multiple etherum rigs investement

[itgetsbetter]

Recently I was invited to invest in a small mining "farm" partially funded with non refundable money. Basically, we're going to have a budget of 180k EUR ( about ~215k USD ). If we do get that part of the external funding, it comes with a string - the mining farm has to be profitable at least 1.5 years ( real profit, not $1 / day ). Our main target is etherum ( read the P.S. why ) but we were not able to understand what is going to happen after the Byzantium fork. We know that the fork coming next days is going to increase the difficulty but Byzantium, ~October, is going to decrease it back 1 block every 15s. We do know that there is a time bomb implemented ( due to make mining impossible in late 2018? ) but we don't really understand how mining will be until it sets in. We weren't able to find any predictions.

Considering the above, do you guys think GPU is still a good investment for Etherum ( or any other coin ? ). I am afraid of not hopping in too late and making a mistake.

P.S.: Local regulations make it impossible to import equipment such as Antminer, so, we have to use well known branded equipment, basically do GPU mining.

Edit: I feel I left an important part unmentioned. The non-refundable funding is something I get from the government to invest to create jobs. I invest around 30-40k and they give me the rest (that's why I can't buy the coins and definitely I can't buy antminers because all equipment has be bought from a local shop to increase their business as well ). The catch is I have to create a couple of jobs in my current business, they don't really have to be involved in the small data center, but I have to keep these jobs for 3 years otherwise I will have to return all the money the government gave me to invest. Most likely I will get the money sometime in February next year. So, in the end, the question is: do you think that running rigs ( worth of 180k but paid 30-40k for them ) for one year ( or one year and a half to be on the safe side ) would be profitable? For some,  the answer would be definitely yes but I am a bit scared of what might happen with etherum in the next year or if monero / pascal would still be mineable to make profit.

[Yars]

If I were you, I would diversify and buy few AMD GPU rigs, Nvidia Rigs and some ASICs (Antminers D3, L3+ and S9).
Don't rely only on ETH, with Nvidia rigs even if the price will be a little bit higher, at least you have a lot of coins to mine.

[Metroid]

Forget mining, buy the coins and get rich fast and without hassle. Thank me later.

[rdluffy]

I don't think this is the best time to invest on rigs
If you already have, great, but invest now?

[Za1n]

Forget mining, buy the coins and get rich fast and without hassle. Thank me later.

I agree 100% with this recommendation. Especially the situation which you describe where it sounds like you are simply buying a share of someone else's farm with a portion of your investment non-refundable. I also think 1.5 years to ROI might also be pushing in right now, what happens if it is not profitable by then, do you lose your share of the farm at that point or something?

What you are describing basically sounds similar to cloud mining where someone else owns and operates the hardware and you are simply buying hashrate. Many cloud mining services also have that disclaimer that once profitability drops below production costs for a certain period of time (30 days - 3 months) they will shut down and you will have nothing left to show for it.

[namjey]

I really don't this is great time to get into mining. I would really just buy some coins instead. But if you really want dig into mining, I would suggest to go with 1080ti. 

[BennyT]

Mining is great. You’re supporting the network and getting paid for it. Plus you can mine so many different coins and build up a stock. It’s also a lot of fun, unless you don’t enjoy it. In that case just buy coins.

[Gladimor]

I honestly wouldn't recommend it if you don't know what you are getting into. There are a large degree of complexities involved with managing a mining operation.

There is a certain headache involved even with a couple of rigs. You have issues with drivers, fried risers, software crashes, GPU hangs, etc. The list goes on. Now extrapolate that to a sizeable operation with 100 machines. If you are assembling the rigs, that's gonna take a couple of weeks with full days' of work. You will most definitely run into issues with completed rigs. Eg: black screens, undetected GPUs, low hashrate, and so on. And believe me, troubleshooting takes the most time.

And don't think when you have all of them running that it'll stay that way. Rigs are bound to stop and you'll have to commit maintenance time to bring them back online. It takes a fair amount of commitment to run an operation.

And remember this fact: you won't meet your projected ROI. You will always need to use worst-case scenarios when predicting future returns. Difficulty is a steady incline. The more miners, the less rewards. And not only that, you'll be running with downtime. My operation always seems to have rigs going down. Can't bother with a trek to the datacenter as it happens all too frequently.

I've been in this space for years.  Too many people think mining will bring them Lamborghinis and yachts. We are seeing a huge influx of eager newcomers that are diving right into the mining scene. They run a number on an online calculator and figure they have their retirement settled. Oh, they have no clue what they are getting into.

[itgetsbetter]

Thank you for all replies!

I feel I left an important part unmentioned. The non-refundable funding is something I get from the government to invest to create jobs. I invest around 30-40k and they give me the rest (that's why I can't buy the coins and definitely I can't buy antminers because all equipment has be bought from a local shop to increase their business as well ). The catch is I have to create a couple of jobs in my current business, they don't really have to be involved in the small data center, but I have to keep these jobs for 3 years otherwise I will have to return all the money the government gave me to invest. Most likely I will get the money sometime in February next year. So, in the end, the question is: do you think that running rigs ( worth of 180k but paid 30-40k for them ) for one year ( or one year and a half to be on the safe side ) would be profitable? For some,  the answer would be definitely yes but I am a bit scared of what might happen with etherum in the next year or if monero / pascal would still be mineable to make profit.

P.S.: Thanks for all advices! I am a bit tech savvy and installing and setting up every rig doesn't scare me. I plan to use PiMP and miner.farm to manage and monitor everything. One downside would be that the data center would be located at 150 miles away from me.

[Pennywis3]

I honestly wouldn't recommend it if you don't know what you are getting into. There are a large degree of complexities involved with managing a mining operation.

There is a certain headache involved even with a couple of rigs. You have issues with drivers, fried risers, software crashes, GPU hangs, etc. The list goes on. Now extrapolate that to a sizeable operation with 100 machines. If you are assembling the rigs, that's gonna take a couple of weeks with full days' of work. You will most definitely run into issues with completed rigs. Eg: black screens, undetected GPUs, low hashrate, and so on. And believe me, troubleshooting takes the most time.

And don't think when you have all of them running that it'll stay that way. Rigs are bound to stop and you'll have to commit maintenance time to bring them back online. It takes a fair amount of commitment to run an operation.

And remember this fact: you won't meet your projected ROI. You will always need to use worst-case scenarios when predicting future returns. Difficulty is a steady incline. The more miners, the less rewards. And not only that, you'll be running with downtime. My operation always seems to have rigs going down. Can't bother with a trek to the datacenter as it happens all too frequently.

I've been in this space for years.  Too many people think mining will bring them Lamborghinis and yachts. We are seeing a huge influx of eager newcomers that are diving right into the mining scene. They run a number on an online calculator and figure they have their retirement settled. Oh, they have no clue what they are getting into.

This is a very good and basic explanation what happens when you go into mining.
I agree totatly with Gladimor, i have only a few rigs, and the work involved in keeping them online most of the time is mind bogling to say the least.
It really involves a lot of hard work and frustration, and after a while, even if the profits are good, you really start to ask yourself, considering how much raw hours you spent on the farm, is it really worth it?

But...

Since you will have employees at your farm, it might be a lot easier, if they will be fixing your stuff if it goes bad.
The mistake i made was buying to much of this stuff, having it on three different locations, and since im a one man band it almost makes it a second job i guess.
Having a family besides mining sure isn't helping
And now i've also started trading..... Suicide is looking good right now lol.

[itgetsbetter]

I honestly wouldn't recommend it if you don't know what you are getting into. There are a large degree of complexities involved with managing a mining operation.

There is a certain headache involved even with a couple of rigs. You have issues with drivers, fried risers, software crashes, GPU hangs, etc. The list goes on. Now extrapolate that to a sizeable operation with 100 machines. If you are assembling the rigs, that's gonna take a couple of weeks with full days' of work. You will most definitely run into issues with completed rigs. Eg: black screens, undetected GPUs, low hashrate, and so on. And believe me, troubleshooting takes the most time.

And don't think when you have all of them running that it'll stay that way. Rigs are bound to stop and you'll have to commit maintenance time to bring them back online. It takes a fair amount of commitment to run an operation.

And remember this fact: you won't meet your projected ROI. You will always need to use worst-case scenarios when predicting future returns. Difficulty is a steady incline. The more miners, the less rewards. And not only that, you'll be running with downtime. My operation always seems to have rigs going down. Can't bother with a trek to the datacenter as it happens all too frequently.

I've been in this space for years.  Too many people think mining will bring them Lamborghinis and yachts. We are seeing a huge influx of eager newcomers that are diving right into the mining scene. They run a number on an online calculator and figure they have their retirement settled. Oh, they have no clue what they are getting into.

This is a very good and basic explanation what happens when you go into mining.
I agree totatly with Gladimor, i have only a few rigs, and the work involved in keeping them online most of the time is mind bogling to say the least.
It really involves a lot of hard work and frustration, and after a while, even if the profits are good, you really start to ask yourself, considering how much raw hours you spent on the farm, is it really worth it?

But...

Since you will have employees at your farm, it might be a lot easier, if they will be fixing your stuff if it goes bad.
The mistake i made was buying to much of this stuff, having it on three different locations, and since im a one man band it almost makes it a second job i guess.
Having a family besides mining sure isn't helping
And now i've also started trading..... Suicide is looking good right now lol.

Well, we do what we have to do to provide to our families. Now the question is if that equipment is still going to generate profits at the end of 2018 or not.

[Tadzka]

I honestly wouldn't recommend it if you don't know what you are getting into. There are a large degree of complexities involved with managing a mining operation.

There is a certain headache involved even with a couple of rigs. You have issues with drivers, fried risers, software crashes, GPU hangs, etc. The list goes on. Now extrapolate that to a sizeable operation with 100 machines. If you are assembling the rigs, that's gonna take a couple of weeks with full days' of work. You will most definitely run into issues with completed rigs. Eg: black screens, undetected GPUs, low hashrate, and so on. And believe me, troubleshooting takes the most time.

And don't think when you have all of them running that it'll stay that way. Rigs are bound to stop and you'll have to commit maintenance time to bring them back online. It takes a fair amount of commitment to run an operation.

And remember this fact: you won't meet your projected ROI. You will always need to use worst-case scenarios when predicting future returns. Difficulty is a steady incline. The more miners, the less rewards. And not only that, you'll be running with downtime. My operation always seems to have rigs going down. Can't bother with a trek to the datacenter as it happens all too frequently.

I've been in this space for years.  Too many people think mining will bring them Lamborghinis and yachts. We are seeing a huge influx of eager newcomers that are diving right into the mining scene. They run a number on an online calculator and figure they have their retirement settled. Oh, they have no clue what they are getting into.

This is a very good and basic explanation what happens when you go into mining.
I agree totatly with Gladimor, i have only a few rigs, and the work involved in keeping them online most of the time is mind bogling to say the least.
It really involves a lot of hard work and frustration, and after a while, even if the profits are good, you really start to ask yourself, considering how much raw hours you spent on the farm, is it really worth it?

But...

Since you will have employees at your farm, it might be a lot easier, if they will be fixing your stuff if it goes bad.
The mistake i made was buying to much of this stuff, having it on three different locations, and since im a one man band it almost makes it a second job i guess.
Having a family besides mining sure isn't helping
And now i've also started trading..... Suicide is looking good right now lol.

Well, we do what we have to do to provide to our families. Now the question is if that equipment is still going to generate profits at the end of 2018 or not.

Which countries government gives you money, to create jobs?

[itgetsbetter]

Which countries government gives you money, to create jobs?

I think you're loosing the overall point.

[Tadzka]

Which countries government gives you money, to create jobs?

I think you're loosing the overall point.

I do not, just interested

[carlisle1]

Mining is great. You’re supporting the network and getting paid for it. Plus you can mine so many different coins and build up a stock. It’s also a lot of fun, unless you don’t enjoy it. In that case just buy coins.

if you are aiming for long term holdings I guess mining still be beneficial, I'm not sure if what's your plan and I hope you also aware that eth also
planning to chain to PoS system making those holders to stake their coins and earn without any mining rigs.

[viking1978]

Just remind you that ETH is definitely going to POS.

ROI is always getting worse after you started to build your rig.

For me, I enjoyed building rigs. Even having said that, after spending so much night time and weekends to build rigs and troubleshooting, I was very frustrated in a few days.

[Metroid]

This is a very good and basic explanation what happens when you go into mining.
I agree totatly with Gladimor, i have only a few rigs, and the work involved in keeping them online most of the time is mind bogling to say the least.
It really involves a lot of hard work and frustration, and after a while, even if the profits are good, you really start to ask yourself, considering how much raw hours you spent on the farm, is it really worth it?

Specially if in the morning is cool and evening is blood hot. That is why I don't mine, I know everything about mining but don't do it at all, by the way check your power cost, right now return of investment is around 20 months.

[g0suboy]

If i were you i would only invest the money i (u) have that's 30-40k EUR. u can buy 100 rx580 8gb with no problem. that's around 17rigs. It will take you some time to make them work but that's a challenge. Mine ether and save it till it increase.

[Smashingmanson]

Which countries government gives you money, to create jobs?

I would say it's probably a country that belong to the EU.

In Portugal there's similar stuff like "Portugal 2020" which falls in the sort of thing he described.

You have to present a project, in the available categories, and the EU funds it if it gets approved.