KncMiner Saturn: Not worth it (but if you disagree, buy mine)

[willisblackburn]

KnCMiner is selling their 275 GH/s Saturn model for $2,995.

There's no way that anyone buying that miner today is going to make any money from it.

* You will have to have to wait for the miner to be delivered.
* KnCMiner and other vendors will continue to sell as many miners as they can manufacture.
* Vendors are already talking about the next generation of ASIC miners, which will eclipse the existing generation just as soon as they show up.

But hey, don't take my word for it.  Plug the data in here:  http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/

The subjective parameter you need to adjust is "profitability decline per year," which defaults to 0.63, an utterly ludicrous value.  It's ludicrous because it's based on Moore's Law.  It doesn't account for the fact that the difficulty depends not only on the efficiency of each miner but also on how many miners are out there.  Even if nobody ever develops a faster miner from this point on, the difficulty will still continue to increase just because the vendors are selling more of the same miners.

What is the correct decline value?  Here's a tool to calculate that:  http://srkz.net/msc/difficultyprofitslider.html

For example, if the difficulty increases 25% per interval, then the decline value is 0.00008425.  Even that's an overestimate because the calculator assumes there are 26.08928571 intervals per year (one interval every 14 days), when in fact the duration of each interval has been shorter because the hash rate of the network has been increasing so dramatically.

The upshot of all this is that the Saturn will make a little money for you if the difficulty increase per period somehow stays below 15-20%.  But that's not going to happen, at least not in the next 3-6 months.  You're better off spending your $2,995 on BTC, which at today's rates will get you about 14 BTC.  Your Saturn will never generate that many coins.

I'm sure this post will generate some idiotic replies along the lines of "if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen," as if only weak people are affected by mathematics.  If you disagree with me, put your money where your mouth is.  I say that the Saturn will never generate 14 BTC.  If you think I'm wrong, then buy my Saturn for 14 BTC.  You can contact me directly at wboyce@panix.com.  If you're in the United States, I'll pay shipping and include the CoolerMaster V850 power supply that I bought for it.

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[YYY]

Do you have it in hand or waiting for it to arrive?

[CryptoCrazy]

Don't use that calculator, to me its a joke. It was probably created by someone from Butterfly labs just to keep their customers from lynching them. I use this calculator which is far more accurate:

http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/a/103f27233b

I have the inputs of the selected KNC miner and numbers starting from November which you can change the month. The difficulty value will automatically change as well. Have a look and have fun with it.

You can choose any current miner and it will automatically input their credentials into the calculator.

[odolvlobo]

According to my estimates, it is still profitable. My estimate for the value of 1 GH/s is 0.065 BTC and your Saturn breaks even at 0.052 BTC.

[willisblackburn]

CryptoCrazy--it looks profitable because some of your inputs are inaccurate.

First, you put in the current difficulty as 390 million.  That is the current difficulty, but only for another couple of days.  By the time someone actually receives the Saturn, the difficulty will be something like 520 million.  Put that number into your calculator, and you're immediately in the red.

Also, you underestimated the difficulty increase per month.  You input 119% when the actual value is at least 150%.

Difficulty on August 24: 65,750,060
Difficulty on September 25: 148,819,200
% increase August to September:  126%

Difficulty on October 26: 390,928,788
% increase September to October:  163%

But if you think I'm wrong, why don't you buy this Saturn?  It should be free money for you.

[willisblackburn]

YYY--I have it right here.  It arrived about a week and a half ago.  I can send you a photo.  Want it?

[CMMPro]

I got mine around the same time and I have just about 7btc mined as of tonight...right now it is mining about 1 btc per 3 days.
Next jump maybe 1 btc every 4 days(?)


This is just more evidence to me that mining and the diff increases are about to fall on their face. We are about to plateau....hard.


 

[CryptoCrazy]

CryptoCrazy--it looks profitable because some of your inputs are inaccurate.

First, you put in the current difficulty as 390 million.  That is the current difficulty, but only for another couple of days.  By the time someone actually receives the Saturn, the difficulty will be something like 520 million.  Put that number into your calculator, and you're immediately in the red.

Also, you underestimated the difficulty increase per month.  You input 119% when the actual value is at least 150%.

Difficulty on August 24: 65,750,060
Difficulty on September 25: 148,819,200
% increase August to September:  126%

Difficulty on October 26: 390,928,788
% increase September to October:  163%

But if you think I'm wrong, why don't you buy this Saturn?  It should be free money for you.

I agree with what you're saying. I just wanted to make the point that this calculator was more accurate than bitcoinx. For the record, I'm not interested in buying a KNC or any other miner for that matter. I think you're better off buying bitcoins with your money and holding on to them at this point.

Let the price of the bitcoin do all the work!

[digitalindustry]

I got mine around the same time and I have just about 7btc mined as of tonight...right now it is mining about 1 btc per 3 days.
Next jump maybe 1 btc every 4 days(?)


This is just more evidence to me that mining and the diff increases are about to fall on their face. We are about to plateau....hard.


 

Ha HA Plateau ?

Plateau?

http://bitcoindifficulty.com/

does that look like a Plateau or a huge hard-on ?

[zvs]

According to my estimates, it is still profitable. My estimate for the value of 1 GH/s is 0.065 BTC and your Saturn breaks even at 0.052 BTC.

it isn't profitable


to op:  you can sell it in these forums for about 2-3x what it's true value should be.  i'd suggest doing so (in the marketplace forum)

[CMMPro]

I got mine around the same time and I have just about 7btc mined as of tonight...right now it is mining about 1 btc per 3 days.
Next jump maybe 1 btc every 4 days(?)


This is just more evidence to me that mining and the diff increases are about to fall on their face. We are about to plateau....hard.


 

Ha HA Plateau ?

Plateau?

http://bitcoindifficulty.com/

does that look like a Plateau or a huge hard-on ?

I know my statement doesn't reflect the current growth data...but who is going to buy mining equipment right now?
Nothing you can buy has a profit attached to it....the market is saturated with equipment that is too expensive and not powerful enough.
There is no tech available to us right now to become more cost effective and make a profit...adding more chips to miners to make a bigger hashrate number is just like plugging in more USB miners at this point....there is no point to it.
 
Miners today have zero tolerance for mining at a loss...they are dumping their preorders as fast as they can right now due to the diff rise.

Hardware sales have got to be failing hard, and refund numbers through the roof....it's too bad we could see some sales figures. 

 

[mo_mo]

 | next estimate (9.81 days left until 47.92% growth)
this is crazy..755745693
http://btcinvest.net/

[CMMPro]

You can't trust the estimates until at least one day after the diff increase...they can be as stupid as that number until we know more about how fast the blocks are being solved. 

[sushi]

Should have bought BTC yesterday when it was still $220/USD range.  IT jumped to $240/USD today with the difficulties went up to 510 range.

now I'm afraid to buy BTC as it could dump with many people cashing out on their gain

[kwilliams]

I like my Saturn miner. I’ve bought for 40BTC, it came with a defective die 0 problem and only recently started hashing with 270 Gh/s. Made 5 BTC so far with rate 0.3 BTC/day and dropping.
So why do I still like it?
a)   Because it was fun to expect, hope & pray – makes life more interesting
b)   Because I bought it as a temporary BTC short (hoping that BTC price will fail & stay low for another year). I was sure BTC will fall, just not sure how much. I was wrong
c)   Because KnC is a good example of an Agile development process in action, which I demonstrate to my students. Better ship something than nothing, better do it sooner than later, better fix things constantly that strive for a fully polished product.
Will my miner return 40 BTC – hell no. Will it return the $4K I’ve paid for it back when BTC was $100/pop ? You’d bet.

[odolvlobo]

Will my miner return 40 BTC – hell no. Will it return the $4K I’ve paid for it back when BTC was $100/pop ? You’d bet.

Your other reasons are fine, but this justification is based on a fallacy. There are two ways to obtain bitcoins: buy them or mine them. You decided to mine and paid $4k for 14 BTC. If you bought them instead, you would have paid $4k for 40 BTC. If you wanted bitcoins, it would have been better to just buy them. (20/20 hindsight, of course).

[zvs]

| next estimate (9.81 days left until 47.92% growth)
this is crazy..755745693
http://btcinvest.net/

well, it was kept artificially low, it should have gone to 540m or so, though i don't really see how it's such a profitable strategy.  possibly for a company that sells ASICs