If Bitcoins Go Up Will USB Bitcoin Miners Be Profitable?

[Tobias]

Tobias, you really don't get it, hm? You are talking about "how to debate a subject", but the point is "how to do simple math". And you failed.

Scenario A: (your way)
You bought a Block Erupter for 35$
You mined 0.1 Bitcoins with it before the power consumption costs more than your mining reward.
Bitcoin price rises from 140$ to 1000$ per Bitcoin.
You sell your 0.1 Bitcoins for 100$ and say "Hey, I made 65$, I was right, I told everybody that those Block Erupters make Money!"


Scenario B: (the one you need braincells for)
You bought Bitcoins for 35$.
You got 0.25 Bitcoins at the Price of 140$ each Bitcoin.
Bitcoin price rises from 140$ to 1000$ per Bitcoin
You sell your 0.25 Bitcoins for 250$ and say "Hey, I made 215$, I was right, I told everybody that those Block Erupters suck!"


The difference is: B gives you 150$, but only if you have braincells.


But clearly your point was: Hey, 35$, who needs such peanuts, just throw it away in a most delightful way.

Maybe if I had brain cells I would be able to do the math in my head but for now I used a calculator and discovered that "65$" and "215$" are both more than 35$  thus agreeing with the dictionary definition of the word profitable. I am not telling people to buy 1000 usb miners and mine with them I am just arguing that you will one day in the future probably make back your 35$ with a usb miner. However I would NEVER condone basing your entire operation off usb miners and yes you would get more money if you bought 35$ in btc and just held it for the same amount of time. The post was asking if they are profitable not if they are the MOST profitable. But hey, I am just a guy without brain cells...

[Tobias]

But clearly your point was: Hey, 35$, who needs such peanuts, just throw it away in a most delightful way.

For the sake of usbminers everywhere I will throw away my peanuts in order to bring some actual evidence to the table. I just ordered a usb asicminer for 34.95 from ebay, and I will begin mining asap. Speculation is great but everyone is forgetting to add in the luck factor. We will see how it goes.

[smoothie]

Profit in terms of fiat sure if BTC rises high enough before difficulty is at a "certain" point.

Those times are usually short lived.

[Bitweasil]

Speculation is great but everyone is forgetting to add in the luck factor.

And if you add in the "luck factor," Vegas is a can't lose idea!

Luck goes both ways.

[philipma1957]

The way I read it, most "know it alls" here in the thread are completely dismissing the possibility that USB miners will have future value, even when BTC mining is unprofitable.

I'd like to see some calculations when future value is included. Naturally, you can not prove that the future value is nil.

GPUs have a use outside bitcoin so have a good residual value.

FPGAs have a use outside bitcoin so have a good residual value.

Bitcoin mining asics have no use outside bitcoin. Why would you expect them to have a residual value higher than their mining returns?

a new coin coded to only allow 1 single stick run to mine it per ip address.  or any variation of the above .  why should someone make the coin  because there or 10's of thousands of sticks. any smart coder can see that his and her coin has a built in following.

[Hippievogel]

In England They Would say :penny wise and pound foolish,

[Shak]

Tobias, you really don't get it, hm? You are talking about "how to debate a subject", but the point is "how to do simple math". And you failed.

Scenario A: (your way)
You bought a Block Erupter for 35$
You mined 0.1 Bitcoins with it before the power consumption costs more than your mining reward.
Bitcoin price rises from 140$ to 1000$ per Bitcoin.
You sell your 0.1 Bitcoins for 100$ and say "Hey, I made 65$, I was right, I told everybody that those Block Erupters make Money!"


Scenario B: (the one you need braincells for)
You bought Bitcoins for 35$.
You got 0.25 Bitcoins at the Price of 140$ each Bitcoin.
Bitcoin price rises from 140$ to 1000$ per Bitcoin
You sell your 0.25 Bitcoins for 250$ and say "Hey, I made 215$, I was right, I told everybody that those Block Erupters suck!"


The difference is: B gives you 150$, but only if you have braincells.


But clearly your point was: Hey, 35$, who needs such peanuts, just throw it away in a most delightful way.

Maybe if I had brain cells I would be able to do the math in my head but for now I used a calculator and discovered that "65$" and "215$" are both more than 35$  thus agreeing with the dictionary definition of the word profitable. I am not telling people to buy 1000 usb miners and mine with them I am just arguing that you will one day in the future probably make back your 35$ with a usb miner. However I would NEVER condone basing your entire operation off usb miners and yes you would get more money if you bought 35$ in btc and just held it for the same amount of time. The post was asking if they are profitable not if they are the MOST profitable. But hey, I am just a guy without brain cells...

Nope, you are still wrong, because you misunderstood "profitable".
Mining-profitability does not! include a rise in Bitcoin prices. Don't mix profits you made by speculations with mining profits.
You bought an USB Erupter at 35$ and mine Bitcoins that are worth 14$. 14$ in Bitcoins made by mining. If the Bitcoin price rises, these 14$ in Bitcoin may be worth 100$ in the future.

Where Mining is red and speculation is blue.
So by spending 35$ on a Erupter you make a mining loss of 21$. Full Stop. No profit at all. Nada. Nüx.
The 35$ - 21$ loss then goes towards the calculation for your potential! speculation profits. 14$ to speculate with and hope and pray for rising Bitcoin prices, so that your speculation profits will compensate your loss in the "mining-stage" and maybe even overcompensate it so you make a netto-plus in the end.


The idea behind this is quite simple. Here a quick example of that logic:

You want to do the gold-stuff.
You go out and start digging, spending 1000$ on equipment and a claim for digging gold. You get gold, at the current rate it's worth 300$, your gold mine is as good as depleted.
You sit on your gold and hope that it's going to rise in price so you can sell your 300$ worth in gold for 3000$. And if you success, you say "Hey, great, I made profit."

But your profit of mining was -700$, just your speculation profit was 2700$. Why did you bother mining, when all you wanted to do from the start was speculating on rising prices? You could have just bought the gold.

[-ck]

This thread makes my head hurt. There is so much cognitive bias in the arguments for the devices that I'm dumbfounded.

[Tobias]

You bought an USB Erupter at 35$ and mine Bitcoins that are worth 14$. 14$ in Bitcoins made by mining. If the Bitcoin price rises, these 14$ in Bitcoin may be worth 100$ in the future.

Where Mining is red and speculation is blue.
So by spending 35$ on a Erupter you make a mining loss of 21$. Full Stop. No profit at all. Nada. Nüx.

Ok I am sorry but there is no point in arguing with a person who pulls numbers out of no where. Here is a link to the definition of profitable http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profitable please study it hard and stop trying to prove your point just because you aren't willing to hear anyone else out. You are misunderstanding what I am trying to say. It is profitable and if you say it isn't you are absolutely wrong. However usbmining definitely isn't as profitable as just buying the bitcoins and waiting for the price to go up. And it definitely isn't as profitable as buying a better rig. I agree with that. However I disagree with your complete mutilation of the word "profitable".

Mining-profitability does not! include a rise in Bitcoin prices. Don't mix profits you made by speculations with mining profits.

Yes it does. Let's use your brilliant gold example. If what you are saying is true then no gold mining company is "profitable" because they should just buy the gold from someone else and hold it until prices increase. Then no one would mine gold... That just doesn't make sense, someone has to do it. And as less gold becomes available I am allowed to speculate all I want. So if I save the gold I mined now and sell it later for double its worth I make money. Thus a profit is earned.

Of course you can calculate profit from speculation into the equation, any logical businessman would. Profit is profit, even if I get it in the future. You think I am arguing for something that I am not.

[frankenmint]

heres a new argument - what if I bought one off amazon because I only had Credit to begin with...just one.  Lets take out the additional expense of extra stuff like fans and external hubs and presume that Im only doing one. I got one shipped for 23 dollars at the same time the price is 139 which converts my breakeven at that point in time to .164

Now, I didn't have cash or dollars to throw down on btc and only had the option to use credit which already explains why I couldnt just buy and hold btc.  I think I could make .08 BTC according to genesis block...by then I could also make another .08 in BTC by mining an alt I know this is now before difficulty goes up but coinwarz suggests that one block erupter could also mine terracoin which would yield approximately .0038 btc a day for just one erupter.  .08/.0038 = 21.05 Days added till break even so anyone who says you can't do it hasn't considered this. 

I will play devils advocate and mention also that this is not realistic to expect it to be this soon..there are also bound to be other sha246 difficulty jumps on those coins too which may triple or quadruple the remaining time required to break even on the block erupter.  If you ask me the goal isnt to continue to live off the erupters forever, unless you keep switching alts and have enough hashpower like in the several terrahashs to throw into an altcoin network.   


Let difficulty hit a few billion and I promise that more alts will jump in interest.  By virtue of the calculations brought above, I could even go so far as to speculate that those prices of the alt I mentioned could also themselves be higher in price from the interest and difficulty  spikes of having them available.  A

[Bitweasil]

This thread makes my head hurt. There is so much cognitive bias in the arguments for the devices that I'm dumbfounded.

The alternative is that some people will have to admit they were wrong about buying the gizmos.

That's hard, apparently.

[Shak]

Ok I am sorry but there is no point in arguing with a person who pulls numbers out of no where.

Well, in an example you use numbers. You can substitute Dollar with Sheep or whatever you like, but numbers usually helps to understand complex problems. You can alter them, since they won't change the outcome of the given argument.

It is profitable and if you say it isn't you are absolutely wrong.

By having proven you wrong by all scientific means your argument is rendered invalid. By USB Mining you loose 70% of your money. Gone. Even if you turn your calculations upside down and squint at them.

However usbmining definitely isn't as profitable as just buying the bitcoins and waiting for the price to go up.

Thats two different things. Buying an USB-Miner and using it for mining generates Mining-Profit. It's a negative value. You loose money.
Holding Bitcoins and speculate with 'em is independent of your source of Bitcoin-Income. It doesn't matter if you have mined them or if you have bought them.

Mining-profitability does not! include a rise in Bitcoin prices. Don't mix profits you made by speculations with mining profits.

Yes it does.

Nope, still does not.

Let's use your brilliant gold example. If what you are saying is true then no gold mining company is "profitable" because they should just buy the gold from someone else and hold it until prices increase. Then no one would mine gold...

Exactly this happens in roughly 90% of the known gold deposits. The costs of mining the gold there is higher than the value of the gold, so noone is mining there. On some places it is still profitable, because the gold is easily accessible and the worker costs are low (e.g. african continent).

So if I save the gold I mined now and sell it later for double its worth I make money. Thus a profit is earned.

Only a speculation profit. Again, you mix mining and speculation. And that is a plainly wrong. If the gold price isn't rising at all, your speculation profit will be zero. No loss. But the money you spent on your unprofitable mining is gone. If you bought the gold, you wouldn't have lost any money at all. Therefore, mining is a way to loose money, you won't have any gain from it.

Of course you can calculate profit from speculation into the equation, any logical businessman would. Profit is profit, even if I get it in the future. You think I am arguing for something that I am not.

Profit is profit, exactly. The mining profit is negative, roughly -70% in case of Block Erupters. The speculation profit may be positive, the future will tell. The thing is: These "profits" are two completely different things, you cant mix them and calculate an "overall profit" and then use this to draw the conclusion that "mining profit" was positive.


PS:

Ok I am sorry but there is no point in arguing with a person who pulls numbers out of no where.

I am not arguing with you, I just try to explain the basics behind the ongoing mining-fraud to you. You make some very common mistakes and I can only hope that you won't loose a lot of money by investing based on wrong assumptions.

[Keyser Soze]

Profit/loss from mining =/= profit/loss from currency speculation. Just because you may make more in fiat then you started with does not mean the mining generated those returns.

Hoping that bitcoins rise in value to make your mining operation profitable is not rational if your primary goal is profit.

[Tobias]

By having proven you wrong by all scientific means your argument is rendered invalid. By USB Mining you loose 70% of your money. Gone. Even if you turn your calculations upside down and squint at them.

You haven't once proven me wrong, you just refuse to calculate speculation into the profit equation which doesn't make sense to me. You have admitted countless times that you make money, then you turn around and say you don't make profit. That is the only discussion here but you keep going off topic for some reason. It doesn't matter if the profit is from mining or speculation, because you speculate with your mined coins. I really don't think you know what "all scientific means" are. Science works with evidence.

EVIDENCE:

Mining-profitability does not! include a rise in Bitcoin prices. Don't mix profits you made by speculations with mining profits.

Yes it does.

Nope, still does not.

then

Of course you can calculate profit from speculation into the equation, any logical businessman would. Profit is profit, even if I get it in the future. You think I am arguing for something that I am not.

Profit is profit, exactly.

You can't say one thing, argue the completely different side, and then refuse to understand what I am trying to say one bit. I am not sure who made the rule that you are not allowed to calculate speculation into mining but it is wrong. Any bitcoin miner immediately becomes a speculator the second they help solve a block. You can be safe and immediately sell it, or you can take a risk and speculate. If you speculate on coins that you mined yourself you are making a profit off of mining because you mined the coins that you are speculating with. If I just bought the coins I would be speculating, but because I mined them I am allowed to combine the profit. There is no logical argument against that as far as I am aware.

PS:

Ok I am sorry but there is no point in arguing with a person who pulls numbers out of no where.

I am not arguing with you, I just try to explain the basics behind the ongoing mining-fraud to you. You make some very common mistakes and I can only hope that you won't loose a lot of money by investing based on wrong assumptions.

Have you ever even owned a usbminer? I feel like most of the people on this thread are talking but they have absolutely no evidence to back up their claims. Let me make this very clear: I am not endorsing usbmining I am just saying that they will one day in the very distant future make a profit. I do not and will not ever buy more than one of these purely for the sake of experimentation because they are interesting devices and if the technology was perfected they could one day become a viable source of income.

OKAY I will meet up halfway with you because I am a good guy, let's use your side of the argument that mining generates a negative profit. Even if it takes years to do, if the usbminer somehow magically mines .00000000000000001 more btc than it took to buy the thing(not counting speculation, we will assume price never increases but difficulty does) a profit has been achieved, do you agree? And you can't just say "No that will never happen" because you don't know for sure so please don't go there. You will not make as much as just flat out buying the btc, and definitely not as much as a legit rig, but if it one day makes more than it cost to buy you get a profit purely from mining. My arguement is that this is possible. Slow, but possible.

You are saying that a usbminer will never reach the initial investment that it cost to buy purely from mining btc and selling them immediately? Correct? Just try to see my point because we aren't being productive anymore we are just going in circles.

[Keyser Soze]

You haven't once proven me wrong, you just refuse to calculate speculation into the profit equation which doesn't make sense to me.

Please elaborate why you should include any profit/loss from currency speculation into your mining operation's profit/loss.

[colemab]

You haven't once proven me wrong, you just refuse to calculate speculation into the profit equation which doesn't make sense to me.

Please elaborate why you should include any profit/loss from currency speculation into your mining operation's profit/loss.

Util all of the world takes BTC, at the end of the day you will be converting to fiat (i.e. USD) and so you generally can't mine without some speculation being involved. 

That is unless you spend in BTC strictly which of course you can't do because you had to either buy BTC (which was started by fiat) or buy mining equipment to mine with (which would again require fiat or BTC purchased with fiat).

The exception here is if someone gives you a miner - then you have virtually no capital expenditure just operating costs.

So who wants to send me a USB unit? 

[-ck]

This thread makes my head hurt. There is so much cognitive bias in the arguments for the devices that I'm dumbfounded.

The alternative is that some people will have to admit they were wrong about buying the gizmos.

That's hard, apparently.

Indeed. The specific bias in question has a well defined name too: Post purchase rationalisation.

[kano]

It really is a simple argument to say that you shouldn't buy AsicMiner USBs

It doesn't matter that some very small % of buyers are able to predict the future and use speculation to return a greater number of $ than they put into buying them, since, firstly, that is indeed some very small % of buyers and, secondly, if you rephrase it into 'gold' it is quite clear that it's a bad idea.

Now lets try a 'gold' example:
I have a device that can create 9oz of gold, and take many months, using only electricity.
I'll sell it to you for 10oz of gold.
Once it has made 9oz of gold, the value of the device is effectively zero but may be more if you can fool someone into buying it - or find a fool who doesn't realise that it has no value

This sound like a good deal to anyone?

Now just to avoid the speculation argument that may come up as a reply.

With the same input fiat, would I be better to speculate on the price of 10oz of gold or 9oz of gold?

[Gleason]

This thread makes my head hurt. There is so much cognitive bias in the arguments for the devices that I'm dumbfounded.

The alternative is that some people will have to admit they were wrong about buying the gizmos.

That's hard, apparently.

Indeed. The specific bias in question has a well defined name too: Post purchase rationalisation.

Yup. Its fun watching new ways an examples they post to try and justify it.

[Gleason]

Yes it does. Let's use your brilliant gold example. If what you are saying is true then no gold mining company is "profitable" because they should just buy the gold from someone else and hold it until prices increase. Then no one would mine gold... That just doesn't make sense, someone has to do it. And as less gold becomes available I am allowed to speculate all I want. So if I save the gold I mined now and sell it later for double its worth I make money. Thus a profit is earned.

Of course you can calculate profit from speculation into the equation, any logical businessman would. Profit is profit, even if I get it in the future. You think I am arguing for something that I am not.

Your use of his gold example makes no sense. There are companies that have the money to start mining gold, because chances are, they WILL BE PROFITABLE at MINING it. And if Gold value happens to rise, that will further increase profit margins.

People keep buying the USB miners that are already in "not profitable stages" and never will be, and they make retarded examples to justify the purchase when it is just as easy to buy BTC over the course of a 30 second span of signing up at coinbase and actually have the chance of making a profit.

Not to mention I currently buy BTC, have already made profit by trading and "betting" btc to increase my holdings.

Way better than buying a miner, losing the BTC I had/could have had, and sit waiting months on a miner that will never make it back for me.