$30,000 on mining or spent on buying coins?

[mrmoogdroog]

Hi guys, suppose i'm a late player into the mining game. I've got a friend with around $30,000 to put into investment, i've got very cheap electric so i'm not fused with energy consumption that much, just wanted some advice on what hardware to go forward with. I see that if i'm heading to mine bitcoins that Antminer S1 are obviously the cheapest gh/s. But take as least 2 months to pay off, would it be more with the difficulty change?

I've also seen that KnC have a titan 300mh/s which sounds good, but i'm not sure about pre orders as wouldn't it become less profitable by the time it arrived here in the UK. The other option is to build a few rigs? any hardware recommendations? any advice would be appreciated  

[NorTiaN]

Buy BTC. No doubt about that. I've been mining with ASICS since October (mined with GPUs before) and if I had bought coins instead, I'd would made twice the profit...
And dont take too long cause the price seems to be going up...

Cheers

[Light]

Buy BTC. No doubt about that. I've been mining with ASICS since October (mined with GPUs before) and if I had bought coins instead, I'd would made twice the profit...
And dont take too long cause the price seems to be going up...

I would generally agree with this statement. If you're mining then you'll have to cash out to fiat at some point to pay for the electricity which means if the value of BTC goes up you'll have benefited less than you would have if you outright purchased BTC. If the price goes down, you're miners will effectively earn 'less' and you'll still have to convert BTC albeit more and you'll have less BTC holdings. Fundamentally, if you're looking for a profit you'd be better off buying rather than mining unless you're sure that you're getting efficient miners and cheap enough electricity to warrant it.

[souljah1h]

split it, 70% buy and buy a mini KNC titan

[timk225]

Find a casino with a roulette wheel and put your $30,000 on red.  You'll either bust or double your money, and a lot faster than by buying coins or mining.

[cr4sh0verride]

If you have $30,000 of disposable income then you should invest in Bitcoin when you understand the principals behind why it's revolutionary
If you see it through to the end you're going to get more out of it than any amount of money it's going to be worth in the distant future

If you do this it doesn't matter if you mine or buy the Bitcoins... or in fact work out which one will get you THE most Bitcoins irrespective of what it's going to be worth next week or next year.

If you just want to make a profit in Fiat pure and simple.. Just buy them and sell if and when they go up

[likesbtc]

No doubt about that.  Buy BTC

[fractalbc]

Do you want the ultimate answer?

Ok, here it is.

Dunno.

Lotsa folk bought when BTC was at 1500 USD.  They lost their shirts.

Lotsa folk bought when BTC was at 5 USD.  They have, on paper, made a fortune.

So, is buying at 500 USD gonna make you money or loose you money?

Dunno.

Is buying mining hardware gonna make you money or loose you money?

Probably gonna loose you money unless you have really cheep electricity.

Do you think BTC is gonna go up?  Are you willing to gamble that it does?  If so, buy BTC.

Do you have cheap electricity?  Do you think there are going to be no major changes in the mining market over the next half year?  If so, buy hardware.

Otherwise, go to Vegas if you feel risky, buy stock if you feel kinda risky or buy a CD if you want to slowly loose your money to inflation.

[Tripjammer]

I would buy 50 percent coins and preorder two miners from KNC miner...

Neptune third batch at $5500 (sha256)
Mini Titan at $5500 (scrypt)

Put the mini Titan on a scrypt merged multi pool
Put the Neptune in a sha256 multipool

Take the $19k remaining and buy bitcoin.
Take 5 bitcoins and daytrade on cryptsy or mintpal.

[crazyivan]

Just buy coins. Mining has become so competitive recently that 30k is simply not enough to stay in this game for a long time. BTC was almost $1200 a few months ago and I strongly belive it ll go back to that price and above by the end of this year. So your friend might double his money and more.

However, this is what I would do, so make your own decision.

[Dr.Zaius]

Neither.

Ask yourself if bitcoin is the currency of the future why is the guy who is selling to you parting with his? Especially for filthy fiat? You will be handing 30k to a miner that conjured units of nothing up from thin air because of an "algo".

The time to buy bitcoin was when the market cap was in the low millions, even at low hundreds of millions. Today fully mined supply puts the value at $10-12billion.

You will sleep better having enjoyed the money on something else. You know like something you may actually need and find enjoyment in. Bitcoin has ruined more lives then it has helped.

[crazyoddman]

Neither.

Ask yourself if bitcoin is the currency of the future why is the guy who is selling to you parting with his? Especially for filthy fiat? You will be handing 30k to a miner that conjured units of nothing up from thin air because of an "algo".

The time to buy bitcoin was when the market cap was in the low millions, even at low hundreds of millions. Today fully mined supply puts the value at $10-12billion.

You will sleep better having enjoyed the money on something else. You know like something you may actually need and find enjoyment in. Bitcoin has ruined more lives then it has helped.

Am sure he has mentioned its investment money so i dont see it ideal to enjoy the money on something else. Investment is risk therefore its a risk/reward  question. If it were me, i would have bought Bitcoin as long as the reward is required in the medium to long term because i am optimistic about the BTC at least testing its previous high before a potential decline or a further surge. I have done trading in the forex market and that is one rule that is 90% likely to be obeyed, a high must be tested again before further decline. I have not really studied much about mining but i think when you buy mining equipment you will know the returns and the timeframe therefore it is rather boring for me to invest in mining and also mining hardware has a lifetime. If you check on ebay, the amount of mining equipment up for sale is just too much and it wont cope with the demands nowadays, which is why i would buy bitcoins.

[psybits]

Don't think you have to go all in on one thing only.

My advice would be to spread it around a bit - sure if you want to do some mining yourself go for it.

But also use some to just buy coins directly (many people who have invested big time in mining had wished they had just bought coins instead). If BTC goes back to 1000 you'll sure wish you had some coins on hand instead of fighting an ever increasing mining difficulty.

You could also look into cloud mining which means you don't have to worry about maintaining the miner or electricity costs at all and can begin mining immediately. My personal favorite is PB Mining  (where it is currently 0.58 BTC for 100 GH/s) but never invest more than you can afford to lose in cloud mining, as the operation may fall through. Never invest more than you can afford in anything Bitcoin related, good luck to you sir

Also, yes pre orders have ruined many people, just do a bit of poking around the forums where people have waited 12 months for BFL ASICs and would have been much better off just holding onto their coins instead. Like 1000% better off.

[jamesc760]

If I had $30K myself right now, I'd buy BTC directly and hold until the next bubble. Pre-ordering a mining rig is a fool's game, been there and done that and lost my shirt. Just buy BTC now and hold. You can thank me later.

[timk225]

I think that if you're going to buy a SHA ASIC, now is the time to do it when older units are coming out on ebay.  You can have less $ invested and still hash a lot.

I am currenly LOLLING at all the GPUs being sold in bulk on ebay, by people who bought them at elevated prices after Litecoin surged its price.

Now it is a buyers market.  I GPU mine certain Scrypt-N coins, and I only buy GPUs for low low bargain basement discount prices, so if and when I decide to sell my stuff, I have a good chance of recovering most or all of my cash invested in GPUs.  For a few months there, it bothered me to not be adding to my GPU farm, but the high prices of GPUs stopped me, and now I am glad I waited.

Over at the Litecoin forums.org, there's this one dickwad named Jrose120 who, although very knowledgeable about computers, dove in too hard and too fast.  He had the garage in his rented house totally rewired to handle lots of GPUs, he bought several hundred GPUs when the prices were at their highest, built himself a hash farm running 70-90 Mhash, then pretty much dropped off the LTC forums and has been selling off his GPUs, at least some of them, on ebay.

And as if that isn't enough, he did it all on his credit cards and $50,000 from a relative, so he has that pressure on him too.

I don't understand why he pussed out, he is mining different coins now, but if he had stuck with one or two good ones and kept at it, he would have made more return on his investment.

[Simon8x]

If I were you, I would just buy bitcoin and litecoin with the money.

[precrime3]

I would start an investment journal like here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=406112.0

Guy has 10,000 USD worth of HBN, with 2% returns every 10 days That's $600 every 10days for you... thats at current market prices for HBN (hobonickels). Hobonickels has a strong community behind it, and many believe it will still go up. Besides HBN this would be my personal journal with 30K

• 8500USD >LTC
• 4000 USD > VERT
• 3000 USD > Peercoin
• 2500USD >BTC
• 1500USD > FTC
• 1500 USD > DOGE
• 1500 USD > Darkcoin
• 1500 USD> Maxcoin
• 1500 USD> Fluttercoin
• 1500 USD > Devcoin
• 1500 USD > Goldcoin

DISCLAIMER: AM NOT A BAGHOLDER

[steamon]

Just buy coins and the above is not a bad idea at all. If I didn't mess so much with miners I would have more bitcoins. End of the year I hope to have a decent stack but in this situation do not mine. 1 may 1 thz starts mining for me I wait that out. But so much mining power getting on the network what you think when asicminer activate there gen 3 farm? Normal miners will by quicker out the game then ever. It has been a racing game since the start if you bet on the right horse you get first in the line and you make plenty off bitcoins thats just how it works. Like gathering in a gold mine. if I had spare money buy bitcoins all the way.

If someone releases a 1000 thz machine you are first? Of course invest but always risk.

[Amph]

Buy BTC. No doubt about that. I've been mining with ASICS since October (mined with GPUs before) and if I had bought coins instead, I'd would made twice the profit...
And dont take too long cause the price seems to be going up...

I would generally agree with this statement. If you're mining then you'll have to cash out to fiat at some point to pay for the electricity which means if the value of BTC goes up you'll have benefited less than you would have if you outright purchased BTC. If the price goes down, you're miners will effectively earn 'less' and you'll still have to convert BTC albeit more and you'll have less BTC holdings. Fundamentally, if you're looking for a profit you'd be better off buying rather than mining unless you're sure that you're getting efficient miners and cheap enough electricity to warrant it.

not if you instamine for 5 min and then shut down your ring

[Antoine777]

If I had $30000 to invest  I would try to have as much bitcoins as possible quiclky because I believe in bitcoins.
The best way to have more bitcoins with fiat is to buy shares of mining compagnies earning bitcoins.

Hypothesis

• I WANT to risk my $30000
• I AM a real bitcoin believer
• 2014 BTC = $500
• 2015 BTC = $1,000
• My compagny will reinvest enougth to outpass de difficulty growth

Option 1 - Buy BTC & wait - I buy 60 BTC  ====>      2015 value : 60 * 1000 = $60,000


Option 2 - Buy Shares &  take dividends - I buy 60 shares 1BTC each - Dividend 50% per year
                              2015 value :
                                     Dividends  2014 :  15BTC
                                     Dividends  2015 :  30BTC
                                     Shares      : 60BTC
                                        Total           60+30+15 =105BTC *$1000 = $105,000

And on top...if we are 2015 and BTC = $1000 the value of my shares will be much more than 60BTC. May be 100 I think so it is more $145,000


Option 3 - Buy Shares & reinvest dividends - I buy 60 shares 1BTC each - Dividend 50% per year
                              2015 value :
                                     Dividends  2014 : 15BTC ==>reinvest
                                     Dividends  2015 : 37.5BTC
                                     Shares      : 75BTC
                                        Total           75+37.5 = 112.5BTC * $1000 = $112.500
And on top...my shares worth more 75 ==>130... so may be  $167,500