Let's Start a Useful Newbie Discussion While we Wait: Future Viability?

[baritus]

Hey guys,

I want your opinions.

Is there any point getting started mining bitcoins for profit without an ASIC?

Since most people can't get ASICs, will that make people's GPU and FPGA rigs useless?

Is there another currency, e.g. litecoin, that is a better investment at the moment?



Let's kill some time and learn something .

[baritus]

Think of it in this context:

Option 1: You can make a ton of money selling hardware and let everyone else take the risk. Force all sales to be pre-orders without a refund and you have yourself free millions.

OR

Option 2: You can invest a ton of money in the hardware and take all the risk yourself.


Selling shovels to gold miners is more profitable than gold mining.

[LucasJones]

A very valid point Baritus.
One example: Butterfly Labs funded the development and production of their ASIC hardware through pre-orders of it. No risk on their part, and they still make a ton of money .

As for other currencies, I don't really have much experience, so I can't really help you with them, sorry.

And at the moment it does seem that most current GPU and FGPA rigs will become obsolete pretty soon, so I'm not sure if it would be worth investing in smaller scale equipment, but go for it if you already have it. Current mining equipment should be generally ok for a while, the problem is that the ASICs will increase the difficulty so much that a currently good setup would be about equivalent or worse than a standard graphics card now, of course without taking into account any changes in the value of bitcoins once the difficulty has increased that much.

[bezzeb]

The part that I don't get is that, if Bitcoin mining is lucrative, then why don't the mining hardware manufacturers keep the machines for themselves, hook them to a T3, and keep the goodies for themselves?

Maybe they do?  Only they know.  Bottom line is that it's a relatively high risk activity.  Looks really profitable now the way BTC's value is soaring against old currencies, but that's not a long term given.  And the hardware depreciation curve must be brutal.  A top of the line rig you buy today might not be profitable in a year or two, and then who the heck would buy it from you?

But your observation is a good one and i would suspect that some people somewhere high in the supply chain are possibly hoarding and using the new ASIC rigs in the short term as these bubble prices may make it more profitable than the hardware sale percentage.

In the end it's a business like any other.  Those who can process the most blocks with the lowest overhead will be most profitable and thus stay in the game.  Mining is likely to shift to locations with low (but reliable) electricity and rent costs, just like all data-center operations. I thought about entering the business last year but decided my day job earns me way more.  The current bubble makes me technically wrong about that, but I can't go back in time.    Besides, I earn decent bread - can't complain. 

[nuhash]

Since most people can't get ASICs, will that make people's GPU and FPGA rigs useless?

Is there another currency, e.g. litecoin, that is a better investment at the moment?

From what I understand, if the difficulty doubles then you will make half as many bitcoins, however if the value of a bitcoin also doubles then there will be no change in the amount of cash you are making but the bitcoins you already have will be worth more. For GPU mining to remain profitable the value of a bitcoin has rise with or faster than the difficulty. E.g. the last difficulty increase was about 30% however the value of a bitcoin increase much more than that and so my GPU actually makes more money.

As I have just said, as long as the value increases faster than the difficulty, which it will probably will since most miners will now hoard bitcoins till they are worth hundreds if not thousands of dollars (i can only dream my few bitcoins will be worth thousands of dollars) and with the introduction of ASICs a majority of the new coins will go to a smaller number of people meaning that there will be less bitcoin sellers as the people without ASICs will not be able to produce new bitcoins and so will hoard as selling will technically put them at a loss.

Bear in mind this guess is based on the assumption that BFL is not a scam and is just one of the many possibilities that can occur over the next few months.

Just to answer the question, yes litecoins are profitable to be mined, my electricity is free (rent includes utilities) and coin mining isnt my dayjob so as long as i get something extra at the end of the month its a go for me.

The one thing I would say about litecoin is that it is essentially a bitcoin V2, if what i said about bitcoins is true then we will have a load of computer nerds holding assets which are worth the world's GDP, how is that any different to what the governments do control currency? Due to the nature of litecoin it will be several times more expensive to produce ASICs for it and so it is less likely that we have a few individuals with the worlds litecoins.

Note: Sorry if i have missed something that would be considered basic, it may seem like I am spreaiong FUD but I do support bitcoin and litecoin however I am very concerned about where they will be going after the introduction of ASICs