Is it possible to realistically break even mining anymore?

[Mooshire]

With all the difficulty increase, is it possible to even break even when buying miners anymore?

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[DeathAndTaxes]

With all the difficulty increase, is it possible to even break even when buying miners anymore?

Pre-ordering a new miner by paying BTC/USD today for a miner which will likely not be delivered for 3-4 months?  No.
If you could get a unit delivered today (I mean in your hands hashing within hours of payment)?  Maybe it really depends on the price.

However that has been true for a long time and it hasn't stopped millions of dollars in pre-orders which probably will never has a positive return.  Pretty much any BFL pre-order from 2013 was dead money they day it was paid.

Remember a pre-order today puts you at the back of the line for the company you are ordering from.  Say you bought pre-ordered a BFL Single today and they promise delivery in 2 months.  Now lets pretend they magically deliver it in 2 weeks.  You are still fucked.  Why?  Because if you get YOUR order (pre-order #38,278) that means every prior order has also shipped ahead of you.  The difficulty skyrockets before you get your unit regardless if you get it in 2 weeks or 2 months.  Today many are simply holding out hope they will magically get their unit before difficulty goes up but it is a mathematical impossibility that "most" miners will get their units before difficulty goes up because the more miners who receive their units the higher difficulty will go.  Wait until December you are going to see the forums light up with FUD, doom & gloom, rants, threats, etc.   Until the difficulty actually goes up people can hold out hope (delusion), that it will go up slower that other predict and they will be massively profitable, once difficulty has ALREADY gone up and you can calculate a very firm negative ROI% form day 0 even assuming difficulty is flat then it becomes crystal clear and the hope vanishes.   It is going to be insane on these forums around December.

[LogicalUnit]

The most readily available ASIC is the Block Erupter USB which hashes @ 336MH/s. I paid BTC 2.6 each, but now you can get them for BTC 0.55 each. It's a much better deal, but you might still have trouble making ROI.

Check out my case study here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=224015.0

[davewr2013]

Of course it is possible to make money. The KNC units delivered in October-November should make money -- for a while.

The Terra-hash will become the new starter unit and hashing (and gnashing -- of teeth) will go on. (Edit: For clarity, By January 2014 is my best estimate when the Thash will become the new starter unit.)


Life goes on -- as will mining -- and even BitCoin mining.

hth

[-ck]

The higher the risk with the company (the greater the promise, the shorter the alleged delivery time, lack of demonstration of real hardware, the more unknown the company etc..) the greater the potential profit (along with the greater the risk of loss or being outright scammed). At the other extreme, the lower the risk, the less you can make, right down to a point where you may not even pay off the device (eg. asicminer block eruptors).

[vervolioman]

I understand your concerns but you can run the unit for long time like 5 years and add bits of BTC together. If you dont hurry, it can return your BTC in my opinion

[n4ru]

If you can get a unit delivered before the 1st of next month @ ~$52/GHs with free electricity, you will break even in about a year.

I understand your concerns but you can run the unit for long time like 5 years and add bits of BTC together. If you dont hurry, it can return your BTC in my opinion

Not quite how that works. When you're earning 75% less (compounded every 2 weeks!), if you don't make roughly 50% in your first month you can never ROI because every month your income is more than halved.

With 1 GH/s at current rates and free electricity:
Week 01-04: + 0.23 (0.23)
Week 04-08: + 0.13 (0.36)
Week 08-12: + 0.07 (0.43)
Week 12-16: + 0.04 (0.47)
Week 16-20: + 0.02 (0.49)
Week 20-24: + 0.01 (0.50)
etc

[davewr2013]

Guess we don't have to wait. All they have to do is deliver. That should be easy.

http://thegenesisblock.com/cointerra-500-ghs-chips-alydian-10-ths-hosting-and-icedrill-ipo-set-out-to-change-bitcoin-mining-landscape/

• After posting information about their well-credentialed team on their website earlier this week, Cointerra took to the bitcointalk forums yesterday to offer more detail into the performance and timing of one of their new ASIC chips. Titled the GoldStrike1, the chips are said to feature a 28nm process offering more than 500 GH/s at less than 1 Watt per GH and are expected for delivery by the end of 2013.
  

No sweat -- just wait three months... You too can have a baby THash unit.

[ridnovir]

so from all I have learned if I by KnCminer Jupiter today (estimated delivery October) and the difficulty increases about %15 every 10 days I might make about 4-5K correct?

the negatives the way I see them are:

- with no proven product who knows if KnC will deliver
- if KnC will be late by 20 days I will lose money
- if difficulty increases by more than %15 (which is likely given that most of the units will be delivered in September) I will lose money

the only positive is if BTC increases in value but I cannot bet on this

Question is it worth to given the negatives to get KnC (ie spend 7k) for remote possibility of 4K profit?

[Bitweasil]

I understand your concerns but you can run the unit for long time like 5 years and add bits of BTC together. If you dont hurry, it can return your BTC in my opinion

You don't have a terribly strong understanding of math, limits, or power costs, do you?

Your "opinion" is not backed by the people who have done "math" to determine that, no, you won't get a return out of it in almost all realistic cases.

But, hey, I'm sure there are half a dozen mining companies eager to sell you hardware based on that opinion!

[AstroBoy]

I predict that by December with all the new 28nm devices showing up, the difficulty will explode to over 500 million (10 times what it is now).

I even made a little wager over at Bitbet for this: http://bitbet.us/bet/508/btc-network-difficulty-to-top-500mn-before-xmas/

[jhansen858]

If you can get a unit delivered before the 1st of next month @ ~$52/GHs with free electricity, you will break even in about a year.

I understand your concerns but you can run the unit for long time like 5 years and add bits of BTC together. If you dont hurry, it can return your BTC in my opinion

Not quite how that works. When you're earning 75% less (compounded every 2 weeks!), if you don't make roughly 50% in your first month you can never ROI because every month your income is more than halved.

With 1 GH/s at current rates and free electricity:
Week 01-04: + 0.23 (0.23)
Week 04-08: + 0.13 (0.36)
Week 08-12: + 0.07 (0.43)
Week 12-16: + 0.04 (0.47)
Week 16-20: + 0.02 (0.49)
Week 20-24: + 0.01 (0.50)
etc

Except that difficulty will never go that high.  Orders will stop coming in as the difficulty rises.  An equilibrium will be reached at some point.

[xminer]

I understand your concerns but you can run the unit for long time like 5 years and add bits of BTC together. If you dont hurry, it can return your BTC in my opinion

The estimation is outright dumb.

Here's the evolution of mining tech:

1. CPU's - "everyone has them - but not so many people know about mining"
2. GPU's - "just a handful at the start, insane success, more people get involved" - you could still get profit even half a year after 7970 released to public.
2.1. FPGA's - a beast that only matters when you're limited by power (cost/availability)/thermal package (you plainly can't put 100 7970 into a small room) - otherwise the cost is on par with GPU's or higher.
3. ASIC's - again insane success at the start - but watch the dumbasses that have no understanding of what are they doing: doesn't matter what the hashing power is but you still get 6 blocks/hour distributed among all the miners.
3.1. "first generation of ASIC's" - like Avalon - low-end tech, insane success for Avalon and first owners. 66GH/s is still comparable to what was owned by miners (ah, ok, 20+ times more than I had). But GPU's still bring almost the same US$ they did a year ago.
3.2. "newer tech ASIC's" - similar numbers but lower power usage.
3.3. more investments and running towards the bleeding edge in lithography - with the potential of getting a lower cost, lower TDP and an order of magnitude faster units at the same time. But - this is almost the end of the technology race, after this point the situations like "for $1500 you get what the others have for $15k" will not be possible. Meaning not a "dead halt" of course but a serious decrease in hash rate GROWTH.
Remember, we still get 6x25=150 coins/hour?

W/o exchange rate growth - first-gen ASIC's that were obtained at the end of the summer/in autumn will not even bring their USD value back. Let alone BTC value. We know nothing about how long the units will be in working condition as well.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

However, risk/reward in BTC terms is horrible. It almost always was like that in history of Bitcoin.

Buy (and/or exchange for labor/goods/service/etc) and hold BTC long term is by far the best way to play this game.

Wise words.  Very few people understand that the easiest and safest way to get rich with BTC is to just accumulate it and put it away, while ignoring all the noise and bubbles du jour (bots, loans, securities, and now mining) which promise thousands of percent return but at a significantly higher risk of losing "invested" capital.

[CrashX]

The most readily available ASIC is the Block Erupter USB which hashes @ 336MH/s. I paid BTC 2.6 each, but now you can get them for BTC 0.55 each. It's a much better deal, but you might still have trouble making ROI.

Check out my case study here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=224015.0

I have one, its mining 0.35cents a day. That will still take me 200 days to get my $70 investment back. << Not counting complications

[CrashX]

I understand your concerns but you can run the unit for long time like 5 years and add bits of BTC together. If you dont hurry, it can return your BTC in my opinion

This could happened, unless BTC drop dead. Remember afew month ago BTC was at $250.00 each, but it might increase But I don't think it is, been dropping for a while now. 

[millsdmb]

The most readily available ASIC is the Block Erupter USB which hashes @ 336MH/s. I paid BTC 2.6 each, but now you can get them for BTC 0.55 each. It's a much better deal, but you might still have trouble making ROI.

Check out my case study here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=224015.0

You can get a blade for BTC10.24. up to 12GH. After the upcoming difficulty change to 49 million (about 3 days away), it'd make about $14USD per day.

[dell123]

Personally I believe the best option is to go in strong. If you're serious then spend big, rack up a few avalons, make some coins then sell them off, people pay a lot for them. You'll get what you paid for your avalons back and you've got yourself a little bitcoin nest egg for your trouble.

[Bitweasil]

Personally I believe the best option is to go in strong. If you're serious then spend big, rack up a few avalons, make some coins then sell them off, people pay a lot for them. You'll get what you paid for your avalons back and you've got yourself a little bitcoin nest egg for your trouble.

"If buying one unprofitable miner isn't appealing to you, buy a lot of unprofitable miners!  And then hope you can manage a net profit by selling them off to someone else who can't do the math!"

[Ardenyham]

The most readily available ASIC is the Block Erupter USB which hashes @ 336MH/s. I paid BTC 2.6 each, but now you can get them for BTC 0.55 each. It's a much better deal, but you might still have trouble making ROI.

Check out my case study here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=224015.0

I have one, its mining 0.35cents a day. That will still take me 200 days to get my $70 investment back. << Not counting complications

I dont know, do you count increase in difficulty every retarget?