STOP!!! Do not buy that new ASIC ! And here's why...

[JoelKatz]

Mining is once again profitable =)

Only in the same sense that "buy Bitcoins with USD, send half of them to the Bitcoin eater, hold the rest and wait for them to go up" is profitable.

[jeppe]

the only way to get ur money back is by paying with fiat and not with bitcoin. However, it would be more profitable to buy bitcoin directly.

[PincoPluto]

I was just looking at the KNC site for their various miners, the high end Jupiter model hashes 550 Ghash for $4,995.00 .

I'm telling you, DO NOT BUY ONE OF ANY MODEL!

Why?  Simple economics.  Run the numbers with me:

At current BTC difficulty of 267 million, you'll get 1.03 BTC per day.  In a couple days when the difficulty jumps to ~400 million, you will only get 0.69 BTC per day.  And it'll only get worse as the difficulty continues to rise!

BTC is at $215.00 right now, and assuming it stays there (which it won't), and assuming you are mining 0.69 BTC per day (which will fall more and more), you'd have to mine for at least 34 days to break even, and if the BTC price drops, it'll be much longer.

If BTC dropped to $100, and assuming again that you were still somehow getting 0.69 BTC at the 400 million difficulty, which will rise, your break even time is now 72 days or longer.

And this does not take into account shipping costs or electricity costs.

And WHEN the difficulty rises, it'll be much longer.

Do you really want to be on pins and needles for 3 months or more, praying that your foolish purchase at least breaks even, much less makes a profit?

Save yourself the headache.

If you're that desperate to throw money away, PM me for my PayPal address.  

And I really had to LOL at how they list the Saturn version as the "more affordable" model.  50% of the hash rate for 60% of the price -- you're already losing money relative to buying the Jupiter version!

And this is not a rip on KNC specifically, this goes for any ASIC built by anyone.

well a terra miner is 2 Th and 6000 dollars why I should get one of those?

[Searing]

I was just looking at the KNC site for their various miners, the high end Jupiter model hashes 550 Ghash for $4,995.00 .

I'm telling you, DO NOT BUY ONE OF ANY MODEL!

Why?  Simple economics.  Run the numbers with me:

At current BTC difficulty of 267 million, you'll get 1.03 BTC per day.  In a couple days when the difficulty jumps to ~400 million, you will only get 0.69 BTC per day.  And it'll only get worse as the difficulty continues to rise!

BTC is at $215.00 right now, and assuming it stays there (which it won't), and assuming you are mining 0.69 BTC per day (which will fall more and more), you'd have to mine for at least 34 days to break even, and if the BTC price drops, it'll be much longer.

If BTC dropped to $100, and assuming again that you were still somehow getting 0.69 BTC at the 400 million difficulty, which will rise, your break even time is now 72 days or longer.

And this does not take into account shipping costs or electricity costs.

And WHEN the difficulty rises, it'll be much longer.

Do you really want to be on pins and needles for 3 months or more, praying that your foolish purchase at least breaks even, much less makes a profit?

Save yourself the headache.

If you're that desperate to throw money away, PM me for my PayPal address.  

And I really had to LOL at how they list the Saturn version as the "more affordable" model.  50% of the hash rate for 60% of the price -- you're already losing money relative to buying the Jupiter version!

And this is not a rip on KNC specifically, this goes for any ASIC built by anyone.

heh this was a fun read in that my oct knc Jupiter has made 40 coins so far on slush (2/9/2014) and I expect to get 45 coins out of it lifetime more or less

there was a guy on knc forums it think it was got 10 knc jupiters (1 for free if you get ten) so a total of 11 Jupiters...he mortgaged the house I mean really really
drank the koolaide...he got his delivered about the same time as me...he has something like 500 plus btc by this point I'd imagine....probably will have 550 lifetime

take away elec costs etc...he is still probably sitting  on 450 coins btc

ah crap ..I shoulda /coulda gone 'all in'

hindsight maybe 20/20 but I'd feel really 'sad' if I took the advice above back in the day....

as to the future of asic mining as of feb 2014...well maybe he was just ahead of his time on this post

Searing

[Sonny]

heh this was a fun read in that my oct knc Jupiter has made 40 coins so far on slush (2/9/2014) and I expect to get 45 coins out of it lifetime more or less

Just curious, if you buy bitcoin directly on the same day you pay for your ASIC, how many bitcoin can you get with the same amount of fiat?

[Tars_Tarkas]

Rate of return is fairly easy to quantify in a spreadsheet; know your hashrates, return on hashrate, and determine on investment (fixed costs + variable costs)....  its all there...  The only damnable wildcards are the freakin' hardware providers (e.g. BFL, Avalon, VMC, etc...) that don't deliver in a timely manner.  I truly wish a real hardware company would step in and give us miners some reliable, predictable, and scalable hardware!!!   That is the true weakness in mining; unpredictable hardware!

[sharedminers]

mining is still profitable, and we will have the same exact discussion next year.

[pdawg]

....only if machines are replacing computing power ratings of 100's of GH/s with 100's of TH/s

[Searing]

heh this was a fun read in that my oct knc Jupiter has made 40 coins so far on slush (2/9/2014) and I expect to get 45 coins out of it lifetime more or less

Just curious, if you buy bitcoin directly on the same day you pay for your ASIC, how many bitcoin can you get with the same amount of fiat?

I don't disagree...but i've yet to know a NOOB that has plunked 5k down on buying pure bitcoin..i do know NOOB's that have done the same for miners...its a noobie hedge

but yeah past has shown you are better off with just buying bitcoin

although  a truely smart noob woulda hedged bets with both (i was not such a noob but got lucky with a knc product)

as to the future ..that is a logt more cloudy on mining anymore

Searing

[JoelKatz]

although  a truely smart noob woulda hedged bets with both (i was not such a noob but got lucky with a knc product)

You're not really hedging your bets. If Bitcoin goes down in price, you lose on both.

[Searing]

although  a truely smart noob woulda hedged bets with both (i was not such a noob but got lucky with a knc product)

You're not really hedging your bets. If Bitcoin goes down in price, you lose on both.

well I'm optimistic even if mining it would eventually go back up..or if not bitcoin is eventually doomed....but the point is
it would take quite the far sided noob to dump say 7K into just plain bitcoin speculation...(hey if it was easy people would do this
with gold/silver as noobs)

but people being people seems they have no problem dumping 7K into a bitcoin mining machine (or me anyway)

go figure

either camp mining or buying only or both....bitcoin has to rise at some kind of legit pace in regards to worth with other fiat dollars
or the whole thing kinda becomes moot to invest in either bitcoin or mining...as a transaction mechanism it has to be used and grow
it is not there yet in growth imho...

but then again what do I know I'm still waiting for my noob equipment I got (ordered april 2014) from Butterflylabs and due to no refund was forced to
upgrade the 65mm bricks I was supposed to get in May and would have got at thanksgiving  to future bricks as a hail mary pass
 ie  the monarch 600gh card bricks sometime in the future (they said dec then jan then feb now they say march....great racket....sell something
no one ever gets and don't refund)


don't listen to me imho

my 2c worth

Searing

[kthejung]

heh this was a fun read in that my oct knc Jupiter has made 40 coins so far on slush (2/9/2014) and I expect to get 45 coins out of it lifetime more or less

Just curious, if you buy bitcoin directly on the same day you pay for your ASIC, how many bitcoin can you get with the same amount of fiat?

Mining will result in more bitcoins then what you can buy with the same amount of fiat at the time you place a order; this is true only for higher end machines.

[DrG]

heh this was a fun read in that my oct knc Jupiter has made 40 coins so far on slush (2/9/2014) and I expect to get 45 coins out of it lifetime more or less

Just curious, if you buy bitcoin directly on the same day you pay for your ASIC, how many bitcoin can you get with the same amount of fiat?

Mining will result in more bitcoins then what you can buy with the same amount of fiat at the time you place a order; this is true only for higher end machines.

The only ASIC miners to ever pay back their BTC opportunity costs were Avalon Batch 1 & 2 and a few of the original Jupiter orders.  All the other ASICs were a complete BTC dump including my day 1 BFL SC Single which cost 208.5 BTC and only mined 40 BTC to date.

Even some GPUs technically are a loss considering I bought 6870s in early 2012 that cost $150 (could have bought 75 BTC with each and there's no way a 6870 could have mined 75BTC) - although nobody expected BTC to go from 13 to 1200 in one year.

[PickNic]

I was just looking at the KNC site for their various miners, the high end Jupiter model hashes 550 Ghash for $4,995.00 .

I'm telling you, DO NOT BUY ONE OF ANY MODEL!

Why?  Simple economics.  Run the numbers with me:

At current BTC difficulty of 267 million, you'll get 1.03 BTC per day.  In a couple days when the difficulty jumps to ~400 million, you will only get 0.69 BTC per day.  And it'll only get worse as the difficulty continues to rise!

BTC is at $215.00 right now, and assuming it stays there (which it won't), and assuming you are mining 0.69 BTC per day (which will fall more and more), you'd have to mine for at least 34 days to break even, and if the BTC price drops, it'll be much longer.

If BTC dropped to $100, and assuming again that you were still somehow getting 0.69 BTC at the 400 million difficulty, which will rise, your break even time is now 72 days or longer.

And this does not take into account shipping costs or electricity costs.

And WHEN the difficulty rises, it'll be much longer.

Do you really want to be on pins and needles for 3 months or more, praying that your foolish purchase at least breaks even, much less makes a profit?

Save yourself the headache.

If you're that desperate to throw money away, PM me for my PayPal address.  

And I really had to LOL at how they list the Saturn version as the "more affordable" model.  50% of the hash rate for 60% of the price -- you're already losing money relative to buying the Jupiter version!

And this is not a rip on KNC specifically, this goes for any ASIC built by anyone.

lol man if bitcoin crash to 100$ anyone here will lose all moneys anyway!!!

[hurricandave]

My niece wants too know where she can get some of those pink sheep!

[S4VV4S]

My niece wants too know where she can get some of those pink sheep!

They are available at the Magic Mart, right next to the Holy Cows 

[hurricandave]

She didn't get it but maybe one day soon. She's growing fast!

[HorseCoin]

you forgot to take into account that a lot of people like to bet on the difficulty rise slowing down a bit.  Difficulty can't rise like this forever, eventually it levels off a bit and those are the miners who will profit nicely

uh yes it can.

unfortunately, it's a money grab, and u gotta take what u can get.  eventually when block sizes get below 6.25 BTC it might get a little easier once people give up.  unless bitcoin is a million by then.  then by all means keep going with the difficulty!

[timk225]

Difficulty can't rise like this forever?  That's what people were telling me when BTC difficulty was coming up on 400 million.

[bolverk]

Difficulty can't rise like this forever?  That's what people were telling me when BTC difficulty was coming up on 400 million.

It simply can't, which should be obvious.  That said, you're right inasmuch that everyone here is extremely premature with that wishful thinking.  We're still firmly stuck in the parabolic curve for the time being, with the the previous generation of gear being replaced and/or augmented by this new generation with magnitudes more computing capability.

In short, difficulty will eventually flatten out, but not until one of two things happen:  either we reach the point of diminishing returns in subsequent generations of hardware, or the market valuation of BTC gets hammered down to the point that the energy expenditure outweighs the return.

Methinks I spoke too soon, Mt Gox is doing their damnedest to accomplish the latter... ;-)