What will kill GPU mining profitability in 2017?

[adaseb]

Basically its like deja vu all over again like in Winter of 2013.

The RX470/570 which is the 7970/R9 280X equivalent is sold out globally and nowhere to be found.

The RX570 basically makes exactly the same profitability as the 280X did back in 2013. Actually a little more profit since it uses less power than scrypt.

From those of you that weren't around. Mining was crazy profitable at the beginning of 2014. A 280X made somewhere around $7-8USD/daily. Fast forward 6 months later in Summer 2014, it was borderline profitable since it consumed more electricity than made profit.

What killed GPU mining back then were introduction of Scrypt ASICs which made the difficulty skyrocket exponentially and combined with the MtGox bankruptcy and falling BTC price.

Now since its 2017 there are many factors that can kill these amazing profit-abilities.

1) Ethereum goes POS or reduces its block reward.

2) Ethereum (ZEC) prices crash.

3) Bitcoin price crashes due to hard-fork UASF

4) Difficulty skyrockets. This I doubt since ASICs are very difficult to manufacture and sales of GPUs only provide linear difficulty growths. Currently there are GPU shortages which are capping the difficulty growth.

[philipma1957]

Basically its like deja vu all over again like in Winter of 2013.

The RX470/570 which is the 7970/R9 280X equivalent is sold out globally and nowhere to be found.

The RX570 basically makes exactly the same profitability as the 280X did back in 2013. Actually a little more profit since it uses less power than scrypt.

From those of you that weren't around. Mining was crazy profitable at the beginning of 2014. A 280X made somewhere around $7-8USD/daily. Fast forward 6 months later in Summer 2014, it was borderline profitable since it consumed more electricity than made profit.

What killed GPU mining back then were introduction of Scrypt ASICs which made the difficulty skyrocket exponentially and combined with the MtGox bankruptcy and falling BTC price.

Now since its 2017 there are many factors that can kill these amazing profit-abilities.

1) Ethereum goes POS or reduces its block reward.

2) Ethereum (ZEC) prices crash.

3) Bitcoin price crashes due to hard-fork UASF

4) Difficulty skyrockets. This I doubt since ASICs are very difficult to manufacture and sales of GPUs only provide linear difficulty growths. Currently there are GPU shortages which are capping the difficulty growth.

Gpu will flourish  and BTC will fade a bit.

It is not at all like 2013

first off alts have more value then btc does at the moment .

and this is a new thing  never happened till now.

http://coinmarketcap.com/

Market Cap: $77,116,169,677

of which Bitcoin   $37,205,556,335

this means   $39,910,6133,342 is alt coin

as recently as Jan of 2017 btc was well over 70%
now under 50%

the question is will btc ever be the giant it once was?
not what will kill the alt coin market?

Of course as usual I am often wrong.
one of my worst predications made  was the iPad would be a failure and never do well at all.

[poby]

My noobie 0.0000002 worth.  When eth goes POS it will be a major event for home mining.  A LOT of miners are mining eth so all those will switch to other coins which will cause a massive increase in difficulty resulting in plummeting profits.  I really hope I'm wrong but I can't see anything else happening once eth goes POS.  But I'm still going ahead and getting ready to build my first rig.  It's not so much about the money for me but the fun.  (But then if it stops being profitable then it won't be much fun)

[gwestcot]

Ya I mean there is a lot of speculation about ETH going POS but I am highly highly skeptical we will see full POS out of ETH anytime soon.

[philipma1957]

Ya I mean there is a lot of speculation about ETH going POS but I am highly highly skeptical we will see full POS out of ETH anytime soon.

it will only go to pos if  an asic comes out to mine it.

and they may simply  make the dag 8gb  which would most likely kill off a lot of 4gb gpus and that asic.

this would not hurt eth but could effect zec

[MA3A]

Or it could be that crypto becomes new financial system without banks, its obvious that prices will fluctuate but to my opinion THIS will be the money, not any fiat anywhere...as it looks like everyone is trying to avoid a buck in international trading and the buck is the king and the ruler right now, goverments probably will stock pile gold, but regular citizens will be using cryptos, no need to carry pocketfull, no tax, no interest rates, no credit score, no borders, equal value worldwide.

Tuly Yo Hillaee

[Erasumus]

Another difference to me is that the 7970 cards were in the ~$550 price range if I remember correctly, and with the 400/500 cards that can be found in the $200 - $250 range, the ROI is still very strong for GPU mining.  I started GPU mining BTC back in 2012 and 'retired' from all mining back in mid-2015, thinking that that particular ship had come & gone and got back into the game in early 2016.  I'm as bullish about GPU mining now as I have ever been.  I feel like for the foreseeable future there will be something worth mining with GPUs for quite some time.

Erasmus (was MashRinx)

Basically its like deja vu all over again like in Winter of 2013.

The RX470/570 which is the 7970/R9 280X equivalent is sold out globally and nowhere to be found.

The RX570 basically makes exactly the same profitability as the 280X did back in 2013. Actually a little more profit since it uses less power than scrypt.

From those of you that weren't around. Mining was crazy profitable at the beginning of 2014. A 280X made somewhere around $7-8USD/daily. Fast forward 6 months later in Summer 2014, it was borderline profitable since it consumed more electricity than made profit.

What killed GPU mining back then were introduction of Scrypt ASICs which made the difficulty skyrocket exponentially and combined with the MtGox bankruptcy and falling BTC price.

Now since its 2017 there are many factors that can kill these amazing profit-abilities.

1) Ethereum goes POS or reduces its block reward.

2) Ethereum (ZEC) prices crash.

3) Bitcoin price crashes due to hard-fork UASF

4) Difficulty skyrockets. This I doubt since ASICs are very difficult to manufacture and sales of GPUs only provide linear difficulty growths. Currently there are GPU shortages which are capping the difficulty growth.

Gpu will flourish  and BTC will fade a bit.

It is not at all like 2013

first off alts have more value then btc does at the moment .

and this is a new thing  never happened till now.

http://coinmarketcap.com/

Market Cap: $77,116,169,677

of which Bitcoin   $37,205,556,335

this means   $39,910,6133,342 is alt coin

as recently as Jan of 2017 btc was well over 70%
now under 50%

the question is will btc ever be the giant it once was?
not what will kill the alt coin market?

Of course as usual I am often wrong.
one of my worst predications made  was the iPad would be a failure and never do well at all.

[Charloz24]

There is also something else different than in late 2013, is that it's been more than a year that mining ETH is profitable. And guess what? Last year (in feb) it was the same talking, don't buy GPU ETH will go POS soon and so on..

In fact, it's better than last year, because we have far more option to mine (ETH, ETC, ZEC, ZCL, LBRY, UBQ, etc)

[philipma1957]

There is also something else different than in late 2013, is that it's been more than a year that mining ETH is profitable. And guess what? Last year (in feb) it was the same talking, don't buy GPU ETH will go POS soon and so on..

In fact, it's better than last year, because we have far more option to mine (ETH, ETC, ZEC, ZCL, LBRY, UBQ, etc)

yes and one reason is more then 16.3 million btc  coinsare in wallets  and a simple password releases them...

So a vast amount of wealth  is easy to trade an alt coin for a piece of a btc coin.

consider this  Nvidia has the ability to pump Zcash  from 295,035,556 at  a price of 209 a coin  to

600,000,00 at a price of 420 a coin if they choose to do this.

Think of the frenzy for nvidia cards to mine Zcash.

I think people simply do not see the wealth pc companies have to compete against asic mining  by making gpu mining worth while.

Intel---------cpus
Amd---------gpus and cpus
Nvidia------ gpus
Asrock------motherboards
Asus--------motherboards,pcs,gpus
Biostar-----motherboards
Gigabyte---motherboards,gpus
Evga-------motherboards,gpus,psu's
Msi---------motherboards,gpus
Dell--------gaming pc's
HP---------gaming pc's
Lenovo----gaming pc's



Above is small part of the list  of companies that want gpu mining to work.

compare to Bitmain,Bit Fury, Avalon  a few others building Asic gear

which side has the real $$$    pc+gpu's side has the money  not Asic

[dbc23]

^^as always wise words from Phillip.

[crypticj]

Not sure but i am scared from all the mining capacity that is coming online.

In last week Ethereum Network Rate went from 28.5 TH/s to 32.5Th/s thats almost 200k RX 570-580 equivalent.

No wonder they are all sold out and we can't seem to find any.

[EssentialCoin]

Ya I mean there is a lot of speculation about ETH going POS but I am highly highly skeptical we will see full POS out of ETH anytime soon.

it will only go to pos if  an asic comes out to mine it.

and they may simply  make the dag 8gb  which would most likely kill off a lot of 4gb gpus and that asic.

this would not hurt eth but could effect zec

I hope it will not do 8 GB DAG, that will kill most cards.

[doktor83]

People who have money and 0% knowledge with computers will kill GPU mining profitability in 2017.
It's sad but it's true.
Rich people around me are buying rigs because they heard "hey come get some free money", and why not make more profit when you already have enough, right ?
Take it from the small guys who just want to make an extra penny.

[adaseb]

People who have money and 0% knowledge with computers will kill GPU mining profitability in 2017.
It's sad but it's true.
Rich people around me are buying rigs because they heard "hey come get some free money", and why not make more profit when you already have enough, right ?
Take it from the small guys who just want to make an extra penny.

This is actually true. I remember buying used 280x from businessmen who had no computer knowledge and they had like 30x GPUs for sale. Spent $10-20K easy.

[topgeek]

Look at the last 2 weeks:

http://www.coinwarz.com/difficulty-charts/ethereum-difficulty-chart

[Ayers]

Basically its like deja vu all over again like in Winter of 2013.

The RX470/570 which is the 7970/R9 280X equivalent is sold out globally and nowhere to be found.

The RX570 basically makes exactly the same profitability as the 280X did back in 2013. Actually a little more profit since it uses less power than scrypt.

From those of you that weren't around. Mining was crazy profitable at the beginning of 2014. A 280X made somewhere around $7-8USD/daily. Fast forward 6 months later in Summer 2014, it was borderline profitable since it consumed more electricity than made profit.

What killed GPU mining back then were introduction of Scrypt ASICs which made the difficulty skyrocket exponentially and combined with the MtGox bankruptcy and falling BTC price.

Now since its 2017 there are many factors that can kill these amazing profit-abilities.

1) Ethereum goes POS or reduces its block reward.

2) Ethereum (ZEC) prices crash.

3) Bitcoin price crashes due to hard-fork UASF

4) Difficulty skyrockets. This I doubt since ASICs are very difficult to manufacture and sales of GPUs only provide linear difficulty growths. Currently there are GPU shortages which are capping the difficulty growth.

the only thing is ETH going pos, i can't see bitcoin price decrease anymore, it's very strong and rock solid,a nd adoption is way bigger now, adoption can't go back you know, it will get better abd better form now for bitcoin, the only thing remaining like is aid is ETH going pos and destroying the profit of other altcoin, but vitalik say that he is not sure baout ETH going pos anymore

[ea5150]

Would there be any point for a newbie to start mining today?

[sundownz]

I'm going in pretty hard... figure some alt coins will retain profitability long enough for me to get my money back & then some extra.

Right now I've got 33 GPUs online and I have 20 more that I will be bringing online during the first two weeks of June. Just need to build the PCs and get them rolling & figure out where to plug them in... haha.

If it's still profitable I've started drawing up plans to bring another 84 cards online... will require some major wiring upgrades, though.

IMHO... if you can actually find cards at a good price and especially if you already have the rest of the PC to use... it's still a good investment.

I've taken to buying cheap refurbished PCs and swapping the PSU / inserting GPUs. Saves alot of the startup cost.

[crypticj]

Would there be any point for a newbie to start mining today?

Its a personal question... no one knows if its the beginning or the end its a gamble/risk if you are willing to take one go ahead and start mining.

[philipma1957]

Would there be any point for a newbie to start mining today?

can you buy from amazon?

If so  that is returnable for 30 days
so it would at least give you about 25 days  to decide what to do  while you mine.