I been mining ETH for some time and even back in the early days people said it didn't pay to invest in new GPUs to mine ETH as it will be moving to POS within the next 6 months.

Well let me say it has been *the next 6 months* for quite a number of years now. I don't doubt it will eventually switch over, but it doesn't pay to get too worked up about it until it actually happens.

Yeah, it can and probably will. Won't happen right away, maybe next year which I think will be the real bear market.

No point worrying too much about it now, if it drops under $0.005 (half a cent) I might consider loading up some. Just remember there is a lot of Doge out there and a lot more being mined everyday.

My best guess is it will start somewhere in 2024 and peak in 2025.

Of course since we are already halfway through 2022 and I don't think we have seen the true bottom yet, the bear run may last a bit longer than previous cycles and this could push the next bull cycle further out to maybe 2025/2026.

It will be hard to trust Luna again or anything that comes from the Terra/Luna team.

Most people thinking (hoping) that there will be a successful recovery, or reboot, are simply hoping they can recover some of their losses, but I don't see it happening.

My hands will be stronger (for buying more) once Bitcoin drops under $20k again, preferably closer to $10k. I don't think we will be seeing any significant rebound until 2025.

TLDR: No

The only people mining right now are people who already have bought and paid for hardware from years past or those with very cheap or free electricity.

I have a few cards mining right ETH and ETC right now, and they have been paid off for some years during the last cycle. But even without worrying about ROI it is still borderline as to the profitability with mining, i.e. is it cheaper (and easier) just to shut them off and buy ETH outright when its cheap.

Here is some food for thought:

6x1080ti = 0.0214 ETH/day = 7.811 ETH/year at today's difficulty (which of course will change as time goes on, so you will be making even less)

20x1060 = 0.0337 ETH/day = 12.3 ETH/year

$3,000 / $220 (ETH price today) = 13.63 ETH right now. If it drops to $200 (likely) you would get 15 ETH for that same $3k investment.

Notice also I didn't include electricity prices in any of this, so by buying ETH outright you are even further ahead.

Also, by buying ~15 ETH right now, say the price jumps up to $800+ in 6 months, you can sell a quarter of your holdings and be at breakeven with ~11 ETH left over, while with mining you would still be chugging along with maybe 6 total ETH mined at that point.

Oh boy, here we go again with these types of posts.

Someone else already did it earlier, but let me quote the relevant portions from your post that even make mining remotely a good idea:



So telling people they should get into mining because the price might double within a year is pretty silly when they can simply buy some coins outright and double there money in that same time by simply doing nothing but holding. No need for all the GPUs, high electricity bills, heat, and noise that go along with mining.

This is the process I usually follow as well before selling a used GPU. There are several "gaming" benchmarks out here, I usually use 3DMark, but any that stress the GPU are good. I usually flash BIOS back to original and fire up a benchmark and if it passes the highest test relevant of the GPUs capability I considered it stable. Some benchmarks allow multiple passes, I sometimes will run through 3 loops if I have any doubts, but even one should expose any flaws.

Also make sure you give the cards a once over with a vacuum or air duster to remove excess dirt/dust and check the function of fans as other have suggested.

I also usually state right in the listing that I verified functionality with 3 runs of Firestrike (or whatever benchmark you use) to help minimize the it didn't work type of buyer. I have had a few have buyers remorse cases and after explaining the process I go through to check each GPU for full functionality before shipping they usually reconsider their request.

There a very few 'home" type miners left in the market now days. A good portion of CPU miners are botnets, so it cost the "owners" of these bots nothing in terms of power and they can pretty much dump coins on a daily basis.

Also, a good majority of GPU miners now mainly consist of giant commercial type operations located in places where they can get very low cost power (2-3 cent/kwh). There are also probably a small percentage who get free power; either its included in their rent, or they still live at home or are in college with their parents footing the bill who are still mining.

So I think the remaining very few percent that actually pay for their own power and pay much above 5 cents a kwh for electricity may be doing some speculative mining and mining at a loss today simply in the hopes the prices recover soon. I doubt there are many people strictly doing it for charity of the network.

Nah, this isn't how it works! You will get too much power conversion loss using a fan to blow air to power the wind turbine. What you need to do instead is use the free power to feed a bunch of quartz spotlights and point them directly at solar panels which in-turn is used to feed the battery!!! Whoa-la, free power baby!!!

There would be no tears shed on my end (maybe tears of joy) if the likes of Bitmain were seriously hurt during this downtrend, but unfortunately I think you are correct. They are so large that even during bad times they can manipulate the market enough to benefit themselves.

Also, as another poster pointed out, they are probably only publicizing this for tax reasons and not really financially hurting.

If you are truly doing it as a hobby then continue doing what you have been up until now. Hop around to a bunch of different coins and accumulate a small stack of each. When the market returns in 1-2 years hopefully some of the coins you mined become winners.

Just be sure to mine coins with either low difficulties or large block rewards so you can accumulate a reasonable amount of each in a short amount of time. Maybe spend 1-2 weeks on each coin then move on.

I would not worry about the current profitability as whatever you pick it is going to be crap in the current market. Instead just focus on having fun and trying to accumulate a bunch of different coins that look like they may have future potential.

Agreed, I'll be looking to buy here soon too, but just a question of when.

Stupid advice, he bought $300,000 worth of ETH when it was at $800. Now ETH is $80 so if he sold it all he would only get $30,000, if he sold half he would get $15,000.

OP, best thing you can do is tell your wife. Also at this point there is probably not much point in selling as we can't go much lower, at least relative from your $800 to $80 loss you already suffered.

I would get a second job or work extra hours or something to make your house payments. Maybe talk with the bank for an Interest only loan for maybe a year or so to see how the market pans out.

I am sure given enough time ETH will rebound much like BTC did back from its 2013 high then crash in 2014-2015. Took a few years though, so you will need to make plans to ride it out possibly until 2020.

I add my two cents, I don't think people will want those old of a GPU in 6-12 months time, at least not for that price. By that time the newer cards will probably be cheaper as well and there might even be a new generation out. From my perspective if I am a second hand gamer I don't buy used just to save a few dollars off retail, I want at least 50% savings.

!Remindme 1 Year

I suppose if someone makes enough predictions, a few of them are bound to come true.

There is more room for down yet, don't count on history being an exact match for picking your bottom.

As others have said, you cannot directly get this information, but if you document it all, get screenshots, etc., and file a report with your local police, law enforcement can then contact the pool and get the IP used to connect to the pool at the time. Then they can also track down the ISP and who was using that IP at the time of connection.

I assume you reported the theft of the miners when it happened, so the police would welcome this additional information to help them track down the culprit.

I would advise mining a promising coin that you can mine a lot of rather than going with one of the profitable coins shown by the calculator sites. Even the most profitable coins of today are a joke if you are looking to pay off any equipment wit today's profit levels, and earning maybe .01 ETH a week with a single rig would not allow you to accumulate enough coins even if the prices do return.

Instead research some of the up and coming coins, or at least look for older ones that are undervalued and not being heavily mined by others, and just hope you pick a winner that will perform well in a few years. One strategy is too compile a list of several such candidate coins and maybe point your miner at each of them for a 30 day period and accumulate a small stack of several different coins to help maximize your chances that one will succeed down the road.