Mining is not profitable, but Bitcoins can be...

[WillMitchell]

If you've got Bitcoins, and the ability to mine for them at a rate that allows a profit, I say do it. You're not only helping yourself, you're also helping the economy by creating more bitcoins to go around, bringing us to that day of stabilization even sooner. Mine away!

Reality Check: Bitcoins are created at the average rate of 50 bitcoins every ~10 minutes until 2013 (at which point it will only be 25 bitcoins every ~10 minutes) regardless of the number of people mining.  Therefore you are factually wrong when you say that someone should mine in order to create more bitcoins to go around.

I recently finished version 2.1.22 of my AlgoCalc solutions program. Basically, you pop in a thumbdrive and if autorun is in place, 3 minutes later you've got a silent miner that continuously runs on startup, runs invisibly, only uses non-used CPU/GPU (per miner plugin) with the option for delete protection (kind of like spyware cannot be 'deleted').

If autorun is on, then they obviously don't know how to secure a computer. They should learn some security basics before they get into bitcoin.

Jacking people up <3

Obvious enough point, but why do you think someone would have to know anything about security to take money in exchange for GPU cycles? The last time you bought a car, did they ask you if you were a good driver? -_-;;

FYI, Mabsark, it has already been determined that Domokun doesn't understand the internal technical workings of bitcoin and he has admitted to being a troll.  Basically he wrote a long post where he claimed he was 12 years old, only knew about bitcoin for a week, has 20,000+ machines mining coins in South Korea, and had already written a bitcoin virus and an anti-virus!  But there were enough obviously glaring technical misunderstandings in his post that it was clear he didn't understand bitcoin.  He then admitted that he hadn't even read the whitepaper!    I would take most of what he says with a grain of salt and assume he is just trolling for the lolz.  And please don't spend any money for licensing "version 2.1.22 of my AlgoCalc solutions program" because it is obvious now that he hasn't written any version 2.1.21 of AlgoCalc to begin with. 

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[Manko]

Mining is still profitable... the biatch just does not want to die !!!

I can't wait to see what happens when it no longer is (people, prices, hashrate, difficulty) .... actually, I am really looking forward to it

[em3rgentOrdr]

Really?  REALLY?  So because I might not make a profit tomorrow, I shouldn't mine today?  That's the most absurd logic I've ever heard.

I'm paying for my electricity 6x over.  There is absolutely no reason for me to not mine.  It would make zero sense.

Sgt. Spike, I was directing my comments towards newbies who might be fooled into thinking they can make an easy steady profit by mining.  At the current difficulty level, mining doesn't make sense unless you already have a GPU cluster, since the likelihood of solving a block chain is so high.  I just did a calculation using http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

Current difficulty: 1379223.42967
Mega Hashes / second: 30.0 (that was on my dual-card Nvidia GPGPU I had used previously)
Assuming exchange rate of $15 USD/BTC, since that is about where Mt.Gox was before the big hack.

Then the average rate of return, assuming you are engaging in pooled mining is:

   Coins   Dollars
per Day   ฿0.02   $0.33
per Week   ฿0.15   $2.30
per Month   ฿0.67   $9.98

That $10 average expected revenue per month doesn't justify the energy cost of me leaving my computer on with the GPU running 24/7 at full blast.  Sorry.  Again, maybe if you are experienced and have highly optimized energy efficient equipment, then if may work out for you, but I am advising the newbies focus on using whatever unique skill set or trade that they have and offer goods & services in exchange for bitcoin instead of wasting their money buying a mining rig.  Your economics may be different though, so you may make your own decision.

[SgtSpike]

Really?  REALLY?  So because I might not make a profit tomorrow, I shouldn't mine today?  That's the most absurd logic I've ever heard.

I'm paying for my electricity 6x over.  There is absolutely no reason for me to not mine.  It would make zero sense.

Sgt. Spike, I was directing my comments towards newbies who might be fooled into thinking they can make an easy steady profit by mining.  At the current difficulty level, mining doesn't make sense unless you already have a GPU cluster, since the likelihood of solving a block chain is so high.  I just did a calculation using http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

Current difficulty: 1379223.42967
Mega Hashes / second: 30.0 (that was on my dual-card Nvidia GPGPU I had used previously)
Assuming exchange rate of $15 USD/BTC, since that is about where Mt.Gox was before the big hack.

Then the average rate of return, assuming you are engaging in pooled mining is:

   Coins   Dollars
per Day   ฿0.02   $0.33
per Week   ฿0.15   $2.30
per Month   ฿0.67   $9.98

That $10 average expected revenue per month doesn't justify the energy cost of me leaving my computer on with the GPU running 24/7 at full blast.  Sorry.  Again, maybe if you are experienced and have highly optimized energy efficient equipment, then if may work out for you, but I am advising the newbies focus on using whatever unique skill set or trade that they have and offer goods & services in exchange for bitcoin instead of wasting their money buying a mining rig.  Your economics may be different though, so you may make your own decision.

You're using an old NVIDIA card - of course it's not going to be profitable for you.   

When you use a single-GPU 5870 that can generate 370MH/s and uses about 200w, the story looks a bit different.  Heck, even a 6870 would be a good 10x as good as whatever crap cards you were using.

Mining is FAR from being unprofitable.  If I had more cash to buy and places to put and cool mining machines, I would do it in a heartbeat.

[WillMitchell]

Really?  REALLY?  So because I might not make a profit tomorrow, I shouldn't mine today?  That's the most absurd logic I've ever heard.

I'm paying for my electricity 6x over.  There is absolutely no reason for me to not mine.  It would make zero sense.

Sgt. Spike, I was directing my comments towards newbies who might be fooled into thinking they can make an easy steady profit by mining.  At the current difficulty level, mining doesn't make sense unless you already have a GPU cluster, since the likelihood of solving a block chain is so high.  I just did a calculation using http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

Current difficulty: 1379223.42967
Mega Hashes / second: 30.0 (that was on my dual-card Nvidia GPGPU I had used previously)
Assuming exchange rate of $15 USD/BTC, since that is about where Mt.Gox was before the big hack.

Then the average rate of return, assuming you are engaging in pooled mining is:

   Coins   Dollars
per Day   ฿0.02   $0.33
per Week   ฿0.15   $2.30
per Month   ฿0.67   $9.98

That $10 average expected revenue per month doesn't justify the energy cost of me leaving my computer on with the GPU running 24/7 at full blast.  Sorry.  Again, maybe if you are experienced and have highly optimized energy efficient equipment, then if may work out for you, but I am advising the newbies focus on using whatever unique skill set or trade that they have and offer goods & services in exchange for bitcoin instead of wasting their money buying a mining rig.  Your economics may be different though, so you may make your own decision.

You're using an old NVIDIA card - of course it's not going to be profitable for you.   

When you use a single-GPU 5870 that can generate 370MH/s and uses about 200w, the story looks a bit different.  Heck, even a 6870 would be a good 10x as good as whatever crap cards you were using.

Mining is FAR from being unprofitable.  If I had more cash to buy and places to put and cool mining machines, I would do it in a heartbeat.

If mining is as profitable as all of the bitcoin fanboys would like everybody to believe, they would have cash to buy mining rigs, space, and employees. The fact of the matter is simply that it isnt. The people that think it is are exposing themselves to immense risk.

[Mabsark]

Sgt. Spike, I was directing my comments towards newbies who might be fooled into thinking they can make an easy steady profit by mining.  At the current difficulty level, mining doesn't make sense unless you already have a GPU cluster, since the likelihood of solving a block chain is so high.  I just did a calculation using http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

...

That $10 average expected revenue per month doesn't justify the energy cost of me leaving my computer on with the GPU running 24/7 at full blast.  Sorry.  Again, maybe if you are experienced and have highly optimized energy efficient equipment, then if may work out for you, but I am advising the newbies focus on using whatever unique skill set or trade that they have and offer goods & services in exchange for bitcoin instead of wasting their money buying a mining rig.  Your economics may be different though, so you may make your own decision.

As a PC Gamer, mining is still profitable for me. I've got the hardware already and my computer is always on. The extra electricity costs  are tiny for me. I'm not in it for money like you guys though, I just like the idea of getting the latest hardware for free.

[SgtSpike]

Really?  REALLY?  So because I might not make a profit tomorrow, I shouldn't mine today?  That's the most absurd logic I've ever heard.

I'm paying for my electricity 6x over.  There is absolutely no reason for me to not mine.  It would make zero sense.

Sgt. Spike, I was directing my comments towards newbies who might be fooled into thinking they can make an easy steady profit by mining.  At the current difficulty level, mining doesn't make sense unless you already have a GPU cluster, since the likelihood of solving a block chain is so high.  I just did a calculation using http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

Current difficulty: 1379223.42967
Mega Hashes / second: 30.0 (that was on my dual-card Nvidia GPGPU I had used previously)
Assuming exchange rate of $15 USD/BTC, since that is about where Mt.Gox was before the big hack.

Then the average rate of return, assuming you are engaging in pooled mining is:

   Coins   Dollars
per Day   ฿0.02   $0.33
per Week   ฿0.15   $2.30
per Month   ฿0.67   $9.98

That $10 average expected revenue per month doesn't justify the energy cost of me leaving my computer on with the GPU running 24/7 at full blast.  Sorry.  Again, maybe if you are experienced and have highly optimized energy efficient equipment, then if may work out for you, but I am advising the newbies focus on using whatever unique skill set or trade that they have and offer goods & services in exchange for bitcoin instead of wasting their money buying a mining rig.  Your economics may be different though, so you may make your own decision.

You're using an old NVIDIA card - of course it's not going to be profitable for you.   

When you use a single-GPU 5870 that can generate 370MH/s and uses about 200w, the story looks a bit different.  Heck, even a 6870 would be a good 10x as good as whatever crap cards you were using.

Mining is FAR from being unprofitable.  If I had more cash to buy and places to put and cool mining machines, I would do it in a heartbeat.

If mining is as profitable as all of the bitcoin fanboys would like everybody to believe, they would have cash to buy mining rigs, space, and employees. The fact of the matter is simply that it isnt. The people that think it is are exposing themselves to immense risk.

Immense risk?  Not really... the most I risk is the 25% or so I'd lose on reselling any hardware I purchased.  Hardly what I would call immense.

I bought $1100 worth of mining hardware on April 27th, when the price/difficulty ratio was roughly the same as it is today.  I've made an extra $2200 BEYOND what the mining hardware cost.  So not only do I have $1100 of free mining equipment, I also have an extra $2200 in my pocket.  And that number is still growing quite steadily every day.  Total electricity costs have been about $200 for the two months, which I am more than willing to deal with.

I'm not sure whether you're just jealous of miner's success, or whether you truly are naive enough to believe that mining isn't very profitable.  You say that "if it was as profitable as fanboys say, they would have cash to buy mining rigs, space, and exmployees".  It's not a guaranteed enough deal to buy space and employees IMO (who would need employees anyway?), but buying a decent amount of hardware is an extremely low-risk investment with an extremely high ROI.

[WillMitchell]

If mining is as profitable as all of the bitcoin fanboys would like everybody to believe, they would have cash to buy mining rigs, space, and employees. The fact of the matter is simply that it isnt. The people that think it is are exposing themselves to immense risk.

I would say that's a good point, but you can't really be too sure what people are actually doing with their rigs/etc. Even with a big site like this, I doubt everyone talks as much as I do about what they're running-- especially when most people want to keep the market from crashing.

That being said, the ability to make a profit on something does not magically grant people with good money management skills. In fact, most people are downright dumb to money management.

What happens to everyone when they win the lottery? Find $20 on the ground? Yeah, thought so.

Let's face it-- anyone who doesn't know how much money can be earned from mining is ignorant of so for the same reason you wouldn't know how much money there is in drug and gun running-- because you don't do it!

This doesnt change the fact that if there were money to be made in mining competent entrepreneurs and investors would be attracted to it. This is not the case. They are putting their money elsewhere and seeing higher returns.

[WillMitchell]

Really?  REALLY?  So because I might not make a profit tomorrow, I shouldn't mine today?  That's the most absurd logic I've ever heard.

I'm paying for my electricity 6x over.  There is absolutely no reason for me to not mine.  It would make zero sense.

Sgt. Spike, I was directing my comments towards newbies who might be fooled into thinking they can make an easy steady profit by mining.  At the current difficulty level, mining doesn't make sense unless you already have a GPU cluster, since the likelihood of solving a block chain is so high.  I just did a calculation using http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

Current difficulty: 1379223.42967
Mega Hashes / second: 30.0 (that was on my dual-card Nvidia GPGPU I had used previously)
Assuming exchange rate of $15 USD/BTC, since that is about where Mt.Gox was before the big hack.

Then the average rate of return, assuming you are engaging in pooled mining is:

   Coins   Dollars
per Day   ฿0.02   $0.33
per Week   ฿0.15   $2.30
per Month   ฿0.67   $9.98

That $10 average expected revenue per month doesn't justify the energy cost of me leaving my computer on with the GPU running 24/7 at full blast.  Sorry.  Again, maybe if you are experienced and have highly optimized energy efficient equipment, then if may work out for you, but I am advising the newbies focus on using whatever unique skill set or trade that they have and offer goods & services in exchange for bitcoin instead of wasting their money buying a mining rig.  Your economics may be different though, so you may make your own decision.

You're using an old NVIDIA card - of course it's not going to be profitable for you.   

When you use a single-GPU 5870 that can generate 370MH/s and uses about 200w, the story looks a bit different.  Heck, even a 6870 would be a good 10x as good as whatever crap cards you were using.

Mining is FAR from being unprofitable.  If I had more cash to buy and places to put and cool mining machines, I would do it in a heartbeat.

If mining is as profitable as all of the bitcoin fanboys would like everybody to believe, they would have cash to buy mining rigs, space, and employees. The fact of the matter is simply that it isnt. The people that think it is are exposing themselves to immense risk.

Immense risk?  Not really... the most I risk is the 25% or so I'd lose on reselling any hardware I purchased.  Hardly what I would call immense.

I bought $1100 worth of mining hardware on April 27th, when the price/difficulty ratio was roughly the same as it is today.  I've made an extra $2200 BEYOND what the mining hardware cost.  So not only do I have $1100 of free mining equipment, I also have an extra $2200 in my pocket.  And that number is still growing quite steadily every day.  Total electricity costs have been about $200 for the two months, which I am more than willing to deal with.

I'm not sure whether you're just jealous of miner's success, or whether you truly are naive enough to believe that mining isn't very profitable.  You say that "if it was as profitable as fanboys say, they would have cash to buy mining rigs, space, and exmployees".  It's not a guaranteed enough deal to buy space and employees IMO (who would need employees anyway?), but buying a decent amount of hardware is an extremely low-risk investment with an extremely high ROI.

If you think that a $2200 over 3 months is an extremely high profit, and you are comfortable with the risk, then that is your choice. I will put my money elsewhere.

[WillMitchell]

This doesnt change the fact that if there were money to be made in mining competent entrepreneurs and investors would be attracted to it. This is not the case. They are putting their money elsewhere and seeing higher returns.

Of course they are putting their money elsewhere--- they are INVESTORS. What do investors do? They look for the highest rates of return. Do you honestly think ANY of the bitcoin community are involved in Bitcoin because it is a high rate of return? If so, all I can say is that you're definitely on the wrong forum.

As for not being a good 'investment' for you, take your existing money and throw it any direction you'd like--- but before you toss the pearls out with the swine, BitCoin is new (even 2 years is 'new') and basically not yet accepted in society because it hasn't been refined and publicized enough yet. Do you REALLY think that when ANY country switched to currency instead of physical item trade (or gold) that everyone was happy and accepted it? If so, you're ignorant of history. Your reasons are fine. No one is arguing them. You don't want to do something, who cares? But your idea of Bitcoin, mining and why OTHER people shouldn't try it is a bit skewed.

A lot of that going on today.

P.S. Keep 'em coming, almost up to 50 posts-- then I disappear ^_^

Ah, my favorite attitude to converse with. "I will never stop arguing and playing devils advocate!"

[em3rgentOrdr]

You're using an old NVIDIA card - of course it's not going to be profitable for you.   

Ahh yes...those were the days.  I remember when I got to use my 9800gx2 when the first bitcoin GPGPU miner code came out about a year ago.  I was a happy miner back then when the difficulty was much easier.  

When you use a single-GPU 5870 that can generate 370MH/s and uses about 200w, the story looks a bit different.  Heck, even a 6870 would be a good 10x as good as whatever crap cards you were using.

Yeah, I know that the AMD cards are much better at integer code.  This was a card I got as a freebie from NVIDIA 3 years ago.  Again, if you are experienced and known how to fine tune your hardware and code for optimal hashes/Joule, then I'd say go for it.

Mining is FAR from being unprofitable.  If I had more cash to buy and places to put and cool mining machines, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Basically, that's the thing.  You don't have the cash to buy since you either weren't making enough profit or you have a better opportunity cost for you money.  And you don't have space to put your GPU mining rig.  There is an opportunity cost in terms of the physical space (and possible noise pollution) that it takes up, in addition to your cooling, energy, setup/monitoring labor, and fixed hardware costs.  Bitcoin mining should be profitable for those who know what they are doing (due to market forces), but I'm am just cautioning the Newbies that TANSSAFL.

That $10 average expected revenue per month doesn't justify the energy cost of me leaving my computer on with the GPU running 24/7 at full blast.  Sorry.  Again, maybe if you are experienced and have highly optimized energy efficient equipment, then if may work out for you, but I am advising the newbies focus on using whatever unique skill set or trade that they have and offer goods & services in exchange for bitcoin instead of wasting their money buying a mining rig.  Your economics may be different though, so you may make your own decision.

As a PC Gamer, mining is still profitable for me. I've got the hardware already and my computer is always on. The extra electricity costs  are tiny for me. I'm not in it for money like you guys though, I just like the idea of getting the latest hardware for free.

Yes, that is my point.  If you are a PC Gamer who continually buys the latest GPU hardware already and leave your computer on already, then it probably does make economic sense for you.

Mining is FAR from being unprofitable.  If I had more cash to buy and places to put and cool mining machines, I would do it in a heartbeat.

If mining is as profitable as all of the bitcoin fanboys would like everybody to believe, they would have cash to buy mining rigs, space, and employees. The fact of the matter is simply that it isnt. The people that think it is are exposing themselves to immense risk.

I think you hit the nail on the head here.  There are market forces at work.

Immense risk?  Not really... the most I risk is the 25% or so I'd lose on reselling any hardware I purchased.  Hardly what I would call immense.

I bought $1100 worth of mining hardware on April 27th, when the price/difficulty ratio was roughly the same as it is today.  I've made an extra $2200 BEYOND what the mining hardware cost.  So not only do I have $1100 of free mining equipment, I also have an extra $2200 in my pocket.  And that number is still growing quite steadily every day.  Total electricity costs have been about $200 for the two months, which I am more than willing to deal with.

I'm not sure whether you're just jealous of miner's success, or whether you truly are naive enough to believe that mining isn't very profitable.  You say that "if it was as profitable as fanboys say, they would have cash to buy mining rigs, space, and exmployees".  It's not a guaranteed enough deal to buy space and employees IMO (who would need employees anyway?), but buying a decent amount of hardware is an extremely low-risk investment with an extremely high ROI.

If you think that a $2200 over 3 months is an extremely high profit, and you are comfortable with the risk, then that is your choice. I will put my money elsewhere.

Yes, that is significant risk.  Try to maintain that profit margin.  I made tons of money early on too, but I realize that the network will be flooded with extreme gamers with idle GPUs and energy-efficient mining specialists that I know to not bother competing.  In fact, I know enough to realize this thread is not worth my time.    Nice talking with everyone!

P.S. Keep 'em coming, almost up to 50 posts-- then I disappear ^_^

Go figure.   He is a tried and true troll.  Very experienced troll I must say.  And has enough guts to admit he's just trolling to increase his post count.   It's rare to find an honest troll nowadays.  

[WillMitchell]

You're using an old NVIDIA card - of course it's not going to be profitable for you.   

Ahh yes...those were the days.  I remember when I got to use my 9800gx2 when the first bitcoin GPGPU miner code came out about a year ago.  I was a happy miner back then when the difficulty was much easier.  

When you use a single-GPU 5870 that can generate 370MH/s and uses about 200w, the story looks a bit different.  Heck, even a 6870 would be a good 10x as good as whatever crap cards you were using.

Yeah, I know that the AMD cards are much better at integer code.  This was a card I got as a freebie from NVIDIA 3 years ago.  Again, if you are experienced and known how to fine tune your hardware and code for optimal hashes/Joule, then I'd say go for it.

Mining is FAR from being unprofitable.  If I had more cash to buy and places to put and cool mining machines, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Basically, that's the thing.  You don't have the cash to buy since you either weren't making enough profit or you have a better opportunity cost for you money.  And you don't have space to put your GPU mining rig.  There is an opportunity cost in terms of the physical space (and possible noise pollution) that it takes up, in addition to your cooling, energy, setup/monitoring labor, and fixed hardware costs.  Bitcoin mining should be profitable for those who know what they are doing (due to market forces), but I'm am just cautioning the Newbies that TANSSAFL.

That $10 average expected revenue per month doesn't justify the energy cost of me leaving my computer on with the GPU running 24/7 at full blast.  Sorry.  Again, maybe if you are experienced and have highly optimized energy efficient equipment, then if may work out for you, but I am advising the newbies focus on using whatever unique skill set or trade that they have and offer goods & services in exchange for bitcoin instead of wasting their money buying a mining rig.  Your economics may be different though, so you may make your own decision.

As a PC Gamer, mining is still profitable for me. I've got the hardware already and my computer is always on. The extra electricity costs  are tiny for me. I'm not in it for money like you guys though, I just like the idea of getting the latest hardware for free.

Yes, that is my point.  If you are a PC Gamer who continually buys the latest GPU hardware already and leave your computer on already, then it probably does make economic sense for you.

Mining is FAR from being unprofitable.  If I had more cash to buy and places to put and cool mining machines, I would do it in a heartbeat.

If mining is as profitable as all of the bitcoin fanboys would like everybody to believe, they would have cash to buy mining rigs, space, and employees. The fact of the matter is simply that it isnt. The people that think it is are exposing themselves to immense risk.

I think you hit the nail on the head here.  There are market forces at work.

Immense risk?  Not really... the most I risk is the 25% or so I'd lose on reselling any hardware I purchased.  Hardly what I would call immense.

I bought $1100 worth of mining hardware on April 27th, when the price/difficulty ratio was roughly the same as it is today.  I've made an extra $2200 BEYOND what the mining hardware cost.  So not only do I have $1100 of free mining equipment, I also have an extra $2200 in my pocket.  And that number is still growing quite steadily every day.  Total electricity costs have been about $200 for the two months, which I am more than willing to deal with.

I'm not sure whether you're just jealous of miner's success, or whether you truly are naive enough to believe that mining isn't very profitable.  You say that "if it was as profitable as fanboys say, they would have cash to buy mining rigs, space, and exmployees".  It's not a guaranteed enough deal to buy space and employees IMO (who would need employees anyway?), but buying a decent amount of hardware is an extremely low-risk investment with an extremely high ROI.

If you think that a $2200 over 3 months is an extremely high profit, and you are comfortable with the risk, then that is your choice. I will put my money elsewhere.

Yes, that is significant risk.  Try to maintain that profit margin.  I made tons of money early on too, but I realize that the network will be flooded with extreme gamers with idle GPUs and energy-efficient mining specialists that I know to not bother competing.  In fact, I know enough to realize this thread is not worth my time.    Nice talking with everyone!

P.S. Keep 'em coming, almost up to 50 posts-- then I disappear ^_^

Go figure.   He is a tried and true troll.  Very experienced troll I must say.  And has enough guts to admit he's just trolling to increase his post count.   It's rare to find an honest troll nowadays.  

Great talking to a sensible entrepreneurial thinker, possible Austrian economic thinker as well

[em3rgentOrdr]

Great talking to a sensible entrepreneurial thinker, possible Austrian economic thinker as well

Likewise.  And yes, you are correct in that I am heavily influenced by the Austrian tradition. 

[WillMitchell]

Don't worry, you won't hear from me again until I start posting screen shots of all my income for further speculation and 'sh00p' claims. Haters gonna' hate I guess.

Id be happy to see!