Mining Profitability

[ChrisPop]

Is there still profitable to mine with miners? I know there are many factors to count,but taking the current difficulty and an average cost of electricity can anybody tell me if it is profitable and in how much time I could cover my investments?

Also what is better cloud mining or solo mining?

[tiggytomb]

I would not think that it would be beneficial now to be mining Bitcoin unless you are old McDonald and have a farm, I could be wrong but I think it will take a long time to cover your costs.  You should be aware of scam cloud mining sites also as these are plentiful and can seem legit at the outset.
Altcoin mining on the other hand if you pick the right coins at launch can be very profitable.

[Amph]

no it isn't, you need something like 6 months to cover your cost if electricity is free, otherwise if it isn't, much more

cloud mining is the same, due to maintanance fees, you need 10 months to achieve roi

solo mining is a different thing(i think you was speaking about pool mining), and shoul be avoid at all cost unless you're owning something like 10% of the network..

[okae]

Altcoin mining on the other hand if you pick the right coins at launch can be very profitable.

exactly, but you need to study the markets and in the end have a lot of lucky, i think that this is the only way to made some profit right now, by mining i mean.

Well maybe you have free electricity, then maybe you can mine alt coins and expect that are not scams

ofc i will never suggesto you to use cloud mining, ROI is near imposible right now, just do the maths and you will see.

i will never suggest you to mining BTC diretly, even if you have free electricity

[MCHouston]

It depends.  Most people will tell you it is not profitable which is not true.

If you get a good deal on some used gear and have a decent price on electricity you can still make a profit.

If you are paying something insane like 20 cents/kwh then no its not profitable.  Do the math plenty of ROI calculators out there, even if you just break even I would recommend you do it as it is fun, informative and a great learning experience.

Good luck.

[jonnybravo0311]

Given the current exchange rate of ~$243 per BTC, current network difficulty, miners hashing at advertised rates/power consumption and an average power cost of $0.10 per kWh...

S3 will net you ~$0.26 a day
S5 will net you ~$1.42 a day
SP20 will net you ~$1.30 a day

Just food for thought

[MarkAz]

If you're looking to model things with a bit more structure, you should consider picking up this - I did and he's done a nice job on it plus is improving it:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1091571.0;topicseen

It's nothing you can't find online, but it's nice to have it all in one place and easily tweakable in Excel.

[philipma1957]

Given the current exchange rate of ~$243 per BTC, current network difficulty, miners hashing at advertised rates/power consumption and an average power cost of $0.10 per kWh...

S3 will net you ~$0.26 a day
S5 will net you ~$1.42 a day
SP20 will net you ~$1.30 a day

Just food for thought

Looking at above

if you underclock and undervolt the s-3   

 you can do 300gh and 180 watts
you can get 2 of them for about 170 usd and a decent psu to run them for 113.


http://www.gigampz.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html

so for 283 you have 600gh pulling 360 watts

and you earn back 100usd and lose 183

if you buy an s-5 and the same psu you spend  about 550   and you get 1150 gh  pulling  600 watts.

and you earn back 260 usd and lose 290 usd

so at 10 cents for power  the chances are you lose money.  with old or newer gear.

so to the op buying gear to mine at this moment looks grim.

[MarkAz]

if you buy an s-5 and the same psu you spend  about 550   and you get 1150 gh  pulling  600 watts.

and you earn back 260 usd and lose 290 usd

so at 10 cents for power  the chances are you lose money.  with old or newer gear.

so to the op buying gear to mine at this moment looks grim.

You lost me on your math - assuming 600w, $0.10/kWH, the cost to operate the miner is $43.2, or basically $1.44/day... I run S5's right now, and they gross about $2.50-$3.00/day, so even at $0.10, you're looking at ~$32 profit a month, so device and PSU paid off in a year. 

I don't disagree that $0.10 is pushing it from the price perspective, but I can also say that if you don't just snap up the first S5 you see, you can get one and a PSU for under $450 without a huge amount of work.

[philipma1957]

if you buy an s-5 and the same psu you spend  about 550   and you get 1150 gh  pulling  600 watts.

and you earn back 260 usd and lose 290 usd

so at 10 cents for power  the chances are you lose money.  with old or newer gear.

so to the op buying gear to mine at this moment looks grim.

You lost me on your math - assuming 600w, $0.10/kWH, the cost to operate the miner is $43.2, or basically $1.44/day... I run S5's right now, and they gross about $2.50-$3.00/day, so even at $0.10, you're looking at ~$32 profit a month, so device and PSU paid off in a year.  

I don't disagree that $0.10 is pushing it from the price perspective, but I can also say that if you don't just snap up the first S5 you see, you can get one and a PSU for under $450 without a huge amount of work.

and you are freezing your price and diff  to give your numbers.   while this is possible I was more conservative.  I used 2% diff growth .
here is what I get with 450 usd 2% growth and 10 cent power with flat price  and the loss is 190

with a 1% growth in diff  it does better. also do not forget    'the  ½ ing' next year  which I am not sure will help or hurt.

[MarkAz]

and you are freezing your price and diff  to give your numbers.   while this is possible I was more conservative.  I used 2% diff growth .
here is what I get with 450 usd 2% growth and 10 cent power with flat price  and the loss is 190

with a 1% growth in diff  it does better. also do not forget    'the  ½ ing' next year  which I am not sure will help or hurt.

Those are good points, but I still think $0.10 is probably the high threshold of where you can consider gambling with mining - although you're probably on borrowed time... We'll see what the S6/S7 brings, but efficiency is going to be much more of a factor than hashrate.  The more interesting point is the halving event - I'm of the same opinion as yours, but would phrase it more like "it's going to both help and hurt".

I suspect there will be a mass exodus of miners who were on the edge, and this puts them over - so probably some really good deals on hardware if you've got the warchest for it.  After that flushes out, then my hope would be that there will be an exit of some number decent number of miners that won't be viable almost anywhere due to power efficiency.  If enough exit, then difficulty will decrease, and those still in the game will see higher returns - although I don't imagine it would return to where it was before the half.  I can't imagine a scenario where there isn't a fair bit of consolidation...

What are your thoughts?

[Valanor]

Is there still profitable to mine with miners? I know there are many factors to count,but taking the current difficulty and an average cost of electricity can anybody tell me if it is profitable and in how much time I could cover my investments?

Also what is better cloud mining or solo mining?

cloudmining can give you profit but 99% cloudmining is ponzi
im not miner i can not calculate precisely
but you can use coinwarz forr it

http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/coins/bitcoin

[philipma1957]

and you are freezing your price and diff  to give your numbers.   while this is possible I was more conservative.  I used 2% diff growth .
here is what I get with 450 usd 2% growth and 10 cent power with flat price  and the loss is 190

with a 1% growth in diff  it does better. also do not forget    'the  ½ ing' next year  which I am not sure will help or hurt.

Those are good points, but I still think $0.10 is probably the high threshold of where you can consider gambling with mining - although you're probably on borrowed time... We'll see what the S6/S7 brings, but efficiency is going to be much more of a factor than hashrate.  The more interesting point is the halving event - I'm of the same opinion as yours, but would phrase it more like "it's going to both help and hurt".

I suspect there will be a mass exodus of miners who were on the edge, and this puts them over - so probably some really good deals on hardware if you've got the warchest for it.  After that flushes out, then my hope would be that there will be an exit of some number decent number of miners that won't be viable almost anywhere due to power efficiency.  If enough exit, then difficulty will decrease, and those still in the game will see higher returns - although I don't imagine it would return to where it was before the half.  I can't imagine a scenario where there isn't a fair bit of consolidation...

What are your thoughts?

Sorry missed this question. 

I do a lot of spot mining via rentals at Nicehash or Westhash along with in housemining.
I always have a finger in the pie but as time goes on in this game.
In house gets harder and harder to do.
My rates only allow me to mine in my home  from Oct 1 to June 1

They jump to 16.9 plus 1.1 to cool or 18 cents a kwatt in the summer.

I have 1.8 th in my buddies office and a few of sidehack's sticks in house.

It has become harder to jump in and out of actual gear I own to mine with.

Thus a lot of spot mining with west-nice hash.

I will keep hoping to get a really secure spot to mine at low prices but so far no go.

Best I can do is 8 cents but power caps at 5kwatts and I have to pay 50 bucks a month for the net at that spot.

So it does not work.