Be a miner as a dayjob...

[bibyfok]

Hello guys,

I was wondering on something and need your input:
Let say you have 120*8GPU rigs (Big initial investment) -->1060/1070 you name it.

You would be almost sure to be able to mine the equivalent of 150$ a month/rig --> not talking about Eth, any altcoin.

With current hardware, do you think it would be sustainable to do at least 150$/day with a 8 GPU rig until at least mid 2018, with any altcoin?
Difficulty should not be a problem as the target is "only" to reach 150$ equivalent. Any possible way, switching currency, going NiceHash etc...

So it would be 120*150$= 18 000$/month

Thanks

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[Gunna01]

Hello guys,

I was wondering on something and need your input:
Let say you have 120*8GPU rigs (Big initial investment) -->1060/1070 you name it.

You would be almost sure to be able to mine the equivalent of 150$ a month --> not talking about Eth, any altcoin.

With current hardware, do you think it would be sustainable to do at least 150$/day with a 8 GPU rig until at least mid 2018, with any altcoin?
Difficulty should not be a problem as the target is "only" to reach 150$ equivalent. Any possible way, switching currency, going NiceHash etc...

So it would be 120*150$= 18 000$/month

Thanks

As difficulty increases your return decreases, you could do it with enough upfront capital but at say $3000 per mining rig that is $360 000 for 120 rigs. Probably better return to buy and hold.

120 8 card rigs would earn more than $150 per day but that's a bit upfront investment to aim to make $150 per day. It would take 2400 days or 6.5 years to pay off at $150 per day

[hyet24]

You act like cards is unlimited.  Your also racing against time.  Difficulty and cards is out of stock and prices of the cards is increase.  I don't think it will last till December.

Like someone here said you treat it as a hobby.  It's like my hobbies I put 5k into camera equipment and nothing return.  I just have fun doing it.

I had tons of fun building computers.  I'm going to miss it when it end.

[bibyfok]

Please take out of the equation cards supplies.
Initial invest 300K
If I put 120 rigs online -->Any algo -->150$/month
150*120= 18000$
300000/18000 = 17 months

I know the difficulty is rising that why I say 150$ (I make way more than that today on eth) and talking about any altcoin, even Nicehash.
Eth is ephemeral as PoS will come but there is many other coins...

Do you think it is possible to maintain that level, when mining any altcoin/algo until Mid2018?

[dbc23]

Not terribly wise, it's a biiiig gamble.

[iamnewhere]

It's like gambling as you can make more money out of trading currencies than with mining them.

[Pennywis3]

Do you think it is possible to maintain that level, when mining any altcoin/algo until Mid2018?

Please, don't ask stupid questions noone has answer to, ok?

We can't see the future.

[Coin++]

Strictly impossible.

[target]

If its possible, people would have been investing their money on GPUs to mine ETH and ZEC. If I have the money to invest on GPUs I'd definitely be setting up mine at home and just lay around all my life but thats not possible wit hthe current GPUS, maybe if those supper computers are manufactured already.
18 000$/month  A bank manager don't even earn that much a month.

[h311m4n]

Strictly impossible.

It's not stricktly impossible. You could perfectly make a living out of mining if you're willing to take the risk to quit your current job for it. It's all about planing and knowing when to start/stop and understanding that all of this is still very volatile. For instance, I'm not entirely sure now is the right time to think about making this for a living. Too much uncertainty (ETH going to PoS, GPU shortage, too many people are mining. All this can't make you sure that you'll still have 18'000$/months in 3 months).

You just need to be really smart about all this. Also, mining is one aspect of the crypto, trading is another, and in contrary to mining, trading isn't for everyone (I personally am not a big fan of trading).

[Vaccinus]

you can perfectly make a livign from minign with current profit, the profit is very high now, even with oen rig in a poor country you can already make a living, there are risk, but the value will increase more when bitcoin segwit will be activated

[adaseb]

Please take out of the equation cards supplies.
Initial invest 300K
If I put 120 rigs online -->Any algo -->150$/month
150*120= 18000$
300000/18000 = 17 months

I know the difficulty is rising that why I say 150$ (I make way more than that today on eth) and talking about any altcoin, even Nicehash.
Eth is ephemeral as PoS will come but there is many other coins...

Do you think it is possible to maintain that level, when mining any altcoin/algo until Mid2018?

99% chance that its not going to be that profitable until Mid 2018, maybe till the end of the year however it might.

Let me put it to you this way

At the end of 2013, a Radeon R9 280X made about $10/day in Nov-Dec 2013. $7.50/day in Jan 2014. $5/day in Feb 2014. $2.5/day in March 2014, $1.50 in April 2014, in the summer of 2014, it made ~$1/day, at the end of 2014, it made $0.25/day.

Why? Because you are not the only one "thinking" of this idea and got money to throw around. You got competition.

[bibyfok]

Thanks for all your replies.

@adaseb, were you mining different currencies or just one? The market was vastly different: If I look at exchange rate at this moment, most money did not exist or were extremely low :/

@target: a bank manager did not invest 300k€ in his own bank.

How are mining farm making money? There is plenty of farm renting hash, I know that they are taking a bit more of what you are actually mining but I mean, they are running fine.

I tried to find some numbers to see how profitable are structures like Genesis mining but cant find anything.

[adaseb]

Thanks for all your replies.

@adaseb, were you mining different currencies or just one? The market was vastly different: If I look at exchange rate at this moment, most money did not exist or were extremely low :/

@target: a bank manager did not invest 300k€ in his own bank.

How are mining farm making money? There is plenty of farm renting hash, I know that they are taking a bit more of what you are actually mining but I mean, they are running fine.

I tried to find some numbers to see how profitable are structures like Genesis mining but cant find anything.

I was mining the most profitable currency at the time. Yes there is like 10x more market cap but there is also 10x more GPUs.

[Juggar]

Hello guys,

I was wondering on something and need your input:
Let say you have 120*8GPU rigs (Big initial investment) -->1060/1070 you name it.

You would be almost sure to be able to mine the equivalent of 150$ a month/rig --> not talking about Eth, any altcoin.

With current hardware, do you think it would be sustainable to do at least 150$/day with a 8 GPU rig until at least mid 2018, with any altcoin?
Difficulty should not be a problem as the target is "only" to reach 150$ equivalent. Any possible way, switching currency, going NiceHash etc...

So it would be 120*150$= 18 000$/month

Thanks

Guarantee you take at least a month from today to get the cards and the rigs set up.... what you're talking about is a huge gamble.

[Patatas]

you can perfectly make a livign from minign with current profit, the profit is very high now, even with oen rig in a poor country you can already make a living, there are risk, but the value will increase more when bitcoin segwit will be activated

What are you even talking about ? You clearly have no idea what this thread is all about.You cannot make a living from mining bitcoins in today's difficulty level.

How are mining farm making money? There is plenty of farm renting hash, I know that they are taking a bit more of what you are actually mining but I mean, they are running fine.

I tried to find some numbers to see how profitable are structures like Genesis mining but cant find anything.

-Those renting hash stuff is almost scam most of the times.The very large mining farms running individually are the ones making profit regardless.You stand no chance as a solo miner once the difficulty rises.

[bkbirge]

Guarantee you take at least a month from today to get the cards and the rigs set up.... what you're talking about is a huge gamble.

This. I'm a month and a half waiting for parts for a rig right now, from a supplier that was supposed to have the parts in stock. Unless you have a reliable supply with immediate access then calculate a month or 2 before being able to earn into your strategy.

[_javi_]

Buying the stuff is the easiest part..

how would you power and cool down almost 1000 gpus??? rigs are not for "set and forget".. mantaining 120 rigs is QUITE a job

[QuintLeo]

how would you power and cool down almost 1000 gpus??? rigs are not for "set and forget".. mantaining 120 rigs is QUITE a job

 To be fair, thread title IS "be a miner as a dayjob".

 I don't have 120 rigs - but I find that 20ish well-designed and built rigs aren't a HUGE pain to keep up with, and once I finish my recently-started "rationalization" effort it should be quite a bit easier.
 I can see 120 taking a lot more than an hour/day though. 9-)

[BTCBusinessConsult]

Take the money you want to buy rigs with and buy HMQ, Stratis, and Veritaseum. Then some BTC and Eth to put in cold storage.

Come back next summer to 50000% returns.

[64dimensions]

IMHO, of the various hats you have to wear, managing your GPU mix is the hardest.

[fanatic26]

99% chance that its not going to be that profitable until Mid 2018, maybe till the end of the year however it might.

Let me put it to you this way

At the end of 2013, a Radeon R9 280X made about $10/day in Nov-Dec 2013. $7.50/day in Jan 2014. $5/day in Feb 2014. $2.5/day in March 2014, $1.50 in April 2014, in the summer of 2014, it made ~$1/day, at the end of 2014, it made $0.25/day.

Why? Because you are not the only one "thinking" of this idea and got money to throw around. You got competition.

Where exactly are you getting these numbers from? An R9 280x mining Ethereum TODAY on $0.10/kwh power makes $2 per day.

[adaseb]

99% chance that its not going to be that profitable until Mid 2018, maybe till the end of the year however it might.

Let me put it to you this way

At the end of 2013, a Radeon R9 280X made about $10/day in Nov-Dec 2013. $7.50/day in Jan 2014. $5/day in Feb 2014. $2.5/day in March 2014, $1.50 in April 2014, in the summer of 2014, it made ~$1/day, at the end of 2014, it made $0.25/day.

Why? Because you are not the only one "thinking" of this idea and got money to throw around. You got competition.

Where exactly are you getting these numbers from? An R9 280x mining Ethereum TODAY on $0.10/kwh power makes $2 per day.

2013-2014

[Fredomago]

99% chance that its not going to be that profitable until Mid 2018, maybe till the end of the year however it might.

Let me put it to you this way

At the end of 2013, a Radeon R9 280X made about $10/day in Nov-Dec 2013. $7.50/day in Jan 2014. $5/day in Feb 2014. $2.5/day in March 2014, $1.50 in April 2014, in the summer of 2014, it made ~$1/day, at the end of 2014, it made $0.25/day.

Why? Because you are not the only one "thinking" of this idea and got money to throw around. You got competition.

Where exactly are you getting these numbers from? An R9 280x mining Ethereum TODAY on $0.10/kwh power makes $2 per day.

Wow with certain difficulty those numbers will not sustained the mining business unless you got free electricity and your ventilation and set is really cool enough to sustain the condition of the rig better to think twice before investing to this high risk set up.

[grape_tectonics]

Just to poop on the party even more - once eth goes PoS, the difficulty of all other coins will jump by around 4x since around 75% of all GPU mining power is doing eth right now.

[puwaha]

Too much doom and gloom on this thread... I say go for it dude!

Create a thread documenting your adventure.

[kamerico]

Too much doom and gloom on this thread... I say go for it dude!

Create a thread documenting your adventure.

LOL, that was funny! I say the same! Go for it.. I bought a rig and in less than three weeks my profit went boom.. Anyway it will just take a little longer to pay off. No rush.

[hyet24]

Too much doom and gloom on this thread... I say go for it dude!

Create a thread documenting your adventure.

LOL, that was funny! I say the same! Go for it.. I bought a rig and in less than three weeks my profit went boom.. Anyway it will just take a little longer to pay off. No rush.

Huge difference doing it for fun vs working for it.  He will be more stressful and frustrated with current situation.

[Elder III]

Just finding, obtaining and setting up a facility to house 120 mining rigs is a challenge by itself. Just the power and cooling requirements themselves will be quite a bit of work and money to set  up unless you somehow already have a facility that's ready to go right now and is within your budget already? 

Small scale first then slowly scale upwards, not 100000% all at once.

Where would you buy 720 GPUs all at once? Do you have contacts at the manufacturer directly?

[kisk]

Dreams are great but you'd have to be able to find the cards first which is extremely hard to do right now.

[Tmdz]

Just finding, obtaining and setting up a facility to house 120 mining rigs is a challenge by itself. Just the power and cooling requirements themselves will be quite a bit of work and money to set  up unless you somehow already have a facility that's ready to go right now and is within your budget already? 

Small scale first then slowly scale upwards, not 100000% all at once.

Where would you buy 720 GPUs all at once? Do you have contacts at the manufacturer directly?

And then theres the part where you go to the bank and say hey I wan't a $300k loan to buy graphic cards to mine something called "ethereum".

[jwarren81]

I see no reason you can't make it a job, but as with any entrepreneurship its risky and stressful.  It will take some up front investment to setup and you will need to have the skill set to allow you to maximize your profits.  For me, it is supplementing my income as a side business quite well when combined with long term holds on select coins.  I am expanding, methodically, to increase my monthly income and plan on having 10 nvidia rigs with 7-8 GPU each by the end of the year; by building 1-2 per month.  You need to make sure you don't put all your eggs in one basket (i.e. ethereum).  Make sure you can effectively mine many coins instead of a couple.  Personally I don't focus on coins, I focus on hardware to algorithm efficiency and mining the most profitable algorithms available.  Let the multi-pools do the work of managing coins and take payment in BTC or your favorite available coin.  Then exchange some for long term investments and cash out the rest to pay bills.

I see GPU mining as inherently LESS risky than exchange trading.  Mining gear (GPUs) can easily be sold a year later to recoup 50-75% of hardware costs and mining during that time period will handle the rest easily with multiple times your ROI.  This depends on the GPU of course, which is why I focus strictly on nvidia GTX 1070's or above, which can mine everything, including ethash based algos.  They are favorites of gamers and  will easily resell next year or the year after.  If a new card comes out, evaluate and move to it once its ready.  All this can be done incrementally.  

Someone mentioned dumping $100k into the market as being a better plan . . . I completely disagree.  That whole amount could be gone in days or weeks with bad picks, let alone a year from now.  Trading is gambling at its simplest and extremely risky.  Mining is much less risky since when the market crashes you still have something of value afterwards.  The equipment is can be resold or re-purposed.  Devalued currency is worthless.

I don't see any end to the mining boom we are currently in.  It will ebb and flow like always but will continue for years to come.  Unlike what many here believe; ethereum is not the end all of coins for mining.  Hasn't been for many months.  Do your research find what will make the best profit and mine it.  You can make a consistent income from it, just like I do.

Also, you don't need 120 rigs to make a significant profit.  10 rigs would net a very nice profit at a modest $30 a day per rig. That's $100k a year gross income . . . I think most people would be pretty happy with that per year.  The sky's the limit after that.

[bibyfok]

I see no reason you can't make it a job, but as with any entrepreneurship its risky and stressful.  It will take some up front investment to setup and you will need to have the skill set to allow you to maximize your profits.  For me, it is supplementing my income as a side business quite well when combined with long term holds on select coins.  I am expanding, methodically, to increase my monthly income and plan on having 10 nvidia rigs with 7-8 GPU each by the end of the year; by building 1-2 per month.  You need to make sure you don't put all your eggs in one basket (i.e. ethereum).  Make sure you can effectively mine many coins instead of a couple.  Personally I don't focus on coins, I focus on hardware to algorithm efficiency and mining the most profitable algorithms available.  Let the multi-pools do the work of managing coins and take payment in BTC or your favorite available coin.  Then exchange some for long term investments and cash out the rest to pay bills.

I see GPU mining as inherently LESS risky than exchange trading.  Mining gear (GPUs) can easily be sold a year later to recoup 50-75% of hardware costs and mining during that time period will handle the rest easily with multiple times your ROI.  This depends on the GPU of course, which is why I focus strictly on nvidia GTX 1070's or above, which can mine everything, including ethash based algos.  They are favorites of gamers and  will easily resell next year or the year after.  If a new card comes out, evaluate and move to it once its ready.  All this can be done incrementally.  

Someone mentioned dumping $100k into the market as being a better plan . . . I completely disagree.  That whole amount could be gone in days or weeks with bad picks, let alone a year from now.  Trading is gambling at its simplest and extremely risky.  Mining is much less risky since when the market crashes you still have something of value afterwards.  The equipment is can be resold or re-purposed.  Devalued currency is worthless.

I don't see any end to the mining boom we are currently in.  It will ebb and flow like always but will continue for years to come.  Unlike what many here believe; ethereum is not the end all of coins for mining.  Hasn't been for many months.  Do your research find what will make the best profit and mine it.  You can make a consistent income from it, just like I do.

THIS !

Here is the whole story:
With some friends we are talking about mining since few month, last month during a bbq we decided to start a small mining farm. We started with a rig, then a second one. As we have different skillsets, I manage the hardware and my partner the money aspect.

The only thing we agreed is that no money that cant be losed has to be invested.

We have made a lot of upgrade at our small farm: Whole new electricity network, industrial ventilation etc.

Today we have 50+ GPU running and we see the coins coming. We ask ourself if it is possible to make economies of scale and try to run a real farm where we would actually work: 48 more GPUs are arriving today and we have no real difficulties to get them so we are doubling our capacity this weekend.

Yes it require a constant monitoring, (we had the whole farm shut down because of a bad RJ45 connector in the night !) but man, this is so exciting ! I feel that we are on the verge of something new: something that the vast majority of people are completely unaware of !

I may be dreaming that we could run this as a business but as you, we think of the diversity of coins: today we are mainly mining ETH, tomorrow it will be something different and as you, we think that what is important is the processing power, to be able to mine a lot of different coins. I have the feeling that people are only seeing ETH as profit making because right now it's a cash cow, but even if we mine small coin and making half less profits it would still be super profitable with 200+ rigs.

I also feel that Trading is WAYYY more risky as you could lose everything is a matter of second and mining could be run in a more longterm: Our cards may be inefficient in 6 month, but they will already be ROIed, so it would be "free profits" as we live in a country where electricity is super cheap. And the resale value is real, even if it's 25% of the purchase price, an amount of money can be recovered in case of a disaster.

Someone will probably destroy my entire thinking in a coming post. We have created this post to have a sense on what the community is thinking: we were not in the game 2 years ago, so we wanted the feeling of the profits that could be made at that time. Thank you for all your input.

[cjnmoh]

Is there any way of mining of bitcoin or other cryptocoin free of cost? Currently i am using the EOBOT site for cloud mining and it is paying. But it also need to invest some amount of bitcoin.

[adaseb]

Yes it require a constant monitoring, (we had the whole farm shut down because of a bad RJ45 connector in the night !) but man, this is so exciting ! I feel that we are on the verge of something new: something that the vast majority of people are completely unaware of !

I may be dreaming that we could run this as a business but as you, we think of the diversity of coins: today we are mainly mining ETH, tomorrow it will be something different and as you, we think that what is important is the processing power, to be able to mine a lot of different coins. I have the feeling that people are only seeing ETH as profit making because right now it's a cash cow, but even if we mine small coin and making half less profits it would still be super profitable with 200+ rigs.

I bolded your points.

There are way too many people who are aware of mining, and that's a bad thing since it causes the difficulty to increase. Discovering something that's on the verge of exploding happens before it actually explodes. The GPU mining bubble exploded like 2 months ago, first sign would of been the sold out AMD GPUs.

Unfortuntely, most new coins are usually not POW. They are usually POS and distribution is done by a ICO. We all would be super rich if all these overpriced ICOs actually were POW like Bancor, EOS, Status, etc. However the developers hardly get any money that way so they create an ICO instead of POW which causes miners to dump coins on the exchanges.

Either way you will probably do your thing. We are just giving you our input after years of mining thru the doom and gloom periods.

[Bulletdodger]

It is effin' not for everyone. FFS, I see chicks on YT who advertise nail polishes now talking about their ETH rigs - wtf,
it that doesn't feel off, I don't know what does.

The situation is VERY different than 2013-2014 when this was an extremely niche thing, and even then the course of 1 gpu profit ran from almost $10 per day to less than $1.
Now imagine what will happen with MILLIONS people mining every day, ETH diff went up 10x in a matter of few months, who will you dump your worthless hardware to in a year or two, when it can't even cover the cost of daily electricity.

It is almost a full time job to handle 10 rigs, not to mention 50 or 100 or more... Million things can go wrong, it is even illegal in most countries to run such an INDUSTRIAL operation without having fire-related certificates, proper ventilation, etc. In my country, only the 50kW electricity supply costs a shitload of money (houses usually have 5-8kW I think)

Don't get me wrong, I have a few rigs myself, but this is a VERY risky business, ETH crashed a few days ago and suddenly your rigs are making 50% of what they used to, and there is no telling what will happen, now we were in an extremely bullish period, but correction will come, and oh boy - will it hit everyone hard like it's 2001.

Kids download a HTML5 web template, do an ICO for their imaginary "decentralize all" crypto project and collect $10 million in a few days and somebody
dares to tell me it's not a bubble the size of Jupiter? Wake up people.

Invest only what you can lose and not want to jump off the bridge when the crash comes.
My most honest suggestion.

[Usuadog]

Is there any way of mining of bitcoin or other cryptocoin free of cost? Currently i am using the EOBOT site for cloud mining and it is paying. But it also need to invest some amount of bitcoin.

I think the Hashnest site could be a good one. But you need to do your own research.

[Toxicable]

Just to poop on the party even more - once eth goes PoS, the difficulty of all other coins will jump by around 4x since around 75% of all GPU mining power is doing eth right now.

4x? that would be amazing. But the reality is more like 100x
I don't think you realize how much hashpower is behind ETH right now and how little is behind any other coin

[bibyfok]

I do agree, but many small players (like the tons of gamers that runs their cards when are at school will probably stop mining...)
I have met many people that started mining because it was super lucrative, I think that many of them will stop when it will be more complicated as you will have to switch currencies etc... But for sure, when ETH will PoS, it will be a bloodbath.

[CjMapope]

when you guys ask how miners can make money please keep in mind that most of them are ROI already, so their profits are 100% everything left over after power costs
Getting into mining NOW is a terrible idea, i myself recently expanded knowing FULL WELL it was a terrible time, but i have been doing this for years, so i worry not

Its the same old gloom and doom, personally i never worry, shit i have a 270x still running profitable on 0.1Kw/h, the trick is for miners to stop looking at whattomine...   or actually, please KEEP doing just that

crypto itself is so young lol, everyday is another opportunity for miners IMO

but i tell ya, everyone thinks its a great idea till the 6th and more rig, then you start to think, "oh shit"
the money comes too fast, the heat is unbearable, you start to worry about your house, your wife complains, mo' rigs , mo'problems ;p

[Vaccinus]

Just to poop on the party even more - once eth goes PoS, the difficulty of all other coins will jump by around 4x since around 75% of all GPU mining power is doing eth right now.

4x? that would be amazing. But the reality is more like 100x
I don't think you realize how much hashpower is behind ETH right now and how little is behind any other coin

1.5 millions gpu are behind etheruem and 500k on all the other coins combined, but the price can increase a lot after bitcoin go boom again, so it must be seen, also someone will sell his rig for sure, after eth go pos i'm sure on this

[Maskedman]

150$/day per rig is completely crazy, that would be near 20$/day per card ! Rather count on 30$/day/rig to be sure to always reach your target.

[AtomicDog602]

Can you be a miner as a day job?  Yes I suppose.  Issues like power availability (after all you can't pull more than 1400 watts from a 15A circuit), a place to keep the equipment cool and safe, and the ability to constantly monitor would be some of the few I see.

I prefer to make a hobby out of it.  I have 10 high end GPUs running on 2 rigs.  Already made enough bitcoin (via nicehash) to pay for half the cost.  I know earnings will diminish, but for this year I expect to have it all paid off and more.  I then sell off the equipment and either restart with better equipment or call it quits.  But doing it full time?  Nah.

[khaled0111]

if you have all that money and time; it's better invest it in trading it's more profitable or as other members said just buy altcoins and hold them for a while and you will gain more than you expected.

[QuintLeo]

99% chance that its not going to be that profitable until Mid 2018, maybe till the end of the year however it might.

Let me put it to you this way

At the end of 2013, a Radeon R9 280X made about $10/day in Nov-Dec 2013. $7.50/day in Jan 2014. $5/day in Feb 2014. $2.5/day in March 2014, $1.50 in April 2014, in the summer of 2014, it made ~$1/day, at the end of 2014, it made $0.25/day.

Why? Because you are not the only one "thinking" of this idea and got money to throw around. You got competition.

Where exactly are you getting these numbers from? An R9 280x mining Ethereum TODAY on $0.10/kwh power makes $2 per day.

 2013-2014 would have been the GPU days of Litecoin mining, then when Litecoin ASICs started showing up move to X11 (DASH) for a short while.

 Difficulty was a TON lower at the time - my HD 7750s were pulling in over $1 NET a day each for part of that timeframe, the R9 280x would have been pulling in ballpark 6 TIMES as much (4x cores and quite a bit higher core clock).


 Trading is a crapshoot. Way too many periods there was NO profit to be made, only varying amounts of loss unless you got LUCKY on timing a small spike.
 Mining is a lot less of a crapshoot, if you don't go overboard at the wrong time and keep your overhead low.

 There are over 2 Million GPUs mining ETH - not all ETH mining GPUs manage 30 Mh/s after all.
 ZEC has ballpark 1 million, might be somewhat less depending on how much of ZEC mining is high-end NVidia driven (GTX 1080/1080ti are GOOD on ZEC, so-so to poor on ETH).
 THEN you get to the small fry that might manage a half million between them all combined.

 ETH going POS will hammer profitability - but not 100x and it won't be all-at-once, given the current plan to "phase in" PoS in multiple steps.
 The "Ice Age" driven longer time between blocks is also going to start seriously impacting profitability sometime in the next month, it's ALREADY had a noticeable impact though not a big one.
 That will ALSO tend to make the "get out of ETH" transition a more gradual thing.

 Getting into mining NOW, due to insanely inflated GPU pricing and the serious profitability DROP on almost all coins the last week and some, is a major risk - one of the hedges of mining is that you can get MOST of the value of your rig back (as long as it doesn't die) by selling it when profitability dies - though as many rigs as are involved this time around, that might take quite a while to get a SIGNIFICANT percentage back - and the inflated sale prices on GPUs currently make it a LOT tougher as the GPUs are the large majority of the cost of most rigs.
 It's much less of a risk for those with VERY VERY LOW electric cost, as we'll retain profitability longer than anyone else - but there will come a time that 3c/KWH or less electric farms will be about the only folks showing a profit - and right now it's looking seriously like a race between that point and the "final" move to full PoS as to which is going to kill ETH mining first.

 On the other hand, this time around there is at least one OTHER coin with a fairly high market cap and a high network hashrate as part of the "profitable coins to mine" basket, and quite a few smaller ones, so it's not going to be nearly as much of a bloodbath as the end of Litecoin GPU days - and given ETH plans on POS I don't see any real probability of anyone building an ASIC for it to accelerate the collapse.
 ZEC on the other hand.....

[Thetaj]

People don't understand how mining works: All the coins have a set number that can be mined in 1 day. That many cards and that much hashrate WILL IMPACT DIFFICULTY levels of any coin. Which means that you will get LESS of any coins you mine. And also difficulty will keep rising (the more hashrates comes in, the faster it increases).

There is no way to beat the difficulty level increase, the more people come in, the faster the difficulty adjusts. Because there is only a fixed set of coins that can be mined per day. Simple as that! Oh btw, the bear market's knocking on the front door, so yea, altcoiners get ready.

[xleejohnx]

Everyone keeps saying 30/day/rig and I'm over here like
Do you have 10 gpus in one rig to make 30/day?
1080ti would take 6/rig to make 30/day
480s would take 10
470s would take 11
580s would take 9
Etc etc
So saying one "rig" makes this much is completely over board and misleading

Being a miner full time is just like being a day trader
1 in 10 shot of making it

[Za1n]

Everyone keeps saying 30/day/rig and I'm over here like
Do you have 10 gpus in one rig to make 30/day?
1080ti would take 6/rig to make 30/day
480s would take 10
470s would take 11
580s would take 9
Etc etc
So saying one "rig" makes this much is completely over board and misleading

Being a miner full time is just like being a day trader
1 in 10 shot of making it

That was my thoughts as well when reading this $30 per rig per day business. Even if a 6x1080Ti rig could consistently make $30/day, which it won't due to the increasing difficulty as many have already explained, just the GPUs alone will have cost you close to $4200 and the including the rest of the components you are talking about a $4500 investment. So this would take you around 150 days to break even at $30/day, but the catch is both market price and difficulty are both variable and the $30/day will not hold for any length of time, so the ROI point is going to be even longer, perhaps well over a year.

It doesn't matter what facts people put out there, as new miners will believe what they want to believe and imagine that the good times will roll on forever and they have it all figure out. The dreams of quitting their jobs and living the easy life cloud any rational discussion until the reality eventually sets in. Also, thinking you are going to get 75% back by selling all those GPUs will be another hard lesson as once mining profitability collapses there will be millions of GPUs dumped on the second-hand market, you will be lucky to get 10% if anyone is even buying at that point. Thus will also drive down the price of brand new GPUs as the manufactures will find they suddenly have a glut, so trying to hawk that "barely used" mining GPU on eBay will be harder that it was in the past.

[Za1n]

I do agree, but many small players (like the tons of gamers that runs their cards when are at school will probably stop mining...)
I have met many people that started mining because it was super lucrative, I think that many of them will stop when it will be more complicated as you will have to switch currencies etc... But for sure, when ETH will PoS, it will be a bloodbath.

Actually the small players will likely last the longest, as you pointed out they mainly use their GPU for gaming so ROI isn't an issue as they bought their graphic card originally for a different reason (to play games). Since most of them are (like you said) likely school-aged, or in college, they probably have free electricity (mom and dad, or dorm room) so they really wouldn't not have an financial incentive to quit mining. They may reduce their single GPU income from $5-$6/day to $1-$2/day, but again since they have no on-going costs why would they quit?

Also, the other small players that do pay their own way would probably keep mining too, as keeping a few GPUs running could be considered a hobby and they might not mind if they just break even since the electrical costs for such a small operation would be fairly minimal.

The people who will be hurt the most are the ones who have just recently build new rigs, and lots of them, with highly inflated component costs. The increased up-front investment compared to just a few months ago and rapidly decreasing revenue may make ROI impossible except for those with super low electricity rates <5 cents KWh. Even then it will be a long haul.

So unless Ethereum recovers and starts pushing $500 or higher, along with increases in all the other mine-able alts, the revenues will be dropping pretty soon.

[Bulletdodger]

This should be a sticky topic for all the hot heads thinking about selling their apartments and cards to go into mining.

[crazyivan]

Not possible unless you ve got really, really cheap electricity.

Cause there s nothing to prevent people to buy 120000000 rigs by mid 2018 and bring you out of business. We ve seen this before, in 2013/2014, market gets saturated and everyone shut down their rigs. The ones who remain are people with 6 cents per kwh and lower.

[Vaccinus]

Not possible unless you ve got really, really cheap electricity.

Cause there s nothing to prevent people to buy 120000000 rigs by mid 2018 and bring you out of business. We ve seen this before, in 2013/2014, market gets saturated and everyone shut down their rigs. The ones who remain are people with 6 cents per kwh and lower.

not true you can do good with 20 cent now and more, in 2018 the profit will be much higher, so evne with more gpu there will be the same profit, while it's easy to double the gpu when they are few of them it's more difficult when you have millions already o the market

[Nebell]

I might invest $25.000 - $30.000 in Bitcoin mining in a year or so if difficulty doesn't drastically change. I don't have that amount of money now, so I have to wait.
But I have been paying close attention every day on Bitcoin price, the amount mined every day and difficulty increase and it hasn't changed, at all. There's a small variation in the amount mined and also in Bitcoin price, but the profit is pretty much the same, depending on Bitcoin price of course.

[grape_tectonics]

if difficulty doesn't drastically change.

  would you consider doubling every month "drastic"? Because that's what its doing.

[QuintLeo]

Not possible unless you ve got really, really cheap electricity.

Cause there s nothing to prevent people to buy 120000000 rigs by mid 2018 and bring you out of business. We ve seen this before, in 2013/2014, market gets saturated and everyone shut down their rigs. The ones who remain are people with 6 cents per kwh and lower.

not true you can do good with 20 cent now and more, in 2018 the profit will be much higher, so evne with more gpu there will be the same profit, while it's easy to double the gpu when they are few of them it's more difficult when you have millions already o the market

 In 2018, unless coin prices rise a TON, profitability will be very low indeed as ETH takes steps towards PoS driving MILLIONS of GPUs into seeking new homes and driving profitability on THOSE coins down a ton.

 This doesn't even factor in the number of folks that are deploying or going to deploy new rigs between now and end of the year.

 You can make good profits RIGHT NOW, and for the last 2-3 months, at 20 cent electric - but don't COUNT on that lasting even TO the end of the year much less past it unless prices go up a LOT.

 Keep in mind that the only REAL limitation on rig growth RIGHT NOW is the worldwide GPU shortage - otherwise profitability would ALREADY have dropped a ton - oh yeah, it already HAS dropped by over half on almost all coins in just the last 2 weeks or so DESPITE that shortage.

[QuintLeo]

Everyone keeps saying 30/day/rig and I'm over here like
Do you have 10 gpus in one rig to make 30/day?

 $30 a day for a single 6-card rig wasn't hard to achieve - a month ago, or even 2 weeks ago.

 Right now, it's very difficult and you have to find a specific small niche - or go with all 1080ti or possibly a VERY well tuned 1080 rig on ZEC - to achieve it.

 I don't think there's ANYTHING you can do with a RX-based rig to manage $30/day - but if you've had that rig more than a couple months it's likely paid off or fairly close to being so.
 ETH certainly isn't an option for that - $20 a day is about the best a 6-card RX-based rig will manage right now, as they struggle to match the hashrate on my R9 290 cards and my trio R9 290 ETH rig only pulls in a hair over $10/day now.

[Nebell]

I'm thinking about investing $30.000 and moving to China or something and mining with ASIC as a day job. Then expand it to maybe twice as much. I should pay itself off.

[mojoxc]

It is entirely possible to do it as a day job, learning to manage several hundred gpu rigs solo takes a little while but worth it.  Gotta get the cooling systems dialed in and the setup that is stable.  It's fun to see the progress how systems improve as you build more facilities.

GPUs for most people have issues for finding them at the moment in large quantities as most don't have the relationships in place to acquire the equipment.  Might want to diversify a bit on the gpu selection as well, some nvidia some AMD.

[botmanside]

buy it, bankrupt, you can make another thread where you can cry later...

[CjMapope]

It is entirely possible to do it as a day job, learning to manage several hundred gpu rigs solo takes a little while but worth it.  Gotta get the cooling systems dialed in and the setup that is stable.  It's fun to see the progress how systems improve as you build more facilities.

GPUs for most people have issues for finding them at the moment in large quantities as most don't have the relationships in place to acquire the equipment.  Might want to diversify a bit on the gpu selection as well, some nvidia some AMD.

Yuppp

this year i am officially filing with my gov as a "Crypto-Currency" miner, and it feels GREAT 
i still WORK of course, 10+ rigs takes ALTEAST 2 hours a day to keep on top of the game, but i have FREEDOM, i work from home, i make my OWN money

 it can be done boys, just keep on top of your farm and mining is easy really, its just off the bat thats hard sometimes

[Za1n]

Not possible unless you ve got really, really cheap electricity.

Cause there s nothing to prevent people to buy 120000000 rigs by mid 2018 and bring you out of business. We ve seen this before, in 2013/2014, market gets saturated and everyone shut down their rigs. The ones who remain are people with 6 cents per kwh and lower.

not true you can do good with 20 cent now and more, in 2018 the profit will be much higher, so evne with more gpu there will be the same profit, while it's easy to double the gpu when they are few of them it's more difficult when you have millions already o the market

I bolded the part of your quote above that always gets me with these counter arguments. If you guys believe so thoroughly that the price of coins are going up so much within 12 months, which is by the way the only way that your future mining profitability scenarios make any sense, then why not just buy the coins directly now?

The OP was talking about investing $300k in mining equipment in the hopes of a 17 month break-even, which by definition is relying on the coins he mines to increase in value. So in 17 months time his plan is to get his money back while in a parallel universe his alter ego is taking that same $300k and buying the coins he is interested in directly.

Since both scenarios require the value of the coins (either mined or purchased outright) to increase in value, the smarter parallel universe version of himself just sat back and relaxed and made a nice profit off of his investment.

The miner version of himself (this universe) meanwhile put in a lot of work, suffered through the heat, noise, rig lockups, changing software, drivers, and all the other mining headaches for a long 17 months and is maybe back to even. Also, since he paid for power and depreciation on the equipment, his investment in hardware is not even worth $300k anymore, maybe half that at $150,000.

[bustomi]

Buying the stuff is the easiest part..

how would you power and cool down almost 1000 gpus??? rigs are not for "set and forget".. mantaining 120 rigs is QUITE a job

yups, you are right, and the miner must understand algorithms which is the way to get some coin, i believe electricity cost still major problems..

[reliable]

Mining in our country is not possible due to very high electricity cost. The rental place itself will eat away profits and plus equipment cost. So basically starting a mining farm is a loss making deal and people do not do it.