USB Miners at crazy prices. Why?

[Ka]

Hi,
posted seconds ago I'd like to buy one of those old school USB miners. While looking on Ebay for one I noticed people are "trying" to sell old Block Erupters and such miners at crazy prices.
Even 100$ for a Block Erupter that actually hashes SHA256 at 333MH/s... I mean, what did I miss? Did Bitcoin diff collapse overnight? Everybody thinking SOLO mining with 333MH/s is enough?

Asking just out of curiosity if anybody noticed the trend.

Ka.

[mocacinno]

Well... I've noticed the ebay market being full of ripoffs... These sellers try to sell those old block erruptors to unknowing "victims" giving them false hope of free money.
In the future, their price might rise due to the collector's value tough... But that's about all they can be used for: a conversation piece or a piece of bitcoin history, but not for actual mining (well, in theory, they *can* be used to mine, in the same way as you can use your cpu or gpu... Burn a lot of electricity and get nothing in return)...

[Ka]

I did buy a few Erupters (6-7, can't tell exactly now) years back.
I took one out of the "drawer" weeks ago more for fun than anything else. Assembling the smallest Bitcoin Solo Miner I could.
Onion Omega2+ running BFG miner, a Block Erupter in the USB slot of the board.
It runs smoothly 2 hours every 3 (allowing time to cool off a bit), consumes max 3W when hashing, 1.5W when not.
I know, absolutely useless, total waste of time. Yes, but it's all parts I already had home and keeping it in the living room annoys the wife, mission accomplished
People hear about Bitcoin, cryptos but generally get lost when trying to picture a "computer" mining. This way I can show them "one" without leaving the living room.

Was looking for a Dualminer as I lost mine and wanted to give it a spin on the same board. That's when I looked on Ebay and freaked out.
Can only define them "scammers", you can't possibly sell something like that now, at a higher price than when they came out.

Ka

[Steamtyme]

It's similar to when I started in 2017. It was crazy confusing wrapping my head around the differences at the time between TH, GH, MH . I had a tab on reference when I was trying to shop around for some entry level units. I did settle on some decently priced s5's in the end, lol. I'd say a lot of it may be people who overpayed in the past trying to pass it along top the next sucker, unfortunately.

Anyone passing them off as anything more than a novelty, or lottery is definitely going to rip someone off.

[helipotte]

I sold over 80 block erupters on Ebay recently.  Always indicated they where novelty only.  They still sold well.  I have lots of old miners for back in the 2012/2013
era of mining.  Block erupter blade anyone?  How about a gridseed or 10.

[Ka]

Well, as posted earlier, actually looking for a Dualminer V1, the one that had stick shape (like an Erupter) and hashed both BTC and LTC.



Ka.

[vm1990]

I sold over 80 block erupters on Ebay recently.  Always indicated they where novelty only.  They still sold well.  I have lots of old miners for back in the 2012/2013
era of mining.  Block erupter blade anyone?  How about a gridseed or 10.

dont tease im still happy if i can pick up a S1 for $40 UK mining gear is expensive as hell

[gt_addict]

I sold over 80 block erupters on Ebay recently.  Always indicated they where novelty only.  They still sold well.  I have lots of old miners for back in the 2012/2013
era of mining.  Block erupter blade anyone?  How about a gridseed or 10.

dont tease im still happy if i can pick up a S1 for $40 UK mining gear is expensive as hell

Damn right it is. I purchase all my gear from the US and even with customs duty etc it still works out cheaper than buying direct in the UK.

[helipotte]

I sold over 80 block erupters on Ebay recently.  Always indicated they where novelty only.  They still sold well.  I have lots of old miners for back in the 2012/2013
era of mining.  Block erupter blade anyone?  How about a gridseed or 10.

dont tease im still happy if i can pick up a S1 for $40 UK mining gear is expensive as hell

I still have 11 S1's packed up.  Two of them I paid 4BTC for back in 2012.

[jmumich]

Wow, crazy - took a look at ebay's recently sold items, had no idea people would pay anything for these. Hard to call the sellers scammers though - especially the ones listed as auctions without promising any type of return, just listing what it does - if someone's willing to pay.... though I personally would make it very clear that it's basically a collector's item/lottery ticket only.

[leowonderful]

Seems people are still buying these things mostly for the collectibility of the devices; the Block Erupters were always pretty popular possibly because of the Bitcoin logo on the back of the devices and the different color variants of the miners. I sold a few Antminer U1s, various old Scrypt miners and a handful of Block Erupters I had laying around the house a while back for the first time in a while on eBay and the experience was actually pretty pleasant and easy. I still have a few on display in my house but figured I might as well distribute some I am not using to others that are interested in crypto as well.

[Meech]

Nothing like hashing with a usb stick miner.  Ebay is great for selling nostalgia items.  Sold all of mine there at a fair price.  Look to here to buy what your looking for in the future.

[klaaas]

So i can say my old zeus miners gain more profit without putting them to work than that i turn them on.