You can expect to find a block once every 44,000 years or so (assuming difficulty remains the same). Probably not worth it.

No worries on the fee, especially since you were kind enough to open-source the code so anyone can mine solo without it, if they were so inclined. I'm not too surprised by the rentals... they're like raffle tickets. 50/50 raffles sell like hotcakes - this is a 99/1 raffle.

I doubt it's much more than bad luck - just a rough calculation but I think it would take this long to see a block every 1 in 20 blocks or so. So bad luck, but not extraordinarily bad.

But it makes it a little less fun, unfortunately - we were a bit spoiled a few weeks ago after a string of good luck - even those of us that didn't find a block, it's still fun to have a small rental going and see the Solo CK Pool pop up.

Is it possible that Bitmain is able to mine closer to the chip's spec using these boards without any physical modification?

You don't need an invitation to join either of them. You don't even have to sign up at Kano, which is a great pool. Slush is another good one - they've been around forever; I think I used them first with a Radeon 4850 in 2012 or so (not for long back then, unfortunately).

I meant my individual bestshare reported from the pool - maybe it was an invalid?

Is the pool-level bestshare accurate? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding it - I have a higher bestshare than the pool right now.

That was a great time to buy an S5...

Count me in for 1 - possibly 2, I'll let you know before Monday. Thanks for doing this again!

And yet the hashrate seems to have stabilized since mid-Feb. despite several batches shipping... I'm guessing the lower prices are attracting smaller at-home miners, but big buys have slowed down.

That and it would take 118 ph/s to come online in difficulty period for a 10% increase now. I feel like we're entering into another flat diff. period like last year.

If you're taking any more, I'd be in for 2.

Unfortunately, while this type of calculation would have been pretty close a year ago, it's not now. That's because network hashrate is increasing very quickly. Difficulty will increase around 13-14% sometime early Friday morning (EST). Then, assuming a 13% increase, you'll gross ~$6.20 per day. If we see another 13% increase about 12-13 days later, you'll be making ~$5.50 per day (assuming $420 bitcoins). And so on.

It's really all about how you define "free." Obviously stealing power from someone else isn't "free" power.

But what about power that is sold at a flat rate? Some firms have arrangements where they pay $X for Y Kwh per month. If the firm actually uses Z Kwh per month, and Z < Y, then the firm has Y-Z "free" excess capacity to use each month. This type of arrangement isn't the norm, but it's common enough, and if the owner of the firm decides to use that "free" excess capacity, then it is indeed "free" to them (of course, that assumes that the firm has absolutely no need for the free excess capacity, and could not pay less for a lower amount of capacity).

Maybe not the best example, but when some people say "free," they may mean power that they've already paid for, but aren't using. Sure, technically it isn't free, but relevant to this topic it may as well be, as there is no marginal electricity cost for these people to run an Antminer S7, provided they have the excess paid-for capacity.

I asked Li about this in July of last year, and he said $100 per miner/psu to ship. I think this was for only a few so maybe bulk would be less expensive, and of course this was six months ago.

That said, I had a pretty good experience hosting with Li. He compensates for any downtime (and it happens). He's also offered to repurchase miners at a fair price, or help find a local secondary source. However he is quite busy and sometimes can be difficult to reach for a few days, but rarely more than that.

I wouldn't suggest submitting any fraudulent documents - I'd just try again with the bitcoin invoice and maybe something to show the exchange rate from the day of purchase. I'd be surprised if customers required a USD invoice given that most things purchased from outside the United States aren't priced in USD. They should be able to convert it to USD, whether its Euros, Yen, frogskins, or bitcoin.

Should have clarified to mean in the ASIC era ... anyone that bought an S5 in January did pretty well considering their resale value.

Li - you've mentioned a few times that you may be able to get hosting costs down - any progress on that front?

Edit: Or maybe make the PSU a part of the hosting fee? In that case you would own the PSU, which makes more sense because they're not very cost-effective to ship outside of China, but would retain their resale value for you.

But still 'normal' given the difficulty growth over the past couple of periods ... even if it settles down to 10% this time that's 56 PH added to the network in 12-13 days.

It seems like the most profitable time to mine was Jan - Sept of this year - price flat, difficulty flat, and mining equipment appreciated during that time frame. Those days are gone for now...

I think shipping to Canada would be cost-prohibitive, as they'd have to travel in either a fairly large box or multiple packages. UPS's website is down for me right now anyway, but the other major couriers are showing at least US$90.

I picked up a good number of Monarch's over the summer. They weren't bad as a quiet, at-home miner. I've shed most of my working ones over the past couple of weeks. I'm down to 5 - mostly non-working, but one works - and would like to sell them as a bundle if possible. They're a bit fragile and would probably do better in the hands of someone a little more knowledgeable on keeping things like these running.

These are the 5, from highest stock Gh/s rating to lowest:

700 Gh/s - It's hard to say what went wrong with this one. Could be a leak (I see some stains), but the water cooling system seems fine. It was close to the Monarch that leaked for sure (the 550), but it ran for about a month after that one was taken out.

675 Gh/s - This one is a beauty. It looks perfect. I'm happy to send you a pic, but you may as well just look at a stock photo. I can't see anything physically wrong with it. It ran well for a while. And it ran well-above its advertised speed - usually around 710-720Gh/s stock. Then, one day, it stopped.

550 Gh/s - This one definitely sprung a leak. I noticed a fluid-ish substance all around it. It was actually still hashing when I shut it down. I cleaned out the substance from the sled area, though there's some in impossible-to-reach spots. I haven't turned it on since then because there was some fluid on the board.

475 Gh/s - This was my first one. It ran well for months. I actually ran about 490-500 Gh/s stock. Then I tried to play with the voltage settings just for fun. I got it up to around 640-660 Gh/s once. Then half of it died. The other half ran fine at stock speed for about another 2-3 months or so. Then it stopped. It still powers on, connects to the computer, and shows up in bfgminer. But it gives an error message and doesn't hash or report the temperature.

425 Gh/s - This one ... works. For now. It has for a while, though it's slowed down a hair over the last month or so. It used to run around stock, now seems to get around 410-415 Gh/s.

There's a guaranteed 410 Gh/s or so - at least for now - and maybe some more.

I'd like to sell them as a set, as these are a pain to properly pack and ship. BTC1 + shipping for the set. Escrow at buyer's expense and choice. If you'd like to see detailed photos of any or all of them, or a specific part, let me know. Thanks.

Edit: I won't be able to ship until Tuesday, most likely. So in case someone wants to jump on this, I'm having a black friday special, even though I'm really only selling these. I have the working one pointed at ck's solo pool. If you buy them and the working one gets a block before I can pack them up and ship them, we'll split it. So there's that.