Bitcoin mining is not profitable enough!

[distr@yopmail.com]

Your argument seems reasonable but consider the fact that the technology of devices is improving over time. Mining devices are more powerful, consume less electricity. Renewable energy will also play a big part in the evolution of miners' equipment. One thing I am sure of is that mining will stop if miners lose money so they will always find a way to fix it.

as long as there is still something generated from mining bitcoin and it has a value of course mining will still exist, even though it may no longer be profitable in large numbers.
it's also like the situation when bitcoin didn't have as high a value as it is today. Miners will only get a small value from the bitcoins they mine. but the orientation of the miner must be for the long term. and now it has been proven that they are still profitable.

[cotton ball]

bitcoin mining is not profitable enough, if we look at the expenses made by miners, it could be said that bitcoin is not profitable enough, because electricity costs are expensive, people who do mining have to spend a lot of capital, sometimes the profits they get are not in accordance with their expenses .

[leea-1334]

This sounds like a good plan except that is it not true that the direction of development now is on layer 2 rather than on chain? I think the size is still a problem so they would like to restrict it on chain like that and keep those 100k transactions all on Lightning.

There is simply no way that transactions are done entirely on lightning or on layer 2. That is unrealistic and makes Bitcoin completely useless and which is why I've criticized repeatedly on the fallacy of having a limited on-chain capacity and banking on off-chain TXes to sustain the TX volume. We absolutely need a capacity increase in the future to even think of mass adoption. Again, 7TPS is ridiculously small and lightning network isn't (and should not) be the solution to the problem.

Again, the problem we're looking at right here is not to ensure that we maintain the same level of security. The whole point of PoW is to make it more expensive to attack the chain than be honest. If there is a substantial security decrease but we're still looking at a huge discrepancy between the profits from an attack vs profits from mining, then there is no problem.

I do not disagree that on chain capacity needs to be more but just from what I can gather from my own observations that everybody seems to be building on L2, as long as,,, on L1 when they finalize the channels they can be sure of security and permanence. Which is still the biggest strength of Bitcoin as opposed to Ethereum and others all popularly using L2.

I do think the level of security is high enough that it does not need to be much higher, just as you say to make it too expensive to attack. But it is not just about hashpower also but the diversity of hashpower that is important.

[ranochigo]

I do not disagree that on chain capacity needs to be more but just from what I can gather from my own observations that everybody seems to be building on L2, as long as,,, on L1 when they finalize the channels they can be sure of security and permanence. Which is still the biggest strength of Bitcoin as opposed to Ethereum and others all popularly using L2.

L2 and L1 are fundamentally different. L2 is suitable for smaller transactions while L1 is suitable for larger transactions, which makes far more sense. L2 cannot scale without the base layer being expanded as well. We will always have on-chain transactions when opening or closing the channel, which will happen far more frequently than you think. Lack of transactions on-chain will probably not be due to the popularity of L2 for years to come. There are still various hurdles to overcome.

I do think the level of security is high enough that it does not need to be much higher, just as you say to make it too expensive to attack. But it is not just about hashpower also but the diversity of hashpower that is important.

Mining is as decentralized as it gets, anything that favours economy of scale will also result in centralization. That is a fact. The security would primarily be regarding the costs of attack rather than how decentralized it actually is. If it is not desirable to attack at all, then it simply won't happen.

[stompix]

bitcoin mining is not profitable enough, if we look at the expenses made by miners, it could be said that bitcoin is not profitable enough, because electricity costs are expensive, people who do mining have to spend a lot of capital, sometimes the profits they get are not in accordance with their expenses .

If bitcoin wound't be profitable we would have nobody mining and the blockchain would simply stop, but the reality is that we have a million mining gear up and running, which invalidates your 2 seconds of thought theory.

Your argument seems reasonable but consider the fact that the technology of devices is improving over time. Mining devices are more powerful, consume less electricity.

Irrelevant and it's not quite true, efficiency has grown but overall energy consumption has also gone up you can have 100 times more efficient gear tomorrow if the price doubles so will the energy consumption.

Renewable energy will also play a big part in the evolution of miners' equipment.

Nope, renewables are not reliable, not providing energy 24/7, and can't compete in costs with traditional fossils unless subsidized by the government.

The computational power is not a good metric to compare with the security of the network*, you will need to be looking at the costs of it.

That's probably the only real way to approximate the security of the network would be to look at the average price for the hashrate.
Just because the hash rate is 1000 times higher than what it was in 2014 doesn't mean that the network is secure 1000x, if we look at the average back then it would cost nearly $1k to get a TH out of S3s, not you can get it for under 100$. I would rather look at the security of the network from the reward per day perspective rather than the hashrate because at the end of the day it's the first that dictates the latter.

As for the stabilizing part, in the long run, I think energy prices will matter more than asic prices, and the future doesn't look good at all.

[Sir Legend]

bitcoin mining is not profitable enough, if we look at the expenses made by miners, it could be said that bitcoin is not profitable enough, because electricity costs are expensive, people who do mining have to spend a lot of capital, sometimes the profits they get are not in accordance with their expenses .

True, bitcoin mining is not profitable because the cost is higher than the results we get, I hope there is a combination of large factories such as Intel, Mitsubishi, Philips or others that can produce mining tools so that they are more effective and efficient

[leea-1334]

I do not disagree that on chain capacity needs to be more but just from what I can gather from my own observations that everybody seems to be building on L2, as long as,,, on L1 when they finalize the channels they can be sure of security and permanence. Which is still the biggest strength of Bitcoin as opposed to Ethereum and others all popularly using L2.

L2 and L1 are fundamentally different. L2 is suitable for smaller transactions while L1 is suitable for larger transactions, which makes far more sense. L2 cannot scale without the base layer being expanded as well. We will always have on-chain transactions when opening or closing the channel, which will happen far more frequently than you think. Lack of transactions on-chain will probably not be due to the popularity of L2 for years to come. There are still various hurdles to overcome.

I do think the level of security is high enough that it does not need to be much higher, just as you say to make it too expensive to attack. But it is not just about hashpower also but the diversity of hashpower that is important.

Mining is as decentralized as it gets, anything that favours economy of scale will also result in centralization. That is a fact. The security would primarily be regarding the costs of attack rather than how decentralized it actually is. If it is not desirable to attack at all, then it simply won't happen.

I agree that L1 confirmation (as I said to finalize the channels) will be happening a lot more often than people imagine,,, which is actually proven already with Ethereum (when looking at Polygon for example), when people have L2, it seems they are more willing to conduct more transactions. For example separating 10 items on individual orders as opposed to batching 10 items on one order, so the myth of L2 pulling away business from L1 is already not true (people still make the final order regardless).

What I meant about reduction of hashpower is that if people leave,,, generally only the smaller ones leave, those whose profit margins are not as good as bigger companies. So a problem might arise if smaller players keep leaving, and only big ones are left. So we can deal with hashpower reduction but diversity might be an issue.

[indo1]

Because bitcoin is already very trendy now, at the beginning of the release of bitcoin, the profit in mining looks small at first because the price is still cheap, if you are a miner 3 years ago you must be a rich man now, because back then mining bitcoin had a lot of rewards, if now it is very difficult, and yes it is less profitable to mine now.

[isabellel2]

I think you are right, BTC mining is quite expensive and I can't imagine that a lot of costs for BTC mining, fuel as well as monthly fees associated with environmental pollution From this problem, many places do not allow BTC mining. BTC mining will become more and more difficult and profits will gradually decrease, not enough for monthly payments.

[peter0425]

for long time now Mining integrity to bring profit is always been questioned but people don't really understand how this work . there are many countries in which not advisable for mining .
but there are some that makes this good for like in countries that has very cheap electricity in which good for miners.

Because bitcoin is already very trendy now, at the beginning of the release of bitcoin, the profit in mining looks small at first because the price is still cheap, if you are a miner 3 years ago you must be a rich man now, because back then mining bitcoin had a lot of rewards, if now it is very difficult, and yes it is less profitable to mine now.

You know that it is not that what the topic says.  try to read at least the full details and then reply.

[eaLiTy]

Your argument seems reasonable but consider the fact that the technology of devices is improving over time. Mining devices are more powerful, consume less electricity. Renewable energy will also play a big part in the evolution of miners' equipment. One thing I am sure of is that mining will stop if miners lose money so they will always find a way to fix it.

At present the miners have the opportunity to mine 144 blocks on a daily basis which is basically 900BTC which is around $43.3 million dollars and these big miners will be willing to update their mining rigs if they think it is outdated and it has become a competitive space and that is what it should be, it is a capitalist market where anyone spending more money will reap more .

[sovie]

bitcoin mining is not profitable enough, if we look at the expenses made by miners, it could be said that bitcoin is not profitable enough, because electricity costs are expensive, people who do mining have to spend a lot of capital, sometimes the profits they get are not in accordance with their expenses .

True, bitcoin mining is not profitable because the cost is higher than the results we get, I hope there is a combination of large factories such as Intel, Mitsubishi, Philips or others that can produce mining tools so that they are more effective and efficient

Thats quite true. Today coins like BTC, ETH etc are not profitable in terms of mining. They need specialized Hardware that eats too much electricity. Those who can afford such expensive BTC mining devices and electricity bills go for Bitcoin mining.
There are coins that are profitable and can be mined on ordinary devices like MASS for instance. We have to search for such coins, since BTC mining is getting centralized to people with huge money.

[Woodie]

On a small scale it isn't profitable for sure but if you still want to make some profit you will have to scale up on your mining rigs and possibly setup your mining farm in a place where electricity is cheaper to maximize on your profits.

Also trying to do away with bitcoin can be the right choice as other altcoins are available for mining which could be more profitable and cheaper to mining with lesser resources to commit.

[songchunlai]

Don't worry, after 140 years, hardware devices will become very cheap. 2 dollars can get a lot of hash power. So BTC is still safe.

[geegaw]

On a small scale it isn't profitable for sure but if you still want to make some profit you will have to scale up on your mining rigs and possibly setup your mining farm in a place where electricity is cheaper to maximize on your profits.

Also trying to do away with bitcoin can be the right choice as other altcoins are available for mining which could be more profitable and cheaper to mining with lesser resources to commit.

We are not the only ones thinking about expanding and upgrading the house of bitcoin mining rigs, the owners of the old bitcoin rigs also know how to improve and preserve the daily bitcoin mining volume and a newcomer who wants to compete for this land is only doing more damage to themselves, besides, because this industry is no longer gloomy, the new owner of the farm needs to invest many times more capital than the old farm. Other crypto have more commitment, the competition is also very amateur and there is still a lot of land and some projects have unlimited traffic like ethereum

[(o)(o)ilikeboobs(o)(o)]

There are tricks in the profession that we don't know. Miners always have their own calculation to get the highest possible profit. ASIC devices are increasingly improved to provide high performance and lower power consumption than previous generations. If they lose, they will stop their work.

[Rajamuda]

bitcoin mining is not profitable enough, if we look at the expenses made by miners, it could be said that bitcoin is not profitable enough, because electricity costs are expensive, people who do mining have to spend a lot of capital, sometimes the profits they get are not in accordance with their expenses .

I think for those who are already professionals in mining, of course they have prepared many things, it is possible that they can cover all risks more readily so that they can gain profits from mining. From a general point of view, it does look very expensive in spending, and not to mention other risks, but there is definitely still a gap to get good results, it just needs very high capital.

[blckhawk]

as of now bitcoin mining is not that profitable now because the amount of bitcoin you can mine is very little, and the amount of power and resource you need to mine is very large so the amount of money you need to spend to mine is much more than the amount of money you can mine in bitcoin.