Mining Equipment Experience

[bittydude]

Alright guys, ive done some research. I would say quite a bit of research (6hours in 2days) and ive come up with some ideas. Now i please ask that people refrain from "do some research, nobody will spoon feed you" remarks because i believe ive done some due diligence. Im very well experienced with buying/selling btc.

Question;

I have 5-10k to invest from previous btc sales. What should i buy?

I have my eyes on the black arrow 2th model. By the looks of it, if in hand right now i would make 700$ a day with a ROI of 11 days. Although it states 700$ a day now, what i would earn in 03/14 is a much different story.

Other research has shown that buying GPUs and mining scrypt will be more profitable if i use a auto scrypt to switch to most profitable alt coin and hold for X amount of time.

So, do i buy an ASIC or do i buy GPUs to mine?

This place is full of threads, teaching new guys like myself how to actually mine. Im looking for the people who bought an ASIC/GPUs and succeeded or failed.

Very interested in the "Learn from my success'/mistakes" kinda replies.

[TheWoodser]

My whole motto during my (little) experience has been......


The only guys that got rich during the California Gold Rush, were selling "Picks and Shovels"

Either "roll up your sleeves" and pan, or find a way to corner the market on some picks and shovels........



Woodser

[crazyates]

http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/ is your friend. You can't go by what a miner will earn today. You have to look at what it will earn when it comes in.

[bittydude]

http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/ is your friend. You can't go by what a miner will earn today. You have to look at what it will earn when it comes in.

Thanks for the replies guys, so looking at the genesisblock calculator. I input the specs of the 2th black arrow. So, with a starting date of 03/14 (probably only a couple week gap in march of actual mining) the 2th black arrow is only profitable for 5 months but while actually never having a ROI. Once 07/14 comes around the ASIC has completed its job and is no longer profitable vs electricity costs. This still leaves a -1700$ taste in my mouth come 07/14. The only way i can see a 1-2000$ profit is the actual resale of the machine.

Thoughts?

edit : -1700$ at todays current btc value.

edit : crazyates, great job on the long term operational costs of asics.

[TheWoodser]

Sadly, there is someone out there that pays less (or nothing) for power and will gladly take your machine at a discount.

I however, am not convinced the difficulty is going to be exponentially, more difficult.  Right out of the gate the terrahash machines will crush the "bedroom miner" but there really has not been any "new news" on the follow on miners.  At some point all the USB's and blades will be not worth the trouble, but I think it will be a case of the "Haves and Have Not's."  Unless you are in the terrahash club, it won't be worth it.  (Unless you have free or super cheap power)

Woodser


Just curious.... Do you know what you are charged for power??

[Ridicuss]

Well, There is also another unknown in the equation. I myself have been mining GPU for altcoins on free to me power. That pays a little each month. I have 1.2 TH/s of ASIC online and they have all been paid for because of the explosion in the price of bitcoin. If BTC had not exploded I would be in the red USD wise. I have not mined back all the BTC I put into it but I was hoarding coin up to 500 and sold some then sold the rest over 1000 and have been selling my daily take everyday since.

So what I am trying to say is: BTC could explode again and your miner pays off in USD. Or BTC implodes and you sit beside the rest of us and enjoy your new hobby.

Just my take.

Best Regards,

[cp1]

You're far better off buying btc.

[TheWoodser]

I myself have been mining GPU for altcoins on free to me power.

Valid point, While the diff on BTC makes HUGE jumps each time....It would be reasonable to "jump on an alt coin bandwagon" mine it with hardware you have and convert it to BTC. (On not)  Even as the altcoin diff increases, it won't be as bad a hit to your mining income.

I too have a (almost) free power situation.  I am only charged by my landlord if I go over 10% of the average of all the other same size units in the complex.  For the two months that I have been mining (and hosting my sisters miners) I have not even been close to having to pay......BUT Summer is coming.

Woodser

[bittydude]

Sadly, there is someone out there that pays less (or nothing) for power and will gladly take your machine at a discount.

I however, am not convinced the difficulty is going to be exponentially, more difficult.  Right out of the gate the terrahash machines will crush the "bedroom miner" but there really has not been any "new news" on the follow on miners.  At some point all the USB's and blades will be not worth the trouble, but I think it will be a case of the "Haves and Have Not's."  Unless you are in the terrahash club, it won't be worth it.  (Unless you have free or super cheap power)

Woodser


Just curious.... Do you know what you are charged for power??

I believe .06 kw/h

Well, There is also another unknown in the equation. I myself have been mining GPU for altcoins on free to me power. That pays a little each month. I have 1.2 TH/s of ASIC online and they have all been paid for because of the explosion in the price of bitcoin. If BTC had not exploded I would be in the red USD wise. I have not mined back all the BTC I put into it but I was hoarding coin up to 500 and sold some then sold the rest over 1000 and have been selling my daily take everyday since.

So what I am trying to say is: BTC could explode again and your miner pays off in USD. Or BTC implodes and you sit beside the rest of us and enjoy your new hobby.

Just my take.

Best Regards,

Your right, who knows what will happen. Although i am new, im going to go against and believe the difficulty will rise as expected or more. Every company + new pop up companies are claiming ATLEAST 1.2TH asics and this will effect the difficulty alot, just a noob speaking.

You're far better off buying btc.

You may be right with the buy+hold...ive been pondering converting to NMC/NVC/PPC and sticking in for a year and see where it goes.

[Ridicuss]

You're far better off buying btc.

More than likely the most profitable approach but not much fun. SRCZM....  I would have done way better had I kept all the BTC I used for miners and used the same exit strategy of some out at 500 and the rest at 1000.  Live and learn.  If you want a hobby, mine. If you want to invest buy!

[bittydude]

You're far better off buying btc.

More than likely the most profitable approach but not much fun. SRCZM....  I would have done way better had I kept all the BTC I used for miners and used the same exit strategy of some out at 500 and the rest at 1000.  Live and learn.  If you want a hobby, mine. If you want to invest buy!

Yes, this is 100% for profit. I want to go back to school so i may have to cut my hours at work. This would be something to put gas in the truck and a few bags of groceries a week.

[darcimer]

http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/ is your friend. You can't go by what a miner will earn today. You have to look at what it will earn when it comes in.

Thanks for the replies guys, so looking at the genesisblock calculator. I input the specs of the 2th black arrow. So, with a starting date of 03/14 (probably only a couple week gap in march of actual mining) the 2th black arrow is only profitable for 5 months but while actually never having a ROI. Once 07/14 comes around the ASIC has completed its job and is no longer profitable vs electricity costs. This still leaves a -1700$ taste in my mouth come 07/14. The only way i can see a 1-2000$ profit is the actual resale of the machine.

Thoughts?

edit : -1700$ at todays current btc value.

edit : crazyates, great job on the long term operational costs of asics.

What settings did you use?  If I were you I would use a current difficulty of 1400. Then, I would change the difficulty rise to anywhere from 800 to 1600 MM (I'm not using %, we already have an idea of how much phs is going to come onto the market in Q1/Q2,  somewhere between 40–100+ Phs, or 6bill-10bill difficulty. We just have no idea who is legit and who is not.  And you have to take that into consideration when weighing your risk, Even with BA )
Then use April as your starting point to be realistic since you aren't paid yet.  Then you just pray that you get what you were promised.

[cp1]

You're far better off buying btc.

More than likely the most profitable approach but not much fun. SRCZM....  I would have done way better had I kept all the BTC I used for miners and used the same exit strategy of some out at 500 and the rest at 1000.  Live and learn.  If you want a hobby, mine. If you want to invest buy!

Yes, this is 100% for profit. I want to go back to school so i may have to cut my hours at work. This would be something to put gas in the truck and a few bags of groceries a week.

I would not try to mine for profit.  Especially if you're going to rely on the profits to live.  Just keep your money in the bank.

[Wipeout2097]

Have at least a GPU mining rig with 4 or 5 ATI 280x, so that you don't miss the alts and most-profitable coin pools. Don't neglect the 7870 cards, they are good hashers considering the upfront cost and power use. Have a trusted friendly store to supply you with hardware parts and provide quick and flexible returns (e.g. the videocard doesnt undervolt, the PSU can't handle the load, the MB is fucked, there are lockups, etc...). I learned this at my own expense. I'm having trouble with AMD based motherboards and processors, maybe it's me, maybe not.

Invest on a powerful CPU on that rig for CPU-only coins or a budget one (a Celeron or Pentium G) and have an Amazon EC2 account or similar to mine those.

[Korbman]

Determining whether to mine or just buy BTC is certainly a difficult choice. Along with the Genesis Block mining calculator that Crazyates already noted, I also like to use the Bitcoin Mining Profit calc: http://btcinvest.net/en/bitcoin-mining-profit-calculator.php
Both calculators have their strengths and weaknesses of course.

With $5,000 to work with, it may make more sense to buy coins and hold for the next few years. Mining is beginning the transition from a 'home based' operation to one centralized in a datacenter (or other dedicated structure) and run by groups of people with capital backing.
 
Hardware purchase price (Fiat or BTC), Hardware queue / timeframe, energy costs, depreciation, storage/security, cooling, maintenance (if any), Bitcoin price (present and predicted), and network hashing speed / difficulty (present and predicted), are some of the items to be considered.
In many cases so far, simply buying and holding Bitcoin has been a far more profitable venture than individually purchasing mining hardware, especially after accounting for the variables above.

[drmadison]

Mining is risky business and you'll almost never sell your miners back for NEAR what you paid for them - especially as the prices on them keep dropping.

In the last few months I spent thousands on mining equipment - all of them now cost about half what I paid. So that means either I'm going to get my money's worth mining, or take a multi-thousand-dollar hit. Luckily I should still be at least NEAR break-even (hashing at about .25 TH right now) but to keep making anything you have to either re-invest pretty much all your earnings in more equipment, or accept that what you have will earn less and less until it's pointless.

My current take is that the thousands I spent was my start, and now all the mining equipment I'm buying is paid for with the proceeds from my current mining operation. It should (I hate that word) allow me to keep upping my hash rate monthly and maybe even over-time make back the thousands I spent but if not hey, I'm having fun!

[bittydude]

Mining is risky business and you'll almost never sell your miners back for NEAR what you paid for them - especially as the prices on them keep dropping.

In the last few months I spent thousands on mining equipment - all of them now cost about half what I paid. So that means either I'm going to get my money's worth mining, or take a multi-thousand-dollar hit. Luckily I should still be at least NEAR break-even (hashing at about .25 TH right now) but to keep making anything you have to either re-invest pretty much all your earnings in more equipment, or accept that what you have will earn less and less until it's pointless.

My current take is that the thousands I spent was my start, and now all the mining equipment I'm buying is paid for with the proceeds from my current mining operation. It should (I hate that word) allow me to keep upping my hash rate monthly and maybe even over-time make back the thousands I spent but if not hey, I'm having fun!

Yes, this is what i was looking for. First hand experience. Im going to do more research in some coins to see there value 1 year ago and then maybe buy+hold for 1 year.

[Skaterdiejosh]

The biggest question is how long will the next gen Asic miners take to hit the market. Im pretty sure cointerra and a few others where allready supposed to have shipped first batches yet there delayed. I just wonder if it will be like BFL with the shipping delays. Wouldlnt you mine with your 500 or more 2 TH Asic miners befor you ship, just to make sure they work correctly !! lol they will make more profit mining for few weeks then they made on all there Pre orders!! I wouldn't be suprised if first batches are delayed till at least feb 1st maybe longer  It's also really hard to predict how high the value of bitcoin could go in first half of 2014 ......

[Skaterdiejosh]

+1 @ drmadison im in the same boat lol