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.

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[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