Are any ASIC miners making ROI anymore?

[nickgaff]

If your power is free you ROI 

[timk225]

And what happens if your power isn't free?  Like for most people?

[ALToids]

And what happens if your power isn't free?  Like for most people?

Then you just made the hardware manufacturer ROI 

They build a miner for $200 and sell it for $600, they just made a 3x profit (maybe more if they "test mine")

[lightfoot]

The problem is quite simple: Bitcoin is a perfect market for mining. Therefore it is *impossible* to make a profit in the traditional sense of the word. Yes you can make money for awhile, but true profits are not possible due to the nature of the protocol and the low cost of entry.

It is a queen's race. Provide services and use bitcoin for what it should be: transactions.

C

[SgtSpike]

Bought 2 BFL 60GH/s ASICs on June 23 2011.  Paid 450 BTC.  They've not even generated half that, and I turned them off a month ago because they stopped making enough to cover electric costs.  1/10 would not buy again.

[timk225]

450 BTC?  Over $450,000 at peak price.  $280,350 at todays prices.  Damn, they gave it to you hard!  Hope they used Vaseline!  Look at those two boxes and think "$280,000 dollars, $280,000 dollars, $280,000 dollars........

Might as well turn them back on and let them run, what do you have to lose at this point?

A friend of mine wants to try mining.  I told him not to BUY an ASIC.  PM me for his address.  You pay shipping.  

Lightfoot - you've got to have an angle.  You've got to find a way to get over on the system.  If all you are going to do with BTC is accept them for purchases just like cash, then how do you get ahead of the game like that?  How do you end up with more BTC value than cash value?  Only if the BTC price spikes after you have the BTCs.

[lightfoot]

450 BTC?  Over $450,000 at peak price.  $280,350 at todays prices.  Damn, they gave it to you hard!  Hope they used Vaseline!  Look at those two boxes and think "$280,000 dollars, $280,000 dollars, $280,000 dollars........

Bad thinking: They weren't worth anything back then. It's the 10,000 bitcoin for a pizza argument, that's what they were worth then, this is what they are worth now.

Lightfoot - you've got to have an angle.  You've got to find a way to get over on the system.  If all you are going to do with BTC is accept them for purchases just like cash, then how do you get ahead of the game like that?  How do you end up with more BTC value than cash value?  Only if the BTC price spikes after you have the BTCs.

*Exactly*! Simply mining is not going to make profits, what you need to do is have an angle that adds value.

What I did was take my little single, use my skills on SMD rework, and added 3 chips. Bingo, had a 20gh miner in November. That helped. Then I did the same thing for other people, charging them a bit but never more than what it was worth plus something. People were happy. Then others who had chips marked them way up. Bye bye business, now they are sitting on a lot of worthless chips :-)

Note: It never pays to be too greedy.

Other people brought hosted locations with extra power to the table. Some brought that cool water cooling or immersion techniques to cool the 110nm blades. Those ideas added value.

So the question is what value are you bringing to the community? Figure that out and there is your profit.

I really should work on other miners or something. Or fix more pocket watches for Bitcoin.

[xstr8guy]

Ordered 4 Jally's in June 2013 totalling 1096 USD. Could 've bought 8 BTC for that, which would now be worth over 5000 USD.

Think the little shits have mined maybe 0.5 BTC (bad power supplies, cubes going 'dead' or 'sick' all the time)...not sure exactly, as some of it was other SHA coins. So unless BTC suddenly becomes 15x more valuable, no. I will not buy ASICs again and wish I never had.

I think this post really underlines that in today's environment mining is simply buying bitcoins a different way.  It was one thing a couple of years ago when you could just point your gaming GPU at bitcoins and make some extra money.  But with the rise of ASICS those days are all gone.  By mining I guess your coins are also a bit more anonymous but you are still basically relying on a price move up to make it profitable.

Honestly, if it wasn't for mining, I'd have ZERO interest in BTC today. After @home mining is dead, I might keep a few BTC in a wallet for shits-n-giggles. But I'm certainly never going to buy another BTC on an exchange under any circumstances.

Is the end of @home mining the end of BTC? Maybe.

[slashka]

About ASICs. Somenone told here in a forum that an ASIC is more profitable then a simple car. If BTC is your hobby and you can use the city transport, then you can buy ASIC instead of a car. Such a comparison I heard here... Don't know if it's a tottaly true, but there is something abount to think...

[lightfoot]

That sounds pretty silly.

C

[timk225]

No slashka, there's nothing to think about there.  You and the person who told you that.  There's either one or two idiots there, Im not sure who it is yet.....

[slashka]

No slashka, there's nothing to think about there.  You and the person who told you that.  There's either one or two idiots there, Im not sure who it is yet.....

But the mining hardware, when it's working is pretty funny as usb antminers "when fun > ROI"

[taipo]

ASIC miners inbuilt into cars, now that would be interesting. Basically a 1kW alternator that stores power into a separate ( deep cycle ) battery when a car is either braking or coasting downhill thus not incurring any extra fuel bill. 1kW inverter then turns the miner on until the battery level drops to a minimum level. All it would need is a cellphone data connection and there you go......a rapidly depreciating capital purchase item ( miner ) inside an even more rapidly depreciating capital purchase ( car ).

[smoothie]

Bought 2 BFL 60GH/s ASICs on June 23 2011.  Paid 450 BTC.  They've not even generated half that, and I turned them off a month ago because they stopped making enough to cover electric costs.  1/10 would not buy again.

really? 

[xstr8guy]

Bought 2 BFL 60GH/s ASICs on June 23 2011.  Paid 450 BTC.  They've not even generated half that, and I turned them off a month ago because they stopped making enough to cover electric costs.  1/10 would not buy again.

really? 

I think he must have been in line for the preorder for the preorder, right?

[freedomno1]

Bought 2 BFL 60GH/s ASICs on June 23 2011.  Paid 450 BTC.  They've not even generated half that, and I turned them off a month ago because they stopped making enough to cover electric costs.  1/10 would not buy again.

really? 

I think he must have been in line for the preorder for the preorder, right?

Can't really blame him he unlike so many others would be one of the first people to order from BFL
Before the douchbaggery when they still seemed a bit legitimate as a company lol.

[Bitsaurus]

Bought 2 BFL 60GH/s ASICs on June 23 2011.  Paid 450 BTC.  They've not even generated half that, and I turned them off a month ago because they stopped making enough to cover electric costs.  1/10 would not buy again.

really? 

I think he must have been in line for the preorder for the preorder, right?

Can't really blame him he unlike so many others would be one of the first people to order from BFL
Before the douchbaggery when they still seemed a bit legitimate as a company lol.

I remember staying awake the whole night before they went on sale constantly refreshing, finally collapsed mid-day and took a 1 hour nap and awoke in a panic - I was able to get a pre-order in, I was about the 50th order and I paid with 210 BTC because the first day they said BTC payments took president over wires and checks. I thought if I could get my miner in a couple of months and be home to mine the second it comes I would be rich (even with $7 BTC).  13 months later the bastards delivered the useless miner. I lost sleep and 210 BTC to get back 15BTC and a bunch of lies.

I even stayed awake all night for Avalon Batch 2 but failed to get one because of the stupid errors.  FML

[wunkbone]

If your power is free you ROI 

Wrong, your ASIC don't mine forever, it will break one day...

[ranochigo]

If your power is free you ROI 

Wrong, your ASIC don't mine forever, it will break one day...

It may or may not last forever, however, we are all certain that difficulty will increase very fast so that it cannot be profitable any longer for that ASIC.

[Bitsaurus]

If your power is free you ROI 

Wrong, your ASIC don't mine forever, it will break one day...

It may or may not last forever, however, we are all certain that difficulty will increase very fast so that it cannot be profitable any longer for that ASIC.

The difficulty doesn't need to increase at a high rate for a miner to be unprofitable.  The miner just needs to cost too much up front relative to how much it will earn.  If all the manufacturers cut their pricing in 1/2 then pretty much every miner (except BFL Mondarch) would ROI.  The problem is that as miner gets close to being a good buy tons of people jump on it and drive said difficulty higher.  Vicious circle.