Thinking about mining

[fo0man]

I'm considering trying this out but I had some questions, hoping somebody could help out.

I found two ati 5850's for relatively cheap which I think I could get 600mhash out of what can I expect to reasonably to earn weekly or monthly with that? Do you think it's still worth it? I'm seeing that the difficulty is going up pretty quick as there's more and more mining, but I also see that the price is going up vs the USD which obviously can and will change.

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[Kluge]

http://bitcoinx.com/profit/ (<- sometimes is down - refresh if so)

You'll probably be able to get 700MH/s or more out of the cards if you overvolt them a (SAFE!) bit.

I'm getting 8.5-10 BTC/day off 7 5850s, so expecting ~2.5 BTC/day seems reasonable. Edit3: That was BEFORE the latest difficulty increase. Thanks xenon.
 
Edit: a barebones system with two 5850s will consume ~350-500w depending on how hard you push them, fwiw.

Edit2: Note BTCX website does not account for difficulty or BTC<->USD changes. Always expect poor performance if you're really not sure, but I think you'll see there's good BTC to be made mining.

[xenon481]

Note that the difficulty just went up by 78%, so you need to lower your expectations by a lot compared to what people have been getting previously. Also, the difficulty will very likely go up a very very large amount again in 9-10 days.

[kjj]

If we assume the difficulty will grow by 30% every 2 weeks (both of these estimates are very conservative, by the way), 700 Mhash/sec worth of hashing power will probably find about 1.95 blocks between now and the end of time.

You'll have to plug in what you think a bitcoin will be worth to find out if this is a good idea or not.

[fo0man]

Thanks for the info. I think I missed the boat on this one, it would take me too long to recoup my expenses and with the market being so volatile I'm going to pass for now.

[kjj]

I did too.  But I'm mining anyway.

I don't meant to suggest that mining is a bad idea for everyone.  If you think of it as an entertainment expense, like gambling, or if you like the idea and want to be a part of it even knowing that you probably won't get your money back, then sure, do it.

But these forums are FULL of people that think they are going to get rich mining.  These people are almost certainly wrong, and they need to hear what the situation really is before they spend money that they need for something important.

[fo0man]

Yeah you didn't exactly dissuade me, I was considering it partially for an entertaining risk like gambling, but after running some numbers even though I'd be spending what I consider disposable income, it's just too risky of an investment, just because it's disposable doesn't mean I want to dispose it. Not just from the volatility of the price vs the USD but also from the probable ASIC and/or FPGA miners soon to be out. Thanks for the info though, best of luck.

[Batouzo]

Yeah you didn't exactly dissuade me, I was considering it partially for an entertaining risk like gambling, but after running some numbers even though I'd be spending what I consider disposable income, it's just too risky of an investment, just because it's disposable doesn't mean I want to dispose it. Not just from the volatility of the price vs the USD but also from the probable ASIC and/or FPGA miners soon to be out. Thanks for the info though, best of luck.

FPGA miners seem to not be that dangerous from what ArtFortz written, and his ASIC's have rather long return-rate so not everyone can use that.
Still the risk seems to be high as large increase in exchange rate lured lots of miners...

[a7thson]

If you think of it as an entertainment expense, like gambling, or if you like the idea and want to be a part of it even knowing that you probably won't get your money back, then sure, do it.

I wouldn't go quite that far, though the calculus has to change significantly... the cost of your capital is going up, and this will be realized in the 'price' demanded for the good that you produce using the capital, and since it is rising at the same rate for ALL miners, all miners can (and will) demand a price premium in order to continue mining, or will exit the market.  As more processing power is required in order to produce the good, a higher premium will be demanded, and if that does not happen, enough miners will quit mining to allow a relative price equilibrium to be established based upon the actual demand for BTC.

What will probably happen as difficulty continues to increase is a bifurcation into hobbyists and professional miners, plus some oligopoly-type action when one or more of the larger pools start to exercise its market power, and as more and more independents are forced to join the pools.  This whole thing is like a business school case study!

There are certainly stupider ways to make money