Will mining still be worth it when the block reward is 1.562 BTC?

[A.Delaney]

There will be so many miners by then. You will need a big farm to get any real amount of BTC per month. Will the little guy at home still be making enough BTC per month to make it worth it?

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[rifleman74]

There will be so many miners by then. You will need a big farm to get any real amount of BTC per month. Will the little guy at home still be making enough BTC per month to make it worth it?

You know how far off that is?

[A.Delaney]

Like 11 years or something.

[rifleman74]

Like 11 years or something.

A lot farther off than that.

[Raymond_B]

So far off, who knows what mining will even be. I just hope at that point I have a full ROI on everything

[alh]

Like 11 years or something.

A lot farther off than that.

Actually 11 is not too far off the mark. Consider the following:

Jul 2016 - Change to 12.5
Jul 2020 - Change to 6.25
Jul 2024 - Change to 3.125
Jul 2028 - Change to 1.5625

Unless there is a major downturn in hashrate, the above will probably be later than actual.

As for the impact, the price of BTC will determine the profitability, or lack thereof, for various folks. We've also seen a major uptick in the transaction fees which will likely be a huge offset in the block reward.

Lot's can change between now and middle of 2028 (as Raymond_B points out).

[stompix]

There will be so many miners by then. You will need a big farm to get any real amount of BTC per month. Will the little guy at home still be making enough BTC per month to make it worth it?

Let's see, the rewards is 12.5 , average fees 2.5 It comes at around 15btc per block.
So, assuming same fees the total reward will be 4 btc. (although the fee problems might be fixed..too many assumptions).
It means he reward will only drop  4 times not 10.

Now, let's go and look back at January 2017.
Difficulty was 5 times lower but price was 15 times lower.
So, it was 3 times less profitable to mine then.

Quick correlation (ignoring a looooot of variables), and the answer is yeah, it's still going to be profitable even if we don't add any jump in the price.

[leowonderful]

This question is equivalent to asking what the weather will be like exactly a year from now. Nobody knows. Price, difficulty, and transaction fees all play an important part in mining profitability. Unless you’re a time traveller, it’s impossible to know whether or not mining will be profitable by the time block rewards reach 1.562. Profitability waxes and wanes; just earlier last year, mining Bitcoin was much less profitable than it is even now, with every penny counting towards profitability and ROI.

[A.Delaney]

I know its about impossible to predict that far out. I was more or less just seeing if anyone had any feeling about mining once the payout is that small. I am just getting into mining and you read so many different things about it. Positive and negative. I just want to make sure Im thinking of everything I can before spending a large amount of my hard earned money on mining equipment.

[QuintLeo]

There will be so many miners by then. You will need a big farm to get any real amount of BTC per month. Will the little guy at home still be making enough BTC per month to make it worth it?

 People probably won't be mining for the block fees by then - they'll probably be mining more for the transaction fees.

 Also, how much is 1 Bitcoin going to be worth by then?

 WAY too far out to predict anything - Bitcoin might have DIED by that point....

[HG_Lincs]

I think people are losing touch with the whole idea behind Crypto Currency. Profit this, profit that. What is everybody basing "Profits" off? Fiat Currency?
I thought the whole Idea behind crypto, is to abolish fiat?

Everyone wants to make a quick buck right now.. All they want to do is get some Bitcoin and sell it for Fiat Currency. Just totally missing the whole damn point.

When you buy/mine or earn crypto right now, you're supposed to be keeping it for the future. The ONLY reason you should be selling off your bitcoin, is because you're getting a good price to buy into an Altcoin, and vice versa. Only reason you should sell and Alt coin, is to buy Bitcoin.
Bitcoin and Alt coins will Always go up in value, because Fiat currency will Always go down in value. (Inflation)
Everyone's gotta stop being so greedy and start thinking about the future a little bit more. And start embracing Crypto for what it was meant to be.

The only way Bitcoin can die, is if people just stop using it.
There is no reason why anyone should stop using it. The system is already pre built. We just have to utilize it.

[Edit]
Coinmarket cap already gives you the value of every coin, compared to BTC.
Why is everyone still worrying about BTC/USD?
BTC/USD should concern everybody just as much as the CHF/JPY does.

[kenji]

I think people are losing touch with the whole idea behind Crypto Currency. Profit this, profit that. What is everybody basing "Profits" off? Fiat Currency?
I thought the whole Idea behind crypto, is to abolish fiat?

Everyone wants to make a quick buck right now.. All they want to do is get some Bitcoin and sell it for Fiat Currency. Just totally missing the whole damn point.

When you buy/mine or earn crypto right now, you're supposed to be keeping it for the future. The ONLY reason you should be selling off your bitcoin, is because you're getting a good price to buy into an Altcoin, and vice versa. Only reason you should sell and Alt coin, is to buy Bitcoin.
Bitcoin and Alt coins will Always go up in value, because Fiat currency will Always go down in value. (Inflation)
Everyone's gotta stop being so greedy and start thinking about the future a little bit more. And start embracing Crypto for what it was meant to be.

The only way Bitcoin can die, is if people just stop using it.
There is no reason why anyone should stop using it. The system is already pre built. We just have to utilize it.

[Edit]
Coinmarket cap already gives you the value of every coin, compared to BTC.
Why is everyone still worrying about BTC/USD?
BTC/USD should concern everybody just as much as the CHF/JPY does.

Don't know why my other comment here got marked as spam and was deleted... anyway...

People care about BTC/USD because a lot of them rely on the bitcoin they earn as income to pay bills and such. I don't care as much because I know that when BTC/USD tanks, I just get more bitcoin for cheap

[QuintLeo]

When you buy/mine or earn crypto right now, you're supposed to be keeping it for the future.

 You ASSUME everyone can afford to do so.
 Also a bad assumption for miners, we're probably bettter off investing it in more gear to make MORE bitcoin in the future.

 ASSUMING that cryptocoins will always go up in value is a VERY HIGH RISK assumption, they've collapsed before and I won't be shocked at all if it happens again.

 We worry about BTC/USD because ALMOST OTHER COINS have to be exchanged to BTC (or ETH or LTC or BitmainCrapHome coin) before you CAN exchange it to fiat - unless you know of an exchange that exchanges other coins to FIAT directly that I'm not aware of.

[rifleman74]

When you buy/mine or earn crypto right now, you're supposed to be keeping it for the future.

 You ASSUME everyone can afford to do so.
 Also a bad assumption for miners, we're probably bettter off investing it in more gear to make MORE bitcoin in the future.

 ASSUMING that cryptocoins will always go up in value is a VERY HIGH RISK assumption, they've collapsed before and I won't be shocked at all if it happens again.

 We worry about BTC/USD because ALMOST OTHER COINS have to be exchanged to BTC (or ETH or LTC or BitmainCrapHome coin) before you CAN exchange it to fiat - unless you know of an exchange that exchanges other coins to FIAT directly that I'm not aware of.

In theory you should be investing in equal or better miners (and right now we're at even miners at best).  But that doesn't work for everyone..

[A.Delaney]

I mine to earn crypto and save it in my wallet. I have used it to make purchases in crypto and have yet to convert any to USD. I want to have a savings of it in my wallet for the long term. If I get to the point of needing to convert some crypto to pay my power bill for mining I will. Right now I am doing my best to pay for electricity without using any crypto. I want to save as much as I can. I am hoping someday crypto will be adopted by more businesses and purchases for daily things can be made. Saving is about the only option we have right now. You cant do much else with crypto without converting it to fiat.