Is bitcoin mining just completely not profitable for retail?

[KingZee]

Bitmain Antminer KS5 Pro. The state of the art mining rig today, pumps out 21TH of hashrate. You can buy one to receive this month for 30k, or wait until august and get it for a cheap 11k$.

21TH, will make you 1$/day.

That's 27 years for ROI (obviously not because of difficulty and price changes, but let's assume.)

Say you buy 20 of these bad boys.

This is going to set you back 220,000$. For a hashrate of 420 THs.

It will take you 500 days, to be able to accumulate 11k, to add one more miner to your farm.

Remember I am completely disregarding any electricity costs here, just to realize how absurd it all is.

Is there any conceivable scenario, where buying a bitcoin miner today, is more financially profitable than just buying bitcoin?

[ABCbits]

I think you made 2 mistake here.
1. https://www.asicminervalue.com/miners/bitmain/antminer-ks5-pro-21th says it's KHeavyHash ASIC, not SHA-256 ASIC. In addition, the website claims you can get about $92/day (excluding electricity).
2. Using this calculator (https://minerstat.com/coin/BTC) while excluding electricity, 21 TH/s (for SHA-256) produce about $1/day.

[paid2]

Yeah, you're talking about two completely different things, you can't take anything other than a sha256 ASIC to make plans on BTC mining...

[FP91G]

Use this resource to check the performance of asics.
https://www.asicminervalue.com/
Кaspa is an altcoin, the price of which can go down at any moment and these expensive asics will turn into useless junk.

[TheUltraElite]

It more profitable to just buy bitcoin whenever the prices go down instead of buying ASICs to mine bitcoin. As you have correctly pointed out, the chance of getting the money back of what you put in to get the farm set up and the breaking even point are going to be far off. Till then you would have to sustain the costs and hope that additional costs dont come up.

If you observe the mining channels on youtube, they promote a certain altcoin for sometime and then move to another one. This is in sync with the coins that are having the best profit for that period. ASICs built for that algorithm might be a complete waste for you in case the price drops and you have just started mining it.

[BitMaxz]

It more profitable to just buy bitcoin whenever the prices go down instead of buying ASICs to mine bitcoin. As you have correctly pointed out, the chance of getting the money back of what you put in to get the farm set up and the breaking even point are going to be far off. Till then you would have to sustain the costs and hope that additional costs don't come up.

No, mining is different from buying BTC and profitability depends on their electricity rate if you don't have a cheap power rate and don't have technical skills then stop planning on mining because it won't be worth mining in the long term.

If you just buy BTC and hold at the current price it doesn't generate a profit what if the price keeps declinin it stays at the current price for almost a year or 2?

[TheUltraElite]

No, mining is different from buying BTC and profitability depends on their electricity rate if you don't have a cheap power rate and don't have technical skills then stop planning on mining because it won't be worth mining in the long term.

Exactly, most people are not having it first hand unless they learn about it. It makes much more sense to buy bitcoin which only takes a few clicks and a lot of fiat money from the buyer's side while mining is a chore on its own. Not to mention that with warmer countries, heating is an issue and electricity is not cheap.

If you just buy BTC and hold at the current price it doesn't generate a profit what if the price keeps declinin it stays at the current price for almost a year or 2?

Buying BTC does not necessarily mean just sitting on it. Some people will actively trade. Some will sell at the long term. All this depends on the buying price. But the amount of attention that it needs is much less than having to run a farm of miners.

[Assface16678]

It more profitable to just buy bitcoin whenever the prices go down instead of buying ASICs to mine bitcoin. As you have correctly pointed out, the chance of getting the money back of what you put in to get the farm set up and the breaking even point are going to be far off. Till then you would have to sustain the costs and hope that additional costs don't come up.

No, mining is different from buying BTC and profitability depends on their electricity rate if you don't have a cheap power rate and don't have technical skills then stop planning on mining because it won't be worth mining in the long term.

If you just buy BTC and hold at the current price it doesn't generate a profit what if the price keeps declinin it stays at the current price for almost a year or 2?

But still, holding bitcoin is much more efficient and easier than mining because if you decide to mine bitcoin, you will need to set up and buy equipment for your mining rig, and you will wait for you to become profitable in mining while you are having expenses in electricity and wifi connection, so together, the expenses of mining are quite a lot and not applicable for small investors. 

But with bitcoin holding, anyone could buy bitcoin and hold it until it becomes profitable, but again, it is not that simple. In order to earn through holding, an investor should know when to enter the market or buy bitcoin so that it doesn't catch up in the bitcoin price declining, and if done correctly, you will be profitable and successful in holding bitcoin. It's not that I'm against bitcoin mining; it's just that mining is too hassle and cannot be afforded by small investors, while bitcoin holding is more efficient and practical than mining.