What does it REALLY take to make money MINING BITCOIN these days?

[MrMaxwell]

Where is the bottleneck? What is the big concern?
Obviously "cloud mining" is absurdly ridiculous, even I can see that and I know hardly anything about this shit . . .
Cloud mining is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of . Unless you were somehow mining on hardware you weren't supposed to be, or some currency turned out to be easy to mine on certain hardware you managed to lease before anyone realized, or some chance occurrence like that

But what is the big issue for people looking to invest in mining? The hardware? The electricity? A lot of these fools make it sound like it's the hardware, others make it sound like it's the electricity - as if anyone with access to cheap or free power could easily stay profitable
Is that what it is?

Seems like a sketchy but potentially amazing investment . . you're fighting difficulty increases which seem somewhat level most months, yeah? But then you have the unstable price and all of that . . . .

This shit is interesting as fuck
ASIC I remember those from the days of H-Cards for DirecTV. You had to have that ASIC. Even when you were using emulation, had to have a genuine real ASIC. That's all I know about ASIC. Application Specific Instruction Chip or Application Specific Integrated Chip (or something like that)

I have no idea of why they're so powerful these days but I'll learn I suppose
But I'm basically asking, if I had access to a lot of free power, could I be extremely profitable?

[Dead]

https://bitcoinonair.wordpress.com/2...-bbc-future-2/

[Dead]

My Life Inside a Remote Chinese Bitcoin Mine

[gnawledge]

I made a computer with a kick ass processor, $500 graphics card and hydrocooler. I looked into mining and downloaded the software and it only raised my electricity bill and fried my CPU. I believe if you have the right tools and research the science behind it, you can make something. But I gave up after learning how saturated it is and how you're competing with professionals. There is litecoin that I hear is a little easier.

[MrMaxwell]

It's too bad CPU mining died a long time ago
I have extra computers
Sigh

[Colmike9]

Back in the day, you could modify a NES to make money slowly with ASIC mining, but the blocks are so big now that you'll just be wasting electricity to make a few dollars if anything per month using good hardware unless you really know what you're doing and grind hard..

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by Colmike7

Back in the day, you could modify a NES to make money slowly with ASIC mining, but the blocks are so big now that you'll just be wasting electricity to make a few dollars if anything per month using good hardware unless you really know what you're doing and grind hard..

Damn
That really sucks
It would be so interesting to be hiding in some warehouse setting up mining machine things

[Colmike9]

Originally Posted by MrMaxwell

Damn
That really sucks
It would be so interesting to be hiding in some warehouse setting up mining machine things

People still do that, but they lease the machines to other people for mining/pools......

[seXXXhub]

free electricity is the key

[Colmike9]

Originally Posted by seXXXhub

free electricity is the key

Has anyone heard of anyone doing ASIC mining with solar power?

[rowan]

Originally Posted by MrMaxwell

Damn
That really sucks
It would be so interesting to be hiding in some warehouse setting up mining machine things

Many people did the "amateur farm" thing back in the early days. I remember a guy maxing out his credit card to buy $35k worth of GPUs and associated computer parts. People thought he was crazy, but I'm sure he had the last laugh, because that was when BTC was worth about $4.

I stopped GPU mining in about 2011 when the cost of electricity was roughly equal to the value in BTC I was mining. I should have kept going; at the time I was mining around 1BTC per week; I can still see those transactions in my wallet.

With regards to current profitability, even if you had free power it would be difficult to break even. The combination of consistently rising difficulty, and the upcoming block reward halving will mean it's difficult to make back the cost of your mining hardware before it becomes obsolete. Then again, the reward halving could push the value of BTC up, so people could be mining at a loss - like I should have done in 2011...

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by rowan

Many people did the "amateur farm" thing back in the early days. I remember a guy maxing out his credit card to buy $35k worth of GPUs and associated computer parts. People thought he was crazy, but I'm sure he had the last laugh, because that was when BTC was worth about $4.

I stopped GPU mining in about 2011 when the cost of electricity was roughly equal to the value in BTC I was mining. I should have kept going; at the time I was mining around 1BTC per week; I can still see those transactions in my wallet.

With regards to current profitability, even if you had free power it would be difficult to break even. The combination of consistently rising difficulty, and the upcoming block reward halving will mean it's difficult to make back the cost of your mining hardware before it becomes obsolete. Then again, the reward halving could push the value of BTC up, so people could be mining at a loss - like I should have done in 2011...

Good Lord
Anyone who spent that much on mining hardware at the $4 level should have gone back to old times to buy AT&T before they were anything
WoW
That's the whole thing right there, at the time, it was probably a wreckless/ridiculous thing to do . ..

Hindsight is a bitch unless she's a naked woman

[Colmike9]

Originally Posted by MrMaxwell

Good Lord
Anyone who spent that much on mining hardware at the $4 level should have gone back to old times to buy AT&T before they were anything
WoW
That's the whole thing right there, at the time, it was probably a wreckless/ridiculous thing to do . ..

Hindsight is a bitch unless she's a naked woman

I'm just pissed that I didn't get into it when I first saw it at just above $1..

[rowan]

Originally Posted by MrMaxwell

Good Lord
Anyone who spent that much on mining hardware at the $4 level should have gone back to old times to buy AT&T before they were anything
WoW
That's the whole thing right there, at the time, it was probably a wreckless/ridiculous thing to do . ..

It was a risky gamble, but not a massive one. I think the expected payback time (assuming the price stayed the same - which it didn't) was something like 6 months. One advantage of GPU based mining was that the GPUs, motherboards, RAM etc were general purpose computer parts, so they held more resale value than say a 3 month old SHA256 ASIC miner. If BTC had completely fizzled (or a fatal flaw had been found) he may have come out with a $10k net loss.

My single mid-level GPU created about 1 BTC per week so I'd say his table full of motherboards and high end GPUs would have been pushing out at least 20 BTC per week.

Originally Posted by MrMaxwell

Hindsight is a bitch unless she's a naked woman

I hear ya.

1. I planned to buy $100 worth of BTC (at about $3ea) via Paypal, but decided it was late and I needed to sleep on it. When I got back up, Paypal had changed the rules. At the time sites like localbitcoins didn't exist, so it was difficult to purchase BTC. I literally just missed the boat.

2. As detailed earlier, I stopped mining too soon. I didn't consider the residual value of the equipment, nor the fact that I could write off the electricity cost, so the break even point was actually further down the track. It was just something fun at that time, nothing really too serious.

3. About 18 months later I realised the price of BTC was going up, and thought it was going to crash, so I sold off my entire balance at $44 each. If I had waited another year, I could have sold for $800 each, and if I'd sold at the top point, $1000+ each.

So if I'd been able to make that initial test investment, I had mined a couple of months longer, and had waited until the price went high, I could have realistically netted $50k+. Instead I made about $500 from selling my BTC, plus another hundred or so from selling my used GPU on ebay.

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by rowan

It was a risky gamble, but not a massive one. I think the expected payback time (assuming the price stayed the same - which it didn't) was something like 6 months. One advantage of GPU based mining was that the GPUs, motherboards, RAM etc were general purpose computer parts, so they held more resale value than say a 3 month old SHA256 ASIC miner. If BTC had completely fizzled (or a fatal flaw had been found) he may have come out with a $10k net loss.

My single mid-level GPU created about 1 BTC per week so I'd say his table full of motherboards and high end GPUs would have been pushing out at least 20 BTC per week.



I hear ya.

1. I planned to buy $100 worth of BTC (at about $3ea) via Paypal, but decided it was late and I needed to sleep on it. When I got back up, Paypal had changed the rules. At the time sites like localbitcoins didn't exist, so it was difficult to purchase BTC. I literally just missed the boat.

2. As detailed earlier, I stopped mining too soon. I didn't consider the residual value of the equipment, nor the fact that I could write off the electricity cost, so the break even point was actually further down the track. It was just something fun at that time, nothing really too serious.

3. About 18 months later I realised the price of BTC was going up, and thought it was going to crash, so I sold off my entire balance at $44 each. If I had waited another year, I could have sold for $800 each, and if I'd sold at the top point, $1000+ each.

So if I'd been able to make that initial test investment, I had mined a couple of months longer, and had waited until the price went high, I could have realistically netted $50k+. Instead I made about $500 from selling my BTC, plus another hundred or so from selling my used GPU on ebay.

Don't feel too bad ... it happens to anyone, right

[gnawledge]

I was going to gamble and buy them when they were at $16.00 a bitcoin, then of course I'm an indecisive tard and didn't. I got absentminded and forgot all about them until they were $600 and some change. Short story long: I missed out.

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by rowan

It was a risky gamble, but not a massive one. I think the expected payback time (assuming the price stayed the same - which it didn't) was something like 6 months. One advantage of GPU based mining was that the GPUs, motherboards, RAM etc were general purpose computer parts, so they held more resale value than say a 3 month old SHA256 ASIC miner. If BTC had completely fizzled (or a fatal flaw had been found) he may have come out with a $10k net loss.

My single mid-level GPU created about 1 BTC per week so I'd say his table full of motherboards and high end GPUs would have been pushing out at least 20 BTC per week.



I hear ya.

1. I planned to buy $100 worth of BTC (at about $3ea) via Paypal, but decided it was late and I needed to sleep on it. When I got back up, Paypal had changed the rules. At the time sites like localbitcoins didn't exist, so it was difficult to purchase BTC. I literally just missed the boat.

2. As detailed earlier, I stopped mining too soon. I didn't consider the residual value of the equipment, nor the fact that I could write off the electricity cost, so the break even point was actually further down the track. It was just something fun at that time, nothing really too serious.

3. About 18 months later I realised the price of BTC was going up, and thought it was going to crash, so I sold off my entire balance at $44 each. If I had waited another year, I could have sold for $800 each, and if I'd sold at the top point, $1000+ each.

So if I'd been able to make that initial test investment, I had mined a couple of months longer, and had waited until the price went high, I could have realistically netted $50k+. Instead I made about $500 from selling my BTC, plus another hundred or so from selling my used GPU on ebay.

Yeah $35k ain't a millie but I can't imagine what all else that person must have put God knows what amounts of money into otherwise

Buying/holding into a big spike is usually stupid, so you can't blame yourself for having good judgement
I have had a lot of "good decisions/horrible" luck scenarios before
Just try to look back on it and figure out whether you made the best decision you could with what ever information you had at that time

You really made a good point about some of the investment being into assets too .. it ain't as if he could have lost the whole thirty dimes