Topic: Am I too Late?! - page 2. (Read 1943 times)

I always thought something like an Antminer S1 might be more suitable for someone with free electricity. Reason being that you can buy used ones off eBay for very cheap. Here's one that was selling for $40 NZD (about $30 USD) on Trademe (basically our equivalent of eBay):

http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/other/auction-862628667.htm

According to Coinwarz, 180GH/s at zero electricity cost should reach ROI in about 2 months assuming that the difficulty stays the same. After that, it's pure profit. Plus, you could sell the miner for virtually the same cost you bought it for and make even more money on top.

Modern miners like the S5 are much more efficient and are able to produce nearly 4 times the GH/s per watt compared to the S1 but they also cost much more to purchase. If your electricity is free, then it might be a better idea to go for the horribly inefficient miners that nobody else wants because they are currently cheap as chips.


Any situation that allows for a space heater should be enough to accommodate Bitcoin mining. A small space heater consumes over a kilowatt of energy. An Antminer S1 normally consumes 360 watts. The S5 consumes slightly over 500 watts. Instead of using the heater to heat your room, you could use a miner or two during those cold winter days and your overall electricity consumption should remain pretty much the same.

I will also say to anybody that claims they have "free electricity" to check the realities of of their situation. Somebody is always paying for the electricity they use, but they think it's free" because they have paid for a "normal" amount for their apartment, dorm room, or parent's basement. The key work here is normal, or expected usage amount. Beside the expectation of whoever is paying for the electricity, you will  need to look at the capacity of your electrical service. Student dorm room might have a couple of outlets, probably all on the same circuit. When I went to college, there were serious restriction on things like "hot plates", other high power devices. That wasn't just to annoy folks, it was because the place wasn't wired to support more than some lights, a couple of computers, and maybe a TV. I seriously doubt that college dorms are wired that much better today to support a killowatt or two of Bitcoin mining hardware.

Same thing, on a slightly different scale for your apartment or parent's basement.

Think twice about using your employer's space and electricity for mining. While some may be cool with a small amount of mining that doesn't disrupt things, other employer's have zero tolerance Bitcoin mining on their dime as it were.

In one word. YES

Unless you have 10 million $ or more you wont be able to compete with the miners with 11 million $ or more worth of computers that mine btc

You might be getting ROI very fast during this prior. However, after the halving occur.. your ROI might be slower or you might be losing money instead. Personally, I recommend you not to mine Bitcoin anymore.

I would not say completly to late.  I for see a chance until next having.

You do have to mine smart.  And it will not be a 3 month ROI.   If you are lucky with cheap electricity yes it can be done.   But if you are in a place with a VAT or high electricity you might not make ROI.

So free power and a wireless internet hook up.


 Get 3 s3's for under 100 bucks each get a good psu. the evga 1300 get  wireless bridge.

under 500 usd for the above.  1500gh

and look at the profit numbers

Only a few years

What is your electricity price? This will decide a lot

Can you handle a little noise, or do you have a area to put miners?

Lastly what is your budget you are wanting to spend?

another option is to solo mine. There are some solo mining pools out there that make it easy - this way you get the entire block reward if you find a block. Its much much much riskier, but at this point in the game its the only way for a home miner to see massive returns - to get really lucky.

joining a solo mining pool also helps distribute the hashrate, because I bet if you're going to pool mine, you'd probably join one of the big boys to see constant payouts.

And it depends on why you want to mine. If its to accumulate bitcoin, then no - nothing homescale (or livable - as in, you won't mind the noise) is going to get you a lot of bitcoin I think.

If you want to mine to support the network, then yes - anything homescale and livable can achieve this. And in this case this where the solo pools make sense.

So that'd be my recommendation - buy some ASICS and solo pool mine. Use the rest of the money you would've spent on even more asics and just buy bitcoin.

My simplistic understanding of the protocol for a miner to a poll is that low latency is way more important that high bandwidth. Of course your mobile carrier can "reshape" (i.e. slow down) your access to the Internet, will still keeping it "unlimited".

Thanks for the replys, do you know how much data is used over the net to run a bit miner? IE a single or two S3's for example. I presume the connection doesnt have to be fast. I run my internet from my mobile as i have unlimited data and regularly download upto and over 60gb a month lol that will teach them to tell me its unlimited!

Miners are definitely overpriced on Ebay.

If you get free electricity, it's not that hard to be profitable. You should check out the hardware marketplace section if you want to have a better idea of the real cost.

I also use https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator to estimate profitability. Use something like 5% Difficulty Increment and change the other variables accordingly in the sidebar.

Unless you have terahashes of power it's not profitable, if you can invest for that much go ahead.

well... You may need a computer like this one:



This is the scale of mining today. Since it's like a lottery system it is theoretically possible to still mine with a home computer. The odds however are dismal. It will likely take hundreds or thousands of years to find a block.

really since the Chinese mega-mines it's go big or go home.

Hey guys... After alot of research so I'm not so much of a noob I understand bitcoin mining is not as easy nore cheap task

I am too late to jump on this band wagon?

I see so many bit miners on ebay and ask myself why would people sell if they get a return from these badboys!!

I get free electric where i currently live so thought id be one up on everyone else from the start but dont want to invest a massive amount to see hardly any return with so many big players out there now!

Any advice would be wonderful and i hope im not to late