Topic: ANTMINER S2 Discussion and Support Thread - page 174. (Read 355730 times)

Shouldn't this non-topic discussion be moved to the Mining Speculation section since that section is identified as the area for "Speculation about mining hardware, difficulty, profitability, etc."

Ok, a bit harsh with my newbie comment, apologies. It's not all doom though. If you watch the hardware and group buy forums then you learn to get a heads up as to what miners are about to be released. It's probably wise to steer clear from batch 1s. But if you jump in early with a batch 2 or 3 when the miner price is dropping, then you can get hardware that will ROI. There are plenty of good ROI calculators that take into account electricity and insanely increasing difficulty. I used http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/ 3-4 weeks ago to see if I would make any profit on 6 x ant S1s and the numbers looked OK. Now I have nearly 4 coins and expect to earn a few more at least. So it's not impossible, you just have to watch what's going on a lot...

[edit] I'm hoping for a significant price drop on the S2 future batches - the current numbers plugged into the calculator I mentioned don't work - you are correct on that...

I didn't say anything about Bitcoin itself - I said the mining numbers don't work.

I don't see anybody disputing me with some actual numbers.

What I see are people acting just like all the people I talk to on other forums - who think that because Mt. Gox was a disaster - that all of Bitcoin is a disaster.

It's the same mentality just coming from a different direction.

What I see are people who act just like the "investors" I've dealt with over the years who think that Apple stock , or Google stock, or Pets Online whatever stock - will go to $1000 a share,  or the people who think that gold will go to $10,000 an ounce.

Their numbers only work when  you apply a very high bullshit hope and change factor. And that shit doesn't work in the real world.

I said mining doesn't seem to be worth it - if YOU actually have to absorb ALL of the costs - unless the machine pays itself off in 30 or maybe 45 days - tops.  If it goes longer than that - the difficulty increase and NOW - the IRS coming in and wanting to take capital gains taxes - is going to make it a money loser.

Every single miner asic company I've seen - is pricing their machines so high that the buyers will pretty much never get ROI on them.

Prove me wrong - show me the numbers.  I'm fully willing to admit I'm wrong on this - but you're going to have to prove it.

Changing the password for the web admin will work.

Changing the password for SSH (aka root linux user) will be reset on reboot.

yes, i agree the subnet problem is fixed.  no problem here with 192.168.2.x via DHCP.

I have not tried changing the default password yet.  would love to hear from someone who's taken that plunge and lived to tell about it.

does this firmware let you change the default password?

miner sages around here as common as cockroaches at Taco Bell.

To be clear, my S2's all appear brand new.  the boards are spotless and appear right off of an assembly line.  the heat sinks even have some shaved metal hanging from their edges, as if they were hastily chopped to size on a bandsaw a week ago - which i'm sure they were.

One of my S2's even had the sticker covering it's little piezo speaker still attached.  it read "remove after cleaning". 

I'm confident that these S2's are new and unused.  Their power supplies, on the other hand, are clearly well used. but i don't really care.  I imagine Bitmaintech sourced a ton of used power supplies.

Personally, i'd rather get an S2 with used power supply then 5 S1's and have to DIY bolt them to a power supply or two of my own.  I've seen some rather scary S1 setups - glad to see mining becoming a little less fire hazardous.

BTC - in the US at least (and China for that matter) - is not going to get treated as "currency" - because the IRS is going to take a cut every single time you do an exchange where you make a gain.  This means that to deal in BTC at all - you're going to have to keep copious records of all of your transactions if you ever enter 'the system' with BTC.

Bitcoin is more like a stock - that can be more freely traded - than it is a currency.  And the government takes a cut out of stock transactions.

If you want to justify doing it on the basis that it's fun - that's fine.  But I've yet to see anybody lately coming out with any math that proves that the mining thing is profitable - unless their doing what I proposed previously - and just pushing off all the costs onto somebody else.

To answer  your question: no I don't see BTC at $1500 for sure.  It might go there - but then again Apple stock *might* go there too.   But what you're proposing here as a justification is just a unicorn dream.  Not a sound basis for "investing" in mining machinery.

If I spend $3000 on a new welder - I can put it out in my garage and build stuff with it.  If I'm in the business of making things - I can make stuff and sell it - or even if I just use it to fix broken stuff, I can justify the cost by how much money I saved fixing things myself over some number of years.  Plus the welder WILL hold residual value over time.  So figuring out it's payback time is pretty easy.  Applying the same methodology to mining machinery - the payback just isn't there, UNLESS - you start plugging in fictional numbers - like $1500 BTC prices by the end of the year.

But then you're not talking about "investing" - you're talking about gambling.  Lots of people gamble - only a very few ever make anything from it.  But the "house" - always wins.

When I start seeing mining machinery go down into price range where they can pay themselves off in 30 days - based on an estimated difficulty level of 30 days out - then I'll start thinking the miner manufacturers are serious.

Right now - I think what they do is come out with new machines, run them for a period of time and then sell them off just as they're getting towards their payoff period.  That's why you see a number of people mentioning here in this thread that their S2's are coming thru with dust sucked into the power supplies.

did anyone figure out the admin password change thing yet?

Can somebody please post a link for the new firmware? I have not received my AntMiner S2 yet, but would like to update as soon as I get it.

Also maybe even a process on how to update it? Sorry I have not update an AntMiner before..

mining is fun. how many people buy a $200 box of lego, spend 2-3 days assembling it, and then put it away on a shelf as a decoration? setting up computer gear is fun for some people.

you can blow $1000 gambling for a few hours of fun in vegas and walk away empty-handed.  Some people like me would consider bitcoin mining as a bit of a hobby, particularly one that can make a bit of profit if things go well. not many hobbies make any money.

also, mining depends on your outlook on BTC. do you see it at $1500 or $150 by the end of 2014? Its going to be at one of those extremes, and my money is on it going up (literally). I don't think its hard to envision a near-future where huge facilities hosting 10-20PH of power are located all over the globe, run by both private investors and/or banks and investment firms who want to produce their own bitcoins.  If bitcoin continues to be the leading solution for a future-proof currency it will be very valuable in 5 years from now

If you're just looking to piss thru money - there's an awful lot of things in the world  you can do that with - that are a lot more "fun" than BTC mining.

Exactly.

Once you add in all of those things you mentioned - AND , if you're in the US you're now going to have to factor in capital gains taxes - I don't see the math in it.

I don't see BTC mining as a "long term" game - if the hardware doesn't pay itself back in a relatively short period of time - what you're looking at is potentially an ever extending payout period.

Quite honestly I think one of the only ways the mining starts to make any sort of "sense" ( if you want to call it that) - is if you're some sort of IT guy who has access to a budget and a lab infrastructure - and can buy the machines on the company's dime, put them in the company's lab (where they pay for electricity and cooling) - and then direct the BTC output to your own wallet.

That way you basically have no upfront costs and you get all the profit - so it's spectacularly profitable FOR YOU. And if you're in one of those companies that brings in equipment by the pallet load and ships out old equipment by the pallet load - they're likely not even going to notice the miners showing up on the budget.

If you're stuck with all of the costs - I don't see the mining working. 

As for this being off topic to this thread - I think it relates directly - because even though Bitmain is sending out one of the better products at a decent price (at least compared to others) - for the mining to "work" IMHO - their prices need to be less than half of where they are now.

most of my equipment profitability calculations assume that the difficulty jumps will slowly decrease in size from the current 15-20%/jump to 10%/jump in the late fall, to 8%/jump around the end of the year.  At current prices that puts break-even sometime around august, and stops being profitable around december. however, if prices go up then it may remain profitable (if only marginally) to keep running through to february/march.

i know what you mean though, BTC returns should be calculated from a BTC price invested.  calculating this shows significant margins, but those margins are eaten up at the current BTC/electricity price ratio - espescially for those paying more than $0.20/kwh in warmer climates

Yeah but where's the fun in that? You can't 'unbox' a bitcoin like you can a miner...

That reasoning is a fallacy.  A piece of hardware will generate a relatively finite amount of BTC in it's lifetime.  As difficulty increases, the amount of BTC generated by a piece of hardware asymptotically approaches zero.  Given the amount of BTC the hardware will generate and given the amount of fiat required to purchase said hardware, it usually makes more sense to buy and hold btc now if you assume that price of BTC will go up.

There is not a single machine that would get your ROI unless you are playing the long term game. Price of BTC will go up to reflect that difficulty changes and cost of the miners. At the moment, BTC is going through some changes and government announcements having negative impact on the price.

Think this as an investment rather than regular monthly income.

Price of BTC could be $2,000 or $20 in the next 12 months.

Even you design your own asics and manufacturer your miners you will not make your money back unless you pre-mine and sell those miners few weeks / months later just like every other manufacturer.

Yeah - I don't get where the ROI is coming from on some of these units. Given the difficulty level - and constant increases,  the market price of BTC, the cost of the mining rigs - and the upcoming boning from the tax man,  I just don't see it.

Must be that new math I've been hearing about.