Trading or mining? That is the question..

[Oldminer]

Just wondering with the recent increase in mining difficulty and another increase coming soon, how many of you are considering giving up mining and buying BTC's with the proceeds, and trading them for profit instead?

[1714953709]

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[1714953709]

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[1714953709]

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[ron]

i'll probably give up mining after the next difficulty increase mainly because I my mining computer as my main/gaming computer and don't want to put so much wear on the cards before BF3 >:-)    I'll probably hold on to my remaining coins. Put them on a thumb drive and put it in my drawer and forget about it till 5 years.

[sir murray]

Just wondering with the recent increase in mining difficulty and another increase coming soon, how many of you are considering giving up mining and buying BTC's with the proceeds, and trading them for profit instead?

I'll still be mining because I just paid off my mining rig pretty much, but I will be using some of the further profit for trading because that a seems like the best way to do it without investing in more hardware to pay off. The risk will really be in the order of only a few dollars multiple times a day rather than potentially not being able to pay for hundreds of dollars in hardware.

[hugolp]

2-3 months ago the answer was mining. Right now it seems the answer is trading. Buying new mining rigs is getting incredibly risky, since the competition is crahing the margins at alarming rate. Also, you have all this talk about fpga's and dedicated bitcoin mining chips coming soon, which would basiclly render any hardware bought now obsolete for bitcoin mining.

[Oldminer]

I'll still be mining because I just paid off my mining rig pretty much, but I will be using some of the further profit for trading because that a seems like the best way to do it without investing in more hardware to pay off. The risk will really be in the order of only a few dollars multiple times a day rather than potentially not being able to pay for hundreds of dollars in hardware.

+1

This is what i'm thinking too

[RomertL]

2-3 months ago the answer was mining. Right now it seems the answer is trading. Buying new mining rigs is getting incredibly risky, since the competition is crahing the margins at alarming rate. Also, you have all this talk about fpga's and dedicated bitcoin mining chips coming soon, which would basiclly render any hardware bought now obsolete for bitcoin mining.

Was thinking about buying a gaming rig before finding out about the bitcoin. Now I'm thinking, hmm, what about a hybrid gaming/mining? Does that sound feasible?

[hugolp]

2-3 months ago the answer was mining. Right now it seems the answer is trading. Buying new mining rigs is getting incredibly risky, since the competition is crahing the margins at alarming rate. Also, you have all this talk about fpga's and dedicated bitcoin mining chips coming soon, which would basiclly render any hardware bought now obsolete for bitcoin mining.

Was thinking about buying a gaming rig before finding out about the bitcoin. Now I'm thinking, hmm, what about a hybrid gaming/mining? Does that sound feasible?

Buying a AMD card instead of a Nvidia card so you can mine makes all the sense. Buying more cards to mine is up to you. Do the numbers, electricity cost vs expected difficulty and bitcoin exchange price. Bitcoin difficulty went up around 50% recenlty after only 8 days since the previous rise. Now it seems there is going to be another rise of around 50% in 10 days and that could get higher if more mining power is added to the network.

[nazgulnarsil]

2-3 months ago the answer was trading.  3 months ago the cost of a rig would buy bitcoins that are worth 15k today.

[frutza]

Mining is easy to do, but expensive. Profitable trading is difficult and time-consuming. There is no universal answer, it depends on personal circumstances.

[stick_theman]

Most early miners will still mine; new comers are very likely to trade unless they have a significant capital infusion and looking out for the loooong term return.  Another round of difficulty is going up in 9 days, folks!

[Jack of Diamonds]

Another round of difficulty is going up in 9 days, folks!

So? It's supposed to happen every 14 days (though lately it's been earlier than that).

That's how bitcoin works. It's not some random event which is designed to piss off miners. It makes the network safer and the blockchain more robust.

[iamzill]

Another round of difficulty is going up in 9 days, folks!

So? It's supposed to happen every 14 days (though lately it's been earlier than that).

That's how bitcoin works. It's not some random event which is designed to piss off miners. It makes the network safer and the blockchain more robust.

I think his point was that it's happening 36% sooner than expected.

[billyjoeallen]

what does it matter if you are getting $800 for 80 coins at 10 dollars or $800 for 40 coins at 20 dollars? 

Profitable mining attracts more miners until an equilibrium is reached. Less profitable mining attracts less miners. Everything either evens out or else it changes until it does even out. Windfall profits from mining are no more permanent than windfall profits from trading, which is to say they aren't. at all. Count your blessings if you had a good run. The speculators should do the same.

Mining generates income, which may or may not yield net profit Speculating is a zero sum game. There is no winning trade that does not mean a losing trade for someone else.

[rograz]

2-3 months ago the answer was trading.  3 months ago the cost of a rig would buy bitcoins that are worth 15k today.

Your BTC could also have been worth 0$ today and your hardware would still have been sitting at worst case 50-60% of purchase value. Like I say time and time again never compare what x amount of hardware cost would have generated if you simply bought bitcoins, unless you were in a situation where you have x amount of money and you don't care if you lose all of it and just want the highest profit possibility.