Should I buy a USB miner? I get free electricity...

[Penis]

I'm in a unique situation at the moment where I get free electricity since I live with my parents.

The cheapest USB miners I've seen go for about $20, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. I've noticed that there are two types - one type that runs at 330MHash/s and another type that runs at about 2.2GHash/s. I had the opportunity to snap up 6 of the latter types for $50 once but didn't take it. Now I definitely regret not buying those while I had the chance.

So anyway, at these prices and with free electricity, do you think it is worth attempting to mine Bitcoin and SHA-256 altcoins?

Or does electricity not really come into play since USB miners use so little anyway?

[TCM]

I would hardly call someone else paying "free", let alone your parents paying it.

[gondel]

If you try mining BTC with this you are not going to mine anything. Complete waste of energy in my opinion.
BR

[Kprawn]

I'm in a unique situation at the moment where I get free electricity since I live with my parents.

That kind of thinking, is going to get your parents in more debt, and you without a roof over your head.

[newIndia]

I'm in a unique situation at the moment where I get free electricity since I live with my parents.

The cheapest USB miners I've seen go for about $20, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. I've noticed that there are two types - one type that runs at 330MHash/s and another type that runs at about 2.2GHash/s. I had the opportunity to snap up 6 of the latter types for $50 once but didn't take it. Now I definitely regret not buying those while I had the chance.

So anyway, at these prices and with free electricity, do you think it is worth attempting to mine Bitcoin and SHA-256 altcoins?

Or does electricity not really come into play since USB miners use so little anyway?

Now as your questions are answered, can u plz tell us, why u have taken such a great forum name ?

[Mikez]

I'm in a unique situation at the moment where I get free electricity since I live with my parents.

That kind of thinking, is going to get your parents in more debt, and you without a roof over your head.

Thank you for threads like these, as they really put a smile to my face.
On-topic: Personally, I'd like a 1st gen USB miner as well. It's quite a nice novelty item and it would make a nice keychain. Something that shows my Bitcoin support.

Those 330mh/s USB contributed for a bried period of time on the blockchain, time to contribute to my keychain .

[jambola2]

I'm in a unique situation at the moment where I get free electricity since I live with my parents.

The cheapest USB miners I've seen go for about $20, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. I've noticed that there are two types - one type that runs at 330MHash/s and another type that runs at about 2.2GHash/s. I had the opportunity to snap up 6 of the latter types for $50 once but didn't take it. Now I definitely regret not buying those while I had the chance.

So anyway, at these prices and with free electricity, do you think it is worth attempting to mine Bitcoin and SHA-256 altcoins?

Or does electricity not really come into play since USB miners use so little anyway?

You will most likely not break even.

Even with 0 electricity costs , the price of the BTC < the price of the USB miner.
It will not be worth it even with free electricity.

If you want to invest in Bitcoin , buy it directly.

On the other hand , these miners are fun as memorabilia

[CEG5952]

LOL, free = my parents pay for it.    But in general, if you get free electricity, yes, it's worth it (as long as you aren't frying your hardware). But it still will take a long, long time to see any returns.

[Mikez]

LOL, free = my parents pay for it.  

There will come a time when OP will find that statement funny as well. That time is not today I'm afraid .

At today's BTC prices and difficulty, you will make around $0.28/month. Wow!

[odolvlobo]

Electricity is not a major factor in ASIC mining (yet). If you get "free" electricity, you are better of mining scrypt coins with your GPU, or CPU-only coins.

[RainMan28]

Another vote for spending the money you would spend on buying miners and just buy BTC directly.

Maybe even buy some for your parents and set them up with a wallet!

[deebob]

How is your parents paying for something free electricity...

Your not set within reality, your just adding to their bills. You really want huge electric bill for your parents because of getting maybe 0.001 bitcoin produced?

You need a better plan.

Unless where you live you do get free electricity thats a different story. Nice name by the way lol.

[CEG5952]

Electricity is not a major factor in ASIC mining (yet). If you get "free" electricity, you are better of mining scrypt coins with your GPU, or CPU-only coins.

Agreed. The best returns for casual miners IMO can be found mining low difficulty coins that have not been listed on exchanges yet. It's hit or miss, but the return on speculation can be quite large.

[DolanDuck]

If you really want to invest in mining hardware you should think about building a GPU rig but I recommend investing the cash to directly buy bitcoins.

[DrG]

A USB miner would be a cheap way to go about learning how to set up a basic miner, understand share submission, stratum protocol, etc.  It won't be making any money, it would be more like a BTC tutorial you have to pay for.

[BitsBitsBits]

I would hardly call someone else paying "free", let alone your parents paying it.

Haha, poor parents. :3

[Dannie]

The cheapest USB miners I've seen go for about $20, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. I've noticed that there are two types - one type that runs at 330MHash/s and another type that runs at about 2.2GHash/s. I had the opportunity to snap up 6 of the latter types for $50 once but didn't take it. Now I definitely regret not buying those while I had the chance.

With 0 electricity fee, 10% difficulty increment every 2016 blocks, 0% pool fee and 13.2 GH/s (6*2.2), you would get about 0.08 btc after 2 years.
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator

For comparison, you can buy 0.08 btc with 52 USD (at current bitstamp price) now.

[Dannie]

I would hardly call someone else paying "free", let alone your parents paying it.

His parents probably couldn't notice it, if OP is just going to play with a few USB miners.

[Rigon]

if you live in the new york projects usually the utility bill is covered, I had a freind who had electrical free utilities

[ajareselde]

you cant realy make any profit from usb miners, better and safer option is to simply invest into btc/some other crypto.
its just a matter of time when more ppl is gona realise that they are just loosing money buying unprofitable mining eq. that will never ROI.

cheers