Return of mining for the average joe?

[illyiller]

I have not even heard of a single miner who has profited EQUAL to, much less above, what they could have earned if they skipped that and simply bought the coins.

Well, who have you talked to? I don't think firms like Bitmain or BTCC are particularly open about their mining profits. I don't think you have the numbers to make these determinations. Plus, that example is cherry picked. Like any other entrepreneurial endeavor, enter if you have an edge. Otherwise, stay out. The people that lost were the people that invested in GPUs near the end of their usefulness (many of whom put those to use on alts), or bought pre-order ASICs and didn't account for time and difficulty growth.

Anyway, my main point is that these numbers we can pull out of our asses just don't apply to the big mining firms. Particularly in China, where there is significant oversupply of electricity in certain areas.

[1713860286]

1713860286

[1713860286]

1713860286

[1713860286]

1713860286

[1713860286]

1713860286

[Rostadom]

You could only make as much as the money you put in. Being an "average joe" would also get you an "average" mining rig. Even if average joes are capable of having mining rigs, there would be too much of them since they're average. That would make the people who has an expensive mining rig stand out more.

[Carlton Banks]

those with more money will print faster than others. You end up with the same situation. If a 3d printer takes 1 hour to make a chip and the printer is $1, someone with $100 can buy 100. Someone with $1m can buy 1m of them and hire others to help run them. In that case, the guy with $100 still just has 100/1,000,100 of the hash rate and will get almost nothing. Not to mention the guy with more money would go straight to the manufacturer of the 3d printers and offer a premium to obtain all of them that are created, as opposed to marketing it to the masses.

And your scenario differs from the CPU/GPU mining days in what way exactly? You're essentially saying "there's a limited amount of silicon ore available". No shit.

Will you be happy if there's a ban on people owning more than their "fair share" of chip 3D printing capacity? This is Bitcoin: communists go home

CPU mining days were only a select few. There's a massive difference between a small group of people who mine it for lulz when it has no value and those who are mining it for profit. That should be obvious -- something that has ZERO value at the time, NO uses, etc. would obviously not be competitive.

Wrong. You only need to take a look at the hashrate responding to the price during the CPU/GPU era to see exactly how competitive it was. The very fact that GPU mining was developed at all is a testament to that. But y'know, this is straying into economics, not everyone is au fait with that lol

[ranlo]

I have not even heard of a single miner who has profited EQUAL to, much less above, what they could have earned if they skipped that and simply bought the coins.

Well, who have you talked to? I don't think firms like Bitmain or BTCC are particularly open about their mining profits. I don't think you have the numbers to make these determinations. Plus, that example is cherry picked. Like any other entrepreneurial endeavor, enter if you have an edge. Otherwise, stay out. The people that lost were the people that invested in GPUs near the end of their usefulness (many of whom put those to use on alts), or bought pre-order ASICs and didn't account for time and difficulty growth.

Anyway, my main point is that these numbers we can pull out of our asses just don't apply to the big mining firms. Particularly in China, where there is significant oversupply of electricity in certain areas.

I was under the impression the topic was about the "average joe," as stated in the title. Not about corporate (i.e., massively-funded companies). What you're saying when you bring them into the equation is like saying "the lottery is profitable... didn't you know every month or so someone wins?" Ignore the other 99.99999998% of the players and you're absolutely right.

[illyiller]

I have not even heard of a single miner who has profited EQUAL to, much less above, what they could have earned if they skipped that and simply bought the coins.

Well, who have you talked to? I don't think firms like Bitmain or BTCC are particularly open about their mining profits. I don't think you have the numbers to make these determinations. Plus, that example is cherry picked. Like any other entrepreneurial endeavor, enter if you have an edge. Otherwise, stay out. The people that lost were the people that invested in GPUs near the end of their usefulness (many of whom put those to use on alts), or bought pre-order ASICs and didn't account for time and difficulty growth.

Anyway, my main point is that these numbers we can pull out of our asses just don't apply to the big mining firms. Particularly in China, where there is significant oversupply of electricity in certain areas.

I was under the impression the topic was about the "average joe," as stated in the title. Not about corporate (i.e., massively-funded companies). What you're saying when you bring them into the equation is like saying "the lottery is profitable... didn't you know every month or so someone wins?" Ignore the other 99.99999998% of the players and you're absolutely right.

Yeah, and if we're talking about "average joes" that mined with GPUs pre-ASIC, I've never met one that didn't profit immensely. Sure, you can cherry pick buy/sell dates to paint this picture that buying and holding bitcoin was more profitable, but you're not providing any data, nor have you shown any consideration of miner costs. In any case, your assertion that "GPU mining screwed most (if not all) people who took part" is completely insane.

Like I said:

The people that lost were the people that invested in GPUs near the end of their usefulness (many of whom put those to use on alts), or bought pre-order ASICs and didn't account for time and difficulty growth.

Your arguments don't really apply to GPU miners. But they probably apply to misguided home miners pre-ordering ASICs.

[ranlo]

I have not even heard of a single miner who has profited EQUAL to, much less above, what they could have earned if they skipped that and simply bought the coins.

Well, who have you talked to? I don't think firms like Bitmain or BTCC are particularly open about their mining profits. I don't think you have the numbers to make these determinations. Plus, that example is cherry picked. Like any other entrepreneurial endeavor, enter if you have an edge. Otherwise, stay out. The people that lost were the people that invested in GPUs near the end of their usefulness (many of whom put those to use on alts), or bought pre-order ASICs and didn't account for time and difficulty growth.

Anyway, my main point is that these numbers we can pull out of our asses just don't apply to the big mining firms. Particularly in China, where there is significant oversupply of electricity in certain areas.

I was under the impression the topic was about the "average joe," as stated in the title. Not about corporate (i.e., massively-funded companies). What you're saying when you bring them into the equation is like saying "the lottery is profitable... didn't you know every month or so someone wins?" Ignore the other 99.99999998% of the players and you're absolutely right.

Yeah, and if we're talking about "average joes" that mined with GPUs pre-ASIC, I've never met one that didn't profit immensely. Sure, you can cherry pick buy/sell dates to paint this picture that buying and holding bitcoin was more profitable, but you're not providing any data, nor have you shown any consideration of miner costs. In any case, your assertion that "GPU mining screwed most (if not all) people who took part" is completely insane.

Like I said:

The people that lost were the people that invested in GPUs near the end of their usefulness (many of whom put those to use on alts), or bought pre-order ASICs and didn't account for time and difficulty growth.

Your arguments don't really apply to GPU miners. But they probably apply to misguided home miners pre-ordering ASICs.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe GPU mining came out near the end of 2010. At this point, you can view a price history chart and find that BTC was worth anywhere from $0.006 to $0.08, depending on when this occurred. I'm inclined to believe that the GPU mining was the onset of the price increase, rather than at the end (which would also correlate to the hash rate). So $6 was worth 1,000 BTC. If you spent $300 on a GPU, that was the equivalent to 300/6=50*1k=50k BTC. I doubt anyone mined 50k BTC with a single GPU. Even if we go with a bit of the ways into the hash rate increase (when GPU was undeniably in effect), you'd still be looking at 25k BTC per GPU. This, again, assumes 1) you don't value your time at all, 2) you have free electricity, 3) your hardware had zero issues and nothing had to be replaced. All three are very, very unlikely stories.

Official history shows that in early 2010, when BTC was worth almost nothing (read: CPU days), someone couldn't even sell 1k BTC for $50. There was zero market. Those who were mining with their CPU could have gotten nearly free coins WITHOUT the other costs, simply by making an offer to buy the then-worthless coins.

Anyways, everyone's free to do as they wish. All I can do is try to open peoples' eyes to what they're missing -- the next step is up to them.

[illyiller]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe GPU mining came out near the end of 2010. At this point, you can view a price history chart and find that BTC was worth anywhere from $0.006 to $0.08, depending on when this occurred. I'm inclined to believe that the GPU mining was the onset of the price increase, rather than at the end (which would also correlate to the hash rate). So $6 was worth 1,000 BTC. If you spent $300 on a GPU, that was the equivalent to 300/6=50*1k=50k BTC. I doubt anyone mined 50k BTC with a single GPU. Even if we go with a bit of the ways into the hash rate increase (when GPU was undeniably in effect), you'd still be looking at 25k BTC per GPU. This, again, assumes 1) you don't value your time at all, 2) you have free electricity, 3) your hardware had zero issues and nothing had to be replaced. All three are very, very unlikely stories.

Official history shows that in early 2010, when BTC was worth almost nothing (read: CPU days), someone couldn't even sell 1k BTC for $50. There was zero market. Those who were mining with their CPU could have gotten nearly free coins WITHOUT the other costs, simply by making an offer to buy the then-worthless coins.

Anyways, everyone's free to do as they wish. All I can do is try to open peoples' eyes to what they're missing -- the next step is up to them.

Again, you're cherry-picking one date that maximizes the potential profit of buying and holding and minimizes the potential profit of investing in GPUs. Yes, the first GPU miners were released in late 2010, but GPUs were widely used through 2012. You can't use Bitcoin's price in 2010 as a basis for this; it's a very dishonest cherry-picking of the data. It also doesn't account for a miners' use of GPUs after he stopped mining Bitcoin (mining alts, selling equipment).

[Conus]

Does anyone think that some day Bitcoin may become mine-able again?  Could advances in technology make it possible again?  I was reading something last night about quantum computing being just around the corner.  i am not talking in the short term here i mean like in 30 - 50 year time scale.

Just in my opinion, by time quantum computing will not happen until it is needed in order to mine bitcoin.  If you think about it, some of these mining companies are mining at speeds compared to quantum computing now if you add up the amount of computing they are doing right now.

[AmDD]

@ranlo,

 You make some good points and I have to say that for years Ive told people its typically been better to buy coins than to invest into mining gear. I still feel this is true but no one knew that at the time. Hindsight is 20/20 so they say...  Had the price of Bitcoin not gone up then mining would have been more profitable than buying and holding. An example of just that is Litecoin. Over the past.... 2 years? difficulty has been nearly flat and price hasnt changed much. Those who are mining are making profit while those who bought coins are not gaining anything. While I feel its fair and correct to say that people would have been better off to buy coins rather than mine, I dont feel its fair to say they lost anything. You cant lose something you dont yet have.

More on topic, I dont think mining will ever really go back to the average joe as we have seen in the past. If it ever does become widely decentralized it wont be as we know it today. Id guess we would all have toasters and microwaves with mining chips in them or something like that.

[Conus]

@ranlo,

 You make some good points and I have to say that for years Ive told people its typically been better to buy coins than to invest into mining gear. I still feel this is true but no one knew that at the time. Hindsight is 20/20 so they say...  Had the price of Bitcoin not gone up then mining would have been more profitable than buying and holding. An example of just that is Litecoin. Over the past.... 2 years? difficulty has been nearly flat and price hasnt changed much. Those who are mining are making profit while those who bought coins are not gaining anything. While I feel its fair and correct to say that people would have been better off to buy coins rather than mine, I dont feel its fair to say they lost anything. You cant lose something you dont yet have.

More on topic, I dont think mining will ever really go back to the average joe as we have seen in the past. If it ever does become widely decentralized it wont be as we know it today. Id guess we would all have toasters and microwaves with mining chips in them or something like that.

I  have to say that these are valid points; however I do not think that this will change whether or not mining will return.  I think it is so far out of the box for regular joes that you will never be able to effectively mine bitcoin without some sort of large investment no matter the improvements in technology.

[takingthis4]

the mining will never return to ordinary people because it is extremely unprofitable to mine bitcoins

[coinsocieties]

There is to much money involved for the mining to return to the small people in the world until the point where it is not profitable to the large companies, which will never happen.  There are tom many large companies out there that are controlling all of the mining.