Why is Ethereum actually the only cryptocurrency worth GPU mining?

[adaseb]

Its sound like you want a guaranteed investment and its not the way it works.

Its like the stock market, investment is always risky and you can lose everything.

Right now mining ETH is like free money, and who doesn't want free money. Opportunities like this are always short lived.

This. But the simple fact of having to turn on mining rigs to run for 24 hours every single day is a red light to me. I mean... burned rigs are not so unusual. I'm not necessarily expecting a "get rich fast and free" scheme, but investing in equipments that theoretically can be very lucrative - or a nightmare - if you are disposed (and also able, of course) to discard a big amount of money, which could be better used for some important thing. So yes, I'm expecting a "guaranteed investment" (or at least close to this scenario). Even because I already got screwed in the cryptocurrency world when I went too far by investing in cloud mining. Yeap, that's a dumb thing to do, I know. I learned it the hard way.

I know that ETH is right now good to go. But that's it. The only option actually is Ethereum. Difficulty keeps rising astoundingly fast, so I expect it won't take so much time for it to stop being profitable. At least not for the average Joe, who needs to pay his electric bill, internet provider, etc..

ETH algo uses very little power compared to Scrypt/SHA256, it won't burn out your GPU, don't worry.

[acaciosc]

everyone here is talking like the mining will die after ethereum, there is nothing more wrong

we will talk about another more profitable coin in 1-2 years, guaranteed...

How can you be so sure?

You can't.....last big profit coin to GPU mine was well over a year ago.It just appears to be a "cycle".

I read up on quite a few altcoins (over 150) over the past several years & thought a few had it in them to go big,but nope......not sure why they didn't.....

Eth is a fluke that actually may move up past or equal to BTC,whoda thunk?? 

At least GPU's "store" their value in resale 

Exactly: I can't. Since Ethereum Blockchain is being used by the huge IBM and the almost omnipresent Microsoft, I also expect it to achieve a price at least as big as Bitcoin.
Yes, with a GPU you can sell it for a vast market, unlike an ASIC - the own meaning of this abbreviation points the obviousness, Application Specific Integrated Circuits.  

[antantti]

I had most of the gear and bought a bunch of video cards a month ago, when I started it estimated I would pay my cards off in a month, now it says three. It's a fun hobby but at the rate difficulty is increasing its no big money maker.

Its a mistake newcomers continue to make. Trying to get theirs but it already gone. Even after warnings from the community veterans.

Buy coins not gear.

Buy only used cards that are still under warranty only with the profits you already gained from mining. Win-win.

[limbaugh]

I had most of the gear and bought a bunch of video cards a month ago, when I started it estimated I would pay my cards off in a month, now it says three. It's a fun hobby but at the rate difficulty is increasing its no big money maker.

Its a mistake newcomers continue to make. Trying to get theirs but it already gone. Even after warnings from the community veterans.

Buy coins not gear.

Buy only used cards that are still under warranty only with the profits you already gained from mining. Win-win.

GPU warranties don't transfer. But thanks for the advice anyway.

[adaseb]

I had most of the gear and bought a bunch of video cards a month ago, when I started it estimated I would pay my cards off in a month, now it says three. It's a fun hobby but at the rate difficulty is increasing its no big money maker.

Its a mistake newcomers continue to make. Trying to get theirs but it already gone. Even after warnings from the community veterans.

Buy coins not gear.

Buy only used cards that are still under warranty only with the profits you already gained from mining. Win-win.

GPU warranties don't transfer. But thanks for the advice anyway.

They do with some manufacteurs.

[antantti]

Buy only used cards that are still under warranty only with the profits you already gained from mining. Win-win.

GPU warranties don't transfer. But thanks for the advice anyway.

Where I live they do.

[acaciosc]

At least GPU's "store" their value in resale 

At least until the new gen are released in a few months. Then the resale plummets. Too risky.

Nah, GPUs aren't produced with all that much periodicity and don't lose all that much value. For example, GeForce GTX 970 was produced in September 2014, costing ~$377.60. Now, almost one and a half years later, it costs... ~$354.99.

[Unacceptable]

I failed to mention,I bought mobo's,RAM,CPU's way back in 2011 to mine BTC with GPU's,I still have 6 PCs left from those days.

All was ROI'd way back then,just put em the closet for a rainy day  

Guess what...it's raining    That was about 2 years ago I put em up,they mined alts for abit after BTC went ASIC.

I sold my 5870's,6950's & bought a few 380's,gonna get another 1 or 2 very soon  

BTW,DO NOT BUY GPU's ON EBAY.Just get new ones,the chance you take on getting a faulty GPU isn't worth it............I got a few in a row & I'll buy new from now on 

[acaciosc]

I failed to mention,I bought mobo's,RAM,CPU's way back in 2011 to mine BTC with GPU's,I still have 6 PCs left from those days.

All was ROI'd way back then,just put em the closet for a rainy day  

Guess what...it's raining    That was about 2 years ago I put em up,they mined alts for abit after BTC went ASIC.

I sold my 5870's,6950's & bought a few 380's,gonna get another 1 or 2 very soon  

BTW,DO NOT BUY GPU's ON EBAY.Just get new ones,the chance you take on getting a faulty GPU isn't worth it............I got a few in a row & I'll buy new from now on 

Ouch. I was thinking about buying one R9 280x for only 227 dollars + one Corsair Cx 750W for only 116 dollars. I can't find the same graphics card in any other website where I live. This GPU is classified as very quiet, which is something that matters to me. The ROI would be possible, I guess. According to both whattomine and coinwarz, I'm going to get around 60 dollars per month (22 mh/s, 450W, $0.13 kwh), so it means that I'm going to have a ROI only after 5 months and half, approximately (if these calculators don't "fool" me because of the skyrocketing difficulty, as pointed by catlove, lol). But what do you guys think? Will I ever achieve my ROI or not? Or is it safer (and/or better) to just buy ETH and hold them for quite some time until it... adds one more digit to its price, perhaps? 

[philipma1957]

I failed to mention,I bought mobo's,RAM,CPU's way back in 2011 to mine BTC with GPU's,I still have 6 PCs left from those days.

All was ROI'd way back then,just put em the closet for a rainy day  

Guess what...it's raining    That was about 2 years ago I put em up,they mined alts for abit after BTC went ASIC.

I sold my 5870's,6950's & bought a few 380's,gonna get another 1 or 2 very soon  

BTW,DO NOT BUY GPU's ON EBAY.Just get new ones,the chance you take on getting a faulty GPU isn't worth it............I got a few in a row & I'll buy new from now on 

If in USA buy new from Amazon I am a prime member they have a 30 day return policy pretty much very easy to,and back the card the first 30 days.

They also allow a longer return period during  Black Friday to January 31 st.

Don't know,if the coins will,still be hot this fall but time will tell.

And cards hold value my 3 hd7970"cards have earned more then 400 since apr 2nd.

[acaciosc]

Its sound like you want a guaranteed investment and its not the way it works.

Its like the stock market, investment is always risky and you can lose everything.

Right now mining ETH is like free money, and who doesn't want free money. Opportunities like this are always short lived.

This. But the simple fact of having to turn on mining rigs to run for 24 hours every single day is a red light to me. I mean... burned rigs are not so unusual. I'm not necessarily expecting a "get rich fast and free" scheme, but investing in equipments that theoretically can be very lucrative - or a nightmare - if you are disposed (and also able, of course) to discard a big amount of money, which could be better used for some important thing. So yes, I'm expecting a "guaranteed investment" (or at least close to this scenario). Even because I already got screwed in the cryptocurrency world when I went too far by investing in cloud mining. Yeap, that's a dumb thing to do, I know. I learned it the hard way.

I know that ETH is right now good to go. But that's it. The only option actually is Ethereum. Difficulty keeps rising astoundingly fast, so I expect it won't take so much time for it to stop being profitable. At least not for the average Joe, who needs to pay his electric bill, internet provider, etc..

ETH algo uses very little power compared to Scrypt/SHA256, it won't burn out your GPU, don't worry.

Ok, but I thought that by putting a GPU in intensive use without stopping even for a second or two could harm the card.

[Amph]

everyone here is talking like the mining will die after ethereum, there is nothing more wrong

we will talk about another more profitable coin in 1-2 years, guaranteed...

How can you be so sure?

You can't.....last big profit coin to GPU mine was well over a year ago.It just appears to be a "cycle".

I read up on quite a few altcoins (over 150) over the past several years & thought a few had it in them to go big,but nope......not sure why they didn't.....

Eth is a fluke that actually may move up past or equal to BTC,whoda thunk??  

At least GPU's "store" their value in resale  

those cycle are here since 2013, so, also anyone with 5 cent electricity or lower, and perhaps up to 10 cent, is mining since 2013, every day and he is making profit, evne in those dead time, especially those with 2-3 cent electricity

I failed to mention,I bought mobo's,RAM,CPU's way back in 2011 to mine BTC with GPU's,I still have 6 PCs left from those days.

All was ROI'd way back then,just put em the closet for a rainy day  

Guess what...it's raining    That was about 2 years ago I put em up,they mined alts for abit after BTC went ASIC.

I sold my 5870's,6950's & bought a few 380's,gonna get another 1 or 2 very soon  

BTW,DO NOT BUY GPU's ON EBAY.Just get new ones,the chance you take on getting a faulty GPU isn't worth it............I got a few in a row & I'll buy new from now on 

If in USA buy new from Amazon I am a prime member they have a 30 day return policy pretty much very easy to,and back the card the first 30 days.

They also allow a longer return period during  Black Friday to January 31 st.

Don't know,if the coins will,still be hot this fall but time will tell.

And cards hold value my 3 hd7970"cards have earned more then 400 since apr 2nd.

beaware about that return policy you can not abuse it, if you do that trick too many times they might close your account

already happened here with some folk that has tried to cheat on amazon

[Unacceptable]

I failed to mention,I bought mobo's,RAM,CPU's way back in 2011 to mine BTC with GPU's,I still have 6 PCs left from those days.

All was ROI'd way back then,just put em the closet for a rainy day  

Guess what...it's raining    That was about 2 years ago I put em up,they mined alts for abit after BTC went ASIC.

I sold my 5870's,6950's & bought a few 380's,gonna get another 1 or 2 very soon  

BTW,DO NOT BUY GPU's ON EBAY.Just get new ones,the chance you take on getting a faulty GPU isn't worth it............I got a few in a row & I'll buy new from now on  

Ouch. I was thinking about buying one R9 280x for only 227 dollars + one Corsair Cx 750W for only 116 dollars. I can't find the same graphics card in any other website where I live. This GPU is classified as very quiet, which is something that matters to me. The ROI would be possible, I guess. According to both whattomine and coinwarz, I'm going to get around 60 dollars per month (22 mh/s, 450W, $0.13 kwh), so it means that I'm going to have a ROI only after 5 months and half, approximately (if these calculators don't "fool" me because of the skyrocketing difficulty, as pointed by catlove, lol). But what do you guys think? Will I ever achieve my ROI or not? Or is it safer (and/or better) to just buy ETH and hold them for quite some time until it... adds one more digit to its price, perhaps?  

Those calculators are off by quite abit....just mine for a day & go from there,my 7970 & 380 4gig get about 37mh= .35 eth per day approx.

The card I got is VERY quiet,check it out:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202166

And check return policies with Newegg on Ebay,most DO NOT offer returns...beware!!!!

[xingqiaoyin]

everyone here is talking like the mining will die after ethereum, there is nothing more wrong

we will talk about another more profitable coin in 1-2 years, guaranteed...

How can you be so sure?

because it happened like 3 times already or maybe even more? since 2013 there was always something to mine form time to time, it's not like ethereum was the only coin profitable since altcoin scene went all out

So what? Just because it happened 3 times previously it doesn't mean that it will be the very same thing from now on. I wish I could be that confident.

It happened 3 times because it is powered by an ideal that cryptos are meant to be decentralized. And there's no decentralization scheme better than GPU mining right now. And it didn't happen just 3 times but 4 times with ETH..

BTC was once GPU coin
LTC was once GPU coin
DASH and VTC were once GPU coin
and now ETH...

Decentralization is an ideal.. BTC history will always be associated with decentralization IMO there won't be BTC if 2008 crisis didn't happen. 2008 happens because of centralized economy and when in 2009 someone came up with a currency that doesnt need a central bank the idea simply took off. Ideal will never die ..  and that's why the previous poster felt sure.

[Amph]

everyone here is talking like the mining will die after ethereum, there is nothing more wrong

we will talk about another more profitable coin in 1-2 years, guaranteed...

How can you be so sure?

because it happened like 3 times already or maybe even more? since 2013 there was always something to mine form time to time, it's not like ethereum was the only coin profitable since altcoin scene went all out

So what? Just because it happened 3 times previously it doesn't mean that it will be the very same thing from now on. I wish I could be that confident.

when you see the same thing happening over and over again, you can't simply ignore that fact, and still believing that going against that trend is the right thing to do

it's all about probability, nothing is certain, but if the probability tell me that it will happen again(higher % than not happening) because of the past, then i follow that route

[acaciosc]

everyone here is talking like the mining will die after ethereum, there is nothing more wrong

we will talk about another more profitable coin in 1-2 years, guaranteed...

How can you be so sure?

because it happened like 3 times already or maybe even more? since 2013 there was always something to mine form time to time, it's not like ethereum was the only coin profitable since altcoin scene went all out

So what? Just because it happened 3 times previously it doesn't mean that it will be the very same thing from now on. I wish I could be that confident.

It happened 3 times because it is powered by an ideal that cryptos are meant to be decentralized. And there's no decentralization scheme better than GPU mining right now. And it didn't happen just 3 times but 4 times with ETH..

BTC was once GPU coin
LTC was once GPU coin
DASH and VTC were once GPU coin
and now ETH...

Decentralization is an ideal.. BTC history will always be associated with decentralization IMO there won't be BTC if 2008 crisis didn't happen. 2008 happens because of centralized economy and when in 2009 someone came up with a currency that doesnt need a central bank the idea simply took off. Ideal will never die ..  and that's why the previous poster felt sure.

Ok, thank you for your explanation. Which is the best GPU? http://www.sapphiretech.com/productdetial.asp?pid=C4D1B443-6105-4A63-85DE-1732CC9C443D&lang=eng ($210,67) or this one http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-786.shtml ($224,72)?

[Docnaster]

The AMD R9 390 8 GB is the best for Ethereum mining. I use the XFX cards with back plate. They are very steady.

[acaciosc]

The AMD R9 390 8 GB is the best for Ethereum mining. I use the XFX cards with back plate. They are very steady.

But which one should I pick between those two cards? R9 390 8 GB is too expensive.

[socks435]

The AMD R9 390 8 GB is the best for Ethereum mining. I use the XFX cards with back plate. They are very steady.

But which one should I pick between those two cards? R9 390 8 GB is too expensive.

Yeah its expensive but i think its profitable if you mine ethereum for now and i dont think if its profitable in few months because the difficulty is increasing month by month..

[acaciosc]

The AMD R9 390 8 GB is the best for Ethereum mining. I use the XFX cards with back plate. They are very steady.

But which one should I pick between those two cards? R9 390 8 GB is too expensive.

Yeah its expensive but i think its profitable if you mine ethereum for now and i dont think if its profitable in few months because the difficulty is increasing month by month..

What does this "few months" mean? 8 months? Also, which one should I choose b/w those two GPUs (supposing it's safe to assume that there will be more profitable coins to gpu mine after ETH stops being profitable, of course)? Forget the R9 390. I won't risk all that money, because I'm VERY poor.