Mining to live?

[OldDirtyApe]

Greetings!

I'm pretty new to the scene so I'll keep it short and simple.

1) How feasible is it to generate a enough income ($3000-5000 per month) to sustain a comfortable lifestyle? More specifically, within the city of Boston in the US.

2) How important is the cost per watt vs the rate of income from a mining rig? (is there any hardware comparison charts that scrutinize this?)

3) Say I have $2500 to spend on building a mining rig with the aim of using the money generated from the first to build future rigs. How long would it take to reach a sustainable income?

4) Is it realistic to use solar panels to power my rig(s)? What exactly would the cost benefits be in setting up this self-sufficient power system in relation to my first question?

5) Could any one point me to some links in calculating all of this?

Thanks!

PS

I'm getting pretty old and I have nothing to fall back on once I'm unable to work anymore. Eta is 5 years, so there's plenty of time to figure this out. Nevertheless, any help would greatly be appreciated!

[Rampion]

Man, do you want to be spoonfed? Seriously?

There's no such thing as easy money - did you know that?

Mining is a very competitive enviroment - there's no stable income. Difficulty grows and thus you generate less BTC each two weeks - that can be balanced by growth in BTC exchange rate... Or not.

Mining BTC is a gamble in itself - first you gamble on the hardware. With the current situation of ASIC manufacturers, you never know if and when you will receive your equipment. Secondly, you gamble on the network difficulty: you don't know when you will receive your gear (I take for granted you won't be mining BTC with GPUs, that's pretty pointless now) and you don't know how difficulty will grow. Thirdly, you gamble on an exchange rate: if BTC goes to 0, there goes your investment down the toilet.

I'd suggest you do your own research.

[SolidSnke]

I doubt with 2500$ to spend you could bitcoin mine and make a living. Your better bet is LTC mining as with a 4Mh/s rate you can make around $1000 per month. You are not going to get rich unless you lay out some major money upfront.

It would be better to take that money and buy bitcoins and play the market.

Also electricity has to be cheap to really reap any gains. I pay $0.0823 kWh which isnt bad ... about $150 to run 4 rigs currently.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison -- GPU Comparison for you.

http://allchains.info/calc.html -- Pretty Good calculator.


If you decide to mine for some Litecoins LTC or FTC Feathercoins (the easiest two coins on the market) check out Litebonk.com or FCPool.com - 0% fees and quick payouts.

Good luck.

[fernandezdec]

I Agree with SolidSnke, It would be pretty hard to make a living mining for the moment. I just got this as a hobbie, and perhaps as a playing money. If it grows into something more then I will be very happy.

[Rampion]

Well, there is people who really made A LOT of money with batch#1 Avalon ASICS. Just think about the chinese guy on these forums that ordered 18 avalons. In February that was 162BTC per day: not bad, eh?

Of course the guys that ordered batch#1 Avalon ASICS took a big gamble. Sends thousand of $ in irreversible and pseudoanonymous internet currency to a BTC address with no guarantee whatsoever and without being allowed to ask for any refund and sit tight.

That gamble was a WIN - many others have been a FAIL in the ASIC world (see BFL).

[zeocrash]

Mining can gave some reasonable returns but you're asking for a 2000% annual return on your investment. I doubt you'll get that, even with one of BFL's mini rigs. Also as the difficulty rises, the amount you generate monthly will decrease.

It's possible to live off mining, but not for a $2500 investment.