it mining worth it these days?

[mishrahsigni]

Hello all,

I am thinking of setting up a mining operation.

according to http://blockexplorer.com/q/getdifficulty the current difficulty is 2968775.3320751 and the rate is 18.08342 (MTGOX), and the butterfly BitForce Single 'SC' is 60 GH/s... so... according the calculator at http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator I could mine 309 BTCs /month

I know calculating these estimates is not totally accurate, but if this estimate is anywhere near realistic, it seems like a good idea.

I guess I am just double checking with y'all in  case I missed something obvious... I ma kind of new to BTC so there are some things I don't yet fully understand.

Thanks for your feedback, and apologies if this has already been asked and answered somewhere in this forum.

[1713524488]

1713524488

[1713524488]

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[bonker]

Hello all,

I am thinking of setting up a mining operation.

according to http://blockexplorer.com/q/getdifficulty the current difficulty is 2968775.3320751 and the rate is 18.08342 (MTGOX), and the butterfly BitForce Single 'SC' is 60 GH/s... so... according the calculator at http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator I could mine 309 BTCs /month

I know calculating these estimates is not totally accurate, but if this estimate is anywhere near realistic, it seems like a good idea.

I guess I am just double checking with y'all in  case I missed something obvious... I ma kind of new to BTC so there are some things I don't yet fully understand.

Thanks for your feedback, and apologies if this has already been asked and answered somewhere in this forum.

The whole ASIC thing is goofy as fuck. I wouldn't plan anything by them, assuming they exist.

[SgtSpike]

No one has ASICs yet, and the difficulty will be pumped up to at least 5x what it is now in a short period of time.  So take that 309 BTC and divide by 5, and you get an idea of what your earnings might be a few months from now when you actually receive an ASIC purchased right now.

Still a good deal IMO, but others have projected difficulty quickly going up much higher than this.  And because ASICs are so cheap to produce, the same machine you see selling for $1,300 right now could be sold for $50 next year, you never know.  If that happens, many more will buy, and each one will see that much lower of a return on investment.

[mishrahsigni]

No one has ASICs yet, and the difficulty will be pumped up to at least 5x what it is now in a short period of time.  So take that 309 BTC and divide by 5, and you get an idea of what your earnings might be a few months from now when you actually receive an ASIC purchased right now.

Still a good deal IMO, but others have projected difficulty quickly going up much higher than this.  And because ASICs are so cheap to produce, the same machine you see selling for $1,300 right now could be sold for $50 next year, you never know.  If that happens, many more will buy, and each one will see that much lower of a return on investment.

so, the window of opp is sooner, not later.  Actually, even with 80% reduction (60 BTC's/mo), I would still make the same money as my current salary (I work in Argentina and get paid in pesos).  Although I was not aware that the ASICs were not even shipping. 

Are the people that preorder and pay for an ASIC just sitting around waiting for their ASIC to get built?  That would suck...  for me the bigger problem is getting that puppy into this country.

[Gabi]

Problems in your plan: 1)no one has an asic so far 2)once they will receive them, expect difficulty to skyrocket. 309BTC per month? Yeah sure more like 10 after asic hits the market.

[DeathAndTaxes]

What SgtSpike said but I think it will be more like 10x to 20x in the short term and probably much much higher than that in the long run (100x to 200x is certainly not impossible).

Right now looking at difficulty (which is based on the economics of GPU cost, wattage, etc) and applying it to not yet produced ASICs is just as flawed as looking at CPU difficulty and assumming it would remain the same when GPU miners hit.  In July 2010 it is unlikely anyone was GPU mining.*  Difficulty was ~20 (no not 20 million, 20).  Six months later it was ~10,000. Six months after that it was ~10,000,000.  Will ASICs do the same thing?  Probably not to that magnitude (there were other factors which pumped difficulty up in late 2010) but it shows you the risk involved.

http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-ever.png


* The first public release of a GPU miner was in Sept, 2010 although there are rumors that some were GPU mining in private.  The near vertical rise in difficulty from July to August would seem to suggest that is true.

[SgtSpike]

No one has ASICs yet, and the difficulty will be pumped up to at least 5x what it is now in a short period of time.  So take that 309 BTC and divide by 5, and you get an idea of what your earnings might be a few months from now when you actually receive an ASIC purchased right now.

Still a good deal IMO, but others have projected difficulty quickly going up much higher than this.  And because ASICs are so cheap to produce, the same machine you see selling for $1,300 right now could be sold for $50 next year, you never know.  If that happens, many more will buy, and each one will see that much lower of a return on investment.

so, the window of opp is sooner, not later.  Actually, even with 80% reduction (60 BTC's/mo), I would still make the same money as my current salary (I work in Argentina and get paid in pesos).  Although I was not aware that the ASICs were not even shipping. 

Are the people that preorder and pay for an ASIC just sitting around waiting for their ASIC to get built?  That would suck...  for me the bigger problem is getting that puppy into this country.

Yes, the window of opportunity is sooner, not later indeed.  Unless you consider the possibility of a significant price drop, which I don't believe is out of the question.  There ARE multiple ASIC companies, and they are competing with each other.  It could result in price wars that drop the prices by half very quickly.

And yes, everyone is just sitting around waiting for their ASICs to get built at this point.  I imagine many more will order once people start receiving them.

The volatility of the Bitcoin price is also something to consider.  Earlier today, we were at $19/BTC.  Now we're at $16/BTC.  We've seen a drop from $32 to $2 in the past.  Basically, the income potential is there, but it is not 100% reliable either.

Also, some people say the ASIC companies are scams.  One of them already went bankrupt and is refunding everyone's money.  The next might fall without refunds, you never know.

All of this said, if I had more money, I would throw it down in a heartbeat on more BFL mining machines.  As it is, I have two of the SC Singles on order.

Problems in your plan: 1)no one has an asic so far 2)once they will receive them, expect difficulty to skyrocket. 309BTC per month? Yeah sure more like 10 after asic hits the market.

Na, it'll still be a lot more than 10 BTC a month for quite a while after ASICs are released.  Without a significant drop in ASIC prices, it'll take at least a year (though I'd say more likely three) for difficulty to creep up to the point where 60 GH/s only makes 10 BTC a month.

[WiW]

I know nothing about mining, but since the difficulty adjusts itself, the ROI on mining should be pretty stable throughout the course of time. Of course, naturally spikes in either direction are expected (as the time to find a block does the same), but the network kind of adjusts itself.

Your number one considerations should be competition with other miners. If you have ASIC and everyone has ASIC, you'll still have a block pumped out about once every 10 seconds and you get whatever portion of it. It's hardware power efficiency vs. price of power. Some miners have free power and you can't really compete with that. Some miners have access to high end hardware and you can't compete with that. Some have both. But in general, since the difficulty is adjusted to the hash rate, everything around will adjust itself so that ROI on mining is pretty constant, and probably as competitive as people can get (which in the case of free power/hardware is pretty tough).

[Lethn]

I'd honestly recommend saving up and making a Bitcoin business instead, I think there are too many miners in the market now and it's only going to get more difficult for casual or newbie miners to get in and make money.

[Logik]

I found this link from BFL interesting - Get Right Quick?  Not So Fast.

In some other threads around these forums, I have heard people discussing the same topic and come to the conclusion that a 'Single' from BFL could pay for itself after 6 months, and then produce diminishing amounts of BTC after that.

If you invested $1299 and it paid off after 6 months, and then you made, lets say, $60/month every month at a declining rate of -$10/month, would you consider that $1299 a good investment? If so, then mining could be OK.

The first in line for the ASICs will get most of the benefit. You stand to lose the most if you pre-order one now. Why? Because if you pre-order from BFL now, in my humble opinion, it will be a long time before you receive it. Then you've lost the $1299 opportunity costs and by the time you receive your ASIC, the difficulty would have gone up, and those people who received the first generation ASIC are probably pre-ordering the 2nd gen ASIC with double the power.

tl;dr: Consensus seems to be that you could make a small amount of money with ASIC mining, but don't expect that much unless you are one of the first batch.

[John (John K.)]

I found this link from BFL interesting - Get Right Quick?  Not So Fast.

In some other threads around these forums, I have heard people discussing the same topic and come to the conclusion that a 'Single' from BFL could pay for itself after 6 months, and then produce diminishing amounts of BTC after that.

If you invested $1299 and it paid off after 6 months, and then you made, lets say, $60/month every month at a declining rate of -$10/month, would you consider that $1299 a good investment? If so, then mining could be OK.

The first in line for the ASICs will get most of the benefit. You stand to lose the most if you pre-order one now. Why? Because if you pre-order from BFL now, in my humble opinion, it will be a long time before you receive it. Then you've lost the $1299 opportunity costs and by the time you receive your ASIC, the difficulty would have gone up, and those people who received the first generation ASIC are probably pre-ordering the 2nd gen ASIC with double the power.

tl;dr: Consensus seems to be that you could make a small amount of money with ASIC mining, but don't expect that much unless you are one of the first batch.

This. Assuming ASIC's come out at all this year.

[SgtSpike]

I know nothing about mining, but since the difficulty adjusts itself, the ROI on mining should be pretty stable throughout the course of time. Of course, naturally spikes in either direction are expected (as the time to find a block does the same), but the network kind of adjusts itself.

Your number one considerations should be competition with other miners. If you have ASIC and everyone has ASIC, you'll still have a block pumped out about once every 10 seconds and you get whatever portion of it. It's hardware power efficiency vs. price of power. Some miners have free power and you can't really compete with that. Some miners have access to high end hardware and you can't compete with that. Some have both. But in general, since the difficulty is adjusted to the hash rate, everything around will adjust itself so that ROI on mining is pretty constant, and probably as competitive as people can get (which in the case of free power/hardware is pretty tough).

No, you wouldn't have blocks pumped out about once every 10 seconds.  Every 10 minutes, yes.

[Macht]

No, you wouldn't have blocks pumped out about once every 10 seconds.  Every 10 minutes, yes.

Yes, as difficulty will adjust. Seriously, I would be very careful to invest in mining. Once the asics arrive, mining will only be viable for ppl who have invested in them. And as prices for asics are high atm, I'm not sure it will be worth your money.

[sounds]

If ASICs continue to be more profitable than FPGAs then more people will buy, pushing the difficulty up until ASICs are not more profitable than FPGAs.

It's a speculation game / race to the bottom to try to get one before everyone else.

[PeterChang]

So would ordering an ASIC be a good idea? Avalon is getting ready for a second batch and Butterfly Labs is scheduled to ship in mid-February.

[bonker]

So would ordering an ASIC be a good idea? Avalon is getting ready for a second batch and Butterfly Labs is scheduled to ship in mid-February.

Before sending anyone any cash please remember every deliver deadline has been missed and no-one has ever seen a working ASIC. Then bear in mind that any company selling ASICs rather than mining with them is an economically dubious strategy.

Quite an interesting quote to ponder while you're handing cash over pre-order: "A fool and his money are soon parted".

[Macht]

So would ordering an ASIC be a good idea? Avalon is getting ready for a second batch and Butterfly Labs is scheduled to ship in mid-February.

For someone who has no or almost no experience with serious mining (like me for example), I would be very careful. But it might help you to start calculating a bit. The numbers that are out so far are very vague and the ones concerning asics have to be looked at very skeptically. Might be different for ppl who have connections to the producers or other insider info. But still, you could start calculating your costs (fix and running) and the possible income (best/worst cases) for the next years.
Cause it's not gonna pay of - if ever - within a couple of months. That's my opinion and I'm very new, but consider one thing: With the high values of bitcoins (atm), and the years bc already exists, miners have constantly improved their knowledge and skills and have professionalised. So getting into mining you will have extremely strong competition.

[Gabi]

1)So far no ASIC has been delivered.  It seems someone shipped ASIC but so far no one received anything.
2)If they will be really delivered then it will be the only way to mine. Fpga or gpu will be useless, exactly like cpu is useless today. So if in the future you will want to mine, it will be asic mining. (wich is a good thing btw...)
3)Do not expect to become rich! Everyone will buy them, difficulty will skyrocket and profit will be more or less like today. 10 BTC per month is too few you say? For something wich cost 1300$? How many BTC can you mine today in a month if you spend 1300$?

[Frequency]

ASIC are making new potential miners scared..to invest and join the game..

1) they will just wait..wait wait ..read read read wait wait...
2) or are stupid enough to pre-order one before any proof is given,
( bAsic is fraud, my guess Avalon is fraud to, we will know very soon, BFL well just read some Inaba/Josh posts and you now who you are dealing with   )

.. this is why the current hashrate vs diff. is still the same and stabel for months now.. this is a very good point for big gpu investers (see point 1 and 2) who have (almost) no new competion coming into the gpu/fpga game (its a hard comp. already so) i am still buying gpu,s and expanding al long as there are no ASIC,s on the chain..(resell everything very easily when they do hit the markets but not before the next halving day is my guess..)

ASIC keep delaying and the gpu/fpga miners are keep getting a better ROI...maybe the so called ASIC vendor own big gpu/fpga farms themselves and want U noobs to stay out, and take ur money throu pre-orders...who nows..

It may sounds weird and i also use some sarcasm here but donn,t forget this is a niche world only based on trust, and keep one thing in mind also in real life, when it,s about money there few you really can trust,( let alone behind a comp. screen) people do strange things for the thing called money...

Cheerzzzz...     (forget my bad English)

[rs77063]

Maybe it's just the newbie in me, but I'm suspicious of anyone selling mining rigs. If they are so good, why aren't you using them to mine for yourself? You can then cash in the coins and make your money that way?

OK, fine, you're not a mining company, you're a hardware company. Is it really that hard to form another company or partner?