Electricity costs money.

[raw]

Just as with living in general, electricity costs money. Bitcoin mining requires electricity.

From the numbers I've seen around browsing the forums I'm highly sceptical mining is actually a net gain for the user (disregarding lucky strikes). So, unless you have access to free energy, or rather the energy bill doesn't end up on your bill, is it worth mining? Has anyone actually done the math?

[NothinG]

Has anyone actually done the math?

[SMOKEU]

Overall, it can be profitable, but one really needs to add up the power costs. Mining computers can use A LOT of power, so the lure of "free money" isn't always as good as it sounds. Buy a power meter, and do the math.

[timmey]

Bitcoin mining requires electricity.

I'm sure that you are the very first person who found out about this, thanks for sharing! 

but to be more serious, if your post was meant serious:
Short and long term investment and speculation. If you want instant win without any investment....no idea where you would get that.

[raw]

Bitcoin mining requires electricity.

I'm sure that you are the very first person who found out about this, thanks for sharing!  

I'm well aware that I'm not the first one asking this question. I mean what we're essentially doing here is converting electricity into money and hope to get more money out of it than the electricity costs.  However looking through the forum I didn't find any answers.

Overall, it can be profitable, but one really needs to add up the power costs. Mining computers can use A LOT of power, so the lure of "free money" isn't always as good as it sounds. Buy a power meter, and do the math.

I own a power meter. My problem right now is how do Mhash/s translate into shares and from there into Bitcoins?

[Yeti]

Use one of the calculators and calculate different scenarios of difficulty and price development (the former going up 5%, the latter going down 10% etc.)

It is not outright profitable to invest in new equipment and there is always a risk. But if you get one of the more efficient cards you should be able to recuperate your costs within a year, given that the price of Bitcoin does not change dramatically (either direction is bad).

[BarefootJoe]

If you had installed solar panels it would be a great way to make your money back.

[Morebitcoinsplease]

Just as with living in general, electricity costs money. Bitcoin mining requires electricity.

From the numbers I've seen around browsing the forums I'm highly sceptical mining is actually a net gain for the user (disregarding lucky strikes). So, unless you have access to free energy, or rather the energy bill doesn't end up on your bill, is it worth mining? Has anyone actually done the math?

My personal experience, I joined bit mining several months ago (Feb-March) right before the big 20 dollar boom and I have paid off 2/3 of my rigs including power costs every month. By end of next month including multiple calculations of difficulty (based on http://striketeam.ath.cx/btccalc/btccalc.php) my investment will be paid off next month including electricity and I can sell the rigs for profit or keep mining for profit.

Now for people just starting I believe it to be a uphill battle as the difficulty proves to create a harder return on a rigs investment and power. If you are in it for the long run and you can stay above your electricity bill then yes else wise no its not worth getting into mining.

[gamer4156]

Ya I ran the numbers about a month ago, and I have decently priced electricity and it would have been about 2 months to payoff the machines if the prices stay constant and we see constant increases in difficulty

[raw]

Now for people just starting I believe it to be a uphill battle as the difficulty proves to create a harder return on a rigs investment and power. If you are in it for the long run and you can stay above your electricity bill then yes else wise no its not worth getting into mining.

This is what I arrived at aswell. Thanks for confirming my thoughts. 

[Beta-coiner1]

If you are truly interested in mining you should check out the following article about mining at the rates of electricity that is consumed per state IF you live in the US.

[drlatino999]

I look at the fact I normally keep my computer running 24/7, the only power cost then occurs from the additional load of running by GPU at 99% 24/7. This is an increase of 170~ watts, which is the same as leaving I guess a bunch of decorative walkway lights on outside. At $0.083/kwh the cost of electricity is marginal. The additional cost of cooling the heated air that passes over the GPU isn't as much, and if you are really paranoid you could always cheat and leave bowls of ice or something ridiculous that already is being produced in your house that's cold at the outlet of the cards.

[Elder III]

If you have a compatible/capable video card already and you have decent priced electricity (it's pretty cheap in most parts of the US compared to Europe anyway) then you don't have too much to lose.... Going out and buying several thousand dollars of equipment soley to mine with is probably not a great idea, but if you have some spare parts lying around and have cheap electric, and like tinkering around with such things, then it might be feasible for you... just don't expect to get rich from it.  I'm getting into it myself, since I do meet all of the above criteria, but I consider such things a hobby - the money I project to make from it probably won't amount to minimum wage at an hourly rate for the next year. 

[kano]

Be glad you don't live on Aus ...

Based on the latest price increase from my bill I got a couple of weeks ago ...
For me to convert kW -> $/day it's very close to 7.3 ...
Coz at the moment (in Aus dollars) my kWh is a bit over $0.30

This is making even break even on my rig I setup in the last few days difficult
(I have a power meter connected to it also to be sure of what the actual figures are while adjusting settings)

[stellan0r]

Bitcoin mining is very profitable for me.  my KWH is 7 cents.  takes my computer slightly over 4 hours to reach 1 kwh.  6 x .07 = 42 cents a day.  42 cents x 30 is $12.60 ?  i make about $44 from my 6770 at 212m /hash a day  (depending on luck)

you must have a ton of luck if you make 44$ a day with 212 mhash/s! 

[Smalleyster]

Your answers are here:

Mhps/Watt Analysis.

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=30523.0

[Krang25]

As a total noob who just heard about bit-coins tonight, I was also wondering this. As far as hardware goes, I already have 2 x hd6870 in crossfire that I used for gaming. But until Battlefield 3 comes out I wont be doing nay gaming at all. Also I live in Quebec and since we basically have the biggest electricity infrastructures in North America and supply a big part of Canada and a big part of the North East of the US, our electricity here in Quebec is fairly cheap.

I will be definitely trying this out. Any good recommendations on which pool to join? I was thinking about joining the Continuumpool since its located in Canada.

[ptfff]

My computer is on 24/7 regardless, and while the mining will use abit of extra power.

It will not be anything substantial.  That's all I have to think about regarding it.

[Jaime Frontero]

i started mining in march, and the hardware was paid off in six weeks - at the then current (june) exchange rate.

right now, paying 0.108 USD/kW/hr, i pay my monthly electric bill with about 7-8 days of mining.

but i'm good with squeezing ticks out of hardware economically - been doing it a long time.

[Huesos]

Just a thought but what if you mined bitcoins and put a really strong magnet to slow down your power meter.If you removed the magnet would the power meter speed up to make up the electricity it didn't mark?