Mining , still worth it?

[sampullman]

These posts seem to crop up a lot for some reason, the answer is simple. If you already have equipment the answer is probably "yes," but you can easily check with a profit calculator (e.g. https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/eth)

The question of whether it will be profitable to buy equipment is more complicated, but not by much. Find hashrates for GPUs (or ASICs/whatever) from a site like: https://whattomine.com/
Use a profit calculator to see how long it will take to ROI, and decide whether you think the market will crash in that time.

For example, if you assume Ethereum will retain value for a year (and not switch to POS), it is currently profitable to set up new rigs.

[dimpsk]

These posts seem to crop up a lot for some reason, the answer is simple. If you already have equipment the answer is probably "yes," but you can easily check with a profit calculator (e.g. https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/eth)

The question of whether it will be profitable to buy equipment is more complicated, but not by much. Find hashrates for GPUs (or ASICs/whatever) from a site like: https://whattomine.com/
Use a profit calculator to see how long it will take to ROI, and decide whether you think the market will crash in that time.

For example, if you assume Ethereum will retain value for a year (and not switch to POS), it is currently profitable to set up new rigs.

Not exactly. Your will earn the cost of your ETH equipment in 2 years. If ETH price will the be same during next two years. But difficulty will be not for sure. So you will never recoup your costs buying new equipment now except case ETH price will quick rise. The main problem - video cards now cost twice they should cost. Or may be tripple.  Slow guys experienced problems with calculator dont realised yet.

[Za1n]

Mining may continue to be "profitable" but not by the same metric people have been using for the past 12-18 months.

Times have been good for anyone getting into mining for basically the past two years as rising coin prices have more than offset the accompanied increase in hash-rate and thus difficulty. Now, the good times in mining are finally coming to an end and we are going to be looking at digging in for at least 24-36 months to see any reasonable profitability return.

This is especially true for those looking to buy new mining hardware right now. If you have had your rigs for awhile and you already earned your investments back, you can weather the upcoming dry months a lot better than new investors, as your only consideration is if your mining profits is greater than your electrical costs. Those who need to earn an ROI on top of operating expenses will obviously have a tough time of it, especially as computer hardware is still selling at 200-300% above its MSRP.

To see what is coming you can simply pull up a BTC chart from approximately January 2014 to January 2017. It took BTC roughly 3 years to recover from its November 2013 high of over $1200 and I expect the market to play out similar to that time period. BTC, ETH, ZEC, BCASH and the others will thrash around for another 6 months, just as it took time for BTC to bottom out in the fall/winter of 2014. If this pattern repeats we are looking at 2021 before everything recovers to recent ATH levels.

So if you can tough it out for another 3 years, pay utilities (electricity) out of your own pocket and keep mining and holding, you may indeed make some hefty profits. However, if you are barely scraping by, have bills to pay, have high priced electricity, or the worst-case scenario have recent credit card hardware purchases to pay back, I think you may be in for a tough go of it.



I modified a chart to show one possibility in relation to BTC, although I think it can apply to the whole cryptospace in general. In red I labeled possible similarities to the 2014-2017 time period to try and help myself put one possible scenario into perspective. If the market does indeed play out this way, we will have a long wait before mining truly returns.

[dhouse]

However, if you...have recent credit card hardware purchases to pay back, I think you may be in for a tough go of it.

hehe rekt

[sampullman]

These posts seem to crop up a lot for some reason, the answer is simple. If you already have equipment the answer is probably "yes," but you can easily check with a profit calculator (e.g. https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/eth)

The question of whether it will be profitable to buy equipment is more complicated, but not by much. Find hashrates for GPUs (or ASICs/whatever) from a site like: https://whattomine.com/
Use a profit calculator to see how long it will take to ROI, and decide whether you think the market will crash in that time.

For example, if you assume Ethereum will retain value for a year (and not switch to POS), it is currently profitable to set up new rigs.

Not exactly. Your will earn the cost of your ETH equipment in 2 years. If ETH price will the be same during next two years. But difficulty will be not for sure. So you will never recoup your costs buying new equipment now except case ETH price will quick rise. The main problem - video cards now cost twice they should cost. Or may be tripple.  Slow guys experienced problems with calculator dont realised yet.

My calculation is 12 months to recoup assuming no difficulty change and stable ETH price, with a 5x 1070 rig. I get free electricity, so maybe 14 months with that included.
I agree that GPU prices are frustrating, though.

[Za1n]

My calculation is 12 months to recoup assuming no difficulty change and stable ETH price, with a 5x 1070 rig. I get free electricity, so maybe 14 months with that included.
I agree that GPU prices are frustrating, though.

The problem with that assumption is do you really believe that difficulty will not change and that the ETH price will remain stable for 12-14 months?

This is the problem of all those calculator sites in that for them to even work for predicting much more than a week out they rely on those two assumptions to hold true, when in fact the reality is often the exact opposite, or that difficulty will continue to rise and the coin price will not be stable, probably go down during the next 12 months. This is much akin to weather forecasting, where short-term 2-3 days they have a good track record, but expecting a forecast a few weeks out to match up with what they say it will be today is very unlikely.

[Oceat]

Some contacts IRL i know from years ago are mining with 10 computers since last year, i said them it is not worth it nowadays but they still trust in the system.

I personally think 10 computers this days is not enough to make mining worth it as the price of electrycity in my country is high and mining consume a lot of it.

What do you guys think about it?

It does not matter if you had 1 or 10 competers. The only thing  matters - electricity costs. Mining of bitcoin and some  altcoins - profitable  now. It means you gain a bit more then spend. But. Buying new equipment now - is a totally mad decision.

Mining before was very profitable compared today which is getting harder and harder due to its difficulties.
Mining altcoins nowadays will take more and more years before you get your ROI, so as suggested it would be wise if you just let your miner works for you. Until you get your ROI, buying new equipment is not really recommendable because of your gaining percentage + the electricity costs.

[p337miner]

Definitely worth it - as long as you're in it for the long game afterwards assuming you're a gamer you have a solid 6 GPUs to play with or do double SLI combos, sell or donate to family. The computer knowledge and setup you gain from getting into it is worth more than the money IMO.

As long as you under-clock the TDP% power on your GPUs the electricity cost is well worth the profit you make per day. GPU prices rising has more to do with the memory shortage, but some retailers really do overcharge.

Some of the mineable coins - if you're not mining you'll really regret not getting into it. Might want to provide more details about 10 CPUs tho - are they mining Cryptonight or alt coins with GPUs? From all the info I've read and researched about overclocking CPUs that is def not profitable electricity/hash wise. Once you provide more details about your friends 10 rigs/comps or cpus a more detailed answer can be given.

ROI is def a few months to a year atm, but at the minimum with good buys I'd say its 1 year.

[adaseb]

All over Craigslist people are panic selling their 1070 and 1080 it seems.

Some are even below what the retailers are selling them for.

Basically a 450 day ROI is scary for most.

[Juggar]

Dumped all (9) of my 1060 3GB cards for $280. Easy money. Paid $189 for them in 2017.

They served me well but it was time to move on. Probably the best investment I ever made.

[Metroid]

Right now a gtx 1070($800) or a rx 580($450) will give you $1 per day per card, so basically if you buy a gtx 1070 now will be 800 days to roi and 450 days for the rx 580. Stay away from gpus.

[adaseb]

Right now a gtx 1070($800) or a rx 580($450) will give you $1 per day per card, so basically if you buy a gtx 1070 now will be 800 days to roi and 450 days for the rx 580. Stay away from gpus.

It's not $1/day. It's a little under $2.

The worst are the 1080 which were meant for Equihash which has dropped in profitability faster than Dagger hash.

[GryphoCry]

I think is not worth mining right now, unless you pay electricity costs by yourself with fiat and Hodl your coins for 2 years XD.

Only mine if you belive in cryptocurrencies.

[yugyug]

As long as there are mineable coins, then mining is still worth. There are still numerous altcoins rising every month and if you know the value and potentials then you can start mining.The only way to make profit is to hold that coins and wait for the appreciated value. Electricity cost are part of the investment it is not part of the maintenance cost. So don't be a FUD if you mine coins and don't be a "hand-to-mouth" process to prevent losses, just hold it.

[wilburwilbur]

there are lot to consider before saying that mining is not worth it anymore
things to consider like electric fees on your country
Mininf equipments and good place with ventilation
mining is investing also there's a possibility of busting or success

[gotminer]

Right now a gtx 1070($800) or a rx 580($450) will give you $1 per day per card, so basically if you buy a gtx 1070 now will be 800 days to roi and 450 days for the rx 580. Stay away from gpus.

It's not $1/day. It's a little under $2.

The worst are the 1080 which were meant for Equihash which has dropped in profitability faster than Dagger hash.

True that.  Coming from someone who is actually mining.  Glad I only have two 1080's in my 31 gpu arsenal at this point.

[thowell76]

We need to take in account another key factor, the price of the coins, and no one knows what will happen in the future, maybe you mine, you hold the mined coins and these coins will have a value of 5x or 300x in one year from now o maybe the value will be something close to zero, who knows.

I like what you wrote and especially this point which I think sums up what I am doing.   Mine stuff that I think are good and could have a future and then mine some others and see what happens.   I think the ROI point holds true and if you really don't care if you get the money back (me) everything is a win win or if it goes to 0 then it was a fun experience but the future does not look good.  When I want to buy something, I always bring up ROI with the wife and I can usually talk her into buying it.  lol

[O$IRIS]

many nocoiners say that pentium chips are the best at cracking SHA 256

[dimpsk]

These posts seem to crop up a lot for some reason, the answer is simple. If you already have equipment the answer is probably "yes," but you can easily check with a profit calculator (e.g. https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/eth)

The question of whether it will be profitable to buy equipment is more complicated, but not by much. Find hashrates for GPUs (or ASICs/whatever) from a site like: https://whattomine.com/
Use a profit calculator to see how long it will take to ROI, and decide whether you think the market will crash in that time.

For example, if you assume Ethereum will retain value for a year (and not switch to POS), it is currently profitable to set up new rigs.

Not exactly. Your will earn the cost of your ETH equipment in 2 years. If ETH price will the be same during next two years. But difficulty will be not for sure. So you will never recoup your costs buying new equipment now except case ETH price will quick rise. The main problem - video cards now cost twice they should cost. Or may be tripple.  Slow guys experienced problems with calculator dont realised yet.

My calculation is 12 months to recoup assuming no difficulty change and stable ETH price, with a 5x 1070 rig. I get free electricity, so maybe 14 months with that included.
I agree that GPU prices are frustrating, though.

Apparantly not. I see totally frustration ROI 570 days in this case based on local retail prices (This rig will costs $4000 including memory, cpu, hdd, motherboard and psu). And electricity priced $0.1 USD. Or 460 days using free eletricity. Which means never because calculator doesnot take consideration on difficulty increasing. But mining yet profitable if you already had this rig ofcourse.

It's a tough time for mining nowdays.

[dimpsk]

All over Craigslist people are panic selling their 1070 and 1080 it seems.

Some are even below what the retailers are selling them for.

Basically a 450 day ROI is scary for most.

First, dump their prices should shops due to coming soon dramatic surplus. Also it's a good time to sell your videocards right now because they are overpricing and not many people as i see understand what is going on, many still want to buy new equipment. Especially you bought this cards in the spring or fall 2017, 1.5 - 2 times chipper. If not - more tough decision.  Hold the ground may be - keep mining still itis profitable. But if ETH dropped another two times there will  be no buyers for equipment and mining becomes not profitable at all considering electricity costs.

But it's business, it's not fun money for nothing. If you in - you should took all risks.