State of mining

[gambit1]

I'm posting this here rather than in mining because its really a meta-mining question.

Just wondering what the state of mining is. I remember when anyone could do it and then I remember when you had to buy dedicated mining equipment (ASICS). I lost interest in the subject just as it was becoming non-viable for the common man, though people were still buying block eruptors and apparently doing ok with them.

Where are we now? In order to mine sucessfully do you have to be Rick from Rick and Morty with access to quantum defrackulators and or a Chinese mining farm?

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[unamis76]

The requirements for mining are always rising and will rise as long as the difficulty keeps climbing... So yeah, if you want to stay competitive you must have ASIC's and quite a few of them.

A Chinese mining farm would help, but you can profit with much less if you have cheap electricity

[eternalgloom]

For me personally it would still be viable to buy my own mining equipment and make a profit, especially with the current prices of Bitcoin.
But this is mostly because everything in my house runs on solar and I wouldn't have to pay for electricity.

Plus I rented a miner a few days ago on Betarigs and made a small profit, so that in itself shows me that it can still be profitable for the little guy

[Xialla]

based on my observations, it seems that only somehow profitable way (over buying bitcoin directly) is to run some Chinese mining farm next to energy grid with direct contact to ASIC manufacturers.

home mining is definitely dead for majority of world because of electricity expenses. USB gadgets are fine to play with cgminer and linux, but they will not even ROI..

[eternalgloom]

based on my observations, it seems that only somehow profitable way (over buying bitcoin directly) is to run some Chinese mining farm next to energy grid with direct contact to ASIC manufacturers.

home mining is definitely dead for majority of world because of electricity expenses. USB gadgets are fine to play with cgminer and linux, but they will not even ROI..

You're forgetting about people who have solor power, here in Belgium it's quite common for a middle class household to have solar panels due to huge tax benefits in the past.

[Xialla]

based on my observations, it seems that only somehow profitable way (over buying bitcoin directly) is to run some Chinese mining farm next to energy grid with direct contact to ASIC manufacturers.

home mining is definitely dead for majority of world because of electricity expenses. USB gadgets are fine to play with cgminer and linux, but they will not even ROI..

You're forgetting about people who have solor power, here in Belgium it's quite common for a middle class household to have solar panels due to huge tax benefits in the past.

and those solar panels in Belgium are available for free? Solar energy is not for free, it is stupid illusion. You have to pay for panels, mounting, cables, inventor..ahh and return of investment is about 20 years, even with European union support to clean energy and various grants to photovoltaic.

[ANdr0id]

Reading about someone who gets electricity for free or near to nothing. Can't remember which country he was in, think it was somewhere in South America. Argentina maybe. Can anyone verify this from practical experience.

[newbitcoins]

The requirements for mining are always rising and will rise as long as the difficulty keeps climbing... So yeah, if you want to stay competitive you must have ASIC's and quite a few of them.

A Chinese mining farm would help, but you can profit with much less if you have cheap electricity

If you want to home mine, you need very cheap electricity. That is the most important of all. You also need a efficient miner. The bitmain s7 is the most efficient one, but it is expensive.

[Kprawn]

based on my observations, it seems that only somehow profitable way (over buying bitcoin directly) is to run some Chinese mining farm next to energy grid with direct contact to ASIC manufacturers.

home mining is definitely dead for majority of world because of electricity expenses. USB gadgets are fine to play with cgminer and linux, but they will not even ROI..

You're forgetting about people who have solor power, here in Belgium it's quite common for a middle class household to have solar panels due to huge tax benefits in the past.

and those solar panels in Belgium are available for free? Solar energy is not for free, it is stupid illusion. You have to pay for panels, mounting, cables, inventor..ahh and return of investment is about 20 years, even with European union support to clean energy and various grants to photovoltaic.

It might not be 100% free, but it's better than the alternative ...mining with electricity that are generated from fossil fuel or nuclear power. 

You also have a bit of a edge over the people who has to pay for their electricity now, and the profits made from this, help to pay part of the utility bill and infrastructure you

invested in. 

[mayax]

You cannot cover the expenses if you do that alone. You will not cover the mining equip. and the electricity bill.

Only the chinesses can do that because they can make tricks to get the electricity for free or near to that

[maokoto]

For me personally it would still be viable to buy my own mining equipment and make a profit, especially with the current prices of Bitcoin.
But this is mostly because everything in my house runs on solar and I wouldn't have to pay for electricity.

Plus I rented a miner a few days ago on Betarigs and made a small profit, so that in itself shows me that it can still be profitable for the little guy

What a good situation!

I have heard of some that put mining farms near waterfalls that generate the electricity.

[eternalgloom]

based on my observations, it seems that only somehow profitable way (over buying bitcoin directly) is to run some Chinese mining farm next to energy grid with direct contact to ASIC manufacturers.

home mining is definitely dead for majority of world because of electricity expenses. USB gadgets are fine to play with cgminer and linux, but they will not even ROI..

You're forgetting about people who have solor power, here in Belgium it's quite common for a middle class household to have solar panels due to huge tax benefits in the past.

and those solar panels in Belgium are available for free? Solar energy is not for free, it is stupid illusion. You have to pay for panels, mounting, cables, inventor..ahh and return of investment is about 20 years, even with European union support to clean energy and various grants to photovoltaic.

They are were subsidized in the form of a tax break and you also sell back excess power, the state also subsidies that, so they pay you extra per kwh on top of what the energy company pays you.
Initial investment for me was around 15.000 euros, but I got a nice tax return 2 years later, might seem like a lot but nothing a small term loan couldn't solve.  

I remember back then, companies were even offering to place solar panels on your roof for free and let you use their excess power, if you were lucky enough to live at a certain location.

[unamis76]

Solar mining is a good thing... If you've already had your investment in solar equipment back. ROI on mining equipment is hard enough these days, let alone installing solar power + ASIC's and trying to ROI for both

[franky1]

you do know that a mining farm with 5000 units is the same as a pool of 5000 people with 1 unit each..

so average joe does not need thousands of units.. it just need a few units..

ill explain it this way
mining farm 5000 units.. solves block, receives 25btc. this divides up as 0.005btc per unit
mining pool 5000 units.. solves block, receives 25btc. this divides up as 0.005btc per unit

so reward per unit is the same..
the only difference is the cost of unit and cost of electric, housing, maintenance which dictates profitability..

and as the difficulty rises. it will be harder for FARMS to be profitable. and here are the reasons.
1. limit to total electric capacity to one warehouse
2. cost of warehouse, staff, expansion to second warehouse.

in short leasing a warehouse, staffing it and then getting electric companies to supply high voltage to the location would cost more per unit. then someone using their single unit in their own home.

at some point where mining bitcoin costs more electric then all of las vegas's electrical supply.. then its guaranteed that electric companies will begin to refuse supply to farms, purely to ensure that thousands of residents don't get blackout/brownouts.

meaning solo mining(farms) will become completely obsolete and it will become completely pool mining

[StateOfAffairs]

I don't mine, I use faucets. Much easier.

[eternalgloom]

I don't mine, I use faucets. Much easier.

Just out of curiosity, how much do you earn by doing that?
Can't be much, right...

[os2sam]

I don't mine, I use faucets. Much easier.

Just out of curiosity, how much do you earn by doing that?
Can't be much, right...

Begging is NOT earning.

Edit:  Let me rephrase that.  Taking advantage of the charity of others is not earning.

[Amph]

is still expensive,but right now it seems that common miners can try to do some profit from it, because if you combine the enw price with the great efficiency of the s7, you can come victorious

but you need a big initiali investments, to be honest they should reduce the price of the s7, because right now it kill the point of its efficiency...

[newbitcoins]

Solar mining is a good thing... If you've already had your investment in solar equipment back. ROI on mining equipment is hard enough these days, let alone installing solar power + ASIC's and trying to ROI for both

With solar mining, we need back up battery or mains supply to supply electricity when there is no sun shine. The battery is expensive. It is difficult to make profit long term if you consider the life time of the battery hence extra cost.

[eternalgloom]

Solar mining is a good thing... If you've already had your investment in solar equipment back. ROI on mining equipment is hard enough these days, let alone installing solar power + ASIC's and trying to ROI for both

With solar mining, we need back up battery or mains supply to supply electricity when there is no sun shine. The battery is expensive. It is difficult to make profit long term if you consider the life time of the battery hence extra cost.

You can avoid that with a grid tie inverter, so you switch to the regular power network when there is no sun.
Edit: Oh, that's what you meant by mains supply, didn't read properly

[QuintLeo]

Solar is still quite expen$ive compared to most common alternatives, when you factor in the TOTAL cost.

 Also, it's not as "green" as some folks claim - MAKING the panels generates some quite nasty industrial waste, and eats quite a bit of power (mostly NOT green power).


 Wind power has the same issues, but is a bit less expensive at this time if you live in an area with fairly high average wind speeds.


 BOTH need some form of power backup, be it battery-backed or grid tie or some of both.



 About the only way to achieve RoI on any current miners is to have VERY LOW COST electric.


 AFAIK most major farms OWN their property, not lease it. On the other hand, it's sometimes cheaper to lease long-term.

 It also doesn't take much staff to run a large farm - IIRC MegaBigPower had a total staff of 10 for their large Washington farm.

[Mickeyb]

I don't mine, I use faucets. Much easier.

Just out of curiosity, how much do you earn by doing that?
Can't be much, right...

Honestly, that's not earning that's wasting a time. No offense to anyone that's doing this, but I think there are better ways to spend your time.

For the OP, I would invest in mining equipment only if I had a free electricity. In all other cases, it's much better investing directly into bitcoins.

[gkv9]

You will need some serious investment that too with free electricity to gain something very high in % on your investments with mining, as next year halving will be taking place, and so rewards will halve though, so making BTC will be much harder than it currently is...
It totally depends mostly upon what price Bitcoin will possess during halving and ahead months...

[notlist3d]

You will need some serious investment that too with free electricity to gain something very high in % on your investments with mining, as next year halving will be taking place, and so rewards will halve though, so making BTC will be much harder than it currently is...
It totally depends mostly upon what price Bitcoin will possess during halving and ahead months...

It does not necessarly take free electricity.  But it does take fairly priced electricity.  With 230 priced btc many of us were doing ok at mining as long as we  use  current gear.  Jump up to 380ish.... and were doing a whole lot better.

Granted it always could change that is the nature of BTC.   But I do not see free as necessary, just a really big bonus.

[Dalkore]

The requirements for mining are always rising and will rise as long as the difficulty keeps climbing... So yeah, if you want to stay competitive you must have ASIC's and quite a few of them.

A Chinese mining farm would help, but you can profit with much less if you have cheap electricity

This is a good point.   Mining is centralizing.  Input costs are not more important than ever if you want a real ROI.

[gkv9]

You will need some serious investment that too with free electricity to gain something very high in % on your investments with mining, as next year halving will be taking place, and so rewards will halve though, so making BTC will be much harder than it currently is...
It totally depends mostly upon what price Bitcoin will possess during halving and ahead months...

It does not necessarly take free electricity.  But it does take fairly priced electricity.  With 230 priced btc many of us were doing ok at mining as long as we  use  current gear.  Jump up to 380ish.... and were doing a whole lot better.

Granted it always could change that is the nature of BTC.   But I do not see free as necessary, just a really big bonus.

But that said by you, don't you need your complete BTC on hands to be sold at, while it jumps to 380 or above???
That's where the problem is, you have them invested in mining and you need to be lucky enough to get a genesis block which currently gives a BTC25 reward, which will be halved next year, and so I guess the mining operation earnings in BTC will also see a significant effect of the same...

[mayax]

You will need some serious investment that too with free electricity to gain something very high in % on your investments with mining, as next year halving will be taking place, and so rewards will halve though, so making BTC will be much harder than it currently is...
It totally depends mostly upon what price Bitcoin will possess during halving and ahead months...

It does not necessarly take free electricity.  But it does take fairly priced electricity.  With 230 priced btc many of us were doing ok at mining as long as we  use  current gear.  Jump up to 380ish.... and were doing a whole lot better.

Granted it always could change that is the nature of BTC.   But I do not see free as necessary, just a really big bonus.

But that said by you, don't you need your complete BTC on hands to be sold at, while it jumps to 380 or above???
That's where the problem is, you have them invested in mining and you need to be lucky enough to get a genesis block which currently gives a BTC25 reward, which will be halved next year, and so I guess the mining operation earnings in BTC will also see a significant effect of the same...

right. the chinese miners will shut down their operations.there is no reason to "mine" if you get small rewards(money).

[notlist3d]

You will need some serious investment that too with free electricity to gain something very high in % on your investments with mining, as next year halving will be taking place, and so rewards will halve though, so making BTC will be much harder than it currently is...
It totally depends mostly upon what price Bitcoin will possess during halving and ahead months...

It does not necessarly take free electricity.  But it does take fairly priced electricity.  With 230 priced btc many of us were doing ok at mining as long as we  use  current gear.  Jump up to 380ish.... and were doing a whole lot better.

Granted it always could change that is the nature of BTC.   But I do not see free as necessary, just a really big bonus.

But that said by you, don't you need your complete BTC on hands to be sold at, while it jumps to 380 or above???
That's where the problem is, you have them invested in mining and you need to be lucky enough to get a genesis block which currently gives a BTC25 reward, which will be halved next year, and so I guess the mining operation earnings in BTC will also see a significant effect of the same...

Actually I'm holding as I think it will go higher.... yes it's risky but I went into this as I enjoy it.  I never risk more then I can lose.  That being said I was profitable at 230... so I could sell at any point now and it's profit.  I just want more.

I had to get rid of some S4's I wish I would have kept as at 230 they were not making as much as compared to value.  I sold them for a good return... so it was a win but if i would have held them another 2 months I would have returned even more.

Having I don't know no one knows.... I'm talking now.  Now lots of miners are profiting if you are not your are missing out or doing it wrong.

[newbitcoins]

The requirements for mining are always rising and will rise as long as the difficulty keeps climbing... So yeah, if you want to stay competitive you must have ASIC's and quite a few of them.

A Chinese mining farm would help, but you can profit with much less if you have cheap electricity

This is a good point.   Mining is centralizing.  Input costs are not more important than ever if you want a real ROI.

The electricity price is most important of all. If you have free/low cost electricity, your miner is still profitable while others are out of money. You can also buy the very cheap old generation miners and still make money.

[nwfella]

based on my observations, it seems that only somehow profitable way (over buying bitcoin directly) is to run some Chinese mining farm next to energy grid with direct contact to ASIC manufacturers.

home mining is definitely dead for majority of world because of electricity expenses. USB gadgets are fine to play with cgminer and linux, but they will not even ROI..

+1 this

Home mining is for the most part basically dead unless you have free or near free electric.  And the situation is going to get quite a bit worse in < 6 months when the block reward drops from 25/BTC to 12.5/BTC (*)

(*) If bitcoin price isn't well over $420-$450 by around 07-24 of next year it's going to get really interesting (not in a good way) in the mining community...even for the larger farms running the most efficient gear currently available!  Particularly if bitcoin difficulty continues along it's current path.

[fr4nkthetank]

based on my observations, it seems that only somehow profitable way (over buying bitcoin directly) is to run some Chinese mining farm next to energy grid with direct contact to ASIC manufacturers.

home mining is definitely dead for majority of world because of electricity expenses. USB gadgets are fine to play with cgminer and linux, but they will not even ROI..

+1 this

Home mining is for the most part basically dead unless you have free or near free electric.  And the situation is going to get quite a bit worse in < 6 months when the block reward drops from 25/BTC to 12.5/BTC (*)

(*) If bitcoin price isn't well over $420-$450 by around 07-24 of next year it's going to get really interesting (not in a good way) in the mining community...even for the larger farms running the most efficient gear currently available!  Particularly if bitcoin difficulty continues along it's current path.

anyone know what the chinese farms are paying on average for electricity ?  this could get interesting....in north america...there are places with VERY cheap electricity...for example I pay 0.048...thats 0.036 US DOLLARS...When its over -12c outside.

[nwfella]

based on my observations, it seems that only somehow profitable way (over buying bitcoin directly) is to run some Chinese mining farm next to energy grid with direct contact to ASIC manufacturers.

home mining is definitely dead for majority of world because of electricity expenses. USB gadgets are fine to play with cgminer and linux, but they will not even ROI..

+1 this

Home mining is for the most part basically dead unless you have free or near free electric.  And the situation is going to get quite a bit worse in < 6 months when the block reward drops from 25/BTC to 12.5/BTC (*)

(*) If bitcoin price isn't well over $420-$450 by around 07-24 of next year it's going to get really interesting (not in a good way) in the mining community...even for the larger farms running the most efficient gear currently available!  Particularly if bitcoin difficulty continues along it's current path.

anyone know what the chinese farms are paying on average for electricity ?  this could get interesting....in north america...there are places with VERY cheap electricity...for example I pay 0.048...thats 0.036 US DOLLARS...When its over -12c outside.

Your rates are extremely low.  Mind if I ask what country those rates are in?

According to https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/average-electricity-prices-kwh.html (circa 2011) it appears as though on average China and India have the overall lowest electricity costs for developed countries.  The thing about China you have to remember though is that a great deal of people over there are setting up humongous hydro power plants to run their mining farms.  (for reference take a look at this setup in China https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1072474.0)

Also, I have heard that China offers all sorts of subsidies insofar as energy is concerned for the 'right actors'.  Whether or not this applies to the above farm I'm not entirely sure.  Either way, with the rates that you currently have you've got a far better chance than the 'snowball in hell chance at ROI' scenario that 99% of the rest of the world is currently in

[fr4nkthetank]

rm

[nwfella]

I'm in Quebec, Canada.  I have heating oil in my home, and the is a program called bi-energy (because here pretty much all heating is electric, and all our electric is hydroelectric).  so warmer than -12celcius = little less than 0.05, and colder its 0.23 cents or something.  so when its colder i switch the heating oil on.  Of course you have initial fee to pay, etc but yeah its pretty cheap.  even at 0.23 cents, I can underclock the miner and still come out profitable.  even break even is okay, because you are heating the home too.  summer, well, its cheap so the garage is pretty hot when i mine.  

Gotta love that hydro electric!!

Gotta say, wee bit jealous here.

[fr4nkthetank]

m

[nwfella]

I'm in Quebec, Canada.  I have heating oil in my home, and the is a program called bi-energy (because here pretty much all heating is electric, and all our electric is hydroelectric).  so warmer than -12celcius = little less than 0.05, and colder its 0.23 cents or something.  so when its colder i switch the heating oil on.  Of course you have initial fee to pay, etc but yeah its pretty cheap.  even at 0.23 cents, I can underclock the miner and still come out profitable.  even break even is okay, because you are heating the home too.  summer, well, its cheap so the garage is pretty hot when i mine.  

Gotta love that hydro electric!!

Gotta say, wee bit jealous here.

huehuehue but now I have no more miners, i'm small scale.  had s1, 2xs3, an s5.  I sold them all.  maybe going to get an s7. 

Very nice.  It amazes me just how energy efficient these units have gotten in such a short period of time.

[fr4nkthetank]

m

[mayax]

based on my observations, it seems that only somehow profitable way (over buying bitcoin directly) is to run some Chinese mining farm next to energy grid with direct contact to ASIC manufacturers.

home mining is definitely dead for majority of world because of electricity expenses. USB gadgets are fine to play with cgminer and linux, but they will not even ROI..

+1 this

Home mining is for the most part basically dead unless you have free or near free electric.  And the situation is going to get quite a bit worse in < 6 months when the block reward drops from 25/BTC to 12.5/BTC (*)

(*) If bitcoin price isn't well over $420-$450 by around 07-24 of next year it's going to get really interesting (not in a good way) in the mining community...even for the larger farms running the most efficient gear currently available!  Particularly if bitcoin difficulty continues along it's current path.

no worry, the price can be easily manipulated so, it will be how much it's necessary

[fr4nkthetank]

I don't mine, I use faucets. Much easier.

Just out of curiosity, how much do you earn by doing that?
Can't be much, right...

Begging is NOT earning.

Edit:  Let me rephrase that.  Taking advantage of the charity of others is not earning.

meh faucets arent really charity.  they have ads and stuff, and they give out small amounts.  a good faucet should make money.

[notlist3d]

I don't mine, I use faucets. Much easier.

Just out of curiosity, how much do you earn by doing that?
Can't be much, right...

Begging is NOT earning.

Edit:  Let me rephrase that.  Taking advantage of the charity of others is not earning.

meh faucets arent really charity.  they have ads and stuff, and they give out small amounts.  a good faucet should make money.

They are not worth the time.   They pay pennies per hour.  I know people say what if BTC is worth X times in 5 years... it could be a ton!

Fact is you are better off buying 5 dollars and spend that time on something else.   I don't think faucets have much to do with state of mining though.  It has nothing to do with mining.

[nwfella]

Yup.  faucets are pretty much just a good introduction for people that aren't ready to jump on board the bitcoin bandwagon with their own hard earned cash at this point.

I also agree with @fr4nkthetank regarding the efficiency of the chips continuing to amaze however I do think the drastic gains in power efficiency are going to start slowing down pretty dramatically this year.

[WhiteLight64]

With free power, what would be the ROI on a 1TH/s miner? Thinking of an S7 for a pool.

[notlist3d]

With free power, what would be the ROI on a 1TH/s miner? Thinking of an S7 for a pool.

It's not one size fit's all on mining.  So many different things that effect this.

What machine are you looking at? (There are a ton of 1T's).  What price did you get it at?  What is your electricity?  Etc.  So  you need to tell a lot more info for us to be able to help.

[WhiteLight64]

Free electricity. Antminer S7 running 24/7

I guess what I'm asking is how profitable a 1T is with free power.

[notlist3d]

Free electricity. Antminer S7 running 24/7

I guess what I'm asking is how profitable a 1T is with free power.

Depends on price you pay for the 1T as far as profit.   If your just wanting to see what it currently mines I like: https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator

With it you can do difficulty the ones like coinwars and such that dont have difficulty so they are really far off.  And we cannot guarantee future difficulty makes it speculation, but still hard to tell exact in a month or even month's.

[WhiteLight64]

Very cool calculator. Played with it a bit, even with free electricity, seems like it would take over a year to break even with S7 efficiency + prices, default 20% diff, assuming everything stayed the same, which it wouldn't.

[Amph]

Very cool calculator. Played with it a bit, even with free electricity, seems like it would take over a year to break even with S7 efficiency + prices, default 20% diff, assuming everything stayed the same, which it wouldn't.

remember that 20%diff is a bit overkill to estimate, because the diff will not grow indefinitely, it will slow down at some point if the price remain there or if the efficiency do not come in

[Xialla]

Very cool calculator. Played with it a bit, even with free electricity, seems like it would take over a year to break even with S7 efficiency + prices, default 20% diff, assuming everything stayed the same, which it wouldn't.

of course. mining is already out of scope of geeks..and it will never change, since bitcoin have at least some dollar value.

[European Central Bank]

Well, I looked into mining when I first became interested. I was turned off the idea real fast. Too fast moving, too many sharp cookies.

[notlist3d]

Very cool calculator. Played with it a bit, even with free electricity, seems like it would take over a year to break even with S7 efficiency + prices, default 20% diff, assuming everything stayed the same, which it wouldn't.

remember that 20%diff is a bit overkill to estimate, because the diff will not grow indefinitely, it will slow down at some point if the price remain there or if the efficiency do not come in

I would agree it's slowing down some.  Price has risen a little but not to the level of how fast difficulty is.  I think it will slow down a little until more get next gen gear... then I predict fast paced again.

So really hard to tell long term, and there is ofcourse having eventually.

[Lutzow]

Very cool calculator. Played with it a bit, even with free electricity, seems like it would take over a year to break even with S7 efficiency + prices, default 20% diff, assuming everything stayed the same, which it wouldn't.

remember that 20%diff is a bit overkill to estimate, because the diff will not grow indefinitely, it will slow down at some point if the price remain there or if the efficiency do not come in

I would agree it's slowing down some.  Price has risen a little but not to the level of how fast difficulty is.  I think it will slow down a little until more get next gen gear... then I predict fast paced again.

So really hard to tell long term, and there is ofcourse having eventually.

S7 and S5 prices continues to go down in hashnest market despite btc being on a low side as well. Current ROI is quite high but still people are selling their hashes trying to get out of cloud mining due to the difficulty increases.