ROI of a Mining Hardware - Quotes from ckolivas

[allcoinminer]

Quoting some important messages from ckolivas for Miners

Do you have some comments on how mining will turn now? A lot of home miners stopped mining due to -ve ROI.

Interesting question. All the more interesting because no one has actually asked me before on the forums, even though I've discussed it at length on IRC and am very happy at any time for people to know what I think.

Mining died for the community/home miner a long time ago. It's just that the community miners haven't realised or accepted it yet. Community mining is only 15% of the hashrate now and shrinking. They're always hopeful and expectant but there really is no reason for them to be that way. Mining has gone to the data halls and the massive farms, mostly run by the manufacturers themselves who have the ability to create hardware on the cheap and offer it to the select few entities who can help their mining operations or provide funding or cheap hosting, instead of the consumer buyer market which is annoying, small time, noisy and boring. The only reason they continue to sell to that regular consumer market is there are enough people who have unrealistic expectations of making a profit somehow because they simply cannot believe that the numbers are stacked against them, such that the hardware manufacturers can charge a ridiculous premium to sell to that market to make it worth their while.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who's been watching bitcoin at large, but it will continue to surprise bitcoin miners, past, present and future. The reason miners don't see it is they're so blinded by the concept of a "money making machine" or the "goose that laid the golden egg" that they just can't see it.

Here's a quote of mine. Note the date on it:

Long term, cgminer will be the lowest overhead c software to drive ASICs to do bitcoin mining, with lots of code in it that is no longer relevant to BTC mining. What I really worry about, is that new hardware will continue to come out frequently enough that people end up on a cycle of investing in hardware that basically never pays itself off as slightly newer hardware and higher diffs keep coming out. Sure at some stage the limits of technology will be reached, but given the best tech at the moment is going to be 65nm ASICs when CPUs are 28nm devices, I can see the cycle going on for some time, and then even if btc mining ASICs end up in line with CPU manufacturers, they still continue to evolve over time. Dramatic profits from ASICs will likely only last a couple of weeks at most for a lucky few. The rest of you who paid for devices that don't even exist yet will not be making any magical profit no matter how big the hashrate appears. Your proportion of the total bitcoin hashrate will remain pitiful.

To give you an idea of how long this has been known to the bitcoin community, even if miners refuse to see it, I think it's best to leave the final word to Satoshi himself, the inventor of bitcoin:

The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale.  That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server.  The design supports letting users just be users.  The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be.  Those few nodes will be big server farms.  The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate.

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[1715692721]

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[allcoinminer]

Reply to moss by ckolivas.

How low would the price of bitcoin need to fall for mining to be unsustainable for the big mining companies?  If the resulting dramatic reduction in network hash caused a corresponding reduction in difficulty, would mining then become sustainable again for the home miner?

It no longer matters what the numbers are. For even if the value of bitcoin would drop to, for example, 1/10th of what it is, it is guaranteed that more than 1/10th of the existing big miners will remain. They will always be at an advantage compared to you, and the investment on their side has already happened so you'll push out the least efficient of the big miners but keep the most efficient of them. If anything, the other way is more likely to bring home miners in, but it will only be a temporary effect which will be offset by yet more big miner investors, and the stakes will be higher than ever. The only chance small miners have is for bitcoin to become small time again, so the value would have to drop to 1/100th or less of what it is, and stay there for an extended period.

Speaking purely from investment terms, it's a curious phenomenon that in the history of bitcoin, you could always convert dollars into more bitcoin than any mining machine you could buy with those dollars would generate over its lifetime, yet people inevitably choose to buy bitcoin miners because of the concept of buying a "money making machine". It is the most expensive and technically challenging way to convert dollars into bitcoin. By far the most money anyone ever made off ASIC hardware are those who purchased avalon generation 1. At bitcoin prices when the avalon was first announced, there is still a chance they'd be better off just having converted their dollars into bitcoin at that time. When the avalon actually arrived they were a steal at 60GH @ 1500$=80BTC but you could not order them any more since they were always preorders (how much is 80BTC worth now?). I think bitcoin was worth less when they made their Avalon preorders so they were much more than 80BTC. They may have been the one exception and ironically the first ASIC ever so they capitalised on the diff at the time.

It's funny because for years people would happily expand/extend their hardware for reasons that had nothing to do with making money, like having the best gaming machine, or the best Mprime or setiathome or folding@home results or whatever. Yet the attraction of bitcoin mining has been that the hardware expansion you've been doing has been in the quest for return on investment. It has clouded people's judgement and brought in a different population of miners compared to the population it grew from. Somehow people lost sight of the fact that bitcoin mining moved from the former group of enthusiasts to a massive money making venture and the former group unintentionally became part of the latter group unwittingly, and then started complaining that they would never make a return on investment (which strictly speaking is incorrect, they mean they would never pay off their hardware). People got caught in the bitcoin mining wave and unintentionally converted from hobbyists to real money investors, and that's the real crime here.

[allcoinminer]

Speaking purely from investment terms, it's a curious phenomenon that in the history of bitcoin, you could always convert dollars into more bitcoin than any mining machine you could buy with those dollars would generate over its lifetime, yet people inevitably choose to buy bitcoin miners because of the concept of buying a "money making machine". It is the most expensive and technically challenging way to convert dollars into bitcoin. By far the most money anyone ever made off ASIC hardware are those who purchased avalon generation 1. At bitcoin prices when the avalon was first announced, there is still a chance they'd be better off just having converted their dollars into bitcoin at that time. When the avalon actually arrived they were a steal at 60GH @ 1500$=80BTC but you could not order them any more since they were always preorders (how much is 80BTC worth now?). I think bitcoin was worth less when they made their Avalon preorders so they were much more than 80BTC. They may have been the one exception and ironically the first ASIC ever so they capitalised on the diff at the time.

It's funny because for years people would happily expand/extend their hardware for reasons that had nothing to do with making money, like having the best gaming machine, or the best Mprime or setiathome or folding@home results or whatever. Yet the attraction of bitcoin mining has been that the hardware expansion you've been doing has been in the quest for return on investment. It has clouded people's judgement and brought in a different population of miners compared to the population it grew from. Somehow people lost sight of the fact that bitcoin mining moved from the former group of enthusiasts to a massive money making venture and the former group unintentionally became part of the latter group unwittingly, and then started complaining that they would never make a return on investment (which strictly speaking is incorrect, they mean they would never pay off their hardware). People got caught in the bitcoin mining wave and unintentionally converted from hobbyists to real money investors, and that's the real crime here.

As I read this I can see myself as I am sure many others can as well. Looking back when I started with buying my first 30 Bitcoins @$130 each so I could get 15 USB miners in a group buy to spending my mined coins until I had 75 of them running, then selling moving on to BFL singles selling them for the S1's and now down to 4 S'3 in the basement still mining .... It's been like catching a falling knife but I am done. Thinking of right now to sell off two of my miners and turning the last to "out to pasture" in your solo pool.

[allcoinminer]

Hi ckolivas, Thank you for your great write-up.
Now what you think about the BTC future and the after effects of the current situation if we see in the perspective of mining.

[philipma1957]

Speaking purely from investment terms, it's a curious phenomenon that in the history of bitcoin, you could always convert dollars into more bitcoin than any mining machine you could buy with those dollars would generate over its lifetime, yet people inevitably choose to buy bitcoin miners because of the concept of buying a "money making machine". It is the most expensive and technically challenging way to convert dollars into bitcoin. By far the most money anyone ever made off ASIC hardware are those who purchased avalon generation 1. At bitcoin prices when the avalon was first announced, there is still a chance they'd be better off just having converted their dollars into bitcoin at that time. When the avalon actually arrived they were a steal at 60GH @ 1500$=80BTC but you could not order them any more since they were always preorders (how much is 80BTC worth now?). I think bitcoin was worth less when they made their Avalon preorders so they were much more than 80BTC. They may have been the one exception and ironically the first ASIC ever so they capitalised on the diff at the time.

It's funny because for years people would happily expand/extend their hardware for reasons that had nothing to do with making money, like having the best gaming machine, or the best Mprime or setiathome or folding@home results or whatever. Yet the attraction of bitcoin mining has been that the hardware expansion you've been doing has been in the quest for return on investment. It has clouded people's judgement and brought in a different population of miners compared to the population it grew from. Somehow people lost sight of the fact that bitcoin mining moved from the former group of enthusiasts to a massive money making venture and the former group unintentionally became part of the latter group unwittingly, and then started complaining that they would never make a return on investment (which strictly speaking is incorrect, they mean they would never pay off their hardware). People got caught in the bitcoin mining wave and unintentionally converted from hobbyists to real money investors, and that's the real crime here.

As I read this I can see myself as I am sure many others can as well. Looking back when I started with buying my first 30 Bitcoins @$130 each so I could get 15 USB miners in a group buy to spending my mined coins until I had 75 of them running, then selling moving on to BFL singles selling them for the S1's and now down to 4 S'3 in the basement still mining .... It's been like catching a falling knife but I am done. Thinking of right now to sell off two of my miners and turning the last to "out to pasture" in your solo pool.

The bold type needs correction from always to mostly.  While I admire ckolivas as a person with a brilliant mind there have been spots where buying gear is better then buying coins.  The batch 1 s-3's are a true btc roi .  that is more coins out then in.   But this is the exception.  it is also not true if your power is 25 cents a kwatt or you paid a big vat or you need a shitload of psu's.  But I am willing to say many batch 1 buyers of s-3's have done btc roi.

 I would say less then 1 in 10 pieces of gear were more btc out then btc in.  So if ckolivas changes that to 90 % of the time and not always it would explain why miners take a shot as they hope to grab that small 10% + btc roi .  rather then the more certain 90% roi faliure of most gear.

Case in point my 2 s-3 from batch 1 cost 1.5 btc.
 I was given a refund of .15btc  so the true cost was 1.35 btc

They have earned 1.526 BTC they have earned 2.276 NMC

That is true btc roi.   But of all my gear purchased and I have purchased 50,000 usd worth of gear.  this is one of very few tru btc roi gear I purchased.

 My 2 units have resale on ebay  at 225 usd each  that would cover any psu cost and power cost.  So I took power and psu out of the calculations.

But frankly this is rare for the home miner.  I think a lot of us chase the what if coins go to 1000 or 2000 or 3000 usd. dream .. the spring 2013 and the fall 2013 runups keep miners chasing.

[klondike_bar]

^agreed on some gear bringing ROI.

I bought B1 and B2 auctioned S1 units (4.75BTC and 4.25BTC respectively) and they must have made about ~7BTc each over their lifespan, plus $300 resale value each that covered the power use.

same for the first batches of the S3 - which were priced roughly the same as the current batch.

home mining will not die for those who have cheap power, because they dont pay overhead and in a small setup, cooling costs are avoidable (such as blowing out a window or passively heating a basement). A large farm pays insurance, security, employees, rent, etc. The biggest difference is that the big farms generally get very good electricity prices and sometimes bulk discounts on equipment compared to the guy running 2-3 units on a residential grid.


personally - im in the mini-selloff phase right now with the low BTC value. Ive mined a lot of BTC but now need to pay hydro bills and theres no direct competition between manufacturers right now to drive down the hardware costs to levels that are profitable at $0.15/kwh (luckily this is CAD, so more like $0.13 USD)

I expect that by early-november we will see the SP20/SP35, AM Prisma, and the S3+/S4 all selling from stock, hopefully creating some price competition to bring it down to 0.7BTC/TH by the start of december

[philipma1957]

^agreed on some gear bringing ROI.

I bought B1 and B2 auctioned S1 units (4.75BTC and 4.25BTC respectively) and they must have made about ~7BTc each over their lifespan, plus $300 resale value each that covered the power use.

same for the first batches of the S3 - which were priced roughly the same as the current batch.

home mining will not die for those who have cheap power, because they dont pay overhead and in a small setup, cooling costs are avoidable (such as blowing out a window or passively heating a basement). A large farm pays insurance, security, employees, rent, etc. The biggest difference is that the big farms generally get very good electricity prices and sometimes bulk discounts on equipment compared to the guy running 2-3 units on a residential grid.


personally - im in the mini-selloff phase right now with the low BTC value. Ive mined a lot of BTC but now need to pay hydro bills and theres no direct competition between manufacturers right now to drive down the hardware costs to levels that are profitable at $0.15/kwh (luckily this is CAD, so more like $0.13 USD)

I expect that by early-november we will see the SP20/SP35, AM Prisma, and the S3+/S4 all selling from stock, hopefully creating some price competition to bring it down to 0.7BTC/TH by the start of december

  i am like you.
  I am down to 6 s-3's  the 2 in my example running in an office that I can pay 2.4 cents a kwatt to run.  But I can only run 2 of them.  I am also running 4 in house one on ckolivas's solo pool the other 3 at mmpool.org

 I am holding coins and looking for a good deal.  In NJ weather will get colder and bumping from 1400 watts to 2800 watts will be easy enough.  i just need a good price.

[xstr8guy]

Speaking purely from investment terms, it's a curious phenomenon that in the history of bitcoin, you could always convert dollars into more bitcoin than any mining machine you could buy with those dollars would generate over its lifetime, yet people inevitably choose to buy bitcoin miners because of the concept of buying a "money making machine". It is the most expensive and technically challenging way to convert dollars into bitcoin. By far the most money anyone ever made off ASIC hardware are those who purchased avalon generation 1. At bitcoin prices when the avalon was first announced, there is still a chance they'd be better off just having converted their dollars into bitcoin at that time. When the avalon actually arrived they were a steal at 60GH @ 1500$=80BTC but you could not order them any more since they were always preorders (how much is 80BTC worth now?). I think bitcoin was worth less when they made their Avalon preorders so they were much more than 80BTC. They may have been the one exception and ironically the first ASIC ever so they capitalised on the diff at the time.

It's funny because for years people would happily expand/extend their hardware for reasons that had nothing to do with making money, like having the best gaming machine, or the best Mprime or setiathome or folding@home results or whatever. Yet the attraction of bitcoin mining has been that the hardware expansion you've been doing has been in the quest for return on investment. It has clouded people's judgement and brought in a different population of miners compared to the population it grew from. Somehow people lost sight of the fact that bitcoin mining moved from the former group of enthusiasts to a massive money making venture and the former group unintentionally became part of the latter group unwittingly, and then started complaining that they would never make a return on investment (which strictly speaking is incorrect, they mean they would never pay off their hardware). People got caught in the bitcoin mining wave and unintentionally converted from hobbyists to real money investors, and that's the real crime here.

As I read this I can see myself as I am sure many others can as well. Looking back when I started with buying my first 30 Bitcoins @$130 each so I could get 15 USB miners in a group buy to spending my mined coins until I had 75 of them running, then selling moving on to BFL singles selling them for the S1's and now down to 4 S'3 in the basement still mining .... It's been like catching a falling knife but I am done. Thinking of right now to sell off two of my miners and turning the last to "out to pasture" in your solo pool.

The bold type needs correction from always to mostly.  While I admire ckolivas as a person with a brilliant mind there have been spots where buying gear is better then buying coins.  The batch 1 s-3's are a true btc roi .  that is more coins out then in.   But this is the exception.  it is also not true if your power is 25 cents a kwatt or you paid a big vat or you need a shitload of psu's.  But I am willing to say many batch 1 buyers of s-3's have done btc roi.

 I would say less then 1 in 10 pieces of gear were more btc out then btc in.  So if ckolivas changes that to 90 % of the time and not always it would explain why miners take a shot as they hope to grab that small 10% + btc roi .  rather then the more certain 90% roi faliure of most gear.

Case in point my 2 s-3 from batch 1 cost 1.5 btc.
 I was given a refund of .15btc  so the true cost was 1.35 btc

They have earned 1.526 BTC they have earned 2.276 NMC

That is true btc roi.   But of all my gear purchased and I have purchased 50,000 usd worth of gear.  this is one of very few tru btc roi gear I purchased.

 My 2 units have resale on ebay  at 225 usd each  that would cover any psu cost and power cost.  So I took power and psu out of the calculations.

But frankly this is rare for the home miner.  I think a lot of us chase the what if coins go to 1000 or 2000 or 3000 usd. dream .. the spring 2013 and the fall 2013 runups keep miners chasing.

I'd like to add that for me personally, I bought a lot of mining gear when BTC was between $800-1100. The equipment was continually bought whenever I had mined enough BTC to get new gear... Mostly Bitfury stuff that was shipping from stock at the time (and still running!).

I managed to stay well ahead of the difficulty and earned positive ROI several times over and continued to reinvest some of my earnings until recently. No one can tell me I'd have been better off buying $1000 BTC and holding, lol. I quickly earned my cash investment back, reinvested earned BTC in new equipment, sold BTC and paid a lot of bills for several months when my business suffered a setback, continue to cash in BTC to pay electric bills AND still have BTC in my wallet. I even lost 5.5BTC in the Lunamine scam, lol.

Would I have been better off if I had stopped reinvesting BTC into new gear 6-8 months ago? Absolutely! Will I ever buy another miner again? Never! I was just very lucky with the BTC market rising and choosing good hardware at the time. I honestly think it's impossible to repeat that success now or ever again.

[RealMalatesta]

Looking into my wallet, I get the shivers. Years back, I bought Bitcoins for less than 20 US$, spent hundreds of them for paying programmers and buying code. IF I still had all of those....
Then I bought my first miners, and here we go... new ones were bought, and after a while, it became way too difficult to keep track of the earnings. ROI? Who knows.... Per today, a couple of miners are running in my basement, some in my attic, some in the office and some are hosted.
Currently, I'm running 25 TH/s, 30 more to come, some to go. And I'll most probably will never reach any kind of ROI.
But at the end of the day, the money I spend for the miners is money I don't spend for expanding my collection of comic books. Mining is partly a hobby, partly part of my profession. It is fun. This may be silly (ask my wife, she will agree...).
ckolivas is right. However, I'll continue mining. Just for the fun of it....

[xstr8guy]

Looking into my wallet, I get the shivers. Years back, I bought Bitcoins for less than 20 US$, spent hundreds of them for paying programmers and buying code. IF I still had all of those....
Then I bought my first miners, and here we go... new ones were bought, and after a while, it became way too difficult to keep track of the earnings. ROI? Who knows.... Per today, a couple of miners are running in my basement, some in my attic, some in the office and some are hosted.
Currently, I'm running 25 TH/s, 30 more to come, some to go. And I'll most probably will never reach any kind of ROI.
But at the end of the day, the money I spend for the miners is money I don't spend for expanding my collection of comic books. Mining is partly a hobby, partly part of my profession. It is fun. This may be silly (ask my wife, she will agree...).
ckolivas is right. However, I'll continue mining. Just for the fun of it....

Ok, maybe I was a bit rash in saying that I'd never buy another miner. I might buy another if it was really, really cool... just for fun. 

Those S20s look pretty cool, lol. And god knows I have enough PSUs to spare. Not enough people admit to pure hardware lust as a reason for buying mining gear. I know if it wasn't for mining, I'd have built several more PCs than I needed or could have ever possibly used. Mining gear filled that urge for me. Hmmm, maybe it's time to build a new PC especially now that NewEgg accepts BTC.

[notlist3d]

^agreed on some gear bringing ROI.

I bought B1 and B2 auctioned S1 units (4.75BTC and 4.25BTC respectively) and they must have made about ~7BTc each over their lifespan, plus $300 resale value each that covered the power use.

same for the first batches of the S3 - which were priced roughly the same as the current batch.

home mining will not die for those who have cheap power, because they dont pay overhead and in a small setup, cooling costs are avoidable (such as blowing out a window or passively heating a basement). A large farm pays insurance, security, employees, rent, etc. The biggest difference is that the big farms generally get very good electricity prices and sometimes bulk discounts on equipment compared to the guy running 2-3 units on a residential grid.


personally - im in the mini-selloff phase right now with the low BTC value. Ive mined a lot of BTC but now need to pay hydro bills and theres no direct competition between manufacturers right now to drive down the hardware costs to levels that are profitable at $0.15/kwh (luckily this is CAD, so more like $0.13 USD)

I expect that by early-november we will see the SP20/SP35, AM Prisma, and the S3+/S4 all selling from stock, hopefully creating some price competition to bring it down to 0.7BTC/TH by the start of december

  i am like you.
  I am down to 6 s-3's  the 2 in my example running in an office that I can pay 2.4 cents a kwatt to run.  But I can only run 2 of them.  I am also running 4 in house one on ckolivas's solo pool the other 3 at mmpool.org

 I am holding coins and looking for a good deal.  In NJ weather will get colder and bumping from 1400 watts to 2800 watts will be easy enough.  i just need a good price.

For those of us with colder weather started and more coming it's a good time.  If you have low priced electricity and cold ambient temperature its hard to beat.

[helipotte]

If mining is to be considered a hobby, at least it does give something back or in some cases make you extra money.  I was a tuner/weekend drag racer for a number of

years and MAN that hobby will seriously drain you bank account!  With this, I get to tinker with hardware and make it perform at it's peak capability without the speeding

tickets.

Anyone here ever spent $3000 dollars on a engine part?   Absolutely no ROI!

[xstr8guy]

^agreed on some gear bringing ROI.

I bought B1 and B2 auctioned S1 units (4.75BTC and 4.25BTC respectively) and they must have made about ~7BTc each over their lifespan, plus $300 resale value each that covered the power use.

same for the first batches of the S3 - which were priced roughly the same as the current batch.

home mining will not die for those who have cheap power, because they dont pay overhead and in a small setup, cooling costs are avoidable (such as blowing out a window or passively heating a basement). A large farm pays insurance, security, employees, rent, etc. The biggest difference is that the big farms generally get very good electricity prices and sometimes bulk discounts on equipment compared to the guy running 2-3 units on a residential grid.


personally - im in the mini-selloff phase right now with the low BTC value. Ive mined a lot of BTC but now need to pay hydro bills and theres no direct competition between manufacturers right now to drive down the hardware costs to levels that are profitable at $0.15/kwh (luckily this is CAD, so more like $0.13 USD)

I expect that by early-november we will see the SP20/SP35, AM Prisma, and the S3+/S4 all selling from stock, hopefully creating some price competition to bring it down to 0.7BTC/TH by the start of december

  i am like you.
  I am down to 6 s-3's  the 2 in my example running in an office that I can pay 2.4 cents a kwatt to run.  But I can only run 2 of them.  I am also running 4 in house one on ckolivas's solo pool the other 3 at mmpool.org

 I am holding coins and looking for a good deal.  In NJ weather will get colder and bumping from 1400 watts to 2800 watts will be easy enough.  i just need a good price.

For those of us with colder weather started and more coming it's a good time.  If you have low priced electricity and cold ambient temperature its hard to beat.

I keep hearing people justifying running miners as heaters. I see where that might be helpful to some. I'm still running my A/C though, lol. It's 86f right now. But don't most people use (much cheaper) natural gas for heating theses days especially in colder climates? I've recently lived in warm climate locations and have had natural gas heat in most of my residences.*



*I'm a bit of a nomad. I've lived in 4 states within 4 years... Texas, Florida, Arizona and Nevada.

[philipma1957]

If mining is to be considered a hobby, at least it does give something back or in some cases make you extra money.  I was a tuner/weekend drag racer for a number of

years and MAN that hobby will seriously drain you bank account!  With this, I get to tinker with hardware and make it perform at it's peak capability without the speeding

tickets.

Anyone here ever spent $3000 dollars on a engine part?  Absolutely no ROI!

No but a Home theater I built had 6 tweeters for 1500 which was a steal since the going price was 3000 for the six.
Now it is a rocking home theater  but it cost over  8 k for speakers and amps .

So I don't mind spending a thou or 2 or 3 or even 4 to mine.

I went from speakers to mac minis to pc to mining.

Say from 1978 to now.  The only hobby that turned a profit was mining.  Oh and a little  bit of cars  on and off.

Plus some coin collecting.  With coins I messed up the silver run in the late 70's  but i caught the silver gold plat run under Bush in the 00's.
I have to say I made a tiny bit on coins and bullion not much.

Mining gear  tweaking gear  setting up gear  selling off  gear.

I made money  not a fortune but some side money.


@ xstr8guy     many places have electric radiators   Here in NJ .  Some developments pre 1972 have simple electric radiators .

[dropt]

Anyone here ever spent $3000 dollars on a engine part?   Absolutely no ROI!

Yes, multiple times and comparing the two is apples and oranges.  Building a car is engaging.  There's endless hours of wrenching and tuning, breaking and fixing.  It's a labour of love, a process of piecing things together and trying to build a harmonious system.  Mining BTC is putting some f'ing electronics on a shelf, turning them on, a quick tune and then walking away.

Your comparison may have had some merit back in the GPU days, but no way, no how with ASICs.

[RealMalatesta]

Anyone here ever spent $3000 dollars on a engine part?   Absolutely no ROI!

Yes, multiple times and comparing the two is apples and oranges.  Building a car is engaging.  There's endless hours of wrenching and tuning, breaking and fixing.  It's a labour of love, a process of piecing things together and trying to build a harmonious system.  Mining BTC is putting some f'ing electronics on a shelf, turning them on, a quick tune and then walking away.

Your comparison may have had some merit back in the GPU days, but no way, no how with ASICs.

Well, you obviously never bought a miner from some cheap Chinese manufacturers.... :-) Starting from taking them apart, measuring, spotting and replacingfaulty parts to writing some scripts to make sure they do not burn your place...

I agree that it is hard to tinker with an SP30 as a laymen. But it is really fun to construct now some watercooling device connected with the fish pond for the new Bitmain-machine.

I'm not so much into theories, but more into learning by doing. So some miners are perfect for me to learn new things. Expensive, though, but still fun.

Only with comic books, I had a similar experience. I started to collect them 40 years ago, it was expensive, I invested all my pocket money, but today, selling some of them, could make my living (but as a collector, I'll never sell the really good stuff, so maybe my kids will make their living with them once I'm gone...)

[aurel57]

I keep hearing people justifying running miners as heaters. I see where that might be helpful to some. I'm still running my A/C though, lol. It's 86f right now. But don't most people use (much cheaper) natural gas for heating theses days especially in colder climates? I've recently lived in warm climate locations and have had natural gas heat in most of my residences.*



*I'm a bit of a nomad. I've lived in 4 states within 4 years... Texas, Florida, Arizona and Nevada.

Here in Northern Indiana you are right. I buy my electric and natural gas from the same company. Natural gas is much cheaper to heat with than electric but any heat is at least welcome during the winter and I don't have to having the AC running anymore!

[notlist3d]

^agreed on some gear bringing ROI.

I bought B1 and B2 auctioned S1 units (4.75BTC and 4.25BTC respectively) and they must have made about ~7BTc each over their lifespan, plus $300 resale value each that covered the power use.

same for the first batches of the S3 - which were priced roughly the same as the current batch.

home mining will not die for those who have cheap power, because they dont pay overhead and in a small setup, cooling costs are avoidable (such as blowing out a window or passively heating a basement). A large farm pays insurance, security, employees, rent, etc. The biggest difference is that the big farms generally get very good electricity prices and sometimes bulk discounts on equipment compared to the guy running 2-3 units on a residential grid.


personally - im in the mini-selloff phase right now with the low BTC value. Ive mined a lot of BTC but now need to pay hydro bills and theres no direct competition between manufacturers right now to drive down the hardware costs to levels that are profitable at $0.15/kwh (luckily this is CAD, so more like $0.13 USD)

I expect that by early-november we will see the SP20/SP35, AM Prisma, and the S3+/S4 all selling from stock, hopefully creating some price competition to bring it down to 0.7BTC/TH by the start of december

  i am like you.
  I am down to 6 s-3's  the 2 in my example running in an office that I can pay 2.4 cents a kwatt to run.  But I can only run 2 of them.  I am also running 4 in house one on ckolivas's solo pool the other 3 at mmpool.org

 I am holding coins and looking for a good deal.  In NJ weather will get colder and bumping from 1400 watts to 2800 watts will be easy enough.  i just need a good price.

For those of us with colder weather started and more coming it's a good time.  If you have low priced electricity and cold ambient temperature its hard to beat.

I keep hearing people justifying running miners as heaters. I see where that might be helpful to some. I'm still running my A/C though, lol. It's 86f right now. But don't most people use (much cheaper) natural gas for heating theses days especially in colder climates? I've recently lived in warm climate locations and have had natural gas heat in most of my residences.*



*I'm a bit of a nomad. I've lived in 4 states within 4 years... Texas, Florida, Arizona and Nevada.
[/quote

I'm not justifying it as a heater.  I just am lucky now no ac for miners with how cold it is.  This adds more profit over the winter months for  me.

[-ck]

Now what you think about the BTC future and the after effects of the current situation if we see in the perspective of mining.

The value of bitcoin directly affects mining in a delayed fashion, that has been shown time and time again. As the value remains strong, or gets stronger, the number of big miners will continue to increase over time. However the reverse is not true - mining itself does not directly affect BTC value. It has indirect effects through bringing more players into the bitcoin world, and through the sell off of mined coin, but most big miners will be dumping more of their mined coins sooner to pay off the considerable running costs. This means the bitcoin economy will stand more and more on its own based on what it was always actually based on - perceived value by the market that creates the economy for it, and hardly anything to do with mining. Unless some threat (security or otherwise) hits mining, it will have less and less influence on the bitcoin economy itself. In short, the answer to your actual question is, the mining situation will have hardly any effect on BTC future. The only way it might is if some large famous company decides to create a large mine - the mining itself won't affect the value, but the association with that company will increase people's confidence in it.

This is why altcoins that differentiate themselves by their mode of mining are ultimately futile. The mining is the least important part of the perceived value and consequently the economy surrounding the coin. Altcoins were originally meant to be a testing ground for new ideas for bitcoin in ways that can be incorporated by it. However once it became clear that bitcoin started getting real value, other coins were being created in an attempt to be part of what they missed out on with bitcoin - mining it while it was cheap. But the arguments for any actual benefit to the altcoins being generated compared to bitcoin continue to revolve around some perceived technically better way to mine to keep cpu/gpu/home/small miners/no ASICs. Firstly there is no way that can happen - anything can be made into an ASIC. Second, if something develops real value, big players will always come in - why wouldn't they? Finally, as I mentioned with bitcoin above - the value of the coin has virtually nothing to do with mining. If your only real advantage is a different mode of mining, then that's not enough to sustain an economy. Especially if your mode of mining eventually converged to the same endpoint anyway with ASICs and big mines. What's really different then, and why would anyone want your also-ran coin? That's not to say that something won't come along to supplant bitcoin. It's just that it needs to be radically different in design and approach. How? I don't know, but if your starting point for a new coin is getting the bitcoin client and then modifying it, and ending up with something that is 99% the bitcoin code and model, are you not already just doomed to being another bitcoin clone?

[philipma1957]

Now what you think about the BTC future and the after effects of the current situation if we see in the perspective of mining.

The value of bitcoin directly affects mining in a delayed fashion, that has been shown time and time again. As the value remains strong, or gets stronger, the number of big miners will continue to increase over time. However the reverse is not true - mining itself does not directly affect BTC value. It has indirect effects through bringing more players into the bitcoin world, and through the sell off of mined coin, but most big miners will be dumping more of their mined coins sooner to pay off the considerable running costs. This means the bitcoin economy will stand more and more on its own based on what it was always actually based on - perceived value by the market that creates the economy for it, and hardly anything to do with mining. Unless some threat (security or otherwise) hits mining, it will have less and less influence on the bitcoin economy itself. In short, the answer to your actual question is, the mining situation will have hardly any effect on BTC future. The only way it might is if some large famous company decides to create a large mine - the mining itself won't affect the value, but the association with that company will increase people's confidence in it.

This is why altcoins that differentiate themselves by their mode of mining are ultimately futile. The mining is the least important part of the perceived value and consequently the economy surrounding the coin. Altcoins were originally meant to be a testing ground for new ideas for bitcoin in ways that can be incorporated by it. However once it became clear that bitcoin started getting real value, other coins were being created in an attempt to be part of what they missed out on with bitcoin - mining it while it was cheap. But the arguments for any actual benefit to the altcoins being generated compared to bitcoin continue to revolve around some perceived technically better way to mine to keep cpu/gpu/home/small miners/no ASICs. Firstly there is no way that can happen - anything can be made into an ASIC. Second, if something develops real value, big players will always come in - why wouldn't they? Finally, as I mentioned with bitcoin above - the value of the coin has virtually nothing to do with mining. If your only real advantage is a different mode of mining, then that's not enough to sustain an economy. Especially if your mode of mining eventually converged to the same endpoint anyway with ASICs and big mines. What's really different then, and why would anyone want your also-ran coin? That's not to say that something won't come along to supplant bitcoin. It's just that it needs to be radically different in design and approach. How? I don't know, but if your starting point for a new coin is getting the bitcoin client and then modifying it, and ending up with something that is 99% the bitcoin code and model, are you not already just doomed to being another bitcoin clone?

 A few alt coins can be used as additional security but there is not much need for the current 25 plus on the market.

[bernard75]

Now what you think about the BTC future and the after effects of the current situation if we see in the perspective of mining.

The value of bitcoin directly affects mining in a delayed fashion, that has been shown time and time again. As the value remains strong, or gets stronger, the number of big miners will continue to increase over time. However the reverse is not true - mining itself does not directly affect BTC value. It has indirect effects through bringing more players into the bitcoin world, and through the sell off of mined coin, but most big miners will be dumping more of their mined coins sooner to pay off the considerable running costs. This means the bitcoin economy will stand more and more on its own based on what it was always actually based on - perceived value by the market that creates the economy for it, and hardly anything to do with mining. Unless some threat (security or otherwise) hits mining, it will have less and less influence on the bitcoin economy itself. In short, the answer to your actual question is, the mining situation will have hardly any effect on BTC future. The only way it might is if some large famous company decides to create a large mine - the mining itself won't affect the value, but the association with that company will increase people's confidence in it.

This is why altcoins that differentiate themselves by their mode of mining are ultimately futile. The mining is the least important part of the perceived value and consequently the economy surrounding the coin. Altcoins were originally meant to be a testing ground for new ideas for bitcoin in ways that can be incorporated by it. However once it became clear that bitcoin started getting real value, other coins were being created in an attempt to be part of what they missed out on with bitcoin - mining it while it was cheap. But the arguments for any actual benefit to the altcoins being generated compared to bitcoin continue to revolve around some perceived technically better way to mine to keep cpu/gpu/home/small miners/no ASICs. Firstly there is no way that can happen - anything can be made into an ASIC. Second, if something develops real value, big players will always come in - why wouldn't they? Finally, as I mentioned with bitcoin above - the value of the coin has virtually nothing to do with mining. If your only real advantage is a different mode of mining, then that's not enough to sustain an economy. Especially if your mode of mining eventually converged to the same endpoint anyway with ASICs and big mines. What's really different then, and why would anyone want your also-ran coin? That's not to say that something won't come along to supplant bitcoin. It's just that it needs to be radically different in design and approach. How? I don't know, but if your starting point for a new coin is getting the bitcoin client and then modifying it, and ending up with something that is 99% the bitcoin code and model, are you not already just doomed to being another bitcoin clone?

 A few alt coins can be used as additional security but there is not much need for the current 25 plus on the market.

25? There are currently 500+
http://coinmarketcap.com/

[philipma1957]

Now what you think about the BTC future and the after effects of the current situation if we see in the perspective of mining.

The value of bitcoin directly affects mining in a delayed fashion, that has been shown time and time again. As the value remains strong, or gets stronger, the number of big miners will continue to increase over time. However the reverse is not true - mining itself does not directly affect BTC value. It has indirect effects through bringing more players into the bitcoin world, and through the sell off of mined coin, but most big miners will be dumping more of their mined coins sooner to pay off the considerable running costs. This means the bitcoin economy will stand more and more on its own based on what it was always actually based on - perceived value by the market that creates the economy for it, and hardly anything to do with mining. Unless some threat (security or otherwise) hits mining, it will have less and less influence on the bitcoin economy itself. In short, the answer to your actual question is, the mining situation will have hardly any effect on BTC future. The only way it might is if some large famous company decides to create a large mine - the mining itself won't affect the value, but the association with that company will increase people's confidence in it.

This is why altcoins that differentiate themselves by their mode of mining are ultimately futile. The mining is the least important part of the perceived value and consequently the economy surrounding the coin. Altcoins were originally meant to be a testing ground for new ideas for bitcoin in ways that can be incorporated by it. However once it became clear that bitcoin started getting real value, other coins were being created in an attempt to be part of what they missed out on with bitcoin - mining it while it was cheap. But the arguments for any actual benefit to the altcoins being generated compared to bitcoin continue to revolve around some perceived technically better way to mine to keep cpu/gpu/home/small miners/no ASICs. Firstly there is no way that can happen - anything can be made into an ASIC. Second, if something develops real value, big players will always come in - why wouldn't they? Finally, as I mentioned with bitcoin above - the value of the coin has virtually nothing to do with mining. If your only real advantage is a different mode of mining, then that's not enough to sustain an economy. Especially if your mode of mining eventually converged to the same endpoint anyway with ASICs and big mines. What's really different then, and why would anyone want your also-ran coin? That's not to say that something won't come along to supplant bitcoin. It's just that it needs to be radically different in design and approach. How? I don't know, but if your starting point for a new coin is getting the bitcoin client and then modifying it, and ending up with something that is 99% the bitcoin code and model, are you not already just doomed to being another bitcoin clone?

 A few alt coins can be used as additional security but there is not much need for the current 25 plus on the market.

25? There are currently 500+
http://coinmarketcap.com/

  I did a typo meant to type 250+  not 25+

[seriouscoin]

Now what you think about the BTC future and the after effects of the current situation if we see in the perspective of mining.

The value of bitcoin directly affects mining in a delayed fashion, that has been shown time and time again. As the value remains strong, or gets stronger, the number of big miners will continue to increase over time. However the reverse is not true - mining itself does not directly affect BTC value. It has indirect effects through bringing more players into the bitcoin world, and through the sell off of mined coin, but most big miners will be dumping more of their mined coins sooner to pay off the considerable running costs. This means the bitcoin economy will stand more and more on its own based on what it was always actually based on - perceived value by the market that creates the economy for it, and hardly anything to do with mining. Unless some threat (security or otherwise) hits mining, it will have less and less influence on the bitcoin economy itself. In short, the answer to your actual question is, the mining situation will have hardly any effect on BTC future. The only way it might is if some large famous company decides to create a large mine - the mining itself won't affect the value, but the association with that company will increase people's confidence in it.

This is why altcoins that differentiate themselves by their mode of mining are ultimately futile. The mining is the least important part of the perceived value and consequently the economy surrounding the coin. Altcoins were originally meant to be a testing ground for new ideas for bitcoin in ways that can be incorporated by it. However once it became clear that bitcoin started getting real value, other coins were being created in an attempt to be part of what they missed out on with bitcoin - mining it while it was cheap. But the arguments for any actual benefit to the altcoins being generated compared to bitcoin continue to revolve around some perceived technically better way to mine to keep cpu/gpu/home/small miners/no ASICs. Firstly there is no way that can happen - anything can be made into an ASIC. Second, if something develops real value, big players will always come in - why wouldn't they? Finally, as I mentioned with bitcoin above - the value of the coin has virtually nothing to do with mining. If your only real advantage is a different mode of mining, then that's not enough to sustain an economy. Especially if your mode of mining eventually converged to the same endpoint anyway with ASICs and big mines. What's really different then, and why would anyone want your also-ran coin? That's not to say that something won't come along to supplant bitcoin. It's just that it needs to be radically different in design and approach. How? I don't know, but if your starting point for a new coin is getting the bitcoin client and then modifying it, and ending up with something that is 99% the bitcoin code and model, are you not already just doomed to being another bitcoin clone?

 A few alt coins can be used as additional security but there is not much need for the current 25 plus on the market.

25? There are currently 500+
http://coinmarketcap.com/

  I did a typo meant to type 250+  not 25+

nah.... go for 2500 to cover all.

Point is ..... FCK scam coins.

[philipma1957]

Now what you think about the BTC future and the after effects of the current situation if we see in the perspective of mining.

The value of bitcoin directly affects mining in a delayed fashion, that has been shown time and time again. As the value remains strong, or gets stronger, the number of big miners will continue to increase over time. However the reverse is not true - mining itself does not directly affect BTC value. It has indirect effects through bringing more players into the bitcoin world, and through the sell off of mined coin, but most big miners will be dumping more of their mined coins sooner to pay off the considerable running costs. This means the bitcoin economy will stand more and more on its own based on what it was always actually based on - perceived value by the market that creates the economy for it, and hardly anything to do with mining. Unless some threat (security or otherwise) hits mining, it will have less and less influence on the bitcoin economy itself. In short, the answer to your actual question is, the mining situation will have hardly any effect on BTC future. The only way it might is if some large famous company decides to create a large mine - the mining itself won't affect the value, but the association with that company will increase people's confidence in it.

This is why altcoins that differentiate themselves by their mode of mining are ultimately futile. The mining is the least important part of the perceived value and consequently the economy surrounding the coin. Altcoins were originally meant to be a testing ground for new ideas for bitcoin in ways that can be incorporated by it. However once it became clear that bitcoin started getting real value, other coins were being created in an attempt to be part of what they missed out on with bitcoin - mining it while it was cheap. But the arguments for any actual benefit to the altcoins being generated compared to bitcoin continue to revolve around some perceived technically better way to mine to keep cpu/gpu/home/small miners/no ASICs. Firstly there is no way that can happen - anything can be made into an ASIC. Second, if something develops real value, big players will always come in - why wouldn't they? Finally, as I mentioned with bitcoin above - the value of the coin has virtually nothing to do with mining. If your only real advantage is a different mode of mining, then that's not enough to sustain an economy. Especially if your mode of mining eventually converged to the same endpoint anyway with ASICs and big mines. What's really different then, and why would anyone want your also-ran coin? That's not to say that something won't come along to supplant bitcoin. It's just that it needs to be radically different in design and approach. How? I don't know, but if your starting point for a new coin is getting the bitcoin client and then modifying it, and ending up with something that is 99% the bitcoin code and model, are you not already just doomed to being another bitcoin clone?

 A few alt coins can be used as additional security but there is not much need for the current 25 plus on the market.

25? There are currently 500+
http://coinmarketcap.com/

  I did a typo meant to type 250+  not 25+

nah.... go for 2500 to cover all.

Point is ..... FCK scam coins.

   

well not necessary is more accurate.   10 or less is more then enough

[s1gs3gv]

You heroes sure like full quoting each other

~L)L~

ps: I will assert that none know what will happen in the crypto-coin arena in the future. Let a thousand flowers bloom ...