Beginning of mining and hardware investment.

[Sparky10]

Hello. Sparky here, I've become interested in the Bitcoin world about 2 months ago. Thinking you have to pay for bitcoin changed last week when I found out you can create your own by mining.
The latest mining hardware looks fancy and definitely has a sticker price with it to boot. My question is. If you go out and just buy 10 of the new S7 miners and just run em on a rack in your garage 24/7, can that be profitable?
What does one need to know/understand how the mining process works. Is it just a simple plug and play of the mining equipment or do you need a phd in computer science to understand it all?

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[achow101]

It may or may not be profitable. The profitability depends on the exchange rate, the difficulty, and your electricity rates. There are bitcoin mining profitability calculators that you can use, but keep in mind that the difficulty changes and that can screw with your profits because it can be unpredictable.

As for how much you need to know, you will need to know how to run things from the command line at a bare minimum. However more advanced knowledge is needed for more advanced optimization and configuring.

[Sparky10]

is there a read a.k.a guide on what this bare minimum is?
Ive played with the calculators and with my local kilowatt hour at .14 its calculating a $2800 profit annually per S7. Of course thats a "perfect world" scenario and in no way guarantees anything, but still keeps me interested and wanting to join the "rat race" for bitcoins.
But before spending actually $ on hardware, what do I need to know?

[pj40]

is there a read a.k.a guide on what this bare minimum is?
Ive played with the calculators and with my local kilowatt hour at .14 its calculating a $2800 profit annually per S7. Of course thats a "perfect world" scenario and in no way guarantees anything, but still keeps me interested and wanting to join the "rat race" for bitcoins.
But before spending actually $ on hardware, what do I need to know?

No idea where you get a $2800 annual profit per miner.  At .14/KWh you're playing a losing game.  Every 2 weeks difficulty rises and that lowers profit even more.

[fro85]

Everyone I see wants to dump money without reading into mining. I'm knew and invested into two S3 antminers in order to learn and see where mining takes me.  But at 14 cents you better redo your math.

[DebitMe]

I would recommend starting a little smaller and easing yourself in.  There is a lot to know about mining and it is more complicated than just plugging in 10 machines and making money.  Start with some S3's or S2's to get a feel for what it will be like and what will be required of you when you expand.  Somethings to think about are, finding enough electricity to power your equipment, power supplies, cooling that much heat, noise, internet requirements.  There are more, but that is a good place to start and why you should start with cheaper machines to figure out some problems.

Take everything people say about profitability with a grain of salt, the fact of the matter is, not a single person knows how profitable it would be to buy an S7.  Go to bitcoinwisdom and use the mining calculator their with your own numbers to get an idea of how much you could make.  The biggest unknown will be the difficulty climb, and this is why no one knows how much you will make.  Anyone who puts a number out there literally has no idea, and probably doesn't understand much about the bitcoin ecosystem.  Do the calculations on your own, then you have no one but yourself to be mad at if it doesn't work out, but it also gives you the best numbers you can feel good about.

[VirosaGITS]

is there a read a.k.a guide on what this bare minimum is?
Ive played with the calculators and with my local kilowatt hour at .14 its calculating a $2800 profit annually per S7. Of course thats a "perfect world" scenario and in no way guarantees anything, but still keeps me interested and wanting to join the "rat race" for bitcoins.
But before spending actually $ on hardware, what do I need to know?

You need to use this calculator.
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator

The mining earning changes every 2 ish weeks, because the network re target the difficulty to finding blocks depending on if the network hashrate increased. If you look here;
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

You will see that the difficulty has increased dramatically, so if you input the difficulty increase at an average of 8%, you will see that you stand to lose a lot with your very high electricity rate.

You'd be better off using hosting services that does 0.08-0.09 and those are still expensive as they run at that cost to make money off you.

[Sparky10]

The hardware portion I understand. I already have 240 volt at my house, 50mbit line and live in a cold climate most of the year so thats not an issue. I want to know where to start reading as far as the software portion goes.

[VirosaGITS]

The hardware portion I understand. I already have 240 volt at my house, 50mbit line and live in a cold climate most of the year so thats not an issue. I want to know where to start reading as far as the software portion goes.

There's no reading to do, you just plug your ethernet cable into the miner, use any networked device with a web browser to enter the miner's IP and input the pool you want it to mine at and you're done.

Pretty sure the documentation on the miner covers everything, if using a web browser and filling some fields is alien to you. But, being here and typing on this forum is harder than configuring your miner.

[alh]

As others have said, I would suggest that you "start small". If you can, or can't, make money with a single S7, having 9 more won't make anything better. Be prepared to sell your miner in the next six months if you want to try and recoup some of your costs. Just using the Bitcoin wisdom calculator, you will almost certainly turn from an operating profit to an operating loss sometime in June, if all goes really well. That time window could easily shrink to 3 months.

The "halving" (i.e. when the BTC reward within a block shrinks from 25 BTC to 12.5) is expected to happen sometime in late June or early July of 2016. Most calculators don't take that into account.

$.14 power is poor starting point for any serious (i.e. not a hobby) mining operation. I consider 10 S7'sa "serious" mining operation. While it may look "easy" it's hardly a risk free way to acquire Bitcoin. It's easy to spend more on mining than the BTC received.

[Sparky10]

I just looked closely at my electric bill and my kwh charge is actually .07257 and a .03194 delivery charge with a few other little taxes here and there. The .14kwh rate I just got from a local Google search. So my rate is .10 per kwh.
Even starting out I just don't want to use something with a smaller hash rate, just like you wouldn't go NASCAR racing in a golf cart.

[VirosaGITS]

I just looked closely at my electric bill and my kwh charge is actually .07257 and a .03194 delivery charge with a few other little taxes here and there. The .14kwh rate I just got from a local Google search. So my rate is .10 per kwh.
Even starting out I just don't want to use something with a smaller hash rate, just like you wouldn't go NASCAR racing in a golf cart.

Thats not really how it works. Its about how much you pay $/gh. And how much you pay for your electricity.

So with your .10 per kWh on a S7, you would profit for 6 months, having paid 40% back of the unit + PSU, then spend as much as you earn for the next few, and then the halving halve your BTC return and you're left with units worth little and 600 USD loss per unit.  8% Diff raise, stable BTC price.

[Sparky10]

well then, that's no fun. I better stick to my job before i call the boss. But if the S7 drops value that fast, shouldn't you be able to buy an S3 "buy 1 get 10 free" style?

[VirosaGITS]

well then, that's no fun. I better stick to my job before i call the boss. But if the S7 drops value that fast, shouldn't you be able to buy an S3 "buy 1 get 10 free" style?

Values of miners eventually kind of bottoms out. New miners always devalue very quickly.

The S7 was 1800-1900 at first and now its 1000-1350 in very little time. Eventually it will stabilize, since soon after a new generation enter, the difficulty goes mad. Value of hardware depend on profitability, so with new hardware entering the market automatically = to a devaluation of every miners.

The S3 are very nice and pretty cheap, you can probably get some for 80$USD~ But its useful for others, while probably not useful for you, because of your electricity cost.

However, if you need heating during the winter, then buying some miners to heat with ASIC instead of normal heating mean you make a bit of money instead of having to pay for heating.

[Sparky10]

Ha I just thought of something. What if I ran a couple of miners in my double bunk OTR Volvo truck. The company pays for the fuel and I got all the power I want already @ 12 volt and my unlimited data plan from Verizon will cover the internet connection. That'd be all profit after equipment, ha.
Right now the truck pretty much runs 24/7 when Im in it, Monday to Friday or Saturday straight.

[notlist3d]

Ha I just thought of something. What if I ran a couple of miners in my double bunk OTR Volvo truck. The company pays for the fuel and I got all the power I want already @ 12 volt and my unlimited data plan from Verizon will cover the internet connection. That'd be all profit after equipment, ha.
Right now the truck pretty much runs 24/7 when Im in it, Monday to Friday or Saturday straight.

And serious miner uses a LOT of power.  I think you will be wasting a lot.... for a little income if that.   I can't imagine a truck being a great place to run a miner.

And if the company notices.  You lose job?  Possible really bad outcome... don't  do it.

[VirosaGITS]

Ha I just thought of something. What if I ran a couple of miners in my double bunk OTR Volvo truck. The company pays for the fuel and I got all the power I want already @ 12 volt and my unlimited data plan from Verizon will cover the internet connection. That'd be all profit after equipment, ha.
Right now the truck pretty much runs 24/7 when Im in it, Monday to Friday or Saturday straight.

You might find that 12v @ 110-500amp is going to drain looots of fuel. That sound like a pretty bad way to go about it. Though if your job does not notice your gaz consumption get suddenly multiplied by 20, they deserve to lose the money.

[Sparky10]

why would it use more fuel my truck has a 200 amp alternator its spinning all day anyways and 1300 watts at 12 volt is a little over 100 amps. Even when idling I gotta run the PTO so it doesn't shut off so its always making electricity. on top of the 4 giant deep cycle batteries each holding lots of juice as well.

[notlist3d]

why would it use more fuel my truck has a 200 amp alternator its spinning all day anyways and 1300 watts at 12 volt is a little over 100 amps. Even when idling I gotta run the PTO so it doesn't shut off so its always making electricity. on top of the 4 giant deep cycle batteries each holding lots of juice as well.

I find it hard to believe that using the electricity is same amount of use as not using it.... I could be off on it that just seems wrong.  But either way you really don't want to run around with a miner in your truck what will you do with heat exhust? Or bringing in new air?

And biggest thing is it worth it for your employer to possibly catch you and you lose your job?  So seems like it would be not very ethical, and big chance of losing job if caught.

[RichBC]

why would it use more fuel my truck has a 200 amp alternator its spinning all day anyways and 1300 watts at 12 volt is a little over 100 amps. Even when idling I gotta run the PTO so it doesn't shut off so its always making electricity. on top of the 4 giant deep cycle batteries each holding lots of juice as well.

I find it hard to believe that using the electricity is same amount of use as not using it.... I could be off on it that just seems wrong.  But either way you really don't want to run around with a miner in your truck what will you do with heat exhust? Or bringing in new air?

And biggest thing is it worth it for your employer to possibly catch you and you lose your job?  So seems like it would be not very ethical, and big chance of losing job if caught.

When you switch on the Miner and it takes it's 100 Amps you will hear the engine rev up and take the load. It will significantly increase the fuel consumption v having the engine idling.

Someone, not me, can probably do the maths on what the fuel cost will be?


Rich