Just using $.05/Kwh takes about $130 of that $400 in terms of raw electricity consumption for the mining hardware. That's a VERY favorable electrical rate. Gives you an operating profit of $270 per month. That assumes that there are no upward difficulty adjustments during the 10 months for payoff. At the end, you'll still have residual value in the power supplies, probably much less in the SP20's.

Yes it can work. You just won't get "rich" doing it (my definition of "rich").

Not exactly a fair comparison. Solve a block solo, and you have well under $7500. I don't know about you, but that isn't retirement class money for me or my family. On the other hand $50M even after taxes and taking it as a lump sum, IS retirement class money for me and my family.

No, that doesn't mean I play the lottery, just pointing out the absurdity of the comparison.

So you have to wait for a time when somebody on Westhash (for example) is willing to rent their mining hardware at a rate lower than what they would get mining on a pool? Kinda the opposite of when I renting out the hash on my SP20 at 30-40% over the rate I would get on Kano's pool? An "efficient market" theory would suggest that those kinds of disparities don't exist, or at least not for very long.

Wow, so BTC price has declined by roughly 50% (OK, a little more) in the last year. So you need about 20x the hash rate to earn the same number of $$$ in a week compared to last year. I am sure there are a dozen folks on here that can refine the math to get a more accurate answer, but the numbers are a stark contrast.

What's interesting, is that this ratio applies to miners large and small. That guy in Washington with the monster farm, with no other changes, has watched his "revenue" in terms of USD, decline by 90-95%. That's just stunning.

My simplistic read of the Power/Freq/Voltage table suggests that they filled in values for some "reference" points. I am not sure we should interpret that to mean that ONLY .6V and .8V are allowed. The example of the SP20 suggests that it has a "variable" range DC to DC converter, within limits. The same goes for frequencies.

I am surprised also by the comment about the cost of such a DC2DC gadget. It seems like that, and an adjustable frequency gadget are pretty common these days, on a whole range of mining devices. Obviously there are variety of "non functional" combinations (e.g. Min volts and Max Frequency), as well as "poor efficiency" (e.g. Max Volts and Min Frequency). Beyond that it tends to be a limit of software on the extent folks are allowed to twist the Freq/Volt "knobs".

Not surprisingly, the Low Volts and Low Frequency setting yields the best efficiency.

This seems like pretty standard ASIC stuff doesn't it?

Police and prisons exist for a variety of reason. Direct cash theft is probably small potato's compared to drugs, assault, and homicide. So far I have seen nothing to suggest that Bitcoin eliminates financial crimes in general. It will certainly change the nature of some, but we've seen Ponzi schemes operate just fine within the Bitcoin realm.

In terms of acceptance, right now Bitcoin is a "solution in search of a problem". I have yet to see a compelling reason to use Bitcoin instead of USD for anything so far (yes I am a USA resident). The very few times I've purchased something with BTC, it was mining related, and required by the Seller. Just my $.02 on Bitcoin acceptance.

It's not obvious to me at all that having Wall Street take an interest is a good thing, for the long term. We all learned first hand what Wall Street can do to things that are usually pretty stable and boring like mortgages. While I think a controlled rise would be swell, your idea and mine about "controlled" might be quite different than Goldman Sachs.

It seems obvious to me that once you get to a certain scale, your mining operation no longer fits into a residence (i.e. where people live, sleep, etc), and is more appropriate for a commercial environment. I would expect that the servicing electrical company lays out their infrastructure according to the expected usage. At some point they won't be able to accommodate a business operating within a residential area. You can try and push around the boundaries at various times and in various ways, but at some point it just won't make sense. That point will depend on a variety of locale specific factors, that aren't uniform across the country. Even if you are willing to convert your home to mining, it may not fly. Besides electricity, also think cooling and noise (usually generated by the cooling). Your residential neighbors may not appreciate the impact you have on their lives.

Even if it isn't negative, it will be a small positive. As I mentioned, I think this is strictly the oscillation of variance, as opposed to anything substantive in terms of actual hashrate.

Does anybody recall what the BTC prices almost exactly one year ago today? Mr. Bravo says that the BTC/day is about 1/10 of what it was year ago. I am sure the BTC prices was higher, but was it 2x, 3x, or what? So in fiat, are we down to 1/20 or so for an equivalent hash rate compared to a year ago?

I think a great deal of the above discussion emanates from the differing views of Bitcoin. I, and expect many others, view Bitcoin as a commodity. The other major view is the one that Bitcoin seems to aspire to, is that of a currency. Most regular currencies are strictly that, they have no use value outside of a form of payment. Obviously in the past, precious metals were used as a form of currency. Today those all have become a commodity, and are acquired either for their usage (e.g. gold/silver for jewelry, dental fillings, etc), or as a store of value. Gold for example is held by many as a hedge against inflation, assuming it will go up in value with inflation. Those that hold gold though are completely exposed to any price swings that accompany holding a commodity. Just like when a person buys and then holds Bitcoin. Most other commodities I can think of are usage centric in nature. Pork, corn, oil, coal are generally expected to be consumed and rarely have any long term value.

What's really interesting about Bitcoin though, is that it has a "target" rate of production, and will self adjust to try and hit that target. That's unlike any other commodity of the past. Precious metals of all kinds have had their boom and bust cycles. But none of them had an intrinsic rate of production. Plant more acres, get more corn at the end of the summer. Drill more wells, produce (maybe) more oil over the year. We can also see when it will step down by half sometime in 2016 (aka the "halving"). We have seen the massive rise in difficulty as a result of huge investments in mining hardware and efficiency, but over the course of a month, we are producing about the same number of Bitcoins in April of 2015, as we did in April of 2014 and 2013. A huge "Bitcoin rush" akin to the "Gold rush" has produced no appreciable increase in the production of the commodity because of the built-in difficulty adjustments.

In terms of how Bitcoin is perceived in terms of value, it's anybodies guess. It seems like the usual laws of supply and demand apply. At the outset, mining was the biggest supplier, though that shrinks every month as the total amount of Bitcoin in "circulation" grows. The impact of mining will only shrink with time in terms of the total supply side.

In terms of demand though, I have no idea. My view is pretty myopic in terms of non-miner demand for Bitcoins. The obvious trading schemes are at work, but what is the intrinsic demand for Bitcoin? Is there a significant consumer demand for Bitcoin? Unless and until someone has a cogent theory on Bitcoin demand, we will all be at the mercy of whatever blows the Bitcoin price the way it does.

Also, even if all the requirements align in your favor, do not expect to get "rich" by mining on a small scale. Everybody has a  definition of "rich", so if you are happy with a few USD per month in operating profit, then you are good to go.

Personally I would not rely on a "Cloud Mining Calculator" as my only source of information. Multiple calculators would seem like a better choice, though you may well get different answers.

My simplistic understanding of the protocol for a miner to a poll is that low latency is way more important that high bandwidth. Of course your mobile carrier can "reshape" (i.e. slow down) your access to the Internet, will still keeping it "unlimited".

In addition to the temperature issues, the SP20, as do many miners, become grossly inefficient at their very top speed. By that I mean that last 100 Gh/s requires well over 100 watts to achieve. Everybody that claims to have free power really means that they have a limited amount of power they have already paid for in one way or another.

Even if I were single, I seriously doubt that I would "chase Bitcoin across the USA". There are other ways to make money, and have an interesting life. Having a major part of your livelihood wrapped up in Bitcoin seems like an enormous risk, and not very interesting after 5-8 years, if that long. I can't see Bitcoin as a career at all. Sure there are variety of skills you would develop, none of which require Bitcoin to develop. I would much prefer to develop skills which aren't as likely to go POOF if Bitcoin just turns into a pile of meaningless bits.

I would think a series arrangement would be terrible for ten blades. As the water flows through the loop, it will increase in temperature, until the 10th blade where it's pretty warm and doesn't have as much capacity to absorb more. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the cool water exiting the radiator go into a manifold which essentially distributes the water down multiple paths to each blade?

The incoming air temp of 15C is just great. Since you have already got 3 of the 8 chips running at 120C, there probably really isn't much more to be had. While I personally think you should stop here, or even dial back a bit, there a couple of small adjustments that can be made. I don't recommend them though:

The fan can go to 100. Change the Auto setting to 100. I doubt this will help much. It probably won't sound much louder since it's already at 90 (selected by Auto).

The Max Volts can also go as high as .79 I think.

I think the power limit for each loop can actually go to 288 rather than 280. Right now you don't appear to be hitting 280 anyway, so this probably won't matter.

As has been said, 1600+ Ghash is an excellent "real world" number for an SP20. Seeking more really isn't wise.

Yes, there are numerous folks that are now "solo mining". I've even seen folks that will rent hash from Westhash/Nice hash to throw at a solo mining pool. You might want to look in the "Pools" sub-forum for more additional discussion. My most recent recollection was 727miner hit a block on a solo pool, though he had rented some hash as I recall.

Unless of course they never release C2 though C8, in an effort to "get it right" for C9?