Topic: 2 TH/s Miner worth it? Difficulty and halving Help a noob out! (Read 2913 times)

I have only bought miners from pre-orders, and all those miners gave me money. As long as you dont put your pre-order into a scam vendor, you should be ok.

And about the main topic of the thread (about Cointerra 2TH/s miner), yes, it will be profitable. Not crazy profitable as ASICs in 2013, but profitable anyway. If your TerraMiner arrives in May, dont expect to recover your investment until late 2014.

As a guideline you shouldnt buy anything older than 28nm asics (most popular 28nm asics: KNC Jupiter/Saturn or Cointerra's 1.6TH TerraminerIV).

40nm, 55nm, 110nm, 155nm might be cheap, but you will need to power those things down by the end of 2014.

Here you have some info about why mining is still profitable this year:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/looking-to-get-into-the-mining-game-this-2014-it-is-possible-a-must-read-477616

the right moral decision always lies with the consumer. don't do pre-order. simples. if the consumer wasn't in such a rush to ramp up the network hashrate, these companies wouldn't get away with this.

Here's the funny thing: BFL built a chip that they thought could do 4.5gh at 10 watts and found it could do 4gh at 15. They redesigned their boards, and sold the jalapenos on Single board frames (which were built for 8 and cost a lot more) while delivering the 30gh units on totally redesigned boards. Took a few months, probably cost a lot, and people bitched them out.

Cointerra had a worse problem (25% less *and* more power) and instead said screw it and delivered substandard systems to the users. Didn't cost Cointerra a cent.

So who really is the bad guy, and what is the right moral decision here? Do it right, spend the money, and be pilloried, or just say the heck with it and ship for nothing?

C

Wow, Cointerra "delivered" but not really...

Overpromised and undelivered big time.  I'm beginning to sense a theme in the Asic pre-order world...

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--7216

^ to help anyone thinking of buying the '2TH' terraminer.

Not worth...

Also, a point to remember, anything that states they are fitting 20nm chips, be very very wary... even if it's a genuine manufacturer, it's highly unlikely you'll see anything bitcoin with 20nm come out in 2014 (yes, i'll still say this about KnC)

here was the first big news of a 20nm chip being mass produced;

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20140116220015_TSMC_Begins_Volume_Production_of_Chips_Using_20nm_Process_Technology.html

I first noticed this on 23rd January, and was over the moon about it - finally a big producer of 20nm (!)

now, bear in mind who will be in the queue for these chips... and also cast your mind to place where bitcoin mining manufacturers may be in this queue...

here is a shortlist of some other manufacturers who will have first dibs on those chips;

mobile phone makers
computer manufacturers
white goods manufacturers

this list is probably huge... then, somewhere near the bottom of the queue - bitcoin mining manufacturers.

so, we are stuck beteen a rock and hard place;

130nm - now is the time to power down - current difficulty dictates that 130nm is not cost effective.
55nm - holders of 55nm machines are falling over themselves to sell their rigs to ebay muppets (55nm future is short as difficulty rises)
28nm - all presales have stopped, KnC have reverted to making more 28nm (for their own mining farm)

14nm - you are having a giraffe.   

I think cointerra is running into exactly the same problem BFL did: Chips tend to use more power than you think, and this can really upset a board layout.

In their case, I read somewhere they're hashing at 75% expected speed with more power being used. This winds up stressing the 1 volt supply lines, and since people seem to insist on running FETs in parallel (need more power, just ADD MORE FUCKING FETS) the supplies either become unstable or blow up in a cool zipper fashion.

I don't understand that bit; I've worked with electric motor controllers in the 30-150kw range and the Curtis 300 amp controllers had this hilarious bank of 30a FETs down a rail. Problem is when a FET gets warm it pulls more power, which means the rail goes unstable then the FETs start blowing up. Hilarity ensues when top and bottom rails short and you get to see if your 500a fuse is really DC rated to 30,000 amps interrupt rated.

Ahem. The right way to do it is with IGBTs, gated by a 2708 type power gate driver. A good single 300 amp IGBT would handle the 1 volt switching with very low voltage loss (ie: less heat) and can be water cooled. But do people do this? NOOOOOOOOOOO!.

So they have to redesign their board for more chips, more crosstalk, and a beefalo style power subsystem.

STAY AWAY - they are SCAM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=350732.40

I purchased from Cointerra and I can now confirm:

No delivery in January as promised - I asked them in December and they said they were on track to make their January deliveries.

No response to emails in 10 days. No response to their phone line , just an answering machine.

Maybe I was really stupid but I borrowed a *lot* of money to purchase these machines.

I bought previously from KNC and they shipped a higher specification machine and it was delivered on time.

I thought the Cointerra sales pitch was really good , in fact much better than KNC, all of their people looked top notch - Ravi Iyengar , Naveed Sherwani , Timo Hanke - these people did not come across as another BFL Josh Zerlan , these people are real Pro's , so why is it they are now acting like BFL did when they were late with their products ?

If anybody has had a delivery from Cointerra please get back to me , I am now starting to get really worried. If they don't get this sorted out soon I am going to be in serious trouble.

Quote from: asicmadness on January 31, 2014, 08:19:59 PM
Maybe I was really stupid but I borrowed a *lot* of money to purchase these machines.

Quote from: asicmadness on January 31, 2014, 08:19:59 PM
I borrowed a *lot* of money

Quote from: asicmadness on January 31, 2014, 08:19:59 PM
Maybe I was really stupid

Quote from: asicmadness on January 31, 2014, 08:19:59 PM
I was really stupid

Not saying that they will not deliver...but borrowing money for such a risky investment..seems...risky?

great suggestion.  i was planning on ordering from black arrow since cointerra is sold out but it seems that the antminer s1 may be a better option.  i do not want to wait because i'm impatient and i think the antminer could make some money now.  then, i can get in early on the next generation of miners next year.  thanks for the post.

...on second thought.... maybe i'll wait for the prospero x-3.  the profit difference is too great, if they deliver.

of course, nothing is set in stone, and with the current plummeting BTC prices, it could well be the case that we see a significant number of mining farms powering down over the next few weeks. Remember, a mining farm is only good as long as profit can be made on a short sell. I doubt that the 600TH farms dotted around the globe will be holding bitcoins for any length of time, 'in speculation'.

When the price peaked at $1200, bitcoin mining became, no longer a speculative endeavour. Hence why we have seen the fast rise in difficulty, these massive farms are run by large companies and affluent individuals; and large companies, as well as the majority of those affluent investors will currently be doing their books on a daily basis, not irregularly 'when price may be higher' - but every day, to ensure the net income meets costs + worthwhile profit.

in which case, now may well be a good time to take a punt on a few hundred GH rig. thoughts?

Nah, not worth at all. Again learn more about difficulty..

there is a big possibility that you are right on this one but it is still better to wait and see what will happen with next generation of miners then to throw money right now on anything.

 

may I just intervene, thank you.
all that vpasic speaks is the truth, however.

don't hold your breath on 5-7TH mining rigs. that particular luxury may not be realised until well into the year 2016, by which time, it's likely the average 'at home miner' will NEED that kind of hashing power, just to keep up.

Also, the manufacturers of these rigs are not too concerned about folks amassing huge farms with a multitude of rigs, so when these toys are eventually released, you'll be competing with huge difficulty increases (again), and massive warehouses filled with miners.

At home mining is dead. sorry.

by looking at above post you can make your own conclusion to buy or not to buy 2th miner.
but no one answered your questions so let me have the honor.

1. No! even if you have powerful miner in your hands right now that will earn you 8-9btc ($8.000) in first month of mining, in weeks after that you'l be earning less and less with every difficulty jump (12-13 days). there is no steady and constant earnings in crypto mining!

2. biggest impact in profit coming from difficulty jumps. next block halving will happen in 3 years or so and it is at least of your concern.

3. Halving -> approximately every 10 minutes one block is generated. in the first 4 years size of one block was 50BTC. that number will be halving every 4 years. since beginning of 2013 block size is 25BTC and every 4 years size of block will be halved in half by the year 2140 when there will be approximately 21 million bitcoins in existence.
 
Difficulty -> it is defined by btc network that block is generated every 10 minutes and in 14 days it is generated 2016 blocks. since we adding more and more power to the btc network blocks are solved much faster so that 2016 blocks are solved in 12-13 days and after 2016 blocks are mined btc network is rising difficulty to achieve that "10 minutes per block" balance.

so if you buy terraminer April batch right now you will have it in April and by then difficulty will be so high that it won't make you ROI and specially not earning you anything.

my suggestion is to wait for next generation of miners (5-7TH) and be fast on buying.
keep an eye on kncminer and blackarrow.
 
any more questions?

   

If you really want to get into mining, get something available in stock now.
The best option available now is : antminer s1 : 200GH/s for 1.45btc, shipped in less than 5 days
I have 5 of them and they are hashing pretty well. I paid around 8btc for 1TH but it will be fully paid back in april and i will still have the miners.
I am actually buying 5 more this week.

Q: would you order a new car if all you had was a spec sheet and some sexy renders to illustrate 'what it might look like'?

if it ain't IN STOCK NOW, don't buy it.

A TerraHash in hand is worth 2 in the bush....

Still, it would be unlikely to get your investment back, especially for pre-orders that are expected to be delivered months later.

You can always buy one of these and mine the sha256 alt coins. Put it up on a sha256 multipool. It will probably return ROI that way. Mining straight BTC it won't.