I pay 9 pence per kWh in the day and 4 pence pew kWh in the night as part of a moneysupermarket sainsburys energy switch offer. But before I was on 16p/kWh day, 6p / kWh night. A KNC titan can profit with its power usage at both of these rates in the UK. Most scrypt miners if your electricity isn't free will take a LONG LONG time to ROI. Period. Some you will even mine at a loss.
The KNC Titan is the most expensive miner available on the market for consumers which is scrypt, uses roughly 1200 - 1800w of power depending on the rig, but average selling price is around £2000 with PSUs. But even at 16p/kWh, profit IS possible, roughly 1 year to ROI at that electricity price according to my math if you take the 6p/kWh economy 7 offer.
Be warned though without gens firmware KNC titan can be tricky little blighters to keep running, once you have set up the dies and clock rates and voltages to a good setting (this firmware mod will help greatly) then it will mine uninterrupted, and once ROIed can provide nice free heat in the winter.
The KNC titan does NOT work well on multipools in my experience as the way they change blocks and work so often to mine profitable coins.
The KNC titan works well on litecoinpool.org and this is where I am mining atm with a solo failover as my backup pool. Merged mining and multipools are different.
The £3000 you will find on ebay for a titan will fall as they don't get a sale.
The next gen 14nm scrypt mining chips have been taped out and are looking at about a year probably based on my research before they are fully released to the public these will smoke the titan although its good for quite a few difficulty jumps. If you get a titan, be ready to sell and unload it before these chips come on sale. Don't run all dies at 325MHz at their default voltage, I run most at 325MHz with optimized lower voltages. You want something that 1. Lasts and 2. Can be resold after you've ROIed.
Currently LTC difficulty is low, I wouldn't delay in starting to mine, but unless your power is free or really cheap, no other rig apart from the titan will do you justice, I have spent hours and weeks researching them all. No other miner will profit unless electricity is cheap or low.
KNC titan uses 1400w on average. 320 MH/s (mine gives me 360 after setting most dies to 325 and voltage tweaks for the same wattage which is done in software these tweaks).
Imnosilicon A2. 1000w on average. 110 MH/s. Want the same hashrate as the titan roughly? Have 3 at 3000w. Double the power usage. If your power is free, the A2 will be the cheaper option slightly. The A2 can still profit, but the margins are much lower than the titan. I would hazard a guess, but do not take this at face value that the titan will be profitable for 1 more scrypt hardware generation for a while. At 16p per kWh it would take the difficulty to double before mining at a loss. at 10p /kWh at double the current difficulty, it will still mine at an £80 a month profit a my hashrate of 360. So the titan has some life left in it. Don't pay some of the crazy ebay prices for an A2.
BUT then there is the factor of litecoin price. £2.67 currently/ coin, they are very stable in price but with the bitcoin halving, we do not know what will happen to it yet.
The titan is much more profitable than the best bitcoin rig currently on the market for the consumers, which is the Antminer S7. Getting one of those you might as well flush the money down the loo.
I agree with everything you said. For those who want a good LTC calculator to run whatever numbers that are modifiable. Use this on one (you don't have to sign up to use the LTC calculator)
https://www.litecoinpool.org/calcI have 14 Titan Cubes....3 dead dies set to OFF and others up-clocked to 325 on advanced page and others set much lower down to 200. So I get the following of almost
exactly 1000mh at 14c kwh at around 4150 watts (according to the Gen Tarkin 3rd party Firmware for the Titan which you HAVE TO USE ..it is that good)
Plugging those numbers in I get the amount (at this NOW LTC price and NOW difficulty). Again 14c kwh electric, 1000 mh, at say $4 an LTC say.
Profitability Analysis
24 Hours 10.84614258 LTC 43.38 USD Total Worth 13.94 USD Electric Costs 29.44 USD Profit (After Electric)
7 Days 75.92299805 LTC 303.69 USD " " 97.61 USD " " 206.08 USD " " "
30 Days 325.38427734 LTC 1301.54 USD " " 418.32 USD " " 883.22 USD " " "
The key in my case to the above is DUMB LUCK .... my 1st Titan (Unicorn Hunt) I was gored badly. $10,131.80 w/shipping from KNC 4 months late worked like sh*t
the first 3 months. And as the quote above states I never did run multipool with them. Always ran LTC and 'hoarded' thru the bad times of 1.30 LTC in 2015. Another
dumb luck story in that as well)
Anyway so March 2015....looking at a 33% loss on my above investment IN THE BEST CASE SCENARIO WHICH WAS UNLIKELY AS HELL. Dumb luck Titan Unicorn Hunt
number 2 went much better. March 2015 after LTC crashed in price and the announcements of all the great NEW bigger badder ASIC equipment out there coming out.
(alpha tech, flower tech, alcheminer (I think), Volcano? (whoever that was) ALL OF THEM DID NOT COME OUT .....thus I got during the PANIC in March 2015 a complete
KNC Titan (Unicorn #2) at what I thought and hell most thought was a fair price (I figured I could maybe mine with it till July/August till blown out of water with new
'supposed equipment' coming out. The cost was 2.69 btc which at the time was around 569 bucks if I remember right and that INCLUDED the $269 price in shipping
from Australia (again firmware buggy...the guy was a whale just wanted his orig 11 btc coin back I think from his purchase at 1100 btc of a Neptune which he (like me)
converted to a Titan...) so anyway again dumb luck the fancy new better and bigger equipment NEVER CAME OUT. So unicorn #2 hunt was a success.
I was still one p/o'd Titan owner thou. LTC prices sucked. Around 1.60 per LTC in the Summer I think it was. I had no luck in Feb/March with Multipool.
So again always litecoinpool.
Even with this 2nd Titan (ran full out ..still does by the way 350 mh go figure...the cubes got so hot in Australia the paint on the cubes is faded and flaky also another reason
for the low price..) ...anyway so mining 1.60 ltc to btc daily on a multipool even if it worked ..seemed to suck...just mining on a multipool LTC to BTC daily pay out
hell I'd still likely never make ROI on both units. So I just always have mined on liteconpool and hoarded LTC the whole damn year. Even ate the electric...If I was gonna sink on a loss ..well hell full speed ahead. So again dumb luck I sold at like 3-4 buck LTC ..or I should say converted LTC to BTC at around those prices....so whoopee my dream is complete ROI'd.
You see the trend here? KNC Titan purchase puts you in the box...dumb luck gets you a 2nd titan out of the box.....(box still under $$$ for ROI) then LTC hoarding
gets me out of the box, because the price doubles. Not a frigging lot of control on all this on my part. Stupid lucky. (don't be me just kick the home miner addiction
and buy LTC) (pooler is now yelling at computer screen at that remark)
So anyway. Now I'm into 2016 pick up 100mh of hash on 2 cubes for 160 LTC or about 586. usd. Lost 110 LTC to the hacked Carnth account also in Feb 2016 (the
reason
www.litecointalk.org is still down. (thou they have archived version up ...google it..does not allow posting)
So sorta dumb/bad luck combo. Again a 'hacked admin account #2 with god powers" ..me thinks the ASIC gods hate me at that point.
OK so by some 'miracle' I'm still mining Titans in March 2016. My elec rate again is 14c kwh. I heated my house Oct 2015 thru april 2016 at 10c kwh (goes down)
So the goal with the cubes above is just to 'limp' to Oct 2016 and hell even if I just heat my house again all is good.
Again still all my LTC mining has been on Litecoin Pool (trying to stay on topic)
So 'news' of A4 Dominate comes out. They are said to be 400 mh at 1150 watts. In my view they probably will go for 4k. So Hmmmm....I can run as a dog in that
wolf pack. They got IPO $$$ (a miracle on their part at scrypt prices) ie investors....they make other types of chips...they get all the equip etc paid to make this
14nm chip ...for I would guess their own 'data center' ....So as the poster I guoted above says......the catch is HOW MUCH IS GONNA HIT THE MARKET for these
14nm chips in data center/bulk sales and actual units gonna be?
My bet is they will have enough for their own data hall and the nice shiny equip with IPO money they can use for other (non asic) 14nm chips is my guess (how I
would play it) from what I understand they are NOT exclusive asic chip maker...win/win on their part....AND again IMHO they will do a SAFARDS and put out a 'token'
amount of units of the A4 dominator as to not p*ss in their own pool and drive difficulty up for their own data center mining.
Thus imho .....even if difficulty doubles as the previous poster said. I can continue to mine thru Winter 2016 (Oct) and spring 2017 (April) at 10c kwh and heat
my house. Thus this is the bet on my part. Difficulty more or less (again my view) since Nov 2014 for LTC has gone up maybe (prob less on ave) of 25%. If it
goes up another 25% at the PRICE OF LTC as it EXISTS now at $4. I'm still good.
Again dumb luck comes to my aid yet again *maybe* ...they could flood the market. BUT if my assumption is that innsilicon does have its own data center
that may be a 'bit' down the road.
NOW on top of that IF as they say BTC goes to 650 usd per Btc this year ...at 0.008 ltc to btc (a bit less then it is now) that is $5.20 LTC...so again dumb
luck out of my control perhaps it swings our way again. I think even an A2 Terminator can plug thru winter heating the house at that rate
Add to that I managed to 'acquire' an 'unused' Titan (from the class action I'd guess ...some corp probably...was told to not use it due to lawsuit...which I
think KNC is winning individual case by case as it is setup in Swedish Law) my price for 1 was $1,825 bucks with shipping (2 of them ...split with a buddy $3500 total) and yeah they were
brand frigging new...so that is my only clue ..poor guys they also now that they lost have to pay the lawyers and damages to KNC. Evil works I guess. Thus
this somewhat 'stupid' dump at that price imho. Need the $$$ to pay frigging KNC and the lawyers seems likely. ie out the frigging door.
again DUMB LUCK comes to the aid of dumb original KNC Titan buyers at 10,131.80
My point in all this is KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN ....and play with scenarios....sometimes just being stupid and stubborn works..use angles like heating your house.
Find (or build with a gberty clone bridge at 0.20 btc each) your own KNC Titan Controller with PI that's about 250 bucks when you find ANY 4/6 PORT knc card
ever frigging made on eBay (Mercury/Saturn/Jupiter/Neptune will work) the Pi needed is a Raspberry Pi B+ 512mb version (only one that works) no LCD needed.
Sit on that $250 buck card and 'beg' a couple cubes out of somebody. Hopefully what you over pay on the cube you made up on the card.
And if you agree with most of the stuff I said above (esp go to litecoinpool no fee 103% payout) and you want to take a chance (even if it is just winter heat)
for fun etc those are the kinda games you are gonna have to play. (or get an A4 Dominator for my guess at a price of 4K and play the beat the difficulty rise game
that would be hard imho at a 4k price)
Caution: The equip for Titans are used and old however (mine is 18 months plus now) they may not work as well as they did and again you may overpay
but better to do something NOW imho before the A4 Dominators come out and pay that kinda money...if you ARE really gonna try to make a play
for HOME mining of asics of any type this late in the game (best bet is still just buy LTC imho)
But anyway why I'm posting this on the litecoinpool thread ..for you A2 Terminator folks....you plan to home mine move them out the door asap sell them swap them whatever
imho and hack together even a 'small' titan 1-2 cube rig in some manner..the A4 is gonna be too high priced...the A2 likely too expensive to run here soon and if you are as addicted to home mining as I am....you can 'extend' your addiction somewhat.
....
But as I said above 80% is dumb luck. But hey you are reading this so what the heck else you got going on? But these are the kinda 'obstacles' one is gonna have to take
for any home mining imho on litecoinpool in the future. Grab what you can now or pay for the A4 if/when it comes out are the only options for scrypt imho. Ethereum is gonna
go POS coin likely by FEB 2017. Bitcoin miners make NO sense even as space heaters these days.
So anyway ...angles to consider to be a scrypt coin miner in the future (again don't be addicted like me just sell stuff and buy LTC or BTC imho) but for those with NO COMMON
SENSE and the attitude 'do you feel lucky punk' the above is how thru various 'ASIC god miracles' I'm still in the home miner game)
my setup (now) other titan is hosted for right now so 4 cubes down
lostgonzo.imgur.comgood luck