Ethereum mining still profitable?

[Eliovp]

will we be able to mine for 1 more year ? Is it possible for Eth to be turn into solid POS coin by this time ? I think 7950/7970/R9280x r the most efficient cards for mining Ethereum. Is there any timeline of schedule for Eth to be turn into POS only coin ?

By the time it goes POS, ETH mining won't be profitable anymore with the huge difficulty increases. I predict only 2 more months of profitable mining.

By then it will become like BTC mining where there are none to little profits with those with free electricity.

Huh?

When it goes POS <-- there won't be any more hardware mining done anymore because it's "POS".

And i don't really understand why you're making a comparison with BTC mining.
BTC mining is still profitable. I have a few asics running, they're profitable, just not as much as gpu mining is at this moment.

[malekbaba]

will we be able to mine for 1 more year ? Is it possible for Eth to be turn into solid POS coin by this time ? I think 7950/7970/R9280x r the most efficient cards for mining Ethereum. Is there any timeline of schedule for Eth to be turn into POS only coin ?

By the time it goes POS, ETH mining won't be profitable anymore with the huge difficulty increases. I predict only 2 more months of profitable mining.

By then it will become like BTC mining where there are none to little profits with those with free electricity.

Only 2 months ? Do you have any reference for this sort of news? How do you even measure the duration ?

[Tmdz]

There is no timeline or date that they want to switch over to POS, watch this video for more info and to answer some questions. (9:40 talks about the switch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWnAtyrFHc0&feature=youtu.be

As far as POW mining we should be able to mine at least another year probably longer, I don't see them switching over until ethereum starts gaining a lot more popularity and value in the coin.  Personally I wouldn't worry about the dag file either...you can mine with a 2gb card for another year and by the time it does become a concern you will probably have upgraded to newer gpu's anyway.  Also lets not forget that Decred is also a good coin to mine also, it has only been out on the market for a little over a month but has nice mining returns similar to ether and was developed by some bitcoin devs.  

So I wouldn't worry too much.

[adaseb]

Its common sense that if something is very profitable more and more people are going to want to get into it.

It doesn't take a genius to start mining. Its basically free money. Hence it will become more and more competitive and that will cut into everyones profits.

The next month or so should be very good profits for most. But in 6 months or so, maybe the ones with cheap electricity will be only able to mine.

The only roadblocks I can see are if GPUs get sold out everywhere and that will halt the difficulty jumps but right now there is still massive supply everywhere and even Nvidia cards can mine ETH unlike the Litecoin AMD day.

BTC is a perfect example, its was very profitable during certain times but then everybody wanted a piece of the pie and right now the profits are very very low for most. Only the ones with free electricity make good money with Bitcoin.

[Za1n]

Its common sense that if something is very profitable more and more people are going to want to get into it.

It doesn't take a genius to start mining. Its basically free money. Hence it will become more and more competitive and that will cut into everyones profits.

The next month or so should be very good profits for most. But in 6 months or so, maybe the ones with cheap electricity will be only able to mine.

The only roadblocks I can see are if GPUs get sold out everywhere and that will halt the difficulty jumps but right now there is still massive supply everywhere and even Nvidia cards can mine ETH unlike the Litecoin AMD day.

BTC is a perfect example, its was very profitable during certain times but then everybody wanted a piece of the pie and right now the profits are very very low for most. Only the ones with free electricity make good money with Bitcoin.

I disagree and think it will remain profitable until ETH goes PoS. You cannot compare it with Bitcoin mining, as when the ASICs started, GPUs quickly became obsolete due to the arms race, not because more people got involved. In fact, this caused the opposite to happen as the price of dedicated ASICs started to out-price home miners, the amount of individual miners declined. As long as the Ethereum algorithm remains ASIC resistant, or at least until PoS, it will remain viable to mine.

While it is indeed true that more people will look to bring more GPU's online, this is in itself limited as to how far it can scale. The early ASIC's effectively replaced 10 GPUs, then later on 20, and now 100 or even 1000's in equivalent hashing power. Multiply a large BTC miner today with 100's of such ASICs now and you can see this represents 100's of thousands, or even millions of GPU's worth of hashing power, which would have been impossible to scale to if mining remained in the hands of GPU only.

[adaseb]

I highly doubt it will remain profitable until POS. Maybe by profitable you mean making $0.20 a day with a 280X?

Right now a 280X makes $5 per day.

In the last 30 days, the hashrate pretty much doubled, but the price went up quadruple, so its ok.

Assume price stays where it is. Assume starting hashrate of 1400Gh/s which is where we are at right now. Hashrate went up by 750Gh/s every month.

In 30 days, a 280X will make $3.25 per day.
In 2 months, $2.41
in 3 months, $1.92
in 4 months, $1.59
in 5 months, $1.36

Only way how a 280X will make $5 constantly for the next 6 months is if it surpases BTC in marketcap, which is highly unlikely.

Enjoy the profits right now while they last because it won't always be like this. Trust me I was around for the BTC, and LTC mining days, even X11. These days everybody is smart and they do what they can to maximize profits.

But who knows, the hashrate increase is based on adding around 1250 R9 280X GPUs a day, so maybe there will be hopefully supply shortages.


Or the devs who own 72,000,000 ETH will start dumping and cause the price to crash.

[malekbaba]

Is there any clear schedule by when the ETH will become POS only coin ? Who knows it ? I asked several times but no one was able to answer. I think if POW phase remains viable, we will get profit like now for couple of months. Because there are ETH haters also and they will switch to another coins. New miners will enter into ETH mining and naturally some miners will leave ETH.

[adaseb]

Is there any clear schedule by when the ETH will become POS only coin ? Who knows it ? I asked several times but no one was able to answer. I think if POW phase remains viable, we will get profit like now for couple of months. Because there are ETH haters also and they will switch to another coins. New miners will enter into ETH mining and naturally some miners will leave ETH.

The POS switch is up to the devs. Nobody knows exactly when it will take place. Could be next month or next year.

[Ayers]

there are other coins that are profitable, or offer the same profit as ethereum, if they dump ethereum they will pump another one, some miners will leave and other will remain, you can bet that at least one remain profitable, if not, you wait for the second coming of "a etheruem like coin"

[adaseb]

Besides ETH, most alt coins were garbage. Had very low market caps and I made like $0.25 per day with a 280X for like the last 12 months. Quark was good for like a month or so but besides that, there was nothing to mine really.

DASH is bad for mining due to the nodes stealing most of the mining profits.

[malekbaba]

we earned/ mined $0.30 max with 970 even few months ago. We are getting $5+ per day. hope this profitable time will exist for a while

[adaseb]

we earned/ mined $0.30 max with 970 even few months ago. We are getting $5+ per day. hope this profitable time will exist for a while

Exactly its was pretty bad that most just sold their GPUs on eBay and bought an Antminer since they were less of a hassle to manage.

[Tmdz]

Hopefully Decred gets a nice boom for their price over the coming months and that will give a second home to gpu miners as well, that should spread out the hash rate more and slow diff increases.

[adaseb]

Hopefully Decred gets a nice boom for their price over the coming months and that will give a second home to gpu miners as well, that should spread out the hash rate more and slow diff increases.

Decred doesn't have a large market cap, only like $2.5 million

[Tmdz]

Decred is also very new and there is a much more restrictive supply so if and when new money comes in then it will have a greater effect on coin price.

[malekbaba]

blake and Eth is the sweet spot even for now. Do not know how long Pow phase of Eth will exist but hope decred will get loads of hashes from gpu miners like us

[conv3rsion]

BTC mining is still profitable. I have a few asics running, they're profitable, just not as much as gpu mining is at this moment.

Do you have free electricity?  Otherwise then no they probably aren't.

[Eliovp]

BTC mining is still profitable. I have a few asics running, they're profitable, just not as much as gpu mining is at this moment.

Do you have free electricity?  Otherwise then no they probably aren't.

Even 10 cents profit is profit, thus profitable.

 

[malekbaba]

BTC mining is still profitable. I have a few asics running, they're profitable, just not as much as gpu mining is at this moment.

Do you have free electricity?  Otherwise then no they probably aren't.

Even 10 cents profit is profit, thus profitable.

 

nothing is free. Yes even 10 cents profit is a profit. may be not that much profit, but it is also a profit

[adaseb]

BTC mining is still profitable. I have a few asics running, they're profitable, just not as much as gpu mining is at this moment.

Do you have free electricity?  Otherwise then no they probably aren't.

Even 10 cents profit is profit, thus profitable.

 

nothing is free. Yes even 10 cents profit is a profit. may be not that much profit, but it is also a profit

Its better to sell the card for like $150 then make 10 cents a day profit.