Mining still profitable?

[Clint]

Hi guys, I really never got into btc mining. I've heard of friends joining pools or cloud mining on websites like cex.io. Are these still profitable? I kind of want to experience btc mining. What are some simple profitable methods that still exist now? Thanks

[TheRealSteve]

ಠ_ಠ

[Reynaldo]

If you dont pay any electricity, you may eventually ROI, else, dont think about it.

[ColderThanIce]

Don't expect to make any money with cloud mining. Often times cloud mining sites are just ponzies, or if it is a legitimate site, the fees are often too high to ever make a profit. If you can find a used miner for fairly cheap, and have free electricity as Reynaldo mentioned, then you have a good chance of making a little money mining, but for the most part it's very difficult to make money in mining anymore.

[bryant.coleman]

Right now, most of the small scale to medium scale Bitcoin mining ventures are incurring a net loss. That said, I have to remind you about the scenario which existed in 2012. By the time I registered on this forum, a lot of people were complaining that Bitcoin mining was not profitable at all. At that time, the exchange rates were like $5 to $10 per coin, while the mining costs were 2 to 3 times that. And imagine what would have happened, if these miners had hold on to their coins for some 12 or 18 more months (some of them did, IMO). The same can happen again.

[real789]

Not profitable at this moment
ceck mining stat at here http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/coins/bitcoin
http://www.coinwarz.com/calculators/bitcoin-mining-calculator that very hard to get ROI

[MCHouston]

I would stay away from cloud mining as the #1 priority,  it is becoming harder and harder to find a legit one.

Mining is still profitable if you are in the right situation or willing to put forth some effort.

Do you have cheap electricity? If not move to some where that does or look at renting a small office to get commercial rates.

Do you have access to miners?  If not you will need to buy miners at good price to make ROI easier, used miners are your best choice.

Do you live in a cold climate?  If not you will need money for fans, cooling, the power to run them, etc

Do you have the electrical infrastructure?  If not you will need money for outlets, wiring, breakers and possibly more

Once you figure all this out you can use a calculator to figure out if you will hit ROI.  Mining is still profitable but it takes effort and possibly a little luck on your current facilities.

[Borisz]

The problem with these questions is that they are rather vague. It is like asking, "shall I buy a blue winter coat"? If we don't know whether you live in Antarctica or southern Italy, then we cannot answer you.

Your income and rate of return depend on a lot of factors, such as

• Investment cost
• Electricity price
• Hashing speed
• Price of Bitcoin
• Mining difficulty

The Bitcoin price is a huge factor that one cannot forecast. Hence you can only tell how much you would make with X amount of hashing power right now.
Specifically with cryptocurrencies it is hard to tell whether you will be able to make a profit. This is partially, because one would have to define profit. You may not make profit if you immediately convert all coins to fiat, however in case the price of BTC rises, you may be lucky and have a quick return on your investment. Hence if you have some capital to invest and you are willing to gamble on bitcoin, then you can mine and hold whatever you get.

If you are looking for a hobby activity the train may have already passed. However, if you do have access to cheap electricity (in some countries this is not a problem) you can have some fun and some profit as well, provided you sell your miner at the end of the whole process to get back something on that as well. If you are truly interested, give some idea on what you had in mind. Capital you are willing to invest, hashing power, electricity prices.

One thing is for sure, running some mining will teach you things bout bitcoin in general, computing etc, and in the worst case scenario (aka if you haven't done your research on the topic) the fact that it is not worth it.

Regarding cloudmining
They have a business profile of buying hardware, selling it in small chunks for a larger price, making users pay the hardware depreciation cost under the terms of "maintenance, hosting, electricity" and then possibly repeating the whole stuff. They make profit, but your profits reduce gradually.

I had a few shares on XY cloudmining service. The maintenance fee was approaching my income and at a point it reached it, meaning I was getting 0 coins. However, I paid for the company for this share, so they were OK, they got their money for the hardware, got return on investment. Then I stopped getting payouts, but I doubt they stopped the farm hashing for them. They got their initial investment back and are probably running the hardware until it crashes.

If the deal is realistic, you won't make much if anything at all. If the deal is too good, you won't make much and you will lose your investment (aka scam). If you find a site, make some research on it and see if others have confirmed it.

[-droid-]

I would stay away from cloud mining as the #1 priority,  it is becoming harder and harder to find a legit one.

Mining is still profitable if you are in the right situation or willing to put forth some effort.

Do you have cheap electricity? If not move to some where that does or look at renting a small office to get commercial rates.

Do you have access to miners?  If not you will need to buy miners at good price to make ROI easier, used miners are your best choice.

Do you live in a cold climate?  If not you will need money for fans, cooling, the power to run them, etc

Do you have the electrical infrastructure?  If not you will need money for outlets, wiring, breakers and possibly more

Once you figure all this out you can use a calculator to figure out if you will hit ROI.  Mining is still profitable but it takes effort and possibly a little luck on your current facilities.

This did remind me, if you live in a cold climate and are willing to heat your home with miners then you can definitely make a profit it still depends on your gas rate (electric shouldn't matter much as that money is already spent but if gas is much cheaper and you switch to miners you can lose money)

this past winter i did this with some s1's, power cost here is only 0.03/04 so it was worth while

[Borisz]

I would stay away from cloud mining as the #1 priority,  it is becoming harder and harder to find a legit one.

Mining is still profitable if you are in the right situation or willing to put forth some effort.

Do you have cheap electricity? If not move to some where that does or look at renting a small office to get commercial rates.

Do you have access to miners?  If not you will need to buy miners at good price to make ROI easier, used miners are your best choice.

Do you live in a cold climate?  If not you will need money for fans, cooling, the power to run them, etc

Do you have the electrical infrastructure?  If not you will need money for outlets, wiring, breakers and possibly more

Once you figure all this out you can use a calculator to figure out if you will hit ROI.  Mining is still profitable but it takes effort and possibly a little luck on your current facilities.

This did remind me, if you live in a cold climate and are willing to heat your home with miners then you can definitely make a profit it still depends on your gas rate (electric shouldn't matter much as that money is already spent but if gas is much cheaper and you switch to miners you can lose money)

this past winter i did this with some s1's, power cost here is only 0.03/04 so it was worth while

That is some cheap electricity you have there!
I would suggest not directly using miners as heaters. I think there was some discussion on it here on bitcointalk (something like how to use your old miners or similar) that it may not be the best idea as heating circuit boards may give out some fumes that are not particularly healthy. If you want to do it "properly" you could use a heat exchanger system. You could even build one for yourself if you are into a bit of DIY!

Although of course, it would only make sense investing more if you were planning on using it for multiple years. Nevertheless, its a good use and combination of multiple systems.