Alright all, thanks for your help.

I can see now that even trying to get miners second hand (something I was pursuing due to so many getting turned off and sold due to the dip, and because used typically is a lot cheaper)
isn't even going to work. As many have mentioned my calculation don't work out and trying them recently it's now $500 less then before, so obviously this drop is getting worse by the day.

You all have saved me from wasting a good deal of money so I thank you. lol.



As far as buying bitcoin outright as some have mentioned, is that still too big a gamble? I won't consider it until I see bitcoins drop below $200, but even then, is that too much of a gamble?

For those of you selling off your miners, contact me first before ebay or craigslist and we can try to work something out.

Thanks for all the feedback.

I'll definitely avoid cloud mining, its sucks that everything is a Ponzi lately.


As far as mining for a ROI, I actually am going to be moving back to Washington soon, so I might still be able to get into this, maybe.
You've all mentioned these bigger companies running huge setups, how did they get there? Simply having a ton of money to begin with?

In a perfect world where I can get all my power for almost nothing (because hydro), what would I need to spend and do to accomplish my 3k/month idea?
Obviously its obtainable, but at what cost?

Alright so I'll do more research on that miner, and if nothing comes up I'll look into the ones you suggested. However I do not, and will not mine at a loss, then there is no point.
Obviously there has to be profit to be made if people are still doing it, or do millions of people just want to throw their money away on bitcoins? Seems unlikely to me.

That's what I'm asking, how do I mine so I can get a ROI?

Why would I start a cloud mining site?

First let me start by saying this is my first post, and I'm hoping to get into the mining world. I've been doing my research and believe I have come up with a viable option, but I figured I'd turn to the more
experienced before losing my ass. 

I am currently paying about $0.07 per kW/h in my area, and I'm hoping to make a steady $3000 a month from mining.
Now I realize that's quite a bit and possibly unrealistic, especially with the volatility of the market, which is why I asking these questions.

I used http://dustcoin.com/ to average my power consumption and hashrate. I used https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison
to find the highest MH/s miners and then narrowed them down to the ones that had the highest profit margin and were still produced.
Using that, I narrowed it down to this https://www.achilleslabs.com/product/4

It's promising somewhere around 6TH/s (5%+/-) at 3800watts. Using dustcoin to calculate that out with my power costing $0.07 and with it averaging the difficulty at 40,640,955,016
I would produce roughly $518.18 a month. Simply multiply that all by 6 and I come up with my desired amount and needing 6 machines. The results being.

6TH/s x 6 = 36TH/S
3800watts x 6 = 22,800Watts
$0.07kW/h
=
$3121.68 a month.

and with each machine costing me around $2,895.00 (lets say $3000 because taxes and whatnot), it would take
me a little shy of 6 months to recoup my initial payout of $17,370.00 (lets say $18,000 because taxes and whatnot).


My questions are this:
1. Is all of my math right? Am I completely forgetting something or ignoring a major factor?
2. Are there any major holes in my idea? Problems I'm overlooking such as hardware maintenance or difficulty increase in the future that would destroy this idea?
3. From your collective experience, would this be a fools errand where the initial payout is nice but will take too long to recoup the total cost, and later cost won't be so grand?
4. What could I do to improve my idea (IE have a larger profit margin) if questions 1-3 come back as "all good"?



I realize as someone new to this I am most likely unaware of a lot of factors, which is why I turned to all of you,
I am in fact very seriously, and do have the money to plop down on this kind of investment.
I look at $3000 a month and only see good things because, lets face it, that's a nice living wage, but I'm sure if
it were that simple everyone would be doing it, hence why I'm asking as much as I can, before I so much as even
set of a bitcoin wallet.



Thank you for taking the time to read this wall of text, and I appreciate all the (possible) feedback I receive.
Cheers,
jyrine