The new ticker doesn't seem to support prices in bitcoin.   I've been using Amagi Metals as my "btc to silver ratio" reference for a while now.

Physics still wins.  The problem is that the hot side to cold side difference isn't that high, so you can't extract much energy from it...

Nicely said.

Are you planning to get any of the other silver bullet bullion varieties in?

I hate you guys. :p  Quit putting up things I want!  I'm trying to NOT spend money!

It's also typically much /more/ worth it to just buy bitcoin at the current value if you think it's going to go up...

If you buy a device for 1.0 btc that returns 0.7 btc, even if bitcoin goes up, you'd still have been better off buying 1.0 bitcoin and holding it.

Something you preordered a year or two ago and has just shown up.

There is nothing profitable to buy right now that will be delivered soon.  Your only option is the high risk of a preorder of some device from an unknown company with no demonstrated product (pick one of several).

The bitcoin community is depressingly devoid of people who can do math, it seems...

My Game of Drones & Jekyll Island coins showed up today.

Those are very pretty!  Thanks!

Ok, how about $600-ish worth of bitcoin?

Do you take PayPal? I need to double check but I might be able to do $600.

Those are counterfeit bars you linked, not rounds.  And the bars aren't ones I'm aware of being available as "replicas."

I'm not interested mostly because of the price being rather high.

Please counter the following:

If I buy Bitcoin with $28 right now, I get around 0.24 btc.

If Bitcoin then goes up to $1000, I have $240.  Not $50.

If your argument for ROI involves bitcoin going up, YOU ARE BETTER OFF BUYING BITCOIN than buying a miner.

There is no logical argument to spend more for a device than it will ever return unless you have very specific requirements (such as being in a country that will not allow you to buy bitcoin easily).

Paying 0.3 btc for a device that may return 0.1 btc is stupidity, no matter how much the price of bitcoin goes up.  You'd have been better off buying bitcoin directly!

//EDIT: To be crystal clear and concise:  Any argument about mining ROI that includes "Bitcoin going up" is worse off than just buying bitcoin at the current price.

In that they are square and shiny? I'm not aware of any fakes from that mint yet and I try to keep an eye on what's available.

I would just acid test one when you get it and call it good.

The convoluted math that goes on to try and justify a bad purchase is always funny.

And everyone seems to assume bitcoin will always go up. Which it does, as long as you ignore the times it drops. Much like the housing market!

There is no way to do that. Period. That you think it's even worth mentioning indicates you have no idea what you're talking about.

Short answer: The laws of thermodynamics prohibit it.

Your maximum efficiency of a heat engine is determined by the absolute temperatures of the hot side and cold side.

For the output of a miner, the hot side is barely warmer than the cold side.  The theoretical power output is present but tiny.

They are chips that are designed to do one thing - the SHA256 operations that make the core of bitcoin mining.

Right now, the best way to get into mining is to take a large pile of money, buy ASIC mining hardware, and get a small pile of money out.

There is no profitable ASIC currently available for purchase in terms of immediate delivery, and preorders are a risky gamble.

The main problem is that the usable heat coming off the miners is low grade by the nature of silicon.  You can't run 120-200C temperatures and expect anything to either run or last long.

So you're stuck with "warm but not hot" temperatures, which are mostly useful for heating.  That's about all you can expect from it.

Further, you typically would want the miners running constantly, so you need something that can sink a steady source of lowgrade heat.  Room heating or water preheating are the obvious solutions.

The most economical is probably a preheater for the hot water heater, but you'd have to go through a good bit of hot water to make it worth it.

I can vouch for both Agora Commodities and Amagi Metals as reliable metals dealers.

Agora usually ships significantly faster on in stock items.

The green line is a very low amperage sense line that, when pulled to ground, turns on the PSU.

That's a perfectly sane way of powering on a computer PSU...