Block erupters absolutely waste of money now?

So i checked ebay for some - for "hobby" trying and such and saw the costs of gettign one - 333mhs 60$ + 20$ for shipping.

80$ for 333mhs.

At current rate and increasing difficulty it could take up to one and a half years 24/7 to break even.

I could use cex and rent 1GHS for less then that.

it really is unsettling to read it takes so long for the block erupters to break even. I think it's time for these mining companies to step up or step out of the way. However I don't see that happening unless the community forces the issue.

I'm surprised they are that expensive unless folks are raising the prices as BTC value rises. I bought three for ~$25 each in Sep or Oct. Might want to keep searching.

Even at $25, breaking even seems hard at this point unless you park them on an alt coin that will rise relative to BTC someday, which is how I made back the cost and then some. My erupters just solo mine now hoping for a lottery win....

Block erupters are toys , or novelty , they were never meant to return hundred of $.
Also , most of people who had them are now trying to find some ~~clients~~ suckers on ebay with all this media frenzy.

Quote from: niothor on December 03, 2013, 06:34:57 PM

Block erupters are toys , or novelty , they were never meant to return hundred of $.

Agree. After a couple months, I had them paid off and one dinner for the family. No mortgage payments.

They are beginner's machines. To get you used to the software and process of mining.

I have bought 12 of these things over the past 5 months. I started with 6 @ ~$25/device back in July. Then buying another 2 every time I received a bitcoin. I don't really think they are worth the investment now. You would need to get them for around $5-$10 to be able to break even in a few months. Even @ $5, you'd need to invest $800 or more just to turn a good profit.

I got lucky. I hit a few coins then took those to btce and started trading. If it wasn't for the trades, I don't think that I would have turned a profit from the erupters.

tldr; toys good for nothing but altcoins now.

I wonder how good they do with other sha 256 coins like ppcoin that worths around 6$ now

I wouldn't spend any more than $5 on a block erupter. You might be able to break even at that price, but once you factor in other expenses (usb hub, fan, power, etc.) it's going to be pretty difficult.

and there is basically no way to get them at that price - postage fee alone costs that much or more.

They are so obsolete that you can make more money selling them as keychains -_-

am I just lucky? bought one at 13.99 a month ago on ebay...still working well

Worthless for mining, but invaluable for the education in Bitcoin mining that you will get.

Anyone who does not fully understand the mining process will definitely lose
most or all the money they spend on miners. And fully understanding the
mining process does not mean that you will automatically make money.

-Mark

Quote from: Miner_2049er on December 03, 2013, 10:34:58 PM

Common , let's not use such great words for a piece of crap composed of a chip and 10 grams of Chinese plastic.

For those who do not understand the process, of course,
means that most or all of the money spent,
function means you will win automatically.

Consider that there are multiple ways to make money (or lose it) on Bitcoins.

1) Buy & hold
2) BTC currency trading
3) Mine
4) Lease mining hardware/run a pool
5) Sell mining hardware
or
Scam newbies

Total waste of money don't buy it.

The difficulty is too high, so you'll mine practically nothing.

You'll get more money by buying btc now and selling it later.

Quote from: Miner_2049er on December 04, 2013, 01:23:58 AM

Consider that there are multiple ways to make money (or lose it) on Bitcoins.

1) Buy & hold
2) BTC currency trading
3) Mine
4) Lease mining hardware/run a pool
5) Sell mining hardware

Actually only the first one is a valid reason to make money. The rest are for losing.

Absolutely unbelieveable how much most people are willing to pay for them on ebay. Math doesn't seem to be a primary skill of those buyers.

And it's even worse for those Bitfury sticks. I was looking for one as kind of more realistic mining toy until the big iron comes...

Greed blows minds away! Cheesy

Quote from: jpesquire on December 03, 2013, 06:22:44 PM

Im brand new this week looking into bitcoins and other alt coins. I have noticed that 2 months ago block erupters were going for 10-20$ USD but now that the price of bitcoins has gone up atleast 5 times the price of the erupters has gone up the same, but at the same time the difficulty has gone up the same.

From what I take out of this is unless you are farming at 100 Ghash/s with equipment you bought at bottom dollar you are not going to gain much. I think this week ive made .0002 BTC with one erupter and my GPU will probably spending 5$ in electricity.

If you have to pay for electricity forget GPU mining at current difficulty levels, except you do it for fun and don't care that you can't mine with profit.