Been in bitcoin a few years, never looked at mining.

[dominicwin]

I am starting to get asked this question a lot in real life, are you going to mine? and this is coming from people who just now heard of bitcoin.

I don't really know much about it, and I'm not tech saavy as in coding type of the tech world.

Is it worth it for someone like me to put $15k or what it may be into mining?

[-ck]

No, the mining for profit era is over for the foreseeable future. Buy a few bitcoin instead if you wish to take the risk that it will keep rising.

[dominicwin]

No, the mining for profit era is over for the foreseeable future. Buy a few bitcoin instead if you wish to take the risk that it will keep rising.

That's what I assumed.

I have a good stash at different buy in points, and recently got back into a buying spree and I think because of my buy in points, I haven't been as keen on looking into mining.

[cowandtea]

I am starting to get asked this question a lot in real life, are you going to mine? and this is coming from people who just now heard of bitcoin.

I don't really know much about it, and I'm not tech saavy as in coding type of the tech world.

Is it worth it for someone like me to put $15k or what it may be into mining?

Right now? I don't know... the difficulty should be increasing like mad after the rise of Bitcoin price...  you can try your luck but its big risk...

[qwk]

I am starting to get asked this question a lot in real life, are you going to mine? and this is coming from people who just now heard of bitcoin.
[...]
Is it worth it for someone like me to put $15k or what it may be into mining?

I always wondered why so many newbies wanted to get into mining?
Seriously, people didn't buy shovels when gold skyrocketed the last years, they didn't buy drilling equipment when oil did.

The short answer is and always will be NO.
Don't invest into something you don't understand.
If you can't answer the question whether or not mining is worthwhile yourself, you should just stay out of that business.

[Noruka]

I am starting to get asked this question a lot in real life, are you going to mine? and this is coming from people who just now heard of bitcoin.

I don't really know much about it, and I'm not tech saavy as in coding type of the tech world.

Is it worth it for someone like me to put $15k or what it may be into mining?

Mining is best suited for people that
1) Want to support the network
2) Take a long term position in believing in the fundamentals of bitcoin and the belief that the coin will maintain or grow its value.
3) People with knowledge of miner release cycle and how to position themselves in the best position while minimizing as much risk as possible.
4) People that can afford to have liquidity tied up for months before getting their product.


Most new people should not look into mining until you understand
A) the fundamentals of Bitcoin
B) the huge risk period between ordering and receiving a miner
C) the technical/fundamental analytical capability to forecast months ahead to make the best decision possible at the best time possible.

most people that just buy into Bitcoins still cannot do C and lose their minds the moment they see any volatility.

the "mining for profit era is dead" statement is not true at all. Hell i even have a BFL device and with the price rise i paid for my device weeks ago. People with KNC Jupiters right now are probably laughing all the way to the wallet. You have to balance risk with reward potential and its true that most miners will probably not make you as much than if you just bought the coins.

[dominicwin]

I am starting to get asked this question a lot in real life, are you going to mine? and this is coming from people who just now heard of bitcoin.

I don't really know much about it, and I'm not tech saavy as in coding type of the tech world.

Is it worth it for someone like me to put $15k or what it may be into mining?

Mining is best suited for people that
1) Want to support the network
2) Take a long term position in believing in the fundamentals of bitcoin and the belief that the coin will maintain or grow its value.
3) People with knowledge of miner release cycle and how to position themselves in the best position while minimizing as much risk as possible.
4) People that can afford to have liquidity tied up for months before getting their product.


Most new people should not look into mining until you understand
A) the fundamentals of Bitcoin
B) the huge risk period between ordering and receiving a miner
C) the technical/fundamental analytical capability to forecast months ahead to make the best decision possible at the best time possible.

most people that just buy into Bitcoins still cannot do C and lose their minds the moment they see any volatility.

the "mining for profit era is dead" statement is not true at all. Hell i even have a BFL device and with the price rise i paid for my device weeks ago. People with KNC Jupiters right now are probably laughing all the way to the wallet. You have to balance risk with reward potential and its true that most miners will probably not make you as much than if you just bought the coins.

I am definitely ok with 1-4, With ABC, B is what seems to be the worry for me just reading around, horror stories, etc.

[wopwop]

important: miners will never advise newbies to start mining, instead miners will advise you to buy the bitcoins they have mined

[-ck]

important: miners will never advise newbies to start mining, instead miners will advise you to buy the bitcoins they have mined

I'm not primarily a miner, I write mining software and it's in my interest to have more miners so I have no vested interest in having less people mining and keep trying to warn people not to waste their money.

[dominicwin]

If the price per coin keeps rising, I'll probably start tapering off just flat out buying as I have been where a $15k investment into mining might yield better overall results if things keep going the way they are with prices.

[jojo69]

important: miners will never advise newbies to start mining, instead miners will advise you to buy the bitcoins they have mined

while this is certainly true, it is also true that almost all mining equipment deployed since the advent of the ASIC era will never ROI in BTC terms


say, for example, that you had the foresight to preorder a BFL single in July or August of 2012, they cost $1300 at the time...BTC were $13, when you finally got your unit, a year or more later, sure, you could mine back your $1300, but no way in hell it will ever mine 100BTC

I have been mining, on a small scale, since the GPU days, and I would like to stay in the game.  At the moment the HashFast Sierra batch 4 1.2TH looks like the best bet, but it is $6300, and if I'm going to invest $6300 in bitcoin right now...I'm going to buy fucking bitcoin with it, not a spot on a waiting list where I can watch the delay announcements on the forum as the difficulty skyrockets.

just my opinion

[dominicwin]

important: miners will never advise newbies to start mining, instead miners will advise you to buy the bitcoins they have mined

while this is certainly true, it is also true that almost all mining equipment deployed since the advent of the ASIC era will never ROI in BTC terms


say, for example, that you had the foresight to preorder a BFL single in July or August of 2012, they cost $1300 at the time...BTC were $13, when you finally got your unit, a year or more later, sure, you could mine back your $1300, but no way in hell it will ever mine 100BTC

I have been mining, on a small scale, since the GPU days, and I would like to stay in the game.  At the moment the HashFast Sierra batch 4 1.2TH looks like the best bet, but it is $6300, and if I'm going to invest $6300 in bitcoin right now...I'm going to buy fucking bitcoin with it, not a spot on a waiting list where I can watch the delay announcements on the forum as the difficulty skyrockets.

just my opinion

I think thats my biggest issue is paying some company lots of money and then waiting for who knows how long till I could even start?

[realitycheck]

I think thats my biggest issue is paying some company lots of money and then waiting for who knows how long till I could even start?

I have gone for CEX.io as a compromise between mining and trading.  Its where I'm making my BTC earn morefor me.

[dominicwin]

I think thats my biggest issue is paying some company lots of money and then waiting for who knows how long till I could even start?

I have gone for CEX.io as a compromise between mining and trading.  Its where I'm making my BTC earn morefor me.

Put in a couple bitcoin to try out the waters. I like the platform so far.

[dominicwin]

I assume there's a default stratum difficulty already in place when buying even if ghash says Default Stratum Difficulty 0 in preferences?

[dominicwin]

Ok I found this in the FAQ of ghash:

16+ GH/s - 16 difficulty
32+ Gh/s - 32 difficulty
64+ GH/s - 64 difficulty
128+ GH/s - 128 difficulty
256+ GH/s - 256 difficulty
512+ GH/s - 512 difficulty
1 TH/s - 1024 difficulty



So I assume I should be changing that in the preferences depending on how many GH/s I own at any given time? I feel like such a newbie haha even if I have owned bitcoins for a few years.

[Mondy]

never bother getting into it, mining is dead

[dominicwin]

So far enjoying the CEX.IO platform a lot. Nice use of some of my btc holdings and the buy sell platform is working very well. Completely painless and a way to make some extra BTC off part of my BTC holdings.

[Pentium100]

say, for example, that you had the foresight to preorder a BFL single in July or August of 2012, they cost $1300 at the time...BTC were $13, when you finally got your unit, a year or more later, sure, you could mine back your $1300, but no way in hell it will ever mine 100BTC

I'd say that mining is a bit lower risk than buying, but lower potential reward. Unlike 2012 July, now the difficulty could be predicted a bit. So, I ordered a couple of Technobit HEX16B miners at about 1BTC each because the calculators showed that they would generate more than 1BTC (each). Maybe the won't. Maybe they will generate 0.8BTC, then I will lose some money. OTOH, if BTC price drops, difficulty could drop (or increase less fast), meaning I will generate more BTC. Difficulty could even stop increasing that much altogether (after all, it is easy to go from 1PH/s to 2PH/s, harder from 2PH/s to 4PH/s harder still from 4PH/s to 8PH/s and much harder from 8PH/s to 16PH/s - at some point the ASIC technology will reach the CPU/GPU technology level and will not be developed as fast as it is now).

[realitycheck]

So far enjoying the CEX.IO platform a lot. Nice use of some of my btc holdings and the buy sell platform is working very well. Completely painless and a way to make some extra BTC off part of my BTC holdings.

Yeah - I haven't looked back.  Gets a bit addictive as well 

It automates much of the messing about with mining, and yet still allows you to join in.