Just purchased 18 block erupters Buyers remorse...

[timk225]

mogrith - if you send me money and I win a powerball lottery jackpot with it, I will pay you back 100 times what you gave me.

Deal?  PM me for my paypal address.

[ranmn7]

I have 7 block erupters that I have been mining alt coins with for several months.

I did just find these on Amazon for 8.99 each + shipping of course. So debating purchasing some more to increase my hash rate.

These will take a long time to pay for themselves, so the primary reason for mining with these is to support the network.

Of course if you bank on the US Congress not working well together, it should increase the value of bitcoins, which will then drastically improve mining profitability. So I'm mining away with my little bit of hash power, and waiting to see what happens.

These are a much better deal than waiting for BFL, and I simply can't afford the other miners out there.

[razorfishsl]

Pack of 50....
These things are being sold like Tampax...
However Tampax actually have a purpose

[mogrith]

Hey she can use them as a prop on a webcam show then sell sell them as 'slightly used' to watchers

[wachtwoord]

Hey she can use them as a prop on a webcam show then sell sell them as 'slightly used' to watchers

That gives a whole new meaning to the old "Intel inside" slogan.

[cassieheart]

So is there anything out that can currently turn a profit? I hear people trashing the new  Bitfury miners also.... If there is no profit in mining bitcoin anymore why do people keep investing in these over priced asics blades and usb erupters ?  I sure is confused

[timk225]

People keep buying BitCoin mining equipment because they are stupid and can't do math.

I've made decent money off my LiteCoin mining.

Check my post in the marketplace, I am moving away soon and am taking down my LiteCoin mining PCs.  I have several high end 7900 series GPUs available and a 1200 watt power supply, everything works and has been used by me.  No BIOS mods.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=312073.msg3351076#msg3351076

[BombaUcigasa]

So is there anything out that can currently turn a profit? I hear people trashing the new  Bitfury miners also.... If there is no profit in mining bitcoin anymore why do people keep investing in these over priced asics blades and usb erupters ?  I sure is confused

They will never be profitable as bitcoin miners, because the current generation miners are 3x-5x more powerful per dollar, so even when the difficulty will settle in the future, only the more powerful miners will maintain profitability. As for why people buy these, there are other non-technical reasons to consider (such as blinking lights), it's not always a decision of mining efficiency. You can of course sell them at any point at a lower price that varies depending on expected ROI.

They were profitable once, but these devices are pretty old technically. And you pay more per hashpower due to the extra components on the board compared to the cost of the chip. You may also notice that ASICminer has decreased the retail price artificially to match expected profitability and not because they are cheaper to make.

[tinus42]

dont get buyers remorse. They will make you money. maybe not all your money back but very still a possibility. never know waht way bitcoin cost is going to go in the future. plus your helping out the network.

This is also my idea for running them. I'm not looking at it as an accountant reviewing an investment.

[Trongersoll]

So is there anything out that can currently turn a profit? I hear people trashing the new  Bitfury miners also.... If there is no profit in mining bitcoin anymore why do people keep investing in these over priced asics blades and usb erupters ?  I sure is confused

There is no profit in mining BTC. That being said there are several reasons for mining anyway, or at least two reasons.

One reason, it is like playing the lottery. You know that your chance of winning is almost nonexistent. Yet people buy those tickets anyway. People know that they won't hit it big mining, but there is still that one chance. BTC exchange rate could shoot through the roof. The pool you are in might get extremely lucky. etc...

Another reason, one i subscribe to is that mining is fun. Having a steady flow of BTCs coming in gives me a reason to hang in these forums, and watch what is going on.

A third reason may be that you believe in the BTC experiment and want to help make it succeed. With out BTC miners, there can be no transactions.

Another reason might be ego. the thought that everyone else may lose money but I won't because i'm smarter than everyone else and i know how to do this right.

There are a lot of reasons for mining and buying new equipment.

[pand70]

One reason, it is like playing the lottery. You know that your chance of winning is almost nonexistent. Yet people buy those tickets anyway. People know that they won't hit it big mining, but there is still that one chance. BTC exchange rate could shoot through the roof. The pool you are in might get extremely lucky. etc...

Ppl buy lottery tickers with 1$ with a chance to win 1.000.000$. They don't buy tickets with 5000$ with a chance to win 4000$.
Thats why the buy them "anyway"...
The BTC exchange rate is not an argument as well because you can buy bitcoins directly instead of miners.

[cowandtea]

One reason, it is like playing the lottery. You know that your chance of winning is almost nonexistent. Yet people buy those tickets anyway. People know that they won't hit it big mining, but there is still that one chance. BTC exchange rate could shoot through the roof. The pool you are in might get extremely lucky. etc...

Ppl buy lottery tickers with 1$ with a chance to win 1.000.000$. They don't buy tickets with 5000$ with a chance to win 4000$.
Thats why the buy them "anyway"...
The BTC exchange rate is not an argument as well because you can buy bitcoins directly instead of miners.

Well, if they do solo mining then its like lottery .

[wachtwoord]

One reason, it is like playing the lottery. You know that your chance of winning is almost nonexistent. Yet people buy those tickets anyway. People know that they won't hit it big mining, but there is still that one chance. BTC exchange rate could shoot through the roof. The pool you are in might get extremely lucky. etc...

Ppl buy lottery tickers with 1$ with a chance to win 1.000.000$. They don't buy tickets with 5000$ with a chance to win 4000$.
Thats why the buy them "anyway"...
The BTC exchange rate is not an argument as well because you can buy bitcoins directly instead of miners.

Well, if they do solo mining then its like lottery .

There are lotteries with less house edge

[mogrith]

Laso remember that it's not just 25BTC for getting a block but also a share of the TX fees. right now it's around .1xxxx BTC but One block I had a pool share in at cex.io had a 7BTC fee. The TX fee will grow as more bitcoins move.

[aznatama]

TX fees are going up, even if block rewards may go down.

Once large datacenter ASIC mining becomes unprofitable, they will be shut down.  When this happens, your hashing share will go up again.  Whether you want to wait for this to happen or not is up to you.  You can look at my f/s thread for how you should setup the miners.  It's all about proper power delivery, which most USB hubs don't have.  NO NEED for expensive hubs.  A regulated power supply and a cheap hub will work fine, AND give you scalability in the future.

Anyways, I digress...

What you COULD do is to use the miners as a hobby, taking the proceeds to use for various purposes like... oh... high risk gambling, and hope that you hit the 100x multiplier or something of that sort.

[lightfoot]

There is no profit in mining BTC. That being said there are several reasons for mining anyway, or at least two reasons.

Technically there is no long term profit, as it is a perfect market. I have most definitely made a short term profit with my BFL 5gh jally, but that is because I bought it in Jan, got it in end of August, and immediately boosted it from 4.5gh to 7.5gh with a $50 dragon. And I bought it before the price bump. So 291.73-210.00=$81 profit minus electrical cost (probably $10-$15)

However you *can* use erupters to generate heat. Now that it's winter run your erupters instead of an electric space heater. Come spring, they will be totally worthless.

C

[wrenchmonkey]

I can always overclock 'em for you, if you want to squeeze a bit more juice out of them. 

[DeathAndTaxes]

There are lotteries with less house edge

The "house edge" on solo mining is 0%.   If you know any lotteries with a negative house advantage let me know.

[BombaUcigasa]

TX fees are going up, even if block rewards may go down.

Once large datacenter ASIC mining becomes unprofitable, they will be shut down.  When this happens, your hashing share will go up again.  Whether you want to wait for this to happen or not is up to you.  You can look at my f/s thread for how you should setup the miners.  It's all about proper power delivery, which most USB hubs don't have.  NO NEED for expensive hubs.  A regulated power supply and a cheap hub will work fine, AND give you scalability in the future.

Anyways, I digress...

Highly unlikely for a single reason: the USB miners are inefficient in terms of Mhash/Watt. Unless you bought the USB erupters with USD because you couldn't buy Bitcoin directly, you will barely make a profit from mining + resale.

[fattypig]

There are lotteries with less house edge

The "house edge" on solo mining is 0%.   If you know any lotteries with a negative house advantage let me know.

I disagree, only if the cost to mine and expected return is the same.