Back after a long delay - curious why mine vs. just buy in 2020?

[drmadison]

Hey all,

Not sure anyone here remembers me (it's been years probably since I've been around) but used to have a decent little mine, and even ran a few small group mining efforts ages ago (like over 5 years ago, so eternity in bitcoin time). Sold my miners and cashed out most of my bitcoin and moved on with life.

Then all of a sudden it hit me again... And I went back and bought up some bitcoin. And I went and looked at some miners, and some calculators. And what everything tells me is that it's impossible to buy a miner and mine without losing a ton of money. Granted our electricity rates in the SF Bay Area are stupid high, but even halving them it seems like it's impossible to buy a machine, mine with it and ever break even.

So that led me to the age-old question, why do you choose to mine bitcoin with aging, rapidly depreciating miners vs. just buying bitcoin? For the cost of 1 Antminer I can buy more bitcoin than it will ever mine me...

Honestly not trying to say this in a hostile manner - I'd just love to hear people's reasoning because I'd LOVE an excuse to justify getting back into it

[PopoJeff]

I have a power rate of 6.8c/kWh.  I was running 100% profit ratio prior to today. Today, I'm at break even, but a reduction in network hashrate could change that.  

I count my miner cost at zero, because i used trading profits to buy them.

Mining gives me a fixed cost, or fixed monthly input towards an investment. I plan to hold for at least 7 years when I hit my retirement date. Kind of like my elected contribution towards a 401k.

I can take tax deductions by filing taxes as a business operation.

And it only one of my long term investments.  

[philipma1957]

I have a power rate of 6.8c/kWh.  I was running 100% profit ratio prior to today. Today, I'm at break even, but a reduction in network hashrate could change that.  

I count my miner cost at zero, because i used trading profits to buy them.

Mining gives me a fixed cost, or fixed monthly input towards an investment. I plan to hold for at least 7 years when I hit my retirement date. Kind of like my elected contribution towards a 401k.

I can take tax deductions by filing taxes as a business operation.

And it only one of my long term investments.  

I am similar to you.

At the moment my power deal is cheap.
I have 1.4ph fully paid gear.

most of it is faster then s9s.

only 300th ls s9.

so the other gear will turn profit.

but for a new guy buying the gear ⚙️ is a set back.
tax laws are complex.

and of course finding a good power deal is very very very important.

[drmadison]

Really appreciate the responses!

Unfortunately where I'm at the cheap power deals don't exist... $0.24/KWh is about the best we're able to get sadly... Now we do have solar, and right now kick a good bit back to the grid but if we were to mine that would stop happening which means 16+hours a day of mining we'd be paying that ridiculous power rate. I could only mine during daylight hours haha, but in reality I guess it's just not meant to be here...

[PopoJeff]

And that's your answer right there. Power cost is the largest factor in whether you can mine or not.  At .24, that's a hard no. Don't even waste the time thinking about it at that locations rate.

Still want to mine? The you have to consider a different location for power costs.

But for me, when I broke out the calculator, I determined that in my situation, I could collect coin at a price point of $4400. (8800 post halving)

[alh]

I will also add one small caution. From a purely economic point of view, if you could actually use the solar power you have to reduce your other non-mining electricity usage, then you are still paying $.24/Kwh for your mining. Think in terms of your "marginal" cost of electricity.

I know that electricity rates and rules are complex, so maybe there really isn't any way to actually offset any of your non-mining electricity usage, but that seems unlikely. Most (not all) folks don't invest in solar that can't be tied into the grid to at least reduce some of their usage from their power company.

[drmadison]

Yeah I was looking more at building a separate (off grid) solar + battery power system for mining and the costs there. Over 10 years it'd give me significantly cheaper power (assuming 10 years out of gear that claims to last 20) than I can get elsewhere, but it's a LOT of up-front cost that I'm still not sure beats just buying the crypto I'd otherwise mine outright.