be worth setting up a group buy in order to get more of them?

Thanks

Only mine if you have deep pockets and can wait 1-2 years to see real gains.     If that is not you, buy and hold is my opinion if I were evaluating the options.

I doubt there are many that after being mining for long enough, would then go to trading bitcoins as a means of making money. There is something slightly anti establishment about having a server in your house that 'turns electricity into bitcoins', whereas trading is just boring plain old conventional capitalism.

Small to medium miners are more likely to switch their gear back to solo mining when pool mining income drops below power costs, than concede to the obvious. Then all miners need to do is come up with a mantra that justifies running a few Antminer S1s with no income for months. Something along the lines of lotto ticket buyers who spend $50 a week on the off chance they hit the jackpot.

On that other point, the downturn in the price of bitcoin comes in a large part from mined bitcoins being traded for more hash power by miners, and mining manufacturers dumping their coins on the market at the lower rates in order to get fast returns. Same goes for miners who have forked out thousands to upgrade, then dump their freshly mined coins from their new high powered rigs to try and recover their investments as soon as possible, once recovered, then save their BTC to buy more gear, and the cycle continues.

IF an EBay type site that only takes bitcoins kicks off anytime soon, a legit version of the silk road if you will, this may offset this type of activity, as there would be a greater need for bitcoins to purchase non-mining equipment rather than it being a one way flow from miners to cash.

Other than that, prepare to watch this craziness continue.

There is no talking sense to us miners, if it were the case, mining would be over long ago.

And on that note, to the OP, if you have free power then do both, but rather than the Antminer S1, go for something thats at least 1 watt per gigahash or less.

Buy own mine ;)

Buy.

Don't bother trying to mine.

My $.02.

;)

If you want to mine do it with this power otherwise no fast returns.


https://i.imgur.com/teXZFGTl.png

In the current market, it is certainly more cost effective to buy directly, unless you want to dig for fun,
but you have to hold it, do not sell too early

Am I understanding it correctly, that the person keep about 280BTC on ghash.io?  ???

I agree with you but it will only be fun mining when you have lot of $$$$$$ to burn!!!!

:)

I really do not know but I think with the hash power he has he makes about 30 BTC a day hence 280 is not big deal for him to hold... :)

From the screenshot, it does seem the person has 278.96 BTC on his account.
It is crazy, not for having the hashrate, but for keeping that much bitcoin on a pool IMO.

I recommend you that if you want to invest in Bitcoin don't buy miners because they won't earn back your invest!

You should buy some BTC now and watch that it's price is going upper!

If you have free electricity, you already have a big incentive to try out mining to see if it's for you. Contrary to what most will say, you will eventually get back your investment but it takes time. Mining isn't for instant gratification. For me, I mine because I like seeing my btcs accumulating day by day. I'd vow that I wouldn't pay fiat to get btcs, but I relented when it hit the sub-400 level, that's just too good to pass. But after I bought, I'm left with a sense of 'ok, what now'. Having had both experiences, I decided I prefer mining than buying. Plus, mining takes out the agonizing wait for price to rise, and the despair when price falls. IMO, mining now is better than buying, because you'll never see the volatility of last year again because Bitcoin is stabilizing. Those who buy now thinking in a month's time prices will double, they're sitting on empty hopes, and if you're weak hand you won't last and you'll lose out and start criticising Bitcoin, like one forumer here who gave up because she bought high and sold low.

Not if you buy miners with BTC.  Only if you buy miners with Fiat, is the mining strategy better.

If you buy miners with BTC at this "low price" you're throwing Bitcoins away that you'll never mine back.

With that logic, it is better to buy bitcoin directly than to buy miners which won't give you as much bitcoin. :)

Buy, definitely buy, mining revenue is very poor, and consume a lot of energy and electricity.

The mind buys, the heart mines ;)

Buying is the only way to go, you have high chances to make profit from it. As for mining equipment, the chances to recover is close to 0..

Closer to negative at the moment, especially with summer months approaching and the electrical costs due to air conditioning and cooling the equipment for the home miner.

Just buy btc, mining going down too fast.

Negative sentiment is a strong contrarian indicator.  Mine, but buy your gear with fiat.

if u have extra money   and free eletricity  , then mine. its really hard to profit in this game so dont expect to profit. what mining can do is give u a  good education on the backbone of btc.  i have never profited directly by mining. indirectly it taught me to value btc more, daytrade better,short term invest better. i dont do long term , the btc world is day to day, long term is a losers game  in this industry. if u have the ablity and time to sell ur hardware and then upgrade   fast ,thats the way to play it short term.

mine altcoins and trade them to BTC when the values is right. For another part just buy BTC.

buy if you want to hold some coins.

mine if you are up for the challenge.

Check my sig lads, is there cheaper out there? I'm kinda in the market for an antminer but the cost of electricity is putting me off.

It depends on what kind of power you have and the time you`re willing to wait for the roi, if you have low budget i suggest altcoins

The most interesting fact is that you have free electricity for then  next two years, can you tip me on how to that. Moreso, i would advise you to buy BTC, but only if you dont need to exchange the BTC back to fiat in the next 2 years or so. Because if you buy with the intention to sell quickly you may have regrets in the future. And i also advise you to just buy at most 5BTC,

With free electricity you should try to mine some scrypt altcoins, the profit you way better than mine btc if you
follow often the news on the altforum.
The easiest way to gain some dollars is to buy btc directly and hold 2-3 years and then cash out your sum x10.