So I am confused. So I shouldn't have started mining?
I got my equipment pretty cheap back in the middle of this month when Bitcoin was worth about $400. Now with the prices rising, my equipment is going to be paid off within a month. Hear I though that was good. The difficulty only raised by 1 since I have had it, but the price of Bitcoin has raised nearly 50%. Even with that 550gh if difficulty does rise to about 9 or 10 within the next couple of months it seems like it would still be paid off within 2 or 3 months. I just don't get it. Is there something I am missing?
ehhh... the prices could fall tomorrow, the rates could change with more miners added, etc. etc. etc.
you're talking about working up to paying off your investment.
just think of it like this
you buy 1000$ worth of coins right now, any time your coins worth goes up over $1000, you sell them off and get the cash. when they drop under $1000 worth, you use your "+1000$ cash profits" to buy more coins because you think they should be worth $1000.
versus
you buy a $1000 miner that will generate $1000 of coins over X days (discounting fees, electricity, difficulty changes, price changes).
option a you will easily end up with more cash and coins than option b.
Actually purchasing enough hashing power that your $$$ investment over time generates any profit is a huge risk that isn't validated by the fact that all initial investments go into paying for the rig.
buying into coins directly is only as risky regarding valuation. you get the coins up front, so even if btc drops down to $1 ea, you're now not required to sit there churning away on an expensive rig for months just to get that $$$ investment back before you can profit.
Any ebay auction that isn't a flat out scam, even if it looks like an upsell "i bought for X just to resell it at X+???" is bs. even with the price of btc increasing asics should be going down in value relative to their power vs the power of the entire network they are that overpriced.