Their risk is zero. Effort to create site minimal. How many people do they need to scam to earn a profit? One probably. Maybe two.

Is your motherboard spitting out an error code? System beep? Look there first

Reseat all connections with power supply unplugged and try again

Right, because ASICs can only hash when they are actually in the hands of the consumers who preordered them. Its physically impossible for them to hash before this time, because they havent "ripened" yet properly. That requires months of sitting idling in an offsite storage facility. Its like cheese, or winemaking. Yeah, thats it. Thats the ticket!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx3wrfhQaqk

I think from that last post, its pretty clear Honeypot is just trolling for the lulz. Simply ignore him (click on it), he'll go away eventually.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THOSE NEW TO BITCOIN OR BITCOIN MINING

Bitcoin is going to blow up in 2014, we all know that. So what better way to get involved than start mining it! Right?

Wrong, dead-on-arrival, dead as a doornail, reaper with scythe cackling over your rotting corpse wrong. If you intent to profit, that is.

If you are OK to mine at a loss, because you enjoy the technology, or because you want to do your part to secure the network, good for you.

Every single day I see a new thread, "I have XYZ amount of BTC/USD and I want to get into mining!" The unsurprising part of this is that these posts are almost always from new BitcoinTalk members who have little to no technical understanding of mining, no experience mining, no understanding of how to properly calculate the profitability of mining hardware, but plenty of enthusiasm and money for what they perceive as a cash grab or get rich quick scheme. The surprising part of this is that many of these people are actually intelligent, well educated individuals. However, the desire to earn a quick and easy buck has a blinding effect on them; their most powerful tool - the logical part of their brain - stops functioning because another, reptillian part of their brain is screaming "MONEY. LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY."

The press certainly does their part to propagate this - every day there is a new story about people making tons of money from mining, or some new manufacturer or new hardware which is certain to bring untold riches to those who purchase it.

Stories like this:

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/23/morning-agenda-the-bitcoin-mines-of-iceland/?_r=0
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/01/03/the-craziest-bitcoin-business-making-money-minting-machines/
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/05/butterfly_live/

My opinion, which is informed by a fair bit of research, is that for-profit-mining for the hobbyist, enthusiast, or semi-pro is effectively over as of 2014. There is still profit to be had in the mining game, but its going to go mostly to large professional mining conglomerates, pool operators, and hardware manufacturers. This is not news per se or anything like a revelation, and its no secret among people who have been around here for a while. And although there are other threads out there which warn new users about getting into the game, apparently they arent being read and in my opinion having one more cant hurt - all Im trying to do is save people money and heartache. My comments also apply to alt-coin mining, although there is a bit of life left to be squeezed out there, the writing is on the wall with people moving 100mh/s+ rigs into datacenters. Economies of scale, tiny margins, etc. Big money is now deeply into mining, it wont ever go away, and you wont be able to compete with it, unless you also go fulltime pro and invest a very large amount of capital.

But there is another, more important point I want to make, and thats why I created this thread rather than bump an existing one.

There is HUGE profit to be made in the Bitcoin space. There is an entirely new digital economy full of goods and services that is being created as we speak, and if you were to secure just a microscopic fraction of a percentage of that revenue, you would realize your financial dream. Furthermore, you as an intelligent, well educated person with a solid work ethic are uniquely positioned to capitalize on this new space. All of your expertise and experience in whatever field it is that you specialize in is highly valuable, and if you apply this to the Bitcoin space, you have an opportunity of a lifetime to get in on the ground floor of a revolution. Yes, starting a new business or expanding an existing one into the Bitcoin space is difficult and there is risk involved of course. But just recognize that the upside of a successful business in the Bitcoin space is potentially much, much higher than that of a traditional one.






FULL DISCLOSURE: I have been into Bitcoin mining for almost 1 year and have sometimes made a profit - in the past. I have a pre-order for an ASIC due to ship this year, but I wont be surprised at all if I dont turn a profit on it. Furthermore, the money I spent on a preorder was profits from previous ventures, not fresh capital. Also, had I invested 100% of my investment money into buying Bitcoin from Day1 and never got into mining at all, I would have more total Bitcoins than I currently do. Furthermore, the money I spent on a 2014 preorder is fairly trivial to me and losing 100% of the investment would not shock me or put me in a bad financial situation. Finally, Im one of those people who is OK with mining-at-a-loss, because Im interested in the technology and helping to do my part to secure the network so that less overall hashpower is concentrated in the hands of a few companies and pools.

It depends on how/when you paid, but even for those of us who paid in BTC when it was over $1000/BTC, making ROI looks sketchy.

Everything has to go perfect - the difficulty has to plateau and they have to ship by the end of March. Thats for us to break even.

The mining game is effectively dead for those who are not a pool operator, mining hardware manufacturer, or 3rd party reseller.

There are tons of spaces to make money in the Bitcoin world. Its a huge, open field right now. Go out and play.

If you stay in the mining game in 2014 as a little guy, you will get crushed.

Some real experts involved in the mining game these days. Amazing how peoples desire for an easy buck gets them in completely over their head.

lol this thread. mods please move or delete

The real issue is that "hobby" mining is dead. Mining is now the exclusive domain of big conglomerates and hardware manufacturers.

You would need to "go pro" and invest a few million to start your own ASIC company. Thats the only way to win in this game in 2014.

Mining was cool, yes some of us made money, but its over now man. Just accept that reality and move on. There are tons of other spaces in the Bitcoin world where you can make money, but mining is no longer one of them. Ignore this warning at your own peril.

Article links go in the press section. And having read this one, its nothing new or particularly interesting. Overall I would not even say "newsworthy"

Must be a slow news day.

Most people and journalists dont understand mining, hence its fascinating to them. But the fact that all profits and losses referred to in that article were denominated in dollars and not BTC reflect that fundamentally, mining remains an enigma to even the intelligent and well educated.

The full faith of the US Gov simply means coercion and violence. I think Americans must quite enjoy violence, given that the United States has become the world leader in violence with second place so far behind that we cant even see them in the rearview mirror.

Violence and threat of loss of life and limb, or total loss of freedom (imprisonment) are quite powerful motivating factors. Extremely powerful.

That threat will be hard for Bitcoin to overcome. But it eventually will overcome it, because the emperor has no clothes. People can continue to avoid staring the truth in the face indefinitely, but when their wealth becomes radically devalued due to unsustainable economic policies which extend well beyond the borders of the USA, they will be "forced" to embrace alternatives via a different means - necessity of survival.

Id be very interested to hear what Chomsky has to say about Bitcoin.

This is not a new discussion, OP and linked article offer nothing new beyond other existing threads. I vote for merge or delete

To me the issue is this, lets say 95% of the network hashing power is spread across 5 pools. All a malevolent group needs to do is disable these 5 pools for a matter of hours to successfully attack the network. As Im sure all miners know, even the best pools dont have 100% uptime. Now imagine the 5 biggest pools all went down within minutes of each other. Im quite sure a group with big resources and talent, let alone the nearly omnipotent NSA, could achieve something like this with relative ease.

7990 is terrible for mining. Overpriced and major heat dissipation issues. Dont bother getting into to the game with anything less than the new r9 series, they are way cooler and a bit more efficient than the venerable 7950.

Its a great feeling. It actually gives me faith in humanity.

The reality is the unwashed masses have been coerced into believing in the "intrinsic value" of fiat.

Once they see that the emperor has no clothes, they will naturally run - not walk - to Bitcoin.

For many people, it might be a bit too late as they will see huge amounts of their fiat denominated capital and wealth obliterated as our global economy, in which printing new money is based entirely on debt, continues to implode as the charade becomes utterly unsustainable.