Reasons Mining Will NEVER Be Profitable

[cloverme]

Mining is profitable, but you need to work at it constantly, upgrade your equipment at the right times, think outside the box, and control your fixed costs as much as possible. Cloud mining on the other hand will always be a loss in my opinion, the numbers just never make sense.

[silversurfer1958]

As soon as any profit appears anywhere, hundreds of people will point their miners at it and mine the profit out of it.
You have to just hope the coins you mine will increase in value, if they are good coins, that means doing research
on the coins you mine.

[Searing]

Er huh. 1035 a month Titan miners after Roi'd and electric. Now if just mean btc miners I 'll
Take more note of your position.

[Amph]

i think the opposite it's true, mining will be always profitable, but only for a certain group of people/big farm, that will in the end control the network

[notlist3d]

i think the opposite it's true, mining will be always profitable, but only for a certain group of people/big farm, that will in the end control the network

Exactly it all comes down to cost.  In most cases electricity price makes or breaks you.   I will say mining has treated me well over the past few years... so to say it will never be profitable is false.   Maybe say "Never be profitable to some" then it could be true.  But some out there are still mining profitable.

Heck I even invested a little in GPU's to mine ether as it was a fun project to do again a chance to mess with GPU mining.   And it can be done at pretty  "normal" for lack of better term electricity rates.    And you can sell GPU's down the road.   

[leowonderful]

I'll say what I'm going to say right here: Mining is like gambling since there are so many factors that can lead to negative roi or doubling your money. You have nearly no control over the price of BTC nor the difficulty. What I said usually does not apply for people with very cheap electricity, although there are circumstances where it also applies. Everyone has different opinions, but really, if a miner was priced too high by a manufacturer, nobody will get roi above, say, 5 cents. This makes mining impossible for most.  If difficulty goes up 10% more than expected, a miner will be thrown off the expected track quite a bit. What if price falls? What if? There are so many variables in mining that you have to accept this is a very risky proposition, and you might as well be gambling with around 70-30 odds for most people.

Remember what I said about electricity? Cheap electricity almost always means ROI, but it also depends on cooling costs. A tropical region with 3 cent electricity will often incur more electrical costs than a cool region with 5 cent electricity, as more electricity will be needed for cooling. Mining is an uncertainty most of the time for people with above 5-cent electrical costs.

[Searing]

I'll say what I'm going to say right here: Mining is like gambling since there are so many factors that can lead to negative roi or doubling your money. You have nearly no control over the price of BTC nor the difficulty. What I said usually does not apply for people with very cheap electricity, although there are circumstances where it also applies. Everyone has different opinions, but really, if a miner was priced too high by a manufacturer, nobody will get roi above, say, 5 cents. This makes mining impossible for most.  If difficulty goes up 10% more than expected, a miner will be thrown off the expected track quite a bit. What if price falls? What if? There are so many variables in mining that you have to accept this is a very risky proposition, and you might as well be gambling with around 70-30 odds for most people.

Remember what I said about electricity? Cheap electricity almost always means ROI, but it also depends on cooling costs. A tropical region with 3 cent electricity will often incur more electrical costs than a cool region with 5 cent electricity, as more electricity will be needed for cooling. Mining is an uncertainty most of the time for people with above 5-cent electrical costs.

Again equip comes into play and the price you get it at.  I have Titans still doing fine at 14c kwh summer and 10c kwh winter (and heats the house for free kinda sorta)

the angle can be played both ways thou electric costs are the more stable bet.

[notlist3d]

I'll say what I'm going to say right here: Mining is like gambling since there are so many factors that can lead to negative roi or doubling your money. You have nearly no control over the price of BTC nor the difficulty. What I said usually does not apply for people with very cheap electricity, although there are circumstances where it also applies. Everyone has different opinions, but really, if a miner was priced too high by a manufacturer, nobody will get roi above, say, 5 cents. This makes mining impossible for most.  If difficulty goes up 10% more than expected, a miner will be thrown off the expected track quite a bit. What if price falls? What if? There are so many variables in mining that you have to accept this is a very risky proposition, and you might as well be gambling with around 70-30 odds for most people.

Remember what I said about electricity? Cheap electricity almost always means ROI, but it also depends on cooling costs. A tropical region with 3 cent electricity will often incur more electrical costs than a cool region with 5 cent electricity, as more electricity will be needed for cooling. Mining is an uncertainty most of the time for people with above 5-cent electrical costs.

It is a high risk/high reward type of investment.  You have to remember this as some of the mining profit's I've gotten over the years I NEVER could have gotten in a save traditional investment.  If you want safe there are other things like savings accounts that don't pay hardly anything but have FDIC insurance (if in us).   And there are bonds you can buy a AAA bond and have a pretty safe investment that has been graded by a legit firm.

We are all still really early adopter's so there is a chance of decent returns.  But yes you can lose to.    I don't see what has changed in mining it's always been high risk, but for some it will pay off.   And the post above mentions a machine for higher electricity, there is also Ether on GPU's.  So there are still chances for some, not all but a lot.

[5h4do3]

Depends on your purpose...

If you mine for profit... very possible... price per KW is the number you worry about along with btc price ask any miner they will tell you they look at their electrical cost before they look at btc price basically looking at how much its cost to generate 1 BTC...

I know some people will mine even if it breaks even so they can move money around easily without fiscal constraints.

some will mine even at a slight loss... "more of the illegal kind"

depends on your purpose... heck some mine to exchange their fiat currency for USD EUR Pounds etc... all depends on the purpose.

but to say not profitable.. its truth for some but not for all, and is truth for less people than you think.

[Daffadile]

I don't think you are quite correct. If mining was not profitable there would be no mining. Mining is always needed so will always be profitable. Maybe not for most people but it still is for those living in places that are cheap to run and cold and have easy access to miners rather then rely on online deliveries.

[QuintLeo]

Cold isn't critical, low electric cost IS.

 Cold can HELP though.

 Best place to mine in the US is NOT a particularly cold area - but it's DRY around here making low-cost Evaporative cooling reasonable most of the time it DOES get hot.

[Searing]

Cold isn't critical, low electric cost IS.

 Cold can HELP though.

 Best place to mine in the US is NOT a particularly cold area - but it's DRY around here making low-cost Evaporative cooling reasonable most of the time it DOES get hot.

The 2nd part to the above is equipment cost...anything is possible if you get the equip cost low enough....that requires almost lottery level luck thou.

I picked up 7 new Titans this year. A 300mh nov 2013 new unused unit on a corp blunder..never used...he lost to knc class action for $1825 with shipping. Ebay buy it now with paypal
no less

and 6 400mh KNC Titan5 cubes new in the box from the KNC Liquidation sale we stumbled into...BUT the equip all has to be repasted (wrong paste) was new
but put together by clueless temps....and shipped in crummy boxes....thus 20% damage rate w/o counting the full repaste re-do on the lot of 24 in that batch.

We figure we can get all but 5% back..sad seeing new equip toasted because no thermal pads on new boards due to knc being temp worker idiots and testing
such there at 400mh for 1/2 hr....sure it worked for a bit...charcoal brick thou dc/dc's when we got some ..fun times.

It was however knc so we expected no less them being evil and all (tm knc) they were 1900 a piece with shipping included.

I bring this up because with hosting etc it comes out to 14c kwh and I should ROI with PSU's etc in less than 5-6 months. (not just miners psu's/gen tarkin firmware etc etc)


But like any miner that has survived....it is a matter of luck ..if you have good location ( 3c kwh say) you need equip ... in my case got crummy electric
but scored on equipment..the real winners on all this is if you can manage to beat the 'fates' and get both

Electric is the easiest imho to control. (you can always host something elsewhere) but equip ..especially scrypt equip that pays to a point of ROI these days is

the real Unicorn hunt imho (If you are a home miner that is)

[Karartma1]

I tried really hard to understand the post which is above mine but I couldn't.
Can anybody encrypt this cryptic writing?
What the hell did he say (or at least tried to)?

[Searing]

I tried really hard to understand the post which is above mine but I couldn't.
Can anybody encrypt this cryptic writing?
What the hell did he say (or at least tried to)?

mining thread says never profitable

you said it is electric ..ie cheap electric

I pointed out my electric is expensive my equip is not

both would be better

the goal is both but it does not just have to be cheap electric

dumb luck is also involved for either

and again following the thread theme that is it NEVER profitable to mine...well at 2300 after elec per month and ROI in 5 months on the new stuff
even at 14c kwh ..er thread is wrong is what I'm saying...but dumb luck is needed that is for sure

if you were just referring to cold...it does not matter it is air flow....in my basement setup with 1450mh and probably 6000 watts it is AIR FLOW
ie if it is 80F outside and 88F in the  basement that is about as good as it is gonna get....I add 8F over the outside temp....air flow and fans moving
air through ..getting the heat out is the main deal.....some heat will happen as you heat up your mining area....can't avoid it (limestone basement
will and does keep 8F of heat above say outside temp of 80F...but moving air keeps it from getting too out of hand..if you find yourself too far
in the heat increase...you just need more frigging air flow (or so it has worked for 22 months)

and of course winter you heat the house for free

hope this clears up my thinking on what I think you meant

[Xircom]

Thats a bold statement.
Mining is still very profitable if you know how to work your gear or you have right pricing for power. For me it just sounds like you are pissed that you live in an area where power is too expensive or you didn't invest correctly in mining gear. For me mining is still very profitable and instead of using my hard earned BTC, I reinvest them in new better gear.
In the beginning I made 1 investment around 10k$ and mined the hell out of the gear for a year, then I replaced them with new gear, bought  the tripple amount of hash for the mined BTC and moved my gear from home to a cheaper platform. Now i'm close to be a PH farm owner and still with extra BTC in hand than I use on new gear.
If you find the right power pricing mining is still a very nice investment, so your statement is BS.

[QuintLeo]

The 2nd part to the above is equipment cost...anything is possible if you get the equip cost low enough....that requires almost lottery level luck thou.

 Even FREE equipment doesn't matter if your electric cost is too high.

 Equipment cost affects TIME to ROI though, and if it's too high you'll never ROI even with VERY VERY CHEAP electric.



 The OP had no clue what they're talking about though, as there are quite a few miners that HAVE in fact made money via mining - NOT just the "big farms" but some of us HOME miners have made substantial overall net profits.

[notlist3d]

Cold isn't critical, low electric cost IS.

 Cold can HELP though.

 Best place to mine in the US is NOT a particularly cold area - but it's DRY around here making low-cost Evaporative cooling reasonable most of the time it DOES get hot.

I can vouch on this sadly in the Midwest summers temp can very highly and a few really hot day's.   What I did was use lot's of CFM's during summer on fan's so the pushing of hot air out becomes very important.  I actually had to upgrade to a commercial duct exhust due to hot summer's a typical home one just did not keep up.  Also it depends on weather some are lucky and can do evaporation cooling which is cheapest option as far as cooling.

But low electricity will always remain king.  If you have that you can work most thing's, there are a few things such as electricity/internet not being reliable that can make even cheap electricity hard.   So there are other factors some politically are hard ... so lots of other items but overall electricity is what most are decided by in my experience.

[Karartma1]

I tried really hard to understand the post which is above mine but I couldn't.
Can anybody encrypt this cryptic writing?
What the hell did he say (or at least tried to)?

[snip]

No man, I was not talking about your post.    I'm sorry I did not quote the post I was referring to! I was not referring to you.

There was a post by some spammer which got deleted.

 

[isoneguy]

I feel like mining is extremely profitable on a conditional basis.

Here are a few conditions that push the bitcoin game into your favor:

1. low power cost
2. low miner cost
3. selling btc during price hikes
4. buying btc during price drops
5. proper upgrading and reselling of equipment
6. lots of legwork
7. motherf'ing intelligence
8. not being stupid
9. not being an idiot
10. not making bad decisions

I probably missed a few points, but who cares! ...right?

If you are extremely impulsive then you might have a hard time day trading. If you don't have patience then you shouldn't be making long term investments.

If you can't afford to take a loss then you probably can't afford to participate.

Stupidity is it's own reward.

[DryPowder]

It depends a lot in what country do you live, in my country mining is a pain in the “*”