Miners quitting en masse -- so it begins.

[AngelusWebDesign]

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?board=51.0

I've seen a serious uptick in the number (and quantity) of farms/rigs/mining cards being sold on this forum.
Especially in the last week or so -- pretty much since the last difficulty level.

And, of course, there is no shortage of such cards on eBay, though I think many of those are put there by common, money-grubbing scalpers. Though there are certainly a percentage of ex-miners represented there.

These guys are the vanguard -- the first guys in line to get out. Their logic goes like this:

"Ok, so I spent $2500 on equipment. I've earned MOST of what I'm going to earn, so why not sell them NOW before the flood of cards hits the market, and my $2500 investment becomes worth much less."

While other people say, "If you're making ANY money over the cost of electricity, even $5 a week with your 5 rigs running 24/7, keep mining, baby!"

Instead of looking at just MINING INCOME and ELECTRICITY COSTS, why not factor in VALUE OF EQUIPMENT as well?

After all, your mining cards are going to lose value every month, especially as difficulty goes up and more and more used cards hit the market. Then there's AMD's 7000 series, which will make gamers like our 6XXX and 5XXX cards even less.

So you should ask yourself: How much will I make in July, vs. how much my 4 mining cards will lose in value?


Like everything, you basically have to guess. Nobody knows the future.

In other words, if your $2500 farm has made $2500 -- you can either A) "re-invest" in $2500 right now -- by doing nothing, and continuing to mine -- and hope to make $2500 or MORE back again, or B) sell it off and end up with $5,000 -- which would result in *actually making money*.

You see, it isn't about "to mine, or not to mine" a month ago -- it's about TODAY. The fact of the matter is, most rigs today are worth 100% (or more) of what we paid. That won't be true in a month. So, basically, you can have it both ways -- you DO mine (preferably May-early June 2011) and earn a bunch if not all of your investment, then sell them before they lose any value. It's pretty clever, if you're not into mining for the techno-nerd geeky "fun" of it.

Personally, I'm into it for the geeky fun. I enjoy building computers more than I enjoy watching movies, going out and doing things, etc. I "hung out" in the computer lab in High School.

Again, the main idea is crucial to understand: selling your equipment does NOT imply you made a mistake, or that you shouldn't have mined in the first place. If you spent $1000 and you've made back $X so far, you have to constantly decide (every week, every month) "Will I make more going forward with mining, or cashing out?" Obviously at first you should have said "I'll mine, of course!" but as time goes on, and returns diminish, it may be worth it for some people to take the "lump sum" rather than the yearly payout.

[1715628574]

1715628574

[1715628574]

1715628574

[1.21gigawatts]

blah blah blah, stop mining so the difficulty will go down for me, don't let the door hit you on the way out
Between the "your dumb because you're paying too much for your 5830s" and this, we know, you really want to scare people to quit

Angelus wants to scare you into selling your rigs for 1 selfish reason:
He wants to pick up your equipment for less than market price.

Here's some evidence:

This was just 3 days ago, low ball offer on 18 GPUs
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=23529.msg295691#msg295691

Then he tries to justify his lowball offers with this:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=24343.0

Probably another lowball offer for:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=23464.msg300342#msg300342

Not the first time he refers to miners as dumb kids:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=23698.msg298597#msg298597

Thanks for looking out for our best interests Angelus, I mean Dad.
It's like telling us we'll go to hell for masturbating, when you have a stash of Playboys in your closet.
You're just a hypocrite

[Oldminer]

Lol

[Fuzzy]

All I hear is "I'm quitting" and "Mining NO LONGER PROFITABLE" yet the network hash rate keeps going up!

This is probably BC all the miners who quit give their hardware to another miner, who keeps mining, thus the hardware just circulates, yet never leaves the network.

I would also like to think that all the 6950s I bought may not be the best for mining in a Mhs/$ sense, but they're sure as hell the best for gaming at their price (the 1GB ones), at least according to the Toms Hardware charts.

So once they're useless to the average miner, they'll still be worth a fair price for gamers, especially considering they're on more current architecture than the 5xxx radeons.

[martok]

blah blah blah, stop mining so the difficulty will go down for me, don't let the door hit you on the way out
Between the "your dumb because you're paying too much for your 5830s" and this, we know, you really want to scare people to quit

Actually, I don't believe the parent is trying to scare anyone away from mining. He is simply pointing out, and rightly so that depreciation costs represent a substantial cost over that of electricity for mining. Depreciation is hard to get right with mining though as even though we are seeing some of the lower end video gear being sold, (still not many 5970/6990), there is still a scarcity of good mining hardware.

I think another factor though which encourages me personally to continue mining is that I would like to believe that bitcoin has a real chance to succeed as an internet currency. To that end, I would like to remain a part of that.

[bcpokey]

That one dude who selling all his 5870s and whatnot for too much bling on this forum got an offer from Angelius for his rig. Tells you something about which side of the mouth one talks out of. Yes people bailing on mining helps me out too, but I prefer to just be an honest injun about stuff.  There is still money to be made mining. It's not a great time to buy in but it's not necessarily a death trap either. You need to be smart about how you invest and don't expect money to fall into your lap and give you a happy ending while it's at it.

Easy peasy, didn't need 20 new threads to say that.

blah blah blah, stop mining so the difficulty will go down for me, don't let the door hit you on the way out
Between the "your dumb because you're paying too much for your 5830s" and this, we know, you really want to scare people to quit

Actually, I don't believe the parent is trying to scare anyone away from mining. He is simply pointing out, and rightly so that depreciation costs represent a substantial cost over that of electricity for mining. Depreciation is hard to get right with mining though as even though we are seeing some of the lower end video gear being sold, (still not many 5970/6990), there is still a scarcity of good mining hardware.

I think another factor though which encourages me personally to continue mining is that I would like to believe that bitcoin has a real chance to succeed as an internet currency. To that end, I would like to remain a part of that.

Wrong, you haven't been around to see the OPs 5000000 other topics about OMG THE SKY IS FALLING YOU'RE GOING TO GET AIDS IF YOU MINE, etc.

[AngelusWebDesign]

FYI, I offered the guy $175 for his 5870 -- that was it.

At this point, I can only afford to buy used cards when it's a good deal, since I don't want my payback period to be anything longer than 50 days. 50+ days is too great of an unknown.

You should meditate on the wisdom: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

[Cluster2k]

The hash rate is still going up because some people are happy to earn $5 a day (after costs and tax) on $300 of equipment.  That works just fine as long as difficulty doesn't keep increasing at the pace it has so far.  The next increase is likely to be less, about 25%.  Still, that's 25% less money than they're making today.  Miners may also be betting on a higher exchange rate in the future, although prices have stagnated for weeks despite a more than 100% difficulty increase.  Some people get power at 10c/kWh, but many pay a lot more than that.

To all the people with the 'har har! Stop mining and just make it easier for me! Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!' type attitude, be aware that GPU mining in general may be unprofitable regardless of power costs in a couple of months.  There are much more efficient ways of grinding bitcoins coming online.  The miners getting out now make it easier for you, but they're also going to get better prices for their hardware.  Selling up while a 6970 is still a good card and not superseded by 7xxx isn't a bad idea.

[stellan0r]

did we actually have a "God hates Miners" thread?
 

[Fuzzy]

You should meditate on the wisdom: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

I can bet you these "angels" are always the last ones to the party.

By the time bitcoin proves itself as the worlds First and Primary form of crypto currency (or falls flat and bombs) there will no longer be any profit in mining it.


For those who got in (bought mining hardware) before Q2 2011, they've mined 90% of the bitcoins their current hardware will ever be capable of mining.

Anyone who got in during Q2 2011 will have paid off their hardware (either by now, or soon), essentially earning themselves some free hardware.

But any hardware bought from Q3 2011 onwards will depend on the increase of the bitcoins value in order to break even, let alone make a profit.


If I had $1000 today, I'd buy the bitcoins outright, and consider the money gone. Then check back at the end of the year to see how things have panned out.

[Fuzzy]

Selling up while a 6970 is still a good card and not superseded by 7xxx isn't a bad idea.

Apparently the 7xxx series will have about the same mining power as the current cards, as AMD is more than happy with the shaders they have now. The improvements they make to the architecture will solely benefit other aspects of graphics rendering, and possibly power consumption (though not by a significant amount).

By the time you see the 7xxx series on shelves, you'll be breaking even with the electricity bill, if that.

[bluefirecorp]

I'm glad more people are selling their cards, more cards for me.

As for the cards losing their value, all my cards are under a life time warranty, meaning if they go bust, I get a new card, free of charge (other than shipping). Another amazing thing, is if the company is out of stock, they send me a free upgraded card.. In case I'm missing something here, my cards don't lose value (ok, they do, if the company fails..even then, I can still write it off as a tax deduction..depreciation of computer hardware..lawlz)

Just my 2 cents.

[Fuzzy]

I'm glad more people are selling their cards, more cards for me.

As for the cards losing their value, all my cards are under a life time warranty, meaning if they go bust, I get a new card, free of charge (other than shipping). Another amazing thing, is if the company is out of stock, they send me a free upgraded card.. In case I'm missing something here, my cards don't lose value (ok, they do, if the company fails..even then, I can still write it off as a tax deduction..depreciation of computer hardware..lawlz)

Just my 2 cents.

I've had 2 cards die in the past, from different manufacturers with lifetime warranties, an they were both replaced with current day equivalents of the same cards, not "upgraded" to the same tier of card, as you would suggest.

the last one, my prized and beloved top of the line 8800 ULTRA was replaced with a GTX 260. the 260 preforms about 20% better and sells for about the same price on ebay, so its pretty much the same card, but its by no means the High end card of it's line that the 8800 was 

Unless I'm missing something as to the terms of your warranty.

[Coolhwip]

Selling up while a 6970 is still a good card and not superseded by 7xxx isn't a bad idea.

Apparently the 7xxx series will have about the same mining power as the current cards, as AMD is more than happy with the shaders they have now. The improvements they make to the architecture will solely benefit other aspects of graphics rendering, and possibly power consumption (though not by a significant amount).

By the time you see the 7xxx series on shelves, you'll be breaking even with the electricity bill, if that.

Please do not make assertions based on your limited/lack of knowledge. Here: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Fusion-System-Architecture-Overview-Southern-Isle-GPUs-and-Beyond
You can't possibly estimate nor predict the hashing power of products based on this new architecture without knowing the numbers of CU's and only AMD knowns that. Also, products based on this new architecture will be available for purchase in Q4 of this year.

[lacedwithkerosene]

Quitting bitcoin mining is a wonderful idea. They are much safer now. Unfortunately the quitters are just passing the danger on to others who may be more apathetic or ignorant about safety.

The only harmless mining rig is the one donated to a local library.

[qed]

The OP, suggesting ppl to sell their rigs now before it's too late, is buying PCI expansion cables for himself . Funny, ins't it?  

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=24618.0

[FractalUniverse]

good for other miners. at least difficulty won't be rising as fast as it did in the past 

[Fuzzy]

Selling up while a 6970 is still a good card and not superseded by 7xxx isn't a bad idea.

Apparently the 7xxx series will have about the same mining power as the current cards, as AMD is more than happy with the shaders they have now. The improvements they make to the architecture will solely benefit other aspects of graphics rendering, and possibly power consumption (though not by a significant amount).

By the time you see the 7xxx series on shelves, you'll be breaking even with the electricity bill, if that.

Please do not make assertions based on your limited/lack of knowledge. Here: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Fusion-System-Architecture-Overview-Southern-Isle-GPUs-and-Beyond
You can't possibly estimate nor predict the hashing power of products based on this new architecture without knowing the numbers of CU's and only AMD knowns that. Also, products based on this new architecture will be available for purchase in Q4 of this year.

It appears YOU are the one who is lacking knowledge here, troll. AMD and nVidia are competing in the 3D Graphics sector, not Bitcoin mining, go read about it.

And even if they DOUBLED the shader/hashing power, the mining difficulty in 3 months will render them useless.

[Lightspeed]

AndrewMatthew, you say your in this for the fun, yet you are by far the biggest buzz kill on this forum! Doesn't seem like you're having much fun at all dude, maybe you should sell your gear and piss off already, lol.

[lechuck]

i have to admit the sudden raise in diff shocked me a little.. i thought i could at least mine for a few onths with my 6950 with decent results.. now its only peanuts :/ oh well gotta be patient i guess

[CNMOH]

Is spreading FUD all you're good for?

[Coolhwip]

Apparently the 7xxx series will have about the same mining power as the current cards, as AMD is more than happy with the shaders they have now

The shaders they have now are gone, no more VLIW5/4 for HD7K because it's a completely new architecture which I linked you to. You were talking out of your ass, I corrected you. Deal with it.  

[Jack of Diamonds]

AndrewMatthew, you say your in this for the fun, yet you are by far the biggest buzz kill on this forum! Doesn't seem like you're having much fun at all dude, maybe you should sell your gear and piss off already, lol.

Haha, true. Brilliant.
I love it when people say they are into bitcoins for "fun" yet they are as hostile as a deprived swarm of bees, spread negativity and stress about price fluctuations every day.

(Which is 95% of the forum. Nearly nobody just relaxes and takes things as they come)

Maybe "fun" is just a nervous substitution for "I just want to scrape any $$ left and get the hell out of here, out of my way idiots".

[teflone]

You guys! and me included now..

Are feeding the BIGGEST troll on this board..

The sky has been falling for Angelus for many years...

[Mousepotato]

blah blah blah, stop mining so the difficulty will go down for me, don't let the door hit you on the way out
Between the "your dumb because you're paying too much for your 5830s" and this, we know, you really want to scare people to quit

Every time I see your name, I can't help but say it in a frantic Doc Brown voice.

[skyhigh]

OP your life must suck bigtime

[AngelusWebDesign]

It's sad that so many of you kids can't have an intelligent discussion. Oh well.

My fault for looking in the wrong place.

At any rate, I've never seen a more textbook case of "shoot the messenger".

No one is finding fault with anything I said -- just me personally.

Hey, I'm sorry if your life is stressful, if your mining profits have gone down, if you don't know what to do at this point -- but don't blame me. It isn't my fault.

Matthew

[Man From The Future]

Quitting bitcoin mining is a wonderful idea. They are much safer now. Unfortunately the quitters are just passing the danger on to others who may be more apathetic or ignorant about safety.

The only harmless mining rig is the one donated to a local library.

Until one of the graphics cards catches fire.

[1.21gigawatts]

No one is finding fault with anything I said -- just me personally.

No one cares about what you have to say because you have an alternate agenda that is different than the diarrhea spewing out of your mouth.
I've already proved you're a hypocrite.
If you're a messenger, you would be selling your mining equipment now instead of picking up more.
You're just a troll with mining equipment.

[lacedwithkerosene]

Quitting bitcoin mining is a wonderful idea. They are much safer now. Unfortunately the quitters are just passing the danger on to others who may be more apathetic or ignorant about safety.

The only harmless mining rig is the one donated to a local library.

Until one of the graphics cards catches fire.

A de-commissioned mining rig then.

[SgtSpike]

Let's see....

$1100 worth of equipment I wouldn't have purchased otherwise.
1900MH/s, equivalent to $20.88/day at current market rates.
Equivalent to $626.40/month.
Less $100/month in electricity (give or take $25, I know it's around there though) equals $526.40.

At worst, I expect the hardware will be worth half of what I bought it for a year from now.  So I'll lose $550 in a year.  That's only $45.83/month I need to keep up on.

So I have $526.40 of pure profit per month at the current price/difficulty ratio, and you're worried about me not accounting for my $45 in depreciation every month?

Enough with the FUD already.  Seriously.

[rograz]

Found some refurbed 5870s for 220$ each and a lone 5850 for 120$ with full warranty, sorry some doomsday math isn't gonna stop me from buying those and adding to my growing pile of hardware, all about finding hardware at the right price point. I can understand if the "I've got 10 rigs filled with 6990s that cost me 800$+ each cos I just HAD to have them" crowd is starting to get a bit worried tho 

[bluefirecorp]

I'm glad more people are selling their cards, more cards for me.

As for the cards losing their value, all my cards are under a life time warranty, meaning if they go bust, I get a new card, free of charge (other than shipping). Another amazing thing, is if the company is out of stock, they send me a free upgraded card.. In case I'm missing something here, my cards don't lose value (ok, they do, if the company fails..even then, I can still write it off as a tax deduction..depreciation of computer hardware..lawlz)

Just my 2 cents.

I've had 2 cards die in the past, from different manufacturers with lifetime warranties, an they were both replaced with current day equivalents of the same cards, not "upgraded" to the same tier of card, as you would suggest.

the last one, my prized and beloved top of the line 8800 ULTRA was replaced with a GTX 260. the 260 preforms about 20% better and sells for about the same price on ebay, so its pretty much the same card, but its by no means the High end card of it's line that the 8800 was 

Unless I'm missing something as to the terms of your warranty.

It was still an upgrade. Say in another 10 years, my cards will be like the ancient series. Say I had a 6800 right now, it dies next year. They'd be upgrading to way beyond anything that the 6800 could preform at. Your cards might of not had a big improvement, because they were only about 3 years old? Right?

[AngelusWebDesign]

Found some refurbed 5870s for 220$ each and a lone 5850 for 120$ with full warranty, sorry some doomsday math isn't gonna stop me from buying those and adding to my growing pile of hardware, all about finding hardware at the right price point. I can understand if the "I've got 10 rigs filled with 6990s that cost me 800$+ each cos I just HAD to have them" crowd is starting to get a bit worried tho 

I'll speak to you because you're actually capable of rational thought:

I never said it was foolish to spend another dime on mining equipment. Only someone with an IQ of 80 who can't think would get that from my posts. I clearly said I wasn't selling; so it's obviously not "the only thing to do" or what I'm advocating.

I just said that I understand where they're coming from, and that there are a lot of "them" doing so right now. They have a point of view that doesn't seem to be well-represented on here.

At this point, expansions have to be intelligent, deliberate, and low in cost per MH.  No more filling one's cart at Best Buy with whatever ATI cards they offer "because I'm gonna have this gear paid for in a week!"  That might have been true in late May, but not anymore.

[gigabytecoin]

Lol. Busted.

[KarlSpaat]

Miners quitting???
Have you watched the Network Hashrate the last days. It grew by 40% to over 14 THash/s which means the next difficulty will be about 1.800.000. I would like to see someone quitting...
And the Bitcoin exchange rate dropped to 12 Euros per BTC, with the next difficulty and a worse exchange rate you cant invest in new mining hardware anymore.

[Fuzzy]

It was still an upgrade. Say in another 10 years, my cards will be like the ancient series. Say I had a 6800 right now, it dies next year. They'd be upgrading to way beyond anything that the 6800 could preform at. Your cards might of not had a big improvement, because they were only about 3 years old? Right?

Damn, you're right, should've waited a year or two before RMAing it..

Next time... 

[film2240]

FYI, I offered the guy $175 for his 5870 -- that was it.

At this point, I can only afford to buy used cards when it's a good deal, since I don't want my payback period to be anything longer than 50 days. 50+ days is too great of an unknown.

You should meditate on the wisdom: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

I wonder how long the payback is on a Radeon HD 6950 GPU that cost me £178.50 (equivalent $286.51).I know that this may not be the best value for mining power but I don't care.Why?Because my GPU is used for other things like gaming,research,film making/editing,encoding as GPGPU is far faster than my Core i7 920 CPU with monster sized HD 1080P raw,captured footage.So  when mining becomes unviable,it's still a solid investment for me as this'll boost my film making work by leaps and bounds for my uni work (and degree) compared to my old Radeon HD 4670 GPU (Even though it's Oc'd to the max,it simply can't cope anymore with my work or mining)

Do you guys think this upgrade path is a sound one or is it stupid for my situation?

[AngelusWebDesign]

It sounds like you're not really talking about buying equipment for mining, but rather upgrading your professional equipment which happens to work well for mining.

[film2240]

It sounds like you're not really talking about buying equipment for mining, but rather upgrading your professional equipment which happens to work well for mining.

Angelus,your understanding of my setup is well, faultless (perfect) as I'm rely on it for professional filmmaking as well as mining.

I'd also like to give a piece of advice to all those who feel like that they got a raw deal in mining due to rising difficulty.

My advice is:If you already upgraded your computer just for mining,and mining then becomes unfeasible,don't despair as you will still have serious firepower under the hood for all your working and gaming needs.

This is what i've been doing as I've adopted to mining rather late so sure it's less profitable now than before,but I say keep mining while the train's still moving.

[Meatball]

Angelus, what crack are you smoking?  Network power is up to 14TH (+3 TH since yesterday alone) and it's been going up steadily for a while.  So, maybe you're seeing a few people here and there drop out, but there's certainly no 'en masse' trend of people leaving.

Why do you keep trolling with posts telling people how awful mining is?  If it's that awful, why are still here and doing it yourself?

[teflone]

Angelus, what crack are you smoking?  Network power is up to 14TH (+3 TH since yesterday alone) and it's been going up steadily for a while.  So, maybe you're seeing a few people here and there drop out, but there's certainly no 'en masse' trend of people leaving.

Why do you keep trolling with posts telling people how awful mining is?  If it's that awful, why are still here and doing it yourself?

+3 TH!!! on this one.. 
 

[tomcollins]

It's sad that so many of you kids can't have an intelligent discussion. Oh well.

My fault for looking in the wrong place.

At any rate, I've never seen a more textbook case of "shoot the messenger".

No one is finding fault with anything I said -- just me personally.

Hey, I'm sorry if your life is stressful, if your mining profits have gone down, if you don't know what to do at this point -- but don't blame me. It isn't my fault.

Matthew

I think your OP was excellent.

[Mousepotato]

Angelus, what crack are you smoking?  Network power is up to 14TH (+3 TH since yesterday alone) and it's been going up steadily for a while.  So, maybe you're seeing a few people here and there drop out, but there's certainly no 'en masse' trend of people leaving.

TWO ADS IN THE CLASSIFIEDS FOR 6990s




MINERS QUITTING EN MASSE

[Meatball]

I didn't mean to come off as a dink in my post Angelus, I'm not disputing the fact that it's getting more difficult and you'll probably see people start dropping by the wayside, but I don't believe that's happening 'en masse' yet.

[error]

Some miners are quitting. Others are adding capacity or just starting.

[Serge]

When we see used gpus being sold everywhere for 1/2 price, then we can conclude miners are quitting en masse


keep on digging.. err crunching those hashes

[tanerlorn]

This OP is such a huge attention whore.

I really hope I can start mining at a loss soon, because I literally will at this point just to get under his skin.

[Cluster2k]

When we see used gpus being sold everywhere for 1/2 price, then we can conclude miners are quitting en masse

Bitcoin miners massively overestimate their influence on the ATI GPU market.  At most, it's 1% of ATI's sales.  GPUs are mainly used for displaying graphics, playing games, and doing scientific computations.  Bitcoin is a mere rounding error in the overall scheme of things.  Even if every miner quit tomorrow we wouldn't see cards being sold off for half price.

[OgNasty]

Bitcoin miners massively overestimate their influence on the ATI GPU market.  At most, it's 1% of ATI's sales.  GPUs are mainly used for displaying graphics, playing games, and doing scientific computations.  Bitcoin is a mere rounding error in the overall scheme of things.  Even if every miner quit tomorrow we wouldn't see cards being sold off for half price.

That's a ridiculous statement.  Newegg and Amazon didn't have any issues keeping 5830s in stock for quite some time before the bitcoin article came out on Yahoo at the beginning of this month.  If mining stopped tomorrow, there would be a whole lot of GPUs on ebay...

[beeph]

graphics card prices aren't going to drop below what the typical gamer market price is..

billion dollar chip fabs didnt run production lines basing demand for their products on a couple thousand bitcoin miners.

so u can drop the fantasy that cards are going to go for 'half price'.

all bitcoin mining did was increase demand for a market that already had a large existing demand to begin with.. when it disappears the world doesnt explode and amd doesnt shut down their factories..

the total number of 5830's in existence today is the same as it was before, and the total number of gamers buying them today is the same as it was before.

Whether newegg is selling them or some guy on ebay, it doesnt matter.. the supply is the same and the demand is the same..  people far more informed with the market data figured out those performance/price points long ago

[AngelusWebDesign]

Angelus, what crack are you smoking?  Network power is up to 14TH (+3 TH since yesterday alone) and it's been going up steadily for a while.  So, maybe you're seeing a few people here and there drop out, but there's certainly no 'en masse' trend of people leaving.

Why do you keep trolling with posts telling people how awful mining is?  If it's that awful, why are still here and doing it yourself?

Well you see, over on the wrong side of the tracks.... err, nevermind.

Seriously though, I noticed this ever since the last difficulty increase. We used to have just a couple guys (mostly scammers) selling a few 6990s in the Goods (formerly "Selling") subforum.
Now, we have guys selling entire farms -- and not one or two, but several. And several more "feeling things out" before some of them move on to eBay to actually sell the hardware.

In addition, several of them spoke up as to their reasons -- which gave me the material for my original post.

Obviously we're all still mining or we wouldn't be here. I think that's obvious. Everyone likes mining for different reasons, and has a different situation.

I like to have philosophical (speculative) conversations. I'm sure others do too. I'm a big picture sort. I was reading the most famous "housing bubble blog" in 2007 and I believed it was a bubble then. I watched as the blog owner basically had to shut down his blog, because it became glaringly obvious at some point that the bubble had burst, and he was sick of posting all the bad real estate news. Not that I'm saying "mining is over" or anything, but it HAS changed from the situation in early June. Not much difference for most people (just less profit), but we all have to keep on our toes, and keep aware of the current reality if we're to make the best decisions.

BTW, if I were selfish I'd be talking up mining like a bad commercial -- more used GPUs for the aftermarket 

[SgtSpike]

graphics card prices aren't going to drop below what the typical gamer market price is..

billion dollar chip fabs didnt run production lines basing demand for their products on a couple thousand bitcoin miners.

so u can drop the fantasy that cards are going to go for 'half price'.

all bitcoin mining did was increase demand for a market that already had a large existing demand to begin with.. when it disappears the world doesnt explode and amd doesnt shut down their factories..

the total number of 5830's in existence today is the same as it was before, and the total number of gamers buying them today is the same as it was before.

Whether newegg is selling them or some guy on ebay, it doesnt matter.. the supply is the same and the demand is the same..  people far more informed with the market data figured out those performance/price points long ago

Well, let's do some calculations...

The network currently consists of 14 TH/s.

A 5850 will do 325MH/s with a light overclock.

That'd be 43,076 5850's to match the current network speed.
Or 53,846 5830's.
Or 37,333 5870's.

These are not insignificant numbers.

Now I know, not everyone who is mining bought new hardware to mine with.  But really, you only have to look at ebay to see proof that mining really IS having a big effect on ATI video card prices.  There are far better gaming cards than the 5870 out there, and yet, the 5870 is selling for much more than them on ebay.  What other explanation could there be other than miners are buying them up so fast as to actually affect the price point (which you claim isn't possible)?

And yes, if bitcoin does suddenly drop in value, permanently, and 43000 video cards have to be unloaded, they probably will be going for half of what they are going for today.

[Mousepotato]

GPUs are mainly used for displaying graphics, playing games, and doing scientific computations.  Bitcoin is a mere rounding error in the overall scheme of things.  Even if every miner quit tomorrow we wouldn't see cards being sold off for half price.

Then howcome we can buy nVidia cards (even the GTX 590) every day all day?

[DirtySanchez77]

I've been around here for about a month and a half and signed up recently.  I've spent untold hours reading posts here.

It amazes me how many of you consistently attack the OP (you rarely attack his arguments, you generally just attack him).  We're all entitled to our opinions (isn't that kinda the point of forums) and most of what the OP says is spot on, at least IMO.  Yeah, he's still buying gear, but mostly he is saying he's trying to do it smartly at the right price.  What's wrong with that?  And to whomever pointed out that he made an offer on one of the cards from the farm someone is selling.  So what.  The OP offered what he thought was a fair price for the card, the seller refused.  If the seller thought it was a lowball offer, don't accept it and move on. 

And btw, I also think $160 for a 5830 is ridiculous.  Apparently most of the people on this board are blind optimists, at least when it comes to bitcoin.  The fact of the matter is difficulty is increasing, will continue to do so, and it's a race to the bottom.  If you wish to continue adding gear, especially at inflated prices (IMO), more power to you.  I respect your opinion just as much as I respect the OP's.  To each their own.

Anyways, flame on boys!

[fascistmuffin]

GPUs are mainly used for displaying graphics, playing games, and doing scientific computations.  Bitcoin is a mere rounding error in the overall scheme of things.  Even if every miner quit tomorrow we wouldn't see cards being sold off for half price.

Then howcome we can buy nVidia cards (even the GTX 590) every day all day?

I think that's a logistics phenomenon because the 5XXX series are discontinued with a couple other things playing into it. The 5830 is a good example: cards are being sold out instantly from popular sellers, like newegg, and those cards are being used for bitcoin mining or resale on Ebay, where the price is ~$40 higher than the purchase price. Since the 5830 is not being produced anymore, the stock problems are more visible. Keep in mind that gamers are still in the market for the same cards used by mining, especially with 1GB memroy and a very low price tag compared to top-of-the-line 6990's.

Yes bitcoin is having effects on cards that are profitable for mining, which nVidia is not known for, but bitcoin is still a small market of GPU consumers. With the Ebay scalpers and Bitcoin miners, I think the in-stock problems can be explained with those groups.

[DirtySanchez77]

Now I know, not everyone who is mining bought new hardware to mine with.  But really, you only have to look at ebay to see proof that mining really IS having a big effect on ATI video card prices.  There are far better gaming cards than the 5870 out there, and yet, the 5870 is selling for much more than them on ebay.  What other explanation could there be other than miners are buying them up so fast as to actually affect the price point (which you claim isn't possible)?

Sure, mining is affecting *certain* video card prices.  All of which are essentially out of production (except the Sapphire Xtreme series, AFAIK).  You have a situation were free money (or at least extremely optimistic money) is chasing an extremely limited supply.  Not too much unlike what created the housing bubble.  

I agree with you that it is in fact affecting prices for the higher end of the 5xxx line.  That said, I do not *currently* see it affecting the 6xxx line at all, and I doubt it will until the 6xxx line goes out of production and inventories have been depleted.

[fascistmuffin]

By the time 6XXX are out of production, we might have cheap and efficient FPGA.

[gat3way]

Now seriously, given that network calc speed is 14TH and an overclocked 5970 does ~700MH/s, all it takes is 20.000 5970s. Surely, AMD and licensees produce significantly more than that.

Now I know, not everyone who is mining bought new hardware to mine with.  But really, you only have to look at ebay to see proof that mining really IS having a big effect on ATI video card prices.  There are far better gaming cards than the 5870 out there, and yet, the 5870 is selling for much more than them on ebay.  What other explanation could there be other than miners are buying them up so fast as to actually affect the price point (which you claim isn't possible)?

Most of those wonderful gaming cards does not have or have poor DP capabilities. 5870 has rather decent ones. The GPGPU niche is not about integer ops only, in fact most if it is not.

That's a ridiculous statement.  Newegg and Amazon didn't have any issues keeping 5830s in stock for quite some time before the bitcoin article came out on Yahoo at the beginning of this month.  If mining stopped tomorrow, there would be a whole lot of GPUs on ebay...

The amount of 5830s on newegg and ebay is a ridiculous indicator. This card is inadequate for today's gaming and GPGPU needs. 5830 being very energy-effective card is a legend spread by people that have no idea what they are talking about. Yes, pricewise they are a deal, until you take into account the costs of additional pcie slots. So yes, I kinda start to believe bitcoin actually influence the GPU market in a way. Not the whole AMD GPU market, but e.g the old 5830s one Likewise, if I had some old 5770s covered in dust in the warehouse, I would spread rumors about 5770s being much more efficient (and they actually _are_ in terms of MH/W and likely price/perf as compared to 5830).

[DirtySanchez77]

By the time 6XXX are out of production, we might have cheap and efficient FPGA.

Or ASIC.

[skyhigh]

Angelus, not so long ago we hit 10 TH after 2 years of mining or to put it more correctly since the move to GPU mining, which started early this year. It took us months to get to 10 TH.

Do you realize that it will only take less than 3 months to double that to 20 TH ?  Which tells you that for every 1 GH that leaves the market there is 2 GH of new capacity added at every given moment or we would never reach 20 TH that we will have by August maybe even late July.

Do you realize that when we are at 20 TH and we will double to 40 TH by the end of this year, that we will in a very short period of time, lets say 3 months,  add more hashing power that we had all the time combined up to that point?

While you starting threads saying Miners quitting en masse -- so it begins.

And you think your points are valid and noone showed you are/were wrong ? If miners were quitting en masse, we all know including you, that overall hashing power would start to go lower, not fluctuate for a few days and then again head higher like all the time so far. You jumping your gun when you try to bring us your minute to minute updates in the 400 posts since you joined 50 days ago. You have as many posts per day as there are blocks per hour being solved by the miners quitting en masse. Think before you post your next new thread in 4 hours.


Keep on posting.

[Fuzzy]

I WISH miners would quit en masse. Looked like hashing power was beginning to stabilize a few days ago at 10.0 TH, after the huge difficulty increase, but now it's rocketing up again.
Not sure if it's more people joining, or big business trying to take a piece of the pie.

[Maasu]

If you read the newbie forum, it's full of people asking if they should start investing in a mining rig now, and about 2 pages of people saying they should, I suspect this is the reason we see the increase in the network speed.

As I mentioned in another thread, people are just making this assumption that the difficulty increase has stabilised, ignoring the fact that as soon as it does, a load of people are going to go out and buy hardware.

In under a month I reckon we'll be around 3million difficulty, and in two we'll see 6 million, any one investing now really hasn't done their home work.

[Serge]

I don't think we are having huge increase of hardware joining network at this moment in time. There might be some expansion and new miners joining in but not anywhere close to additional 1/3 or so of network capacity.
Network hashing rate is not an actual number but an estimation based on speed of finding blocks, if we are finding blocks faster than average expectation then hashing rate shown higher than it actually is. Same thing as you see in pools for your own hashing speeds.

My assumption we are still at 10-11Thash/s rate based on average numbers I've seen reported by BitcoinCharts in recent times.

[AngelusWebDesign]

Well, "the proof is in the pudding".  When the difficulty actually resets (whenever that is, it seems to be quite the moving target at the moment) we'll see what % it goes up. That's how much capacity was added to the network -- by somebody. 

Was it a bunch of dumb kids buying 5830's for $150 and up? Was it existing miners strategically adding a card or two?  Was it larger operations following existing expansion plans? We'll probably never know.

All I know is that network capacity doesn't seem to be stopping or reversing, EVEN IF there are a lot more people selling entire operations than there were, say, 2 weeks ago.

Just because a dozen people are quitting mining doesn't mean that TWO DOZEN aren't starting up for the first time. It's possible.

Matthew

[tanerlorn]

Your lack of knowledge is unfathomable.

For example, if the difficulty increases slightly, it might not be all due to "little dumb college kids who I look down my nose on because I am a mighty web designer" having their Mom buy them 5830s.

It could simply be from miners as a whole running luckier for that time period. Network hash and difficulty is just based on how many blocks are solved per hour on average, a moving average. Solving a block takes luck. We have to realize that difficulty moving up just might mean everyone mining was luckier than usual that week. Of course, right now it is likely that more hashing power is being added, but IT IS NOT A GUARANTEE. You assume way too much about everything....go write some css.

[bcpokey]

I have no more idea what is going on than anyone else, but I like to sound important so I'm going to phrase the fact that I don't know anything in vague but impressive sounding semantically empty sentences.

Matthew

Network trends vary, obviously anything COULD be happening, but why not present data instead and let people come to their own conclusions?



Latest data, steady, big surge, huge drop, surge, drop. To me that mostly looks like a moderately increasing hashrate with some variance of luck. But then I guess you already knew that because you're so "quick" as you put it.

[AngelusWebDesign]

I actually meant to mention that (but forgot) -- it could all just be luck. But what are the chance that we're all just lucky?

It's POSSIBLE that someone will leave a $5,000 gift at my front door -- but not likely. We have to go with what's probable, not just possible.

It's more likely that hardware is being added by someone.

[Serge]

I actually meant to mention that (but forgot) -- it could all just be luck. But what are the chance that we're all just lucky?

It's POSSIBLE that someone will leave a $5,000 gift at my front door -- but not likely. We have to go with what's probable, not just possible.

It's more likely that hardware is being added by someone.

Currently next difficulty increase is looking to be aprox. 15%, which is due somewhere around next Tue-Wed

[SgtSpike]

It's more likely that hardware is being added by someone.

...says the man who started the thread titled "Miners quitting en masse -- so it begins."

[fcmatt]

difficulty, i think, will have to be above 2+ million before any exodus will even start to show up.
even then you can still make a pretty decent amount of money off 1000 mh/s per day
assuming $15 per BTC. (.5 BTC per day on 1000 mh/s with 2 million difficutly).

[AngelusWebDesign]

It's more likely that hardware is being added by someone.

...says the man who started the thread titled "Miners quitting en masse -- so it begins."

Are you really that dense?

I just explained how miners could be quitting en masse AND difficulty could go up. They are not mutually exclusive.

What if the miners who AREN'T quitting add hardware, even as several miners quit? And then there are the completely new miners...

Don't put words in my mouth. It makes you look stupid.

Oh, and didn't I say in the title of the thread, "so it begins"? That implies that it's JUST STARTING. Often times, when things happen they start out slow at first. Look at the growth of Bitcoin. It didn't happen all at once.

[SgtSpike]

It's more likely that hardware is being added by someone.

...says the man who started the thread titled "Miners quitting en masse -- so it begins."

Are you really that dense?

I just explained how miners could be quitting en masse AND difficulty could go up. They are not mutually exclusive.

What if the miners who AREN'T quitting add hardware, even as several miners quit? And then there are the completely new miners...

Don't put words in my mouth. It makes you look stupid.

Oh, and didn't I say in the title of the thread, "so it begins"? That implies that it's JUST STARTING. Often times, when things happen they start out slow at first. Look at the growth of Bitcoin. It didn't happen all at once.

Your thread title IMPLIES that mining power is lowering.  Of course more people could be joining the mining project than people who are getting out of it, but that's not the implication of your thread title.  Your thread title makes a person immediately think "Oh, miners are quitting, hashing power is going down, the network is becoming less secure, etc etc".  No one is going to look at your thread title and say "Well, of course he only means that a few miners are quitting, and a lot more are joining!"

Oh, and thanks for resorting to personal insults because I pointed out the irony between your sensationalist thread title and the posts you are subsequently making in this thread. 

[skyhigh]

When I joined this forum last month, I thought the knowledge here was above average. But then I realized that is not the case. I really don't understand how majority here don't know the simple basic math behind the Bitcoin project so far and its short term future.

12 TH is only about 20.000 GPU. If we assume average miner has 2 GPU cards, (I think I'm being generous here) that's ONLY 10.000 miners so far. If we assume there is about 100.000 unique exchange accounts (I think I'm being generous again).  Out of 2bill internet users, of which lets say 500 million are online every day, 100k represents NOTHING.

There are millions of internet users that RIGHT NOW have decent radeon cards that are able to mine, but they just didn't hear about this stuff yet. By millions I'm thinking 10+ millions, not 1.35 million. At such an early stage in a pool of 10 million possible miners, computing power will easy grow at 1% or better EVERY day for a long time. Whoever doesn't understand this and accept it as a fact, has no idea how enormous the whole internet is.

The project needs to grow, and by growing there will be more and more miners. The early miners who are quitting are some what missing the bigger picture here. They have their own reasons, mainly its commercial miners who bought semi big and would now still want to get the max out of their used hardware. Which is OK. That doesn't change anything or much in the bitcoin project as a whole. We are only at 6.7mill coins out of 21mill. We need new miners and traders/speculators NOW & ALWAYS so we can keep moving forward. The thing is, system needs new miners/traders or it can stall and die, there is no future for bitcoin if same group of 100k users will trade among themselves. All we doing is making exchange owners richer, but in the end everything would go down to zero and be almost useless. The good news is, chances of this to happen are almost zero, based on the fact that there is so much unused power out there waiting to get to work.

So far the risk reward factor was big, but whoever was able to risk had a big chance to recoup that amount in a SUPER very short time. With this massive expansion in June things are starting to change and some people were caught off guard with their math and dreams that this bitcoin mining will somehow made them rich. Kinda sad but OK, people can dream.

Where to next ?

Only way is up ! Network will keep on growing, this is because so far there is only 20.000 GPU cards mining out of lets say potential 10.000.000. Of course there will be down days where network will drop for a while, but overall it will grow at a high rate. Difficulty most likely won't jump as much as it did in June anytime soon. People need to understand that even at 5-10% every 2 weeks this will grow into enormous number quick which means less and less bitcoin per user, but that is a good thing, because this way project has more chance to succeed. The bad/funny part is, it won't make YOU rich if that were your dreams pre June BOOM.

[Mousepotato]

When I joined this forum last month, I thought the knowledge here was above average. But then I realized that is not the case. I really don't understand how majority here don't know the simple basic math behind the Bitcoin project so far and its short term future.

You gotta remember that a lot of bitminers, myself included, are just gamers who have found a new use for their hardware.  Most of us have BFGs, not PHDs.

[film2240]

Does anyone have an idea of how the difficulty will change?because I heard rumours of a possible decrease sometime last week.I wonder if there a way to see the numbers of people quitting mining vs those that are still mining?

Who knows,the current difficulty?can they tell me?

Will I see a rise in value again or is the value just getting lower again for the bitcoins?because at somepoint I'll need to trade them in.Will there be any significant increases like we saw before the mt exchange crash in june?

[BitcoinRigs.com]

Current difficulty: http://blockexplorer.com/q/getdifficulty
Estimate for next difficulty: http://blockexplorer.com/q/estimate

[AngelusWebDesign]

Necro-bump!

(We need a zombie smilie...)

[mute20]

I was afraid difficulty would keep increasing after the rally. Looks like we might get a decent decrease.

[wndrbr3d]

What I don't think OP realizes is two important points:

- computer hardware depreciates at an alarming rate (without bitcoins help)
- bitcoin is DESIGNED to depreciate hardware used on it (by virtue of difficulty)

So to this end, I think the future of mining is going to be in the favor of the casual home user who buys a GPU as a multi-tasker, to both play games and then mine for bitcoins while it's idle.

BUT

The exception here is that the OP is underestimating the general public's reasoning abilities. I use projects like Folding@home and SETI@home as examples. These projects are advertised to "use your computers spare cycles", without also admitting by virtue of your computer being on, it's costing you money. So every month, *@home users are donating $20-$30 to a project of their choice by proxy of their power bill.

AND THE KICKER here is that people do this for $0 in "in pocket" returns!

So as long as bitcoin can make someone $0.01 in pocket, people are going to mine. People won't necessarily INVEST in new hardware specifically to mine, but people will continue to mine.

[n4l3hp]

What I don't think OP realizes is two important points:

- computer hardware depreciates at an alarming rate (without bitcoins help)
- bitcoin is DESIGNED to depreciate hardware used on it (by virtue of difficulty)

So to this end, I think the future of mining is going to be in the favor of the casual home user who buys a GPU as a multi-tasker, to both play games and then mine for bitcoins while it's idle.

BUT

The exception here is that the OP is underestimating the general public's reasoning abilities. I use projects like Folding@home and SETI@home as examples. These projects are advertised to "use your computers spare cycles", without also admitting by virtue of your computer being on, it's costing you money. So every month, *@home users are donating $20-$30 to a project of their choice by proxy of their power bill.

AND THE KICKER here is that people do this for $0 in "in pocket" returns!

So as long as bitcoin can make someone $0.01 in pocket, people are going to mine. People won't necessarily INVEST in new hardware specifically to mine, but people will continue to mine.

So true! 

If you visit the BOINC stats sites and check the world top 100 crunchers and their rigs, these people have crunching farms. They spend hundreds to thousands of dollars a month without any $$ returns, all for the sake of becoming #1 and staying #1. Most crunch just for the stats, but their are lots who crunch because they believe that the project can help mankind in the present or future. I crunched for World Community Grid for 5 years due to their Cancer Research projects and only stopped because of the the monthly increases of the power cost this year (about $0.01 per kwh increase a month). Like last February the power cost was only $0.18/kwh, now its $0.26/kwh (geothermal power was supposed to be cheap  . The power company even charge the cost of stolen electricity to all their consumers. Add to that cost of maintaining the rigs, just last month I lost 2 power supplies, 1 motherboard, and 1 UPS due to power outage/surges/fluctuations. Power surge strips didn't help. There's only one power company in our area so there's no choice but to accept their crappy service.