I am new,looking to start mining.

[tooil]

So for a newbie to look into buying a miner and start mining would not be a viable idea?

If you wanted to own some gold, would you mine it or buy it?

As a newbie, mining it would take a lot of time, effort, and money and you would only find a tiny bit. Bitcoin is the same.

On the other hand, an experienced gold miner could probably do ok. Bitcoin is the same.

Experience gold miner could go broke also if market condition is bad.

They have long term capital cost tied up to the operation that is not easy to sell and liquidate.

[notlist3d]

So for a newbie to look into buying a miner and start mining would not be a viable idea?

If you wanted to own some gold, would you mine it or buy it?

As a newbie, mining it would take a lot of time, effort, and money and you would only find a tiny bit. Bitcoin is the same.

On the other hand, an experienced gold miner could probably do ok. Bitcoin is the same.

Experience gold miner could go broke also if market condition is bad.

They have long term capital cost tied up to the operation that is not easy to sell and liquidate.

It is true never bet the house so to speak.  I love mining, and am lucky to have decent electricity price and lots of space.  So I will keep mining.

I hate how people try to scare people away from mining.  But i do agree there is a need for quick BTC when buying comes in nicely, or if BTC takes a drop and you can buy in.  But at least do ROI calculations before saying no mining to your situation. 

[cookiemonsterwhat]

whats with everyone wanting to mine? just buy it and hold onto it, and you`ll be in more profit then the miners.

[minerpumpkin]

whats with everyone wanting to mine? just buy it and hold onto it, and you`ll be in more profit then the miners.

A lot of people who are new to Bitcoin are attracted by the fact that you can create wealth by letting your computer perform arithmetic calculations. It's interesting, effectively money for nothing. They also don't get that the difficulty increases exponentially and therefore assume they'll get thousands of USD every month and will be millionaires in a few years time.

[ChuckBuck]

Don't spend $3500 on a miner, you'll never recoup that money back in BTC or fiat barring an amazing price spike in the next few months.

Mine for fun instead.  Mine to learn new tech, to play around with hardware/software, and to say to all your friends "I'm Bitcoin mining!"

Here's what you do.  You buy $3000 worth of BTC and sit on it until the eventual price spike to the moon.  The other $500, buy an Antminer S3+ and power supply and go to town tweaking, overclocking, cooling, and find ways to wire and host it without tripping over it in your house.  After about 3-4 months, sell the S3+ and psu for BTC to recoup some of your fun losses.

That's all you need to do, and you'll be happier and healthier of mind.

And then check back on the BTC price by 2016 or so, it'll be worth it!   

[Nagato4]

whats with everyone wanting to mine? just buy it and hold onto it, and you`ll be in more profit then the miners.

A lot of people who are new to Bitcoin are attracted by the fact that you can create wealth by letting your computer perform arithmetic calculations. It's interesting, effectively money for nothing. They also don't get that the difficulty increases exponentially and therefore assume they'll get thousands of USD every month and will be millionaires in a few years time.

What makes the problem worse is that, they can find some out of date mining tutorials and analyses, in which they can get a lot of bitcoin using just ordinary computers and USB miners.

[hulk]

whats with everyone wanting to mine? just buy it and hold onto it, and you`ll be in more profit then the miners.

A lot of people who are new to Bitcoin are attracted by the fact that you can create wealth by letting your computer perform arithmetic calculations. It's interesting, effectively money for nothing. They also don't get that the difficulty increases exponentially and therefore assume they'll get thousands of USD every month and will be millionaires in a few years time.

What makes the problem worse is that, they can find some out of date mining tutorials and analyses, in which they can get a lot of bitcoin using just ordinary computers and USB miners.

Agree, too many outdated tutorial make it feels like bitcoin is so easily mined. Even my friends told me its easy to get ton of BTC while they didn't even know what is ASIC.

[cutesakura]

each investment must have a risk, whether high risk or low risk, depending now we want to choose between these investments, at this time if we do not have substantial funds, perhaps we should invest our funds are low-risk investment ... 

[CSI_Tech_Dept]

I am not so experienced, but as far i know BTC mining is almost dead. So think about BTC trading instead of mining.

[cookiemonsterwhat]

If you are into miners, look into antminers, but understand mining in general is pretty brutal now.

[odolvlobo]

I am not so experienced, but as far i know BTC mining is almost dead. So think about BTC trading instead of mining.

It seems absurd to claim that mining is dead when the network hash rate is around 240 PH/s.

[ChuckBuck]

I am not so experienced, but as far i know BTC mining at home is almost dead. So think about BTC trading buying and hodling instead of mining.

Fixed that for you.   

And there endeth the lesson.

[coin_price_usr]

Thanks, great informational thread for a newbie like myself 

[MilesJohan]

I am not so experienced, but as far i know BTC mining is almost dead. So think about BTC trading instead of mining.

It seems absurd to claim that mining is dead when the network hash rate is around 240 PH/s.

Mining isn't dead, but mining for home user is..

[minerpumpkin]

whats with everyone wanting to mine? just buy it and hold onto it, and you`ll be in more profit then the miners.

A lot of people who are new to Bitcoin are attracted by the fact that you can create wealth by letting your computer perform arithmetic calculations. It's interesting, effectively money for nothing. They also don't get that the difficulty increases exponentially and therefore assume they'll get thousands of USD every month and will be millionaires in a few years time.

What makes the problem worse is that, they can find some out of date mining tutorials and analyses, in which they can get a lot of bitcoin using just ordinary computers and USB miners.

There are also still tutorials or summaries of Bitcoin that suggest Mt. Gox as a Bitcoin exchange, which obviously isn't a very good idea nowadays! The basics stayed the same, but the whole ecosystem is moving so fast that things become obsolete practically over night.

[minerpumpkin]

I am not so experienced, but as far i know BTC mining is almost dead. So think about BTC trading instead of mining.

It seems absurd to claim that mining is dead when the network hash rate is around 240 PH/s.

Of course mining isn't dead. It's indeed absurd that people claim this. For the network itself it doesn't matter at all what the hash rate is. When people say that mining is dead, most intend to say that mining for profit is futile for the regular person doing it in his basement. Which is mostly true. The margins are getting smaller and smaller and only the very big operations survive.
Still, if this makes a lot of mining unprofitable and the hash rate indeed goes down, it effectively becomes profitable gain. It's self-regulating - beautiful!