decisions decisions...

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To make a long story short, im a student and I have about $665 in spending money. Ive been looking to build a PC for awhile now, its nothing I need (in fact It may just distract me from my work more ) but I recently ventured into Cryptocoins again. I was a little into bitcoins .... maybe 2-3 years ago (when they were cheap). Anyway, I got interested in litecoin mining recently, I invested a little in them (I bought 25 LTC) but Im having trouble deciding wether or not It would be a good idea to put my money into a miner of build a PC. The draw of Litecoin mining for me is making more spending money (maybe build a higher-end PC after a year of mining or so). Anyway thats my story, and please help :3.

Thanks in advance

Also, video card(s) recommendation for a $665 mining build should I go with a mining rig.

  

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[jackjack]

Buying LTC and a rig
You're an investment expert, right?

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Buying LTC and a rig
You're an investment expert, right?

I bought 25 LTC for like $10 last month, I wasn't asking for sass I was asking for help. You don't need to be rude about it. It's obvious im fairly new to this.

[jackjack]

Didn't mean to be rude, just a bit mocker
I can't help about mining, but I think you should put $450 in a PC and $200 in buying btc's

[talkingleaves]

or put it all in btc and in a month when it doubles (or goes even higher) cash out half to buy the pc!

[chausara]

or put it all in btc and in a month when it doubles (or goes even higher) cash out half to buy the pc!

+1. unless you need the PC now... just invest in BTC first. You won't get there by mining.

[GarlandGuitar]

or put it all in btc and in a month when it doubles (or goes even higher) cash out half to buy the pc!

Yup! 

[pixel]

or put it all in btc and in a month when it doubles (or goes even higher) cash out half to buy the pc!

+1. unless you need the PC now... just invest in BTC first. You won't get there by mining.

So we can come to the conclusion that mining is not really a good idea for me (I was talking litecoins remember)

[chausara]

I mean, mining LTC will certainly be easier for you, but the potential has much higher variance. It's less risky than the other altcoins, but still is way too early to say whether it will be worth it or not.

You could mine some for the hell of it with whatever machine you currently have, but I wouldn't spend additional money just for that (at this point).

[Stephen Gornick]

So we can come to the conclusion that mining is not really a good idea for me (I was talking litecoins remember)

There are temporary imbalances like right now where mining is very profitable (for either Bitcoin or Litecoin).  But that situation can rapidly change because as additional hashing capacity comes online to take advantage of this profit opportunity, difficulty goes up.  Unless the LTC/USD exchange rate rises at the same level, profitability starts to drop.  It can even go negative (where you are paying more in electricity than the value of the coins mined). 

Now some miners have the ability to pay for the electric bill with their fiat (e.g,. dollars) and then not spend the coins they mine.  Then when the exchange rate goes up, they find fantastic gains by selling all their mined coins at a lofty valuation compared to the cost.  But other miners don't have the ability (or desire) to speculate by paying the electricity out-of-pocket and instead sell their mined coins as they are earned.  If the exchange rate spikes, they really don't see much gain because the difficulty generally spikes (Bitcoin's difficulty generally had perhaps abut a month or so lag behind the price).

So if you are looking to profit, you need to consider your competition.  You will be mining and likely having to sell your mined coins to pay for the electricity.  You will be competing against miners who are using rigs that have already paid for themselves from Bitcoin mining, and people who are paying the electric bills with fiat with the expectation that the exchange rate will be rising, so they aren't necessarily going to power down their rigs once mining gets to be unprofitable (which has happened in the past, and likely will happen again at some point).

One protection is that you would still have the hardware that can be sold (or used for other purposes) should Litecoin mining not pan out financially.

[pixel]

So we can come to the conclusion that mining is not really a good idea for me (I was talking litecoins remember)

There are temporary imbalances like right now where mining is very profitable (for either Bitcoin or Litecoin).  But that situation can rapidly change because as additional hashing capacity comes online to take advantage of this profit opportunity, difficulty goes up.  Unless the LTC/USD exchange rate rises at the same level, profitability starts to drop.  It can even go negative (where you are paying more in electricity than the value of the coins mined). 

Now some miners have the ability to pay for the electric bill with their fiat (e.g,. dollars) and then not spend the coins they mine.  Then when the exchange rate goes up, they find fantastic gains by selling all their mined coins at a lofty valuation compared to the cost.  But other miners don't have the ability (or desire) to speculate by paying the electricity out-of-pocket and instead sell their mined coins as they are earned.  If the exchange rate spikes, they really don't see much gain because the difficulty generally spikes (Bitcoin's difficulty generally had perhaps abut a month or so lag behind the price).

So if you are looking to profit, you need to consider your competition.  You will be mining and likely having to sell your mined coins to pay for the electricity.  You will be competing against miners who are using rigs that have already paid for themselves from Bitcoin mining, and people who are paying the electric bills with fiat with the expectation that the exchange rate will be rising, so they aren't necessarily going to power down their rigs once mining gets to be unprofitable (which has happened in the past, and likely will happen again at some point).

One protection is that you would still have the hardware that can be sold (or used for other purposes) should Litecoin mining not pan out financially.

Thank you for this, still don't know which direction to go (I swear its like I have the inability to make up my mind). I feel like I'm leaning more towards mining sence I don't pay utilities.

[nobbynobbynoob]

I looked at the possibility of buying some secondhand hardware and trying my hand at building a mining rig to perform a dual function as a winter heater, most likely mining Ł. But I slacked out of it, because one Ł never got near BTC0,02 back then, and Ł were cheap enough to buy that it seemed much simpler and better just to buy some. I didn't regret it.

Litecoins today aren't nearly as cheap as they were a couple of months ago - amazingly, they've at least kept up with if not outperformed BTC in recent months! - so building a rig may be worthwhile, and probably is if you're more interested in the IT-project geeky side of it rather than looking for a quick profit.

Good luck either way. Litecoins are great!

[jzcjca00]

To make a long story short, im a student and I have about $665 in spending money. Ive been looking to build a PC for awhile now, its nothing I need (in fact It may just distract me from my work more ) but I recently ventured into Cryptocoins again. I was a little into bitcoins .... maybe 2-3 years ago (when they were cheap). Anyway, I got interested in litecoin mining recently, I invested a little in them (I bought 25 LTC) but Im having trouble deciding wether or not It would be a good idea to put my money into a miner of build a PC. The draw of Litecoin mining for me is making more spending money (maybe build a higher-end PC after a year of mining or so). Anyway thats my story, and please help :3.

Thanks in advance

Also, video card(s) recommendation for a $665 mining build should I go with a mining rig.

I think with so many ASICs coming online, it's going to be hard to make much money mining.  Of course, if the price of BTC keeps going up, that makes mining more profitable.  However, it also makes buying and holding more profitable.

Here's some interesting math.  The price of bitcoins goes up roughly by a factor of 7 every year.  No telling whether that will change.  But invest $665 in BTC today, and if that rate holds up, in 4 years, you're a millionaire!

[pixel]

I heard ASICs wouldn't work with Litecoin :/ regardless I'm hesitant to put all of my money into bitcoin because should it crash or something happens I don't really want to loose my money. It took me awhile to get what I have.

[pixel]

Is there any place I can buy an ASIC now?

[jzcjca00]

Is there any place I can buy an ASIC now?

I don't think so.  It's all preorder and wait for months.  I've never seen an actual ASIC listed on eBay, but they are selling preorder slots at some massive markups.  You probably need at least $20,000 to get into ASIC today.

[pixel]

Im starting to think buying/investing in BTC is a good idea vs mining (bitcoin or any altcoin) atleast for right now. But Im waiting to hear from someone who knows about whats going on in bitcoin enough to recommend it. 

[pixel]

Oh yay im a Jr.Member

[jzcjca00]

Im starting to think buying/investing in BTC is a good idea vs mining (bitcoin or any altcoin) atleast for right now. But Im waiting to hear from someone who knows about whats going on in bitcoin enough to recommend it. 

Investing in Bitcoin today is like investing in Google three years after their first IPO.  Risky, but with a huge potential reward.

The math is simple.  Invest just $1000 now.  If Bitcoin fails, you could lose most of it.  If the price keeps the pace of the past few years, you will be a millionaire in 4 years.  If growth slows, it might take slightly longer.

[nobbynobbynoob]

Yes, cryptocurrency is going big... or it's going zero.

I'm all in. (with a bit of gold just in case)