Mining for the Sub 1GH Rig a thing of the past?

[JBDive]

I have been watching a few pools over the past couple of weeks and the round times are expanding to a point I really don't see the way mining with less than 1GH makes much sense. I mean look at Bitcoins.lc and with almost 600GH that pool is now at 15 hours on the current round putting payouts in the .01 range or lower for smaller miners. Yes some prior rounds were way shorter however they have had several rounds in the past week or so go 6 hours, even 11. Then take bitp.it which is only pushing 50 or so GH which took 14 days on the last round.

I think I read where the expected difficulty jump is not that far away and if the round times even marginally jump I don't see where anything less that 1GH at the current pricing makes any sense, and yes I know about the various calculators, I am talking real world, work all week for a $14 if your lucky and that's not counting your cost.

Are we about to see the time when only the super rigs are mining? If so will the drop off of all the smaller miners impact the overall hash rate or will the combination of newbies and super rigs adding more power offset that loss? I certainly don't see how the smaller pools can justify sticking around.

With the early adopters and super rigs owning the bulk of the market it seems that will only get worse and when you have just a small portion of the shares being traded I just don't see much future.

Just thinking out loud.

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[dunand]

In short : mining is less profitable.

[George Carmack]

welcome to the free market. Did you ever play Monopoly?

BR
GC

[nazgulnarsil]

I'm making $30 a week after power costs on 675Mh.

Stop whining.

[grod]

The high difficulty is why people join one of the 3 big pools.  They're still pulling a steady rate which matches the theoretical average payout of around 80c/100Mhash.  So a 1GH rig would pull in $8/day or $240/month.  Whether that's worth it or not is up to the miner.

[ctoon6]

I don't see it being worthwhile after the pay drop. by then id except the bitcoin network hash rate to be 30% higher than it is now AT LEAST. so if you are only getting 30 a week now, just before the drop, you will be getting like 21, then it drops you get 10. this also does not take into account for price jumps.

[nazgulnarsil]

you mean the reward cutting in half?  end of 2012 is a LONG way off buddy.

[ctoon6]

but it will happen, and the price of BTC might double for all we know when the rewards cuts in half. it could go back up to $30 a pop then to $60 overnight for all we know.

[TheMartin]

... a 1GH rig would pull in $8/day or $240/month.  

You will suffer a big loss if you calculate your mining result by multiplying  your first day by 360 to get the year.

The increase of difficulty means that you have to multiply the first day by 30 (instead of 360) to get the full first year and that every following year will be virtually zero.


Details:

___________
First day

1 GHs is 20,300 shares/day on the average
Current difficulty is 1,564,057
resulting in 0,65 BTC the first day  (=50*20,300/1,564,057) for 1 GHs


_______________
Difficulty last year

In the past year difficulty period was about 10 days with about 40% increase after each period.

Supposed the same will happen in future

1 GHs will produce 6,50 BTC (10 x 0,65) in the next ten days

Then the next difficulty increases will limit your BitCoin income
to the double of your first ten days.

Total income of 1 GHs (running forever) is 19,50 BTC (= 3 x 6,5)
if difficulty increase goes on with 40% steps.


_______________
Future

Last increase was lower. So when you are lucky your 1 GHs running forever will produce a total of 39,00 BTC.

To pay back hardware cost of about $ 1,200 for 1GHs the BitCoin quote has to increase to $30,76 plus energy cost.

I'm confident that the BitCoin will increase even more but before buying a new rig you should be aware that this rig probably won't be profitable as long as the BitCoin stays at $15,00.

.

[JBDive]

I'm making $30 a week after power costs on 675Mh.

Stop whining.

Sorry where did you see the whine? Stop trying to flame.

Also note your nearing that 1GH number I tossed out but even then you could mow 1 yard a week and make 5 times what your making. Take 2 support calls via something like Crossloop and double what your making.

The question posed I think was answered by the other posters and that is we are nearing an end to the small miner operations, pool or not unless we see some serious improvement in hash rates for sub $200 cards and that is not expected.

[TraderTimm]

Mining pools are a big target. Just waiting for the first multi-DDoS to take out the 'big three'. I personally think everyone should solo-mine.

[JBDive]

The high difficulty is why people join one of the 3 big pools.  They're still pulling a steady rate which matches the theoretical average payout of around 80c/100Mhash.  So a 1GH rig would pull in $8/day or $240/month.  Whether that's worth it or not is up to the miner.

That makes no sense. Running solo or in a pool the theoretical payout is the same over time. Note I picked the 1GH as the bottom end as making any sense to mine. I personally see little incentive for anyone to run a computer 24x7 dedicated to mining and wearing out the hardware, heating your home during the summer and generally taking up space in the geek basement for much less than $8/day. Certainly mining on your personal PC at 200-600MH while also trying to do normal work such as encoding, game playing etc is a lost cause at this price and difficulty, yes?

[BitcoinHoarder]

Mining pools are a big target. Just waiting for the first multi-DDoS to take out the 'big three'. I personally think everyone should solo-mine.

I agree.  People are getting less reward (operators take a small cut from the 50 plus tx fees) just so they can have steady payout.  Probability wins in the long run so just solo mine (I am).  If you aren't in it for the long run then what's the point?  A few bitcoins at best for two months of mining?

[Rassah]

The thing about mining is that I don't actually have to do any work for it to do it's thing. My system can run while I'm at work and while I'm sleeping, and still make me money. As long as I make more than $2USD a day on my mining (currently I make about $5 a day), it's still profitable to mine, even with my 500Mhash. If Bitcoin goes up in value, it'll continue to be profitable for while a few weeks/months longer.

[TheMartin]

As long as I make more than $2USD (energy cost) a day on my mining (currently I make about $5 a day), it's still profitable to mine

That's true.

If you own the hardware already it makes no sense to stop it working as long as you make more than your energy cost.

That's different if you have to decide on buying a new rig.

Than it's important to know, that the limited mining result probably will stay far below your hardware cost as long as the Coin is below $ 30,00.

The reason for is simply the steady difficult increase, which crippled your ten day Coin result last year to
1.00 + 0.66 + 0.44 + 0.30 + 0.20 + 0.13 + 0.08 + 0.06 + 0.04 + ... < 3.00

Thus last year you never got more Coins than three times of your first ten days mining result.

Nevertheless mining was very profitable some month ago because the difficulty was much lower.

Unfortunately that has changed in the meantime.

[MeSarah]

Im glad that someone started a thread like this. Over the last few days Ive been thinking about starting such a thread. I have been mining in a pool for just under 30 days. Sense then I have seen a 50% reduction in btc earned. A drop from 1.2 to .6 per day. I am mining with about 1.2Gh. Where I live I have cheap electricity. If this trend continues it looks like I'll be turning off my rig sometime around September. At that point it will cost more in electricity then I will earn in btc. Those that will still be mining are those that dont pay for their electricity or the big rigs. I have said this before, its the small rig operators that spend most of the btc into the economy and the big rigs operators that dump their btc to cover their huge costs.

When people keep adding power to their farms they are just shooting themselfs in the foot. In just a few weeks their costs will go up and then they will be making the same amount as they were before. Now this doesnt affect the big rigs as much. It appears to me that people dont see the downward spriral we have entered. As rig operators are pushed out they will dump or hord their btc. With people buying and hording from the exchanges the btc economy cant expand and will shrink when merchants cant pay their bills becuase they have no customers.

Now lets look at those that try to drive the market down with 'SELL SELL SELL', they are having an affect. Some of this affect is causing the market to lower its price, while some get delussional and leave the btc community and market and others wont enter the market because they are waiting for the market to bottom. The fomenttaion of the market up or down also drives away serious investors. Why would they enter into a market that some 16 year old crashes so he can make a few more bucks.

I would suggest that all fomenttaion threads be removed and disallowed. Its not freedom of speach or a free market, its taking advantage of others. Is that the type of reputation btc wants to have? I think that allowing market analysis is fair.

[NetTecture]

Your post makes little sense.

Especially during winter you wshould be happy to mine at a loss and save heating costs Sorry ;9

Anyhow, you miss a lot of things.

Big rig operators:
* They operate a LOT more eefficient han you. Tax deduction, buying hardware bulk from distributors and industrial electriity rates all pay in their favour. The rent is a non issue when you build high density rigs (I currently CONSIDER pushing a 96 graphics cards per rack design).
* They also can run stuff for a lot lower margin. Give me another business with returns like that EVEN NOW that is not high risk and you have my money for investment. Sure, there is no money for a 500USD investment - 10 USD pe rmonth is a crappy profit. But your 10USD per month is a big operators 25USD per month due to lower costs and this is a 5% per month ROI.

[relmeas]

work all week for $14? no just 3 days and i only have 500 MHz.

but yeah its getting a bit too much hassle, but i think i wont quit until the profit halves another time.

[kokojie]

solo mining is of course not realistic with sub 1GH. But mine at a pool, why do you care what your speed is. As long as it is efficient power usage. No less than 1MH per watt used, you'll be profitable.

[TheMartin]

... your 10USD per month is a big operators 25USD per month

There is no 10USD or 25USD  per  m o n t h

It was always a 3.33USD or 8.33USD total for the next ten days

And then a 2.22USD or 5.55USD  total for another ten days

And then a 1.48USD or 3.70USD total for another ten days

And then a 0.98USD or 2.46USD total for another ten days

resulting in
an overal total of 9.99USD or 24.99USD for the whole further livetime of the rig.

And even if operating on big level I don't believe you could buy the needed hardware for 24.99 USD