Mining General

[jubalix]

How can any paid mining equipment ever make a profit, in BTC for the purchaser?

Eg the economics of it seems to be:

If you could make a miner that made a profit in BTC vs all costs, then you couls sell BTC into market, or keep BTC

If you can sell the product for a higher profit, then mining, this means the buyer is making a loss.

The only case I can imagine is that selling miners en mass, is a proxy for the manufacture to sell BTC on to the market without significant slippage, in that case it may make sense.

Perhaps another would be you produce one batch of miners on time and send out without switching on, then go in for the kill with later batches that are "late"

Apart from that caveat its hard to see any case that way that buying miners or even mining power can be profitable.

Open to the floor

[1715004298]

1715004298

[sidehack]

In the case of the business' primary concern being serving the customers, and maximizing profit is secondary, then sending out miners that can pay for themselves could actually happen. This depends on someone whose primary goal is *not* greed being in charge of a large company, which is unlikely.

[xstr8guy]

Historically, the most common practice amongst BTC miner manufacturers is to produce the new miner, self-mine until virtually all profitability is gone and then sell the "new" (dusty) miner at the average cost that the buyer can break even with... if they are lucky.

It's a brilliant marketing scam if you think about it. Thank Avalon and BFL (especially Avalon!) for that invention! Lol.

[jubalix]

Historically, the most common practice amongst BTC miner manufacturers is to produce the new miner, self-mine until virtually all profitability is gone and then sell the "new" (dusty) miner at the average cost that the buyer can break even with... if they are lucky.

It's a brilliant marketing scam if you think about it. Thank Avalon and BFL (especially Avalon!) for that invention! Lol.

see this is what I calculate as well

BTC mining is the ultimate product where if you product is that good you don't need to sell it for $$$$

Apart from market slipage, the only other argument would be start up funds to secure a foundry

[xstr8guy]

Historically, the most common practice amongst BTC miner manufacturers is to produce the new miner, self-mine until virtually all profitability is gone and then sell the "new" (dusty) miner at the average cost that the buyer can break even with... if they are lucky.

It's a brilliant marketing scam if you think about it. Thank Avalon and BFL (especially Avalon!) for that invention! Lol.

see this is what I calculate as well

BTC mining is the ultimate product where if you product is that good you don't need to sell it for $$$$

Apart from market slipage, the only other argument would be start up funds to secure a foundry

I assume by "market slippage" you mean... What if the price of BTC goes up after you bought a barely profitable miner? Well, you would make a nice profit, lol. I did that myself early on during the ASIC revolution. It was very lucrative during the rise of the BTC price to $1150! During the boom, I had preordered a BFL Little Single for $650, mined with it for 2 months and sold it for $3000.  

But is that a realistic expectation now. Absolutely not!

[Xialla]

How can any paid mining equipment ever make a profit, in BTC for the purchaser?

because there was some idea, that you will preorder HW, with your money, company will develop a amazing asic chip and then they will send it to everybody who believed them fast enough, to cover initial investment and make profit.

I can assure you, that this model except avalon batch 1 never worked before and never will work again. only way how to make profit of mining is to have bloody cheap electricity (or illegal connection to grid) and buy used HW for low prices on this board..I don't see any other option.

[xstr8guy]

How can any paid mining equipment ever make a profit, in BTC for the purchaser?

because there was some idea, that you will preorder HW, with your money, company will develop a amazing asic chip and then they will send it to everybody who believed them fast enough, to cover initial investment and make profit.

I can assure you, that this model except avalon batch 1 never worked before and never will work again. only way how to make profit of mining is to have bloody cheap electricity (or illegal connection to grid) and buy used HW for low prices on this board..I don't see any other option.

That is completely untrue... mostly due to "market slippage", lol.

I totally missed out on batch 1 Avalons. I placed my bets on bASIC and preordered from them instead, lol. But my early Bitfury, ASICMiner, KNC, Bitmain and even BFL miners were very, very profitable. I reinvested my BTC earnings from my farm and bought more gear during the phenomenal rise of the BTC price. During that time, I was easily earning more than 1 BTC per day which I reinvested in (mostly) 25GHs Bitfury cards. 1 BTC bought 2 (or more) cards during that time. And during that time I stayed well above the difficulty rise. It was insane!

But yeah, that will NEVER happen again, unfortunately.  

[jubalix]

Historically, the most common practice amongst BTC miner manufacturers is to produce the new miner, self-mine until virtually all profitability is gone and then sell the "new" (dusty) miner at the average cost that the buyer can break even with... if they are lucky.

It's a brilliant marketing scam if you think about it. Thank Avalon and BFL (especially Avalon!) for that invention! Lol.

see this is what I calculate as well

BTC mining is the ultimate product where if you product is that good you don't need to sell it for $$$$

Apart from market slipage, the only other argument would be start up funds to secure a foundry

I assume by "market slippage" you mean... What if the price of BTC goes up after you bought a barely profitable miner? Well, you would make a nice profit, lol. I did that myself early on during the ASIC revolution. It was very lucrative during the rise of the BTC price to $1150! During the boom, I had preordered a BFL Little Single for $650, mined with it for 2 months and sold it for $3000.  

But is that a realistic expectation now. Absolutely not!

no that's hoped for seigniorage your describing

I mean say you can make 10K miners that make 1 btc a day each, how are you going to dump that into the market at optimal fixed price. I don't know the production runs on mining equip, but larger production runs usually get cheaper per unit cost.

[Xialla]

/cut/
But my early Bitfury, ASICMiner, KNC, Bitmain and even BFL miners were very, very profitable.

uhh what? sorry but what means profitable for you? ONLY reason why you had profit on those machine is, that BTC price spiked and you had those devices in hand.

Anyway, you ROI you USD but not BTC my dear. or you mined more BTC than you paif ro HW? I don't think so. (and yes, I had 4x Jupiter, few blades and few BFL cubes, before you ask me - and believe or not, it was much better to melt USD to BTC and hold them than pay for HW with them..paying 0.2USD/kW)

[xstr8guy]

/cut/
But my early Bitfury, ASICMiner, KNC, Bitmain and even BFL miners were very, very profitable.

uhh what? sorry but what means profitable for you? ONLY reason why you had profit on those machine is, that BTC price spiked and you had those devices in hand.

Anyway, you ROI you USD but not BTC my dear. or you mined more BTC than you paif ro HW? I don't think so. (and yes, I had 4x Jupiter, few blades and few BFL cubes, before you ask me - and believe or not, it was much better to melt USD to BTC and hold them than pay for HW with them..paying 0.2USD/kW)

I stated clearly that my success was due to "the phenomenal rise in BTC price."

I believe I only paid cash/credit for the BFL Little Single (which I resold for massive profit), some ASICMiner Blades (and USB sticks) and my initial KNC preorder. All of the following gear; Bitfury (+2THs), 3 BFL 60GHs Singles (lol), KNC FrankenJupiter plus extra modules (~4.5THs), assorted Bitmain miners (3THs), Spondoolies (~3THs), 2 Monarchs (1.5THs) was bought with earned BTC. I never resold any other gear except for the Little Single.

I still hold a nice little chunk of earned BTC despite making sizable purchases on NewEgg and TigerDirect with BTC and exchanging many BTC to pay bills for several months while my business was transitioning and my income was nil.

I can safely say that I had a very positive ROI... USD and BTC. And not because I made spectacular decisions. It was simply because I bought a large amount of mining gear when the BTC price was extrordinarily high.