Not-for-Profit Mining

[tcp_rst]

There seems to be tacit acceptance that bitcoin mining is only done for profit.  I mine at a profit, though it's miniscule.  But even if my mining was at a slight loss I'd continue to do so (my tolerance for loss == my tolerance for my wife nagging me about the electric bill    ).  I'm upgrading to ASIC even if I never make money on it.  I also run a full bitcoin node 24/7, both for the same reason--they're activities that contribute positively to the network.  There are other reasons too, mostly involving intense curiosity and fascination with numerous facets of the bitcoin ecosystem.

Now don't get me wrong:  I'm not knocking anyone's motivations. Whatever drives you is your thing and ultimately it still contributes to the network so there's no loss of respect from me.  I guess I'm mostly curious to know if there are others out there like me who don't care too terribly much about the balance sheet where mining is concerned.

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[os2sam]

There seems to be tacit acceptance that bitcoin mining is only done for profit.  I mine at a profit, though it's miniscule.  But even if my mining was at a slight loss I'd continue to do so (my tolerance for loss == my tolerance for my wife nagging me about the electric bill    ).  I'm upgrading to ASIC even if I never make money on it.  I also run a full bitcoin node 24/7, both for the same reason--they're activities that contribute positively to the network.  There are other reasons too, mostly involving intense curiosity and fascination with numerous facets of the bitcoin ecosystem.

Now don't get me wrong:  I'm not knocking anyone's motivations. Whatever drives you is your thing and ultimately it still contributes to the network so there's no loss of respect from me.  I guess I'm mostly curious to know if there are others out there like me who don't care too terribly much about the balance sheet where mining is concerned.

The mine for profit folks are just very vocal and often quick to tell others how idiotic they are for mining at a loss at the moment.

There are allot of folks like myself, I suspect, that are mining for the long term and want to contribute to the network as you described.

So I would say I'm much like you that I don't care about the balance sheet today.  But I do expect it to pay off in the long run. If not then I still had some fun and learned allot.  That's worth something too.
Sam

[crazyates]

Why would I mine at a loss? To secure the network? My unprofitable means of mining don't add much to the network in terms of security. My mining profits that allow me to buy more hardware and grow DO secure the network.

[os2sam]

Why would I mine at a loss? To secure the network? My unprofitable means of mining don't add much to the network in terms of security. My mining profits that allow me to buy more hardware and grow DO secure the network.

At the moment very few are mining at a loss because Bitcoin is at a very good price.

But if I were mining at a loss at the moment, in the future I believe the value will increase dramatically, unless Bitcoin fails.  I don't think it will.

I'm mining as an investment.  So I will continue no matter how much the near term value fluctuates.

I'm certainly not asking you to mine at a loss nor suggesting you should.  Also I think reinvesting your profits into more/better mining gear is a great idea as well.
Sam

[Gomeler]

I mined for a very tiny 'profit' for a few months when BTC was hovering in the $1-3 range. I however kept mining and hoarded the coins until I sold at $12 USD in December of last year. I now reget it but it was still more of a profit than had I sold the coins the moment I mined. I'm now at the point where I'll be mining with GPUs until I'm mining for a slight loss and then I'll switch to LTC. I'll be holding these bitcoins as I've recovered all my original investment and then some. Hopefully my current 'loss' will yield a big profit in the longterm.

[crazyates]

I did something similar. I got into BTC right after the 2011 bubble, and by the time I got my first GPU mining, the price was ~$2. I kept at it, as the difficulty was low enough it was still a small profit.