Worth it to buy a block erupter?

[guitarplinker]

Hi, I'm thinking about purchasing a single block erupter to mine with my Raspberry Pi for a low cost miner. The things I'd need to buy would be these:
-USB Block Erupter ($50 - I'm in Canada and this is the cheapest I can get them)
-Powered USB hub (~$10)

What do you guys think about this? Power draw would be around 7W max on load I figure, so nothing really goes to pay for power. Do you think it would be worth it, even just to run it for fun? Also, any ideas on alt-coins to mine with an erupter that would be more profitable than BTC?

I currently have a 1.06MH/s alt-coin mining rig bringing in around $3 a day after power (450W @ 0.12$ per kW/hr.) and I'm kind of using the money generated from that to pay for these things.

But yeah, what do you guys think about this? Buy now? Wait until a lower price drop? Don't buy?

[LogicalUnit]

 As a hobby and/or educational exercise, I'd say go for it. Mining your money back with these things is going to be difficult, but you'll learn a lot and have some fun.

[odolvlobo]

The important questions are how much BTC do you expect it to mine, and do you care if that is less than you paid for it?

[CrashX]

With an Erupter you'll be getting around $0.35 cents US everyday. At current difficulty.

[dell123]

Agreed, although this is most likely the lowest priced set-up you could put together that actually generates a semi substantial return It would still take quite a long time to see a return if ever but it would be a great amount of fun and experience if this is your first venture into mining. Best of luck with it.

[Anduck]

Hi, I'm thinking about purchasing a single block erupter to mine with my Raspberry Pi for a low cost miner. The things I'd need to buy would be these:
-USB Block Erupter ($50 - I'm in Canada and this is the cheapest I can get them)
-Powered USB hub (~$10)

What do you guys think about this? Power draw would be around 7W max on load I figure, so nothing really goes to pay for power. Do you think it would be worth it, even just to run it for fun? Also, any ideas on alt-coins to mine with an erupter that would be more profitable than BTC?

I currently have a 1.06MH/s alt-coin mining rig bringing in around $3 a day after power (450W @ 0.12$ per kW/hr.) and I'm kind of using the money generated from that to pay for these things.

But yeah, what do you guys think about this? Buy now? Wait until a lower price drop? Don't buy?

Don't buy or atleast wait for lower price (correct price). They're still selling for too high price.

[MrHempstock]

Buy a couple from CanaryInTheMine for 0.35BTC each. Have someone in the US ship them to you (even paying for escrow would still probably save you in the long run)

[guitarplinker]

Well I do have a contact in the USA that could possibly ship them to me once it arrives at their place.
Then it would cost 0.38BTC for a single erupter from SBB's group buy, or 0.7BTC for two miners from him as well + the shipping costs from the contact to me, which is probably $30 or so just from looking at the price to re-ship a package from northern USA to Southern Canada.

I'm leaning towards buying the miner for $50 cash from Canada - there is no shipping fee or anything else, it's $50 flat rate per miner, just because I find it less of a pain then to gather $40 worth of bitcoins from all my wallets, ship it to my contact and then pay another $30 to get it actually shipped to me in Canada.

Oh - and I have a $10 Amazon gift card, so when/if I buy a USB powered hub and USB fan I'll get $10 off it. 

[guitarplinker]

The important questions are how much BTC do you expect it to mine, and do you care if that is less than you paid for it?

I'm hoping to make back $20 of my investment before difficult of bitcoin goes completely through the roof and you're making absolutely nothing, like you're just barely covering power costs with your mining. Like I'm definitely not expecting to recoup all of my investment with this, but keep in mind I have another miner running making me around $3 a day, which I'm trying to use to buy me the parts needed for this low powered miner.

[glitch003]

The important questions are how much BTC do you expect it to mine, and do you care if that is less than you paid for it?

I'm hoping to make back $20 of my investment before difficult of bitcoin goes completely through the roof and you're making absolutely nothing, like you're just barely covering power costs with your mining. Like I'm definitely not expecting to recoup all of my investment with this, but keep in mind I have another miner running making me around $3 a day, which I'm trying to use to buy me the parts needed for this low powered miner.

Why would you spend $50 to make $20?  Why not just buy ~0.5BTC?  Even if difficulty stayed perfectly level, it would take 124 days for you to break even on it. 

If you want to get one for fun then that makes sense.  But getting one for potential profit is just throwing money away.

[guitarplinker]

The important questions are how much BTC do you expect it to mine, and do you care if that is less than you paid for it?

I'm hoping to make back $20 of my investment before difficult of bitcoin goes completely through the roof and you're making absolutely nothing, like you're just barely covering power costs with your mining. Like I'm definitely not expecting to recoup all of my investment with this, but keep in mind I have another miner running making me around $3 a day, which I'm trying to use to buy me the parts needed for this low powered miner.

Why would you spend $50 to make $20?  Why not just buy ~0.5BTC?  Even if difficulty stayed perfectly level, it would take 124 days for you to break even on it. 

If you want to get one for fun then that makes sense.  But getting one for potential profit is just throwing money away.

I'm wanting to get one just for the fun of it, to make a low powered miner. And if it can pay back part of it's cost that would be great, but I'm definitely not expecting it to recoup all of my investment, even if I mine alt-SHA-256 currencies on it and trade them for BTC.

[superfluouso]

Your countries own groupon for bitcoin, coinforest should have a nice deal on these in the next day or so...

See their blog for details

[Xyver]

Block erupters are staying positive until the difficulty passes 750 million... At least for me.  Power at $0.08, erupter using 2.5 watts, means it lasts a long long time.  If you got a few of them, you might be able to make some ROI, it'll just take forever.

EDIT:: By stay positive, I mean that they pay for the power that they consume.  This is also assuming BTC stays at $100

[User705]

It hasn't been worth it so far at any price point.  And by worth it I mean the crazy ROI (300%) per year most bitcoiners picture this to be producing.  Keep in mind that even after 750 million there are plenty of people with "free" electricity.  The other issue these haven't been hashing long enough to determine if and when they start to break down.

[odolvlobo]

Block erupters are staying positive until the difficulty passes 750 million... At least for me.  Power at $0.08, erupter using 2.5 watts, means it lasts a long long time.  If you got a few of them, you might be able to make some ROI, it'll just take forever.

EDIT:: By stay positive, I mean that they pay for the power that they consume.  This is also assuming BTC stays at $100

Yes, an ASIC miner is quite energy efficient compared to a GPU. However, most people are paying more for the USB miner than they will ever receive from it. That is the real issue right now.

[lindeanin]

Dont buy, it will not pay back.
Look how many units are preordered, if you dont mine the BTC back to the end of this year, you wont mine much next year

[Trongersoll]

if you are looking to make money, get a job, invest in the stockmarket, play the horses. If just want to mine, then yes it is worth it.

[MrHempstock]

Mine for the fun and education of it.
Buy BTC direct for the straight-up investment factor.
Give BTC as gift to others to spread the Word and increase General Acceptance.

[superfluouso]

Mine for the fun and education of it.
Buy BTC direct for the straight-up investment factor.
Give BTC as gift to others to spread the Word and increase General Acceptance.

Also, do your part to contribute to the network - and those little slivers of btc may one day be worth far more than you could imagine..

[FreedomCoin]

just like people that collected gold slivers during the gold rush. They are worth alot when you have a vial full of them.