Now Bitcoin mining becomes much less profitable

[digicoin]

So yesterday the difficulty was raised up 16%. The PPS rate goes down significantly. I earn much less PPS per day, not mentioned of instability of pools due to networks, DDOS attack, server ... Pool's uptime will never be 100%

If the difficulty goes up once again after 10 - 15 days, I think that I can earn about 2 - 2.5 USD per days which is unable to cover the expense (electricity and hardware only)

What do you think about it?

[Alexstrazsa]

From my very limited knowledge of Bitcoins and the methods of obtaining them (I know of FPGA and ASIC mining, but hell if I can put a rig together), I'd guess that it's only going to get harder. Once ASIC units start actually being produced and become mainstream in the bitcoin world, the difficulty is going to skyrocket and GPU miners will probably be left in the dust.

[djspock3030]

I don't think their is a clear answer yet. These last two weeks have shaken up the entire structure and butterflylabs will be putting in their rigs soon but their competitors already have theirs in place. It's all a dice game, I would say don't invest what you are not willing to lose and make the best of it. 

[18RATTT]

From my very limited knowledge of Bitcoins and the methods of obtaining them (I know of FPGA and ASIC mining, but hell if I can put a rig together), I'd guess that it's only going to get harder. Once ASIC units start actually being produced and become mainstream in the bitcoin world, the difficulty is going to skyrocket and GPU miners will probably be left in the dust.

QFT. and all the asic rig are sold out and pre-order are atleast 6months+
and i live in SouthEast Asia, which make it even more difficult to obtain one.

[djspock3030]

I talked to the owner of butterfly labs today and he informed me you buy a rig today you would have it by July? So not sure what you are saying. I know there are a lot of folks that are pissed at him because he keeps pushing the date, i know it says end of April 2013 and he didn't really confirm that either. Found out just on accident its down the road from where i dwell lol

[18RATTT]

I talked to the owner of butterfly labs today and he informed me you buy a rig today you would have it by July? So not sure what you are saying. I know there are a lot of folks that are pissed at him because he keeps pushing the date, i know it says end of April 2013 and he didn't really confirm that either. Found out just on accident its down the road from where i dwell lol

last time i check, he updated that they still have problem bcos the rig (i think it was the cpu or smtg) is outputting more heat/electricity than it was intended

[djspock3030]

I am curious to see how that changes and dominates the market or if people really don't invest and it changes the whole climate a little bit. I would risk 270 usd just to see if it can really do 4500 Mhash/s but i wouldnt give it anymore than that then ride the wave

[boomboom]

It sounds like mining is less secure than buying bitcoins and playing ups and downs at Mt Gox.

[digicoin]

It sounds like mining is less secure than buying bitcoins and playing ups and downs at Mt Gox.

Well, to get started mining most of people pay more or less than 1000 USD to buy VGA (~1000MH/s). However that investment yields about 3.5 - 4.2 USD per day in revenue (not profit) if BTS/USD is 85 - 90 as of today.

I really think that BTC trading can bring more profit than GPU mining. If ASIC miners joins the board, GPU miners should quit the BTC game

[ctlegacy]

Yes the difficulty will skyrocket soon. But also note that the price of BTC has jumped back from it's $50 bottom. This will also affect mining profitablility probably much more then 16% diff raise will.

[klrgoten]

the more time that goes on, the more ASICs will be introduced and will push GPU mining out of the way

[digicoin]

Yes the difficulty will skyrocket soon. But also note that the price of BTC has jumped back from it's $50 bottom. This will also affect mining profitablility probably much more then 16% diff raise will.

You are right. I hope that the exchange rate between USD and BTC will be higher than 94 USD to keep the mining revenue the same. Because if the exchange rate is about 80 - 90 USD/BTC, I earn 0.5 - 1 USD less per day.

[kinichiban]

There's a good chance the fiat exchange rate will continue to increase (on average) faster than the difficulty for a while. But once ASICs are not supply-limited, we should expect mining to be no more profitable than direct BTC trading (as digicoin suggested).

[btcinvest]

Just stop mining if you have to pay for electricity, eventually you will lose, to the people with free electricity (and there are many).

[Sidewayzracer]

The other option is to look into the other cryptos such as LTC as the profitability is 15% or so higher then BTC at the moment though the price has stalled but the network hashing has gone up dramatically

[sal002]

You could always look at the data at http://www.coinchoose.com or http://dustcoin.com and pick an alt coin to mine to squeeze out as much as you can now.  In addiiton, you might want to look at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=172121.0

[seostrat]

Wait until the chinese get into the game... I can see the difficulty level skyrocket 10,000x

[Lauda]

Sadly, it's true the difficulty levels are going way too high in a small amount of time.

[indyjo]

I think it's time to offer alternatives to mining to the miners. In my opinion there is a market for distributed computing power that could be realized with bitcoins. Please see my proposal in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=179723.0

[soonerjoe]

Sadly, it's true the difficulty levels are going way too high in a small amount of time.

I think the people selling their ASIC miners for 25k-40k right now are prob smart.  I agree that the difficulty is going to absolutely skyrocket.  Especially if prices of BTC start to up really high.