Why continue mining in loss

[Ketesnuko]

Why do soms people still mine coins at loss ? Is there any opportunities behind this?

[HashingTower]

If free electricity is available it's good to keep mining and hold the coins, when market turn greenish you will sell for higher price but make sure you mine the good coins

[Daodex]

Be very careful with selection of coins if you want to mine and hold, I've done this in the past and it doesn't favour me because most coins I kept are useless, many died In a year later

[mocacinno]

If free electricity is available it's good to keep mining and hold the coins, when market turn greenish you will sell for higher price but make sure you mine the good coins

If there is "free" electricity, you're not mining at a loss...
But, however you look at it, i don't believe in the myth of "free" electricity. Somebody is paying for it, it's just not you (yet). Either your boss, your landlord, your school, your country,... is footing the bill. And if you're not carefull, the costs might end up back with you in the end: you might get fired, your rent might go up, your school might kick you out, your taxes might rise...

But back on topic: there are people who believe that mining while at a net loss is smart because they believe the price of the coin they're mining will rise in the future... This is completely wrong...

Let's make a very simple, fictional example between 2 guys:

On one side you have Bob, he's a miner who continues mining at a loss.
The coin he mines costs him $1000/coin in electricity to mine, but the current market value is only $500. In the course of a month, he mines 10 coins, so there's $10.000 out of his pocket and he has a coin value of $5000. In the next month, the coin value explodes to x10. He now has $50.000 in coin value, and he spent $10.000 to obtain these coins, so his net profit is $40.000.

On the other side, there's Alice. She's the smarter of the two.
When the mining became unprofitable, she turns her miner off. Instead of spending $10.000 in electricity, she just buys $10.000 worth of the coin on an exchange. Since the price is $500 per coin, she buys 20. She has the double amount of coins that Bob has!!!
In the next month, the coin value explodes to x10. She now has $100.000 in coin value, and she spent $10.000 to obtain these coins, so her net profit is $90.000.

In these scenario's, Alice's profit's were MORE than double of Bob's. So if mining becomes unprofitable, but you really believe in the coin you're mining, the smarter thing is to use the money you would have spent on electricity (and even mining gear if you don't expect mining to become profitable again) and buy coins directly.

There are 2 reasons i can think of to continue mining anyways:

• You REALLY believe in the coin, and there's no market to buy these coins, or no liquidity...
• You won't sell the mining gear anyways and you're heating your house with electricity anyways... So why not just run the mining gear and let it convert electricity into heat to make your house nice and warm. Do be carefull: it's not a good idear to buy mining equipment for this purpose!!! A "normal" spaceheater is much cheaper than mining gear, it's safer, it's not as loud.... So if you have to buy mining gear to mine at a loss for the sole purpose of replacing an electric stove, you might end up losing money...

[HashingTower]

If free electricity is available it's good to keep mining and hold the coins, when market turn greenish you will sell for higher price but make sure you mine the good coins

If there is "free" electricity, you're not mining at a loss...
But, however you look at it, i don't believe in the myth of "free" electricity. Somebody is paying for it, it's just not you (yet). Either your boss, your landlord, your school, your country,... is footing the bill. And if you're not carefull, the costs might end up back with you in the end: you might get fired, your rent might go up, your school might kick you out, your taxes might rise...

But back on topic: there are people who believe that mining while at a net loss is smart because they believe the price of the coin they're mining will rise in the future... This is completely wrong...

Let's make a very simple, fictional example between 2 guys:

On one side you have Bob, he's a miner who continues mining at a loss.
The coin he mines costs him $1000/coin in electricity to mine, but the current market value is only $500. In the course of a month, he mines 10 coins, so there's $10.000 out of his pocket and he has a coin value of $5000. In the next month, the coin value explodes to x10. He now has $50.000 in coin value, and he spent $10.000 to obtain these coins, so his net profit is $40.000.

On the other side, there's Alice. She's the smarter of the two.
When the mining became unprofitable, she turns her miner off. Instead of spending $10.000 in electricity, she just buys $10.000 worth of the coin on an exchange. Since the price is $500 per coin, she buys 20. She has the double amount of coins that Bob has!!!
In the next month, the coin value explodes to x10. She now has $100.000 in coin value, and she spent $10.000 to obtain these coins, so her net profit is $90.000.

In these scenario's, Alice's profit's were MORE than double of Bob's. So if mining becomes unprofitable, but you really believe in the coin you're mining, the smarter thing is to use the money you would have spent on electricity (and even mining gear if you don't expect mining to become profitable again) and buy coins directly.

There are 2 reasons i can think of to continue mining anyways:

• You REALLY believe in the coin, and there's no market to buy these coins, or no liquidity...
• You won't sell the mining gear anyways and you're heating your house with electricity anyways... So why not just run the mining gear and let it convert electricity into heat to make your house nice and warm. Do be carefull: it's not a good idear to buy mining equipment for this purpose!!! A "normal" spaceheater is much cheaper than mining gear, it's safer, it's not as loud.... So if you have to buy mining gear to mine at a loss for the sole purpose of replacing an electric stove, you might end up losing money...

You do have point, what I meant by free electricity is using wind power or solar energy since this is how I've been powering my rigs for over a year now and I've made back my ROI already, I don't believe there is free electricity from grid power too

[Daodex]

If free electricity is available it's good to keep mining and hold the coins, when market turn greenish you will sell for higher price but make sure you mine the good coins

If there is "free" electricity, you're not mining at a loss...
But, however you look at it, i don't believe in the myth of "free" electricity. Somebody is paying for it, it's just not you (yet). Either your boss, your landlord, your school, your country,... is footing the bill. And if you're not carefull, the costs might end up back with you in the end: you might get fired, your rent might go up, your school might kick you out, your taxes might rise...

But back on topic: there are people who believe that mining while at a net loss is smart because they believe the price of the coin they're mining will rise in the future... This is completely wrong...

Let's make a very simple, fictional example between 2 guys:

On one side you have Bob, he's a miner who continues mining at a loss.
The coin he mines costs him $1000/coin in electricity to mine, but the current market value is only $500. In the course of a month, he mines 10 coins, so there's $10.000 out of his pocket and he has a coin value of $5000. In the next month, the coin value explodes to x10. He now has $50.000 in coin value, and he spent $10.000 to obtain these coins, so his net profit is $40.000.

On the other side, there's Alice. She's the smarter of the two.
When the mining became unprofitable, she turns her miner off. Instead of spending $10.000 in electricity, she just buys $10.000 worth of the coin on an exchange. Since the price is $500 per coin, she buys 20. She has the double amount of coins that Bob has!!!
In the next month, the coin value explodes to x10. She now has $100.000 in coin value, and she spent $10.000 to obtain these coins, so her net profit is $90.000.

In these scenario's, Alice's profit's were MORE than double of Bob's. So if mining becomes unprofitable, but you really believe in the coin you're mining, the smarter thing is to use the money you would have spent on electricity (and even mining gear if you don't expect mining to become profitable again) and buy coins directly.

There are 2 reasons i can think of to continue mining anyways:

• You REALLY believe in the coin, and there's no market to buy these coins, or no liquidity...
• You won't sell the mining gear anyways and you're heating your house with electricity anyways... So why not just run the mining gear and let it convert electricity into heat to make your house nice and warm. Do be carefull: it's not a good idear to buy mining equipment for this purpose!!! A "normal" spaceheater is much cheaper than mining gear, it's safer, it's not as loud.... So if you have to buy mining gear to mine at a loss for the sole purpose of replacing an electric stove, you might end up losing money...

You do have point, what I meant by free electricity is using wind power or solar energy since this is how I've been powering my rigs for over a year now and I've made back my ROI already, I don't believe there is free electricity from grid power too

You talking as if those solar panels are given to you for free, to build a solar mining farm costs alot I believe so this automatically increase your ROI correct me if im wrong

[FP91G]

Why do soms people still mine coins at loss ? Is there any opportunities behind this?

Most of the miners sold their coins and made a good profit in 2021. Therefore, they have enough funds to pay their electricity bills. Miners with expensive electricity will soon start to turn off, but most miners work where electricity is not very expensive.

[Zotak337]

Why do soms people still mine coins at loss ? Is there any opportunities behind this?

Most of the miners sold their coins and made a good profit in 2021. Therefore, they have enough funds to pay their electricity bills. Miners with expensive electricity will soon start to turn off, but most miners work where electricity is not very expensive.

I doubt this friend, why mining difficulty always go way down once mining profit isn't making sense anymore? If most miners are mining in a country with low electricity bill then difficulty won't be so down

[waywoos2]

I mined almost 20 eth at a slight loss for over a year. My electric bills kept coming. And bam when it reached around 4.5k I sold.
I was hoping it would rise.  It did.  Luck maybe.

[HardCore12V]

I mined almost 20 eth at a slight loss for over a year. My electric bills kept coming. And bam when it reached around 4.5k I sold.
I was hoping it would rise.  It did.  Luck maybe.

Don't ever say that ETH reaching 4k is luck, ETh is one of the best coins that one can rely on for long term holding I'm glad you hold yours and sell when the price are high many don't believe in this idea of mining at loss and selling at high price later, well done 👍

[swogerino]

I continue to mine although not yet at a loss even if I were I would continue mining because of my personal experience from 2016 to end of 2019.I kept on mining even when Bitcoin price crashed really big after December 2017 although my partner in business was telling me better to shut down the miners because we are paying a lot of electricity.I insisted to go on mining as in the future I told him maybe the price of Bitcoin increases in value really big.And so we kept mining at a loss,by paying 200 USD electricity and just mining 70-90 USD in Bitcoin we used Nicehash back then.End of story the value of those coins increased really big and we withdrawn some of them to cover our initial investment,we build a new mining rig with near 300 Mhsh processing power and we also have saved another not so small chunk of those coins since then.We did the withdraw and investment in February/March of 2021 at near 60.000 USD for a Bitcoin.

Based on this I will continue to mine at a loss until I have faith that Bitcoin price will increase again even more in the future.

[badbart]

No one should be lose to mining at a loss yet.  Mining at a loss for a long period of time makes no sense, unless you have a rig or a couplie gpus the electrical cost is insignificant.

[Toughit]

I continue to mine although not yet at a loss even if I were I would continue mining because of my personal experience from 2016 to end of 2019.I kept on mining even when Bitcoin price crashed really big after December 2017 although my partner in business was telling me better to shut down the miners because we are paying a lot of electricity.I insisted to go on mining as in the future I told him maybe the price of Bitcoin increases in value really big.And so we kept mining at a loss,by paying 200 USD electricity and just mining 70-90 USD in Bitcoin we used Nicehash back then.End of story the value of those coins increased really big and we withdrawn some of them to cover our initial investment,we build a new mining rig with near 300 Mhsh processing power and we also have saved another not so small chunk of those coins since then.We did the withdraw and investment in February/March of 2021 at near 60.000 USD for a Bitcoin.

Based on this I will continue to mine at a loss until I have faith that Bitcoin price will increase again even more in the future.

You should listen to your business partner!

You should have stopped mining and spent the $200 a month you spent on electricity to buy coins. Instead you spent $200 to get $70-$90, a loss of $130-$110 dollars a month of Bitcoin.

You would have made 2-3 times as much profit by NOT mining..

[swogerino]

I continue to mine although not yet at a loss even if I were I would continue mining because of my personal experience from 2016 to end of 2019.I kept on mining even when Bitcoin price crashed really big after December 2017 although my partner in business was telling me better to shut down the miners because we are paying a lot of electricity.I insisted to go on mining as in the future I told him maybe the price of Bitcoin increases in value really big.And so we kept mining at a loss,by paying 200 USD electricity and just mining 70-90 USD in Bitcoin we used Nicehash back then.End of story the value of those coins increased really big and we withdrawn some of them to cover our initial investment,we build a new mining rig with near 300 Mhsh processing power and we also have saved another not so small chunk of those coins since then.We did the withdraw and investment in February/March of 2021 at near 60.000 USD for a Bitcoin.

Based on this I will continue to mine at a loss until I have faith that Bitcoin price will increase again even more in the future.

You should listen to your business partner!

You should have stopped mining and spent the $200 a month you spent on electricity to buy coins. Instead you spent $200 to get $70-$90, a loss of $130-$110 dollars a month of Bitcoin.

You would have made 2-3 times as much profit by NOT mining..

Maybe but I am glad I did not do that,I would definitely not have held the coins for this long while mining operations continued for 2 years without a day off after the fall of January 2018.I and my partner also which wanted to sell every mining gear we had and quit,we would not be that patient,so I am happy that I continued to mine rather than buy the coin.

[OgNasty]

Why do soms people still mine coins at loss ? Is there any opportunities behind this?

The price doesn't matter until you sell.  I'm assuming people who mine at a loss are expecting higher prices in the future to compensate for their effort.  In the past, this has been a winning strategy.  After going through the effort to purchase GPUs and set up mining rigs, it isn't like you'd switch them on and off depending on what the price is doing that hour.  You go through all that effort and make the investment, you might as well follow through and see what happens.  The market is so volatile, if you're patient it's hard to lose doing anything.  I've seen people offer to give away miners by the hundreds if you pay shipping, and then 2 years later people are selling them for hundreds of dollars each for the same miners when they're profitable again.  Crypto is very much a long game.  Those who try to get in and out with the daily movements almost always end in tears.  A story as old as time.

[philipma1957]

Why do soms people still mine coins at loss ? Is there any opportunities behind this?

Sure.  If you had an L3+ and mined Doge/LTC at a loss from July 2018 to April 2021 then cashed you made a fucking fortune. With 1 miner that would have cost under 400 in July 2018

edit .

Lost would have been from July 2018 to Oct 2020.  After that date it was always making  $$

[Toughit]

Maybe but I am glad I did not do that,I would definitely not have held the coins for this long while mining operations continued for 2 years without a day off after the fall of January 2018.I and my partner also which wanted to sell every mining gear we had and quit,we would not be that patient,so I am happy that I continued to mine rather than buy the coin.

That is a great answer.

While logic would say you should stop mining and buy coins with cash, it would be difficult to stick with that discipline month after month when your coin just dropped from $1000 to $200 (as ETH did), the resale price of your cards dropped to nothing and every forum said the end was here.

When I shut down in 2018, the last thing on my mind was to spend cash to buy more.   Congrats on having the vision to stay in the game.

[adaseb]

There are many reasons why some mine at a loss. One of them can be that they are doing it as a hobby and the primary goal is not the money, they do it to keep themselves occupied. It takes alot of time to build rigs and maintain them.

Another reason is that someone maybe doesn't want to KYC to buy coins. If they mine them instead they don't need to worry about that until it's time to sell.

Obviously if you are spending more mining than it would cost to buy directly then it doesn't make sense. Plus if you buy directly you can buy months or years worth of mining instead of just waiting for the daily pool payouts. So if it rallies you won't miss out and get stuck with an increasing difficulty.

[7deadlyBTCIN]

Even papers have cost more than they used to in my country today, what does this tell me? Nothing is really a loss until you sell them off, today almost every is money in my country, treat your coins as gold and your miners as goldmine and keep looking forward into the future

[Williamm07]

When bear market comes it always feels like all hope are lost, really it's not easy to hold coins through a bear market, the feeling of wasting your time will always fill the air, to become a successful holder you have to be disciplined to a stage, make sure you have other source of income too