Spreadsheet: Invest in BTC or mining hardware?

[trueimage]

this spreadsheet looks great.

could you add a "traded weekly" and traded bi-weekly" summary, or something similar?

Because daily trading is unlikely unless you have 5 Ghash/s+ capacity I think, the amount of BTC you get is too low and the transaction fees and time required is too high.

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[SgtSpike]

Hmmmm, I'll have to think about a good way to do that trueimage.  It'll be complicated to add such a calculation in.  Either extreme is easy to calculate, but when I have to hold the price constant in the calculation for X number of days, well, there's just not an easy way to do it that I can think of.

[autognosis]

Hi everyone, this is my first post. I finally did some reading about BitCoin today. I am impressed! This thread was very helpful.
I think rather than buying hardware, or buying BTC directly, I will try selling development work. I didn't see this discussed in this thread, as I take it most of the participants here are miners.

Anyone have any experience doing this? I've previously done dev work and been paid through paypal, but I've been burned badly by that route (as I'm sure you all can imagine).

Wheee! New hobby!

[MarketNeutral]

An allegory? The merchants who sold the gold miners the tools they needed to mine the gold often made more money than they who did the actual mining. Except for the few who were first to find gold and subsequently become fabulously wealthy, most gold miners were lucky to break even.

[SgtSpike]

The only issue you'll run in to is there are a LOT of devs here.  But, since Bitcoin is such an up-and-coming thing, there are a lot of opportunities and new businesses springing up as well.  I have experience with being paid bitcoins as a dev, and it works quite well really.

[hoki]

Assuming electricity is free, how much longer do you think mining will be more profitable then trading?  

[JJG]

Assuming electricity is free, how much longer do you think mining would be more profitable then trading? 

Depends 100% on what you mean by 'trading'.

Buying/selling bitcoins is crazy volatile right now. I wouldn't touch it unless you really like gambling.

[SyRenity]

Hi.

Can someone confirm my calculation, that building a new typical rig with 2x6950 (~1,000$), is already less profitable then investing these into BTC (15.5$ ex. rate, default 10% monthly gain - though it pure speculation, I know).

Thanks.

[Basiley]

even if its not "profitable", keeping mining is important for BTC safety/operational security.

[JJG]

Hi.

Can someone confirm my calculation, that building a new typical rig with 2x6950 (~1,000$), is already less profitable then investing these into BTC (15.5$ ex. rate, default 10% monthly gain - though it pure speculation, I know).

Thanks.

There's no sure thing in the world of Bitcoin, especially lately.

Honestly, any projections are probably about as good as flipping a coin at the moment. Or perhaps you could just take your money to Vegas?

[SgtSpike]

JJG, that's why I like the mining investments.  It's virtually risk-free, since the ROI is so quick, and even if you don't hit it, the hardware can be resold for nearly as much as the purchase price, especially if you are a frugal shopper.  But yes, it's still hard to say what will happen in the world of bitcoins.  The price could drop below $1.70 tomorrow, which would make my mining unprofitable.  Who knows...

IMO, the 6990's are a terrible investment, unless you just don't have room to have several rigs.  Going with a midrange card, (ideally a 5830/5850/5870, though those are difficult to find for decent prices anymore) will generally give a much better MHash/$$$ rate.  As it is, you are lucky to get 1Mhash/$ with a 6990, but a card like a 6950, which can get 400MH/s with a bios flash, is nearly 2Mhash/$.  Of course, system costs must be taken into account, but with the spendy PSU's required for a 6990, I just don't see the point in spending the coin on them instead of a cheaper alternative that gets more MH/s.

[Yuvea]

IMO, the 6990's are a terrible investment, unless you just don't have room to have several rigs.  Going with a midrange card, (ideally a 5830/5850/5870, though those are difficult to find for decent prices anymore) will generally give a much better MHash/$$$ rate.  As it is, you are lucky to get 1Mhash/$ with a 6990, but a card like a 6950, which can get 400MH/s with a bios flash, is nearly 2Mhash/$.  Of course, system costs must be taken into account, but with the spendy PSU's required for a 6990, I just don't see the point in spending the coin on them instead of a cheaper alternative that gets more MH/s.

That's not quite true.  The 6990s pay themselves back just as quickly, have a higher production/watts metric and can give you a higher rack density if you're living in a country where rent is comparatively more expensive than electricity

Also, the 6950 that can be converted into 6970s got sold out something like 10 billion years ago when everybody and their grandma heard about how they could save 150$ on their video cards.  The newer 6950s can't be made into 6970s anymore.  If you were to buy new cards, you basically can't find 5870/5970s anymore so you have to move back to either 6870s in some kind of optimized setup or you spend more and get 69-5/7/9-0's.

[mvoss]

It seems that today, buying a few 6870's for $179 each gets you the same Mhash/s for less money.  Those 6990's still cost over $700 each. It would be more cost efficient to buy multiple mid-range cards, right?

[SgtSpike]

It depends on how much it costs per gfx slot in a system as well though.  I think the cheapest I could get it was about $100/slot.  So you have to take that in to account as well...

But since 6990's are just about impossible to find for sale now, going with a midrange card is probably your only option anyway.

[Leon]

I have generated a spreadsheet that should allow user input of all potential variables to consider when deciding whether to invest in mining hardware or in BTC directly.

Play with it, and tell me what you think.  It seems that the wisest choice could be either, and it greatly depends on difficulty levels and expected increase (or decrease) in the price of BTC.

v1.1 - Difficulty should now accurately affect BTC production.
v1.2 - Added in calculations to show profits if production is traded daily.
v1.3 - Added invest/withdrawal/pool fees fields, added uptime percentage field.
v1.31 - Calculation/bug fixes
v1.32 - Calculation/bug fixes

Download the spreadsheet (v 1.32)
If you find any errors in the calculations, PLEASE let me know so I can fix it!

If you found this helpful, please consider donating BTC to 1CjoEtypZhqkBLSdfpnphNYjWyokourkxe

Eh, lots of factors missing out but decent sheet.

[SgtSpike]

I have generated a spreadsheet that should allow user input of all potential variables to consider when deciding whether to invest in mining hardware or in BTC directly.

Play with it, and tell me what you think.  It seems that the wisest choice could be either, and it greatly depends on difficulty levels and expected increase (or decrease) in the price of BTC.

v1.1 - Difficulty should now accurately affect BTC production.
v1.2 - Added in calculations to show profits if production is traded daily.
v1.3 - Added invest/withdrawal/pool fees fields, added uptime percentage field.
v1.31 - Calculation/bug fixes
v1.32 - Calculation/bug fixes

Download the spreadsheet (v 1.32)
If you find any errors in the calculations, PLEASE let me know so I can fix it!

If you found this helpful, please consider donating BTC to 1CjoEtypZhqkBLSdfpnphNYjWyokourkxe

Eh, lots of factors missing out but decent sheet.

It's the most complete sheet I've seen... what other factors would you like to see?

[superresistant]

I have generated a spreadsheet that should allow user input of all potential variables to consider when deciding whether to invest in mining hardware or in BTC directly.
Play with it, and tell me what you think.  It seems that the wisest choice could be either, and it greatly depends on difficulty levels and expected increase (or decrease) in the price of BTC.
v1.1 - Difficulty should now accurately affect BTC production.
v1.2 - Added in calculations to show profits if production is traded daily.
v1.3 - Added invest/withdrawal/pool fees fields, added uptime percentage field.
v1.31 - Calculation/bug fixes
v1.32 - Calculation/bug fixes
Download the spreadsheet (v 1.32)
If you find any errors in the calculations, PLEASE let me know so I can fix it!

Eh, lots of factors missing out but decent sheet.

It's the most complete sheet I've seen... what other factors would you like to see?

I would add the fees concerning the initial buy of bitcoins (could be "Fees to invest" but I'm not sure) and then the fees concerning the exchange of currency when you trade multiplied by the number of trades you plan to do.

I don't know if it's clear... I think the actual spreadsheet is for "buy bitcoin at once and sell it at once" but it could be "trade daily (buy/sell) with low risk but multiple time".

[joele]

Mining with your GPUs is no longer profitable, Instead of buying high price asic hardware, just buy shares from BTC securities like btc-tc.com or bitfunder.com and you will get the same mining profit without the hazzle of hardware maintenance and electric bills

[superresistant]

Mining with your GPUs is no longer profitable, Instead of buying high price asic hardware, just buy shares from BTC securities like btc-tc.com or bitfunder.com and you will get the same mining profit without the hazzle of hardware maintenance and electric bills

What do you mean my "shares" ?

I don't pay electricity so mining is still profitable for a long time in my case.

[flipper]

With the asics flood fast approaching, soon, day trading btc will be the only way to be profitable.