absolutely agree with Metroid and DrG
my 12 cards (around 376.8mh/s ETH) would be giving me now about 14$ per month profit after electricity costs. And this is only after having changed my price x KWh to the slowest in my hole country for my purpose.
Is it worth to continue mining for 14$??. This is not the question. the question is "DO I BELIEVE THAT ETH WILL RECOVER??". the answer for me is NO.
If you think ETH will increase in price overtime, you´ll probably recover your bills (payed from your packet). So, that's why even this situation recommends TO STOP MINING RIGHT NOW, the network hashrate is still increasing.
People believe in ETH and that it's price will pump. There is NO ACTUAL REASON TO BELIEVE THAT, rather than "yolo". BTW yolo, is a part of a Spanish phrase: Porque "yo lo" valgo (which means, because i deserve it).
are we debating if you have to stop mining and buy the coins, or just mine?? Well, Mining i get around 0.75 ETH per month, with a cost of around 150$ per month in electricity. So, even investing 150$ to buy ETH, i would still not be getting the same amount as mining. If i want the coins, i'm better off mining than buying.
But my problem is that I DON'T BELIEVE IN ETH ANYMORE. Specially having known that yesterday the DEVS, talked about future difficulty bomb, and profit reduction per block from 3 to probably 2 or even 1. EIP-858 would reduce block rewards to 1 ETH per block, EIP-1234 would reduce block rewards to 2 ETH, while EIP-1295 would keep rewards to 3 ETH.
Constantinople Hard-fork will be launched in october (so every 8 months a fork, devs have said). It's not officially announced, but it's almost done that with this latest fork, they will apply EIP 1234, so 2ETH per block instead of 3. If there is no pump in price, ETH will definetely be a NO GO FOR MINERS AT THAT POINT.
ohh, btw, some stupid people said that i had lost money because i bought cards at high prices. Well, in fact, all of my RX 570 and 580 were bought at 200 to 250€ brand new, so way lower than highest prices, and even below msrp prices at launch.
My main idea of mining was to get a monthly profit of about 300€ (even if you don't believe me, i was certain ETH would not be able to keep it's prices, and predicted a drop of around 25% to 35% in the price and i accepted that situation). i never thought it was going to be an 80% as it is now. Noone expected that. Not to that extent. The idea was to sell coins after having mined them, pay electricity and enjoy the bonus.
The drop in prices has forced all of us to pay our bills from our pocket, and get nothing monthly, and just hope for a day to come that the situation gets better. That is not happening and the future is very black for crypto. i decided not to invest more money, because i have terrible doubts to get the money back.
If you want to burn your money on a camp fire, you are entitled to do it. But don't tell the others what to do, specially if the situation is the worst ever lived by crypto and you have no clue of what will happen the next year. I bet this will crash. i will hold my ETH already mined and go till the end with it with loses. But i will not put more money in this shitty and manipulated market .
Well just chalk it up as a learning experience. But I will tell you this. I have been there. I watched BTC go from $33 down to $2 and proudhon kept spouting off everyday that BTC was going to die. When BTC recovered to $5 I sold off a lot thinking wow, I just saw a 2.5x increase from $2 - biggest mistake ever. Just sit on your holdings. Enjoy your life. Try not to struggle with bills (hopefully you didn't go into debt to pay for the miners which everybody was warned not to do). If you can mine at a profit and don't mind the heat/noise go ahead.
Having been in this circus for 7 years and seen multiple boom/bust cycles - I knew I had to dump most of my hardware earlier this year. I still have a few (70 card farm) but I will use my assets to buy back coins I like once I feel most of the dumping cycle is completed. I think those ICOs are still dumping their ETH looking at the wallet movements.
Remember, don't get emotional with this. Pretend it's like buying Walmart or Revlon stock - can't really get too excited doing that lol.
Get excited about what crypto can do to make this world better.