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Topic: Bitmain's Released Antminer S9, World's First 16nm Miner Ready to Order - page 52. (Read 531067 times)

member
Activity: 125
Merit: 10
Don’t do a screen name after 4 glasses of Chianti
I have 2 miners coming from Bitmain and got screwed choosing UPS for $140 shipping.They wouldn't let me choose Fedex and Bitmain said I might not get my miners if I chose DHL. They shipped both my miners together instead of individually like some members said on this forum. Others said UPS only charged them $50 or less to USA. UPS is charging me $277 for customs duties and brokerage fees. I should've went with DHL. Is anyone else getting charged these fees? Which is cheaper with all duties & fees included, DHL or FEdEx?

The customs and duty fees are the same regardless of what shipper you use. The cost will depend on the value of your shipment. I paid $110 today at ups for 2 $1415 S9’s. The shipping charges are clearly stated before  you checkout.
newbie
Activity: 73
Merit: 0
I have 2 miners coming from Bitmain and got screwed choosing UPS for $140 shipping.They wouldn't let me choose Fedex and Bitmain said I might not get my miners if I chose DHL. They shipped both my miners together instead of individually like some members said on this forum. Others said UPS only charged them $50 or less to USA. UPS is charging me $277 for customs duties and brokerage fees. I should've went with DHL. Is anyone else getting charged these fees? Which is cheaper with all duties & fees included, DHL or FEdEx?
jr. member
Activity: 56
Merit: 8
What if hashrate drops? Say China goes down. Or S. Korea. Just for the sake of argument.

It looks like they are already relocating their operations.

It would be really really really good for miners elsewhere in the world if all big mining farms in China would just go “Oh well, we’ve had a good run, lets throw all our S9’s in the bin and close the place down”.

But seriously, these giant mining farms with millions of their dollars locked up in thousands of miners are going to just move their investment and when they do, it will be so quick you won’t even notice it. Miners that are not running are miners that are costing you money so if you move them, you want to make sure you do this as efficiently as possible and you make sure everything is ready on the other side to turn them on as soon as they arrive.

I agree here.  The mining equipment will not be permanently shut down.  At worse, they will be temporarily turned off until they are relocated whether within that company or with new owners.

Edit:  If you buy miners using your company, and you don't expense them right away, I would suggest the double declining method for amortizing your equipment costs if you're worried about difficulty increases and profits diminishing over time, which I also agree is pretty much a given at this point.
hero member
Activity: 630
Merit: 506
I just received an S9 late Dec. start using it 31st with no issue till today, I notice fan 1 was saying 0 and the temp went up from 79 to 82c so I carefully removed fan 1 and it was working but not reporting a speed signal, should I replace the fan or let it run?

I have the fan speed manually set to 80%
member
Activity: 125
Merit: 10
Don’t do a screen name after 4 glasses of Chianti
FYI, our Dec 20-30 Jan 11-20 order finally shipped.

Same here. Already got the call from ups for my SS info. Expected to be stateside Friday


Customs Fees for 2 to the US $110.25
jr. member
Activity: 42
Merit: 1
I'm not discussing will or won't. Just asking what if it does?

I just said, it would be really really really good for miners elsewhere in the world if the total network hashrate would all of the sudden drop by 70%.

It’s as if a pie that was previously cut into 10 pieces is now cut into 3 pieces, you still get one piece but it’s now a hell of a lot bigger. :-)
newbie
Activity: 182
Merit: 0
I'm not discussing will or won't. Just asking what if it does?
jr. member
Activity: 42
Merit: 1
What if hashrate drops? Say China goes down. Or S. Korea. Just for the sake of argument.

It looks like they are already relocating their operations.

It would be really really really good for miners elsewhere in the world if all big mining farms in China would just go “Oh well, we’ve had a good run, lets throw all our S9’s in the bin and close the place down”.

But seriously, these giant mining farms with millions of their dollars locked up in thousands of miners are going to just move their investment and when they do, it will be so quick you won’t even notice it. Miners that are not running are miners that are costing you money so if you move them, you want to make sure you do this as efficiently as possible and you make sure everything is ready on the other side to turn them on as soon as they arrive.
full member
Activity: 500
Merit: 105
What if hashrate drops? Say China goes down. Or S. Korea. Just for the sake of argument.

It looks like they are already relocating their operations.
newbie
Activity: 182
Merit: 0
What if hashrate drops? Say China goes down. Or S. Korea. Just for the sake of argument.
jr. member
Activity: 42
Merit: 1
Sure, the past 8 months has seen a huge surge in price, but if you look at the difficulty, that has surged almost right along with it.  

I think you're right in that the recent surge in price has increased profits for miners, but not to the extreme that you make out. I think the recent spike in profit is going to drop back down to normal levels with these new S9's being released in the coming months. That's where our opinions differ. I think it's going to be to where the S9 is no longer going to be extremely profitable, just back down to where profits were before, which was normally profitable to start with. It's not like mining wasn't profitable 8 months ago before the price of bitcoin surged 1000%. I've been turning a profit mining for years, only recently has it become stupidly profitable, and of course we're all expecting that to go away. What we're not expecting is your prediction that our miners will be making nothing in a couple of months.

I think I will leave it at that, I don't think my numbers will ever convince you so lets wait and see, and agree to disagree for now.

Can I suggest one last thing? Download the spreadsheet if you haven't already done so, and set an alarm in your calendar for the 1st of March, I will do the same.
Lets compare the hashrate/earnings forecast with what has actually happened at that point in time and see how far I was off.
We can discuss further then perhaps? I'll be back on here :-)
(Maybe in the mining speculation thread though, where this belongs)
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 255
You can't because you won't know what the difficulty will do without knowing how BTC/USD is doing. The two are correlated, we just don't know how. It's like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. Does the difficulty go up because BTC/USD is doing well, or is BTC/USD doing well because the difficulty is going up?

You can't assume that the difficulty is going to just keep rising without BTC/USD rising with it, or people wouldn't keep plugging in their miners, as mining would no longer be profitable.


Yes BTC/USD and network hashrate are very likely correlated.
But here's the thing, there is a massive lag between the numbers (caused by Bitmain mostly), so the enormous amount hashing power coming online now and in the next few months is a result of BTC/USD increase over the last 6 months.

It could very well flatten out again once this all settles but what the spreadsheet shows is that you would need it to flatten out very, very, very, soon, like in the next month or two, even quicker than the most optimistic scenario presented in the spreadsheet, for an S9 to pay itself back and become profitable in 2018. And be serious, look at this chart:
https://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/hashrate/5y?c=m&g=15&t=a
You really think that is realistic?

You could have made the same spreadsheet and made the same predictions a year ago and said: "Look, the difficulty is predicted to keep rising, it would be better to just buy BTC and not a miner because a couple months from now, your miners won't be making anything". That wouldn't have worked then for the same reason it doesn't work now, because you're not assuming anything about BTC/USD!

You are spot on.
Up until very recently mining has never been profitable for most of the Western world, only where power is dead-cheap was it profitable but on average most of us were just breaking even or below the profit line.
In the Western World it was always more of a hobby thing, you could always make more money investing directly into your favorite crypto.

It's only because BTC value has increased so much over the last 6 months that all of the sudden an opportunity has presented itself for everyone to make money.
But network hashrate is quickly catching up again, and BTC value is now staggering so it will probably even overshoot before bringing things back to balance. (meaning a period of profit for nobody at worst)

Sure, the past 8 months has seen a huge surge in price, but if you look at the difficulty, that has surged almost right along with it.  

I think you're right in that the recent surge in price has increased profits for miners, but not to the extreme that you make out. I think the recent spike in profit is going to drop back down to normal levels with these new S9's being released in the coming months. That's where our opinions differ. I think it's going to be to where the S9 is no longer going to be extremely profitable, just back down to where profits were before, which was normally profitable to start with. It's not like mining wasn't profitable 8 months ago before the price of bitcoin surged 1000%. I've been turning a profit mining for years, only recently has it become stupidly profitable, and of course we're all expecting that to go away. What we're not expecting is your prediction that our miners will be making nothing in a couple of months.
jr. member
Activity: 42
Merit: 1
You can't because you won't know what the difficulty will do without knowing how BTC/USD is doing. The two are correlated, we just don't know how. It's like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. Does the difficulty go up because BTC/USD is doing well, or is BTC/USD doing well because the difficulty is going up?

You can't assume that the difficulty is going to just keep rising without BTC/USD rising with it, or people wouldn't keep plugging in their miners, as mining would no longer be profitable.


Yes BTC/USD and network hashrate are very likely correlated.
But here's the thing, there is a massive lag between the numbers (caused by Bitmain mostly), so the enormous amount hashing power coming online now and in the next few months is a result of BTC/USD increase over the last 6 months.

It could very well flatten out again once this all settles but what the spreadsheet shows is that you would need it to flatten out very, very, very, soon, like in the next month or two, even quicker than the most optimistic scenario presented in the spreadsheet, for an S9 to pay itself back and become profitable in 2018. And be serious, look at this chart:
https://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/hashrate/5y?c=m&g=15&t=a
You really think that is realistic?

You could have made the same spreadsheet and made the same predictions a year ago and said: "Look, the difficulty is predicted to keep rising, it would be better to just buy BTC and not a miner because a couple months from now, your miners won't be making anything". That wouldn't have worked then for the same reason it doesn't work now, because you're not assuming anything about BTC/USD!

You are spot on.
Up until very recently mining has never been profitable for most of the Western world, only where power is dead-cheap was it profitable but on average most of us were just breaking even or below the profit line.
In the Western World it was always more of a hobby thing, you could always make more money investing directly into your favorite crypto.

It's only because BTC value has increased so much over the last 6 months that all of the sudden an opportunity has presented itself for everyone to make money.
But network hashrate is quickly catching up again, and BTC value is now staggering so it will probably even overshoot before bringing things back to balance. (meaning a period of profit for nobody at worst)
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 255
But you can't base the full value of the miner on today's exchange rate alone, which is why these predictions don't make sense. You assume the difficulty will continue to rise, yet not the price of bitcoin. This prediction is made in an unrealistic vacuum that isn't applicable to real life, at least not the way that I'm understanding it.\
Yes you can, if you convert that $3000 into BTC TODAY and you hold from that point on in both scenarios you absolutely can. BTC/USD exchange rate is not relevant anymore because we're comparing BTC-BTC at that point.

You can't because you won't know what the difficulty will do without knowing how BTC/USD is doing. The two are correlated, we just don't know how. It's like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. Does the difficulty go up because BTC/USD is doing well, or is BTC/USD doing well because the difficulty is going up?

You can't assume that the difficulty is going to just keep rising without BTC/USD rising with it, or people wouldn't keep plugging in their miners, as mining would no longer be profitable in terms of USD, which is what people use!

You could have made the same spreadsheet and made the same predictions a year ago and said: "Look, the difficulty is predicted to keep rising, it would be better to just buy BTC and not a miner because a couple months from now, your miners won't be making anything". That wouldn't have worked then for the same reason it doesn't work now, because you're not assuming anything about BTC/USD!
jr. member
Activity: 42
Merit: 1
But you can't base the full value of the miner on today's exchange rate alone, which is why these predictions don't make sense. You assume the difficulty will continue to rise, yet not the price of bitcoin. This prediction is made in an unrealistic vacuum that isn't applicable to real life, at least not the way that I'm understanding it.\

Yes you can, if you convert that $3000 into BTC TODAY and you hold from that point on in both scenarios you absolutely can. BTC/USD exchange rate is not relevant anymore because we're comparing BTC-BTC at that point.


You're also not factoring in that when you go to resell your miner you will make back a lot of what you originally spent.

I sure was, that's why I said (look at what I put here in bold):

Quote from: rizla.plus
At which point have you actually made 0.2608BTC in each of the 3 scenarios and can you start getting ahead on scenario 2?
In the standard forecast its September, in the pessimistic one it’s right at the end of the year.
And what we have not done (because we’re ignoring the next 2 sets of numbers) is add in power cost, so it’s actually much worse but we cannot predict that unless we assume today’s BTC/USD exchange rate. Also if we do that we would have to increase the value of the investment in scenario 2 by the same amount every month and add that to those 0.2608BTC, so you would always stay behind.

Now at that point in time (where you’ve reached 0.2608BTC), your miner is making next to nothing unless you look only at the most optimistic scenario where difficulty/ hashrate decrease, so your asset is worth next to nothing at that point as well.
Good luck selling the miner at that point in time, once it becomes worthless to you, it is worthless to others as well.

This is exactly why I'm making the case for selling S9 miners now instead of mining.
People are not aware of the numbers presented above, they only look at what they would earn today (on those online calculators), and so they are willing to pay massive prices for miners available today, more than double what you pay for them from Bitmain. Money you can convert into BTC today!
This is the opportunity today but it will not last and your miner will never make you that kind of BTC anyway, that's what the hashrate predictions show.
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 255
Why does this have nothing to do with the bitcoin/usd exchange rate? Why do I need to see it as if my initial investment was done in BTC, not USD? Who made up that rule, you?

NO, of course I haven’t it’s simple maths.
Maybe I’ve confused you with those extra columns so let me explain differently:

Only look at what BTC/USD is right now (around $11500) and look at the first set of 3 columns where I predict how much BTC your miner will make in the 3 scenarios.
Don’t look at the other sets of columns because they make assumptions about the BTC price in the future.
Now,

Scenario 1:
You buy an antminer today for $3000 (incl. PSU, shipping & tax), you get it straight away and start mining.
You’re down $3000 you have an antminer in hand and 0 BTC in your wallet.

Scenario 2:
You buy $3000 worth of BTC which equals 0.2608BTC.
So you’re also down $3000 you have no miner but you have 0.2608BTC in your wallet.

In scenario 1 look at the 3 columns on the spreadsheet that predict how much BTC you make per month (again: THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT BTC/USD WILL DO ON THE FUTURE)
At which point have you actually made 0.2608BTC in each of the 3 scenarios and can you start getting ahead on scenario 2?
In the standard forecast its September, in the pessimistic one it’s right at the end of the year.
And what we have not done (because we’re ignoring the next 2 sets of numbers) is add in power cost, so it’s actually much worse but we cannot predict that unless we assume today’s BTC/USD exchange rate. Also if we do that we would have to increase the value of the investment in scenario 2 by the same amount every month and add that to those 0.2608BTC, so you would always stay behind.

Now at that point in time (where you’ve reached 0.2608BTC), your miner is making next to nothing unless you look only at the most optimistic scenario where difficulty/ hashrate decrease, so your asset is worth next to nothing at that point as well.

Hence, my conclusion…


I'm just not following along with your spreadsheet. Are you assuming in your predictions that the price of bitcoin remain constant, whilst the difficulty continues to rise? That wouldn't make sense if so. You keep saying it has nothing to do with BTC/USD yet I see a bunch of figures in USD.

No, the spreadsheet does a lot more, I agree, but specifically my last post was just to explain to you why you would always be behind when buying a miner,
I am comparing a scenario where you convert $3000 in a miner to make you BTC, and another scenario where you convert that $3000 directly into BTC (even ignoring power cost)
Hence what only matters is today's exchange rate.

Now it does not really matter that much if you do include the other columns either because the value of your initial investment in BTC also fluctuates but it gets more complicated then, lets keep it simple for now...

But you can't base the full value of the miner on today's exchange rate alone, which is why this prediction that "you'll always be behind by mining" doesn't make sense. You assume the difficulty will continue to rise, yet not the price of bitcoin. This prediction is made in an unrealistic vacuum that isn't applicable to real life, at least not the way that I'm understanding it. You're also not factoring in that when you go to resell your miner you will make back a lot of what you originally spent.
jr. member
Activity: 42
Merit: 1
Yes sir, I understand and agree with everything you're saying. However my disagreement is simply with the accelerated rate to 0 you propose. True enough that difficulty is not linear, however it is not as predictable as you lay out either. And that in my noob, uneducated opinion, is the flaw in the math.

Like I said, I have quite a lot to do with forecasting in our business and I can assure you, based on the history this is the most predictable set of numbers I have ever had to forecast.
Even excel can do a pretty good job at it using the standard forecast function :-)

Even by hand.
Just look at this chart, draw it on a piece of paper or print it out, and try to predict with a pen & ruler where the next point will be:
https://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/hashrate/5y?c=m&g=15&t=a
It's really not that hard :-) I'm sure you'd have a pretty good idea where that point will be based just on what you see there.

Now that said, just assume your miner's revenue decrease is exactly proportional to that increase, I'm sure you see where I'm getting at.
jr. member
Activity: 42
Merit: 1
Why does this have nothing to do with the bitcoin/usd exchange rate? Why do I need to see it as if my initial investment was done in BTC, not USD? Who made up that rule, you?

NO, of course I haven’t it’s simple maths.
Maybe I’ve confused you with those extra columns so let me explain differently:

Only look at what BTC/USD is right now (around $11500) and look at the first set of 3 columns where I predict how much BTC your miner will make in the 3 scenarios.
Don’t look at the other sets of columns because they make assumptions about the BTC price in the future.
Now,

Scenario 1:
You buy an antminer today for $3000 (incl. PSU, shipping & tax), you get it straight away and start mining.
You’re down $3000 you have an antminer in hand and 0 BTC in your wallet.

Scenario 2:
You buy $3000 worth of BTC which equals 0.2608BTC.
So you’re also down $3000 you have no miner but you have 0.2608BTC in your wallet.

In scenario 1 look at the 3 columns on the spreadsheet that predict how much BTC you make per month (again: THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT BTC/USD WILL DO ON THE FUTURE)
At which point have you actually made 0.2608BTC in each of the 3 scenarios and can you start getting ahead on scenario 2?
In the standard forecast its September, in the pessimistic one it’s right at the end of the year.
And what we have not done (because we’re ignoring the next 2 sets of numbers) is add in power cost, so it’s actually much worse but we cannot predict that unless we assume today’s BTC/USD exchange rate. Also if we do that we would have to increase the value of the investment in scenario 2 by the same amount every month and add that to those 0.2608BTC, so you would always stay behind.

Now at that point in time (where you’ve reached 0.2608BTC), your miner is making next to nothing unless you look only at the most optimistic scenario where difficulty/ hashrate decrease, so your asset is worth next to nothing at that point as well.

Hence, my conclusion…


I'm just not following along with your spreadsheet. Are you assuming in your predictions that the price of bitcoin remain constant, whilst the difficulty continues to rise? That wouldn't make sense if so. You keep saying it has nothing to do with BTC/USD yet I see a bunch of figures in USD.

No, the spreadsheet does a lot more, I agree, but specifically my last post was just to explain to you why you would always be behind when buying a miner,
I am comparing a scenario where you convert $3000 in a miner to make you BTC, and another scenario where you convert that $3000 directly into BTC (even ignoring power cost)
Hence what only matters is today's exchange rate.

Now it does not really matter that much if you do include the other columns either because the value of your initial investment in BTC also fluctuates but it gets more complicated then, lets keep it simple for now...
member
Activity: 504
Merit: 71
Just Getting Started...
Darn close, I'd have to add everything up. Initially I was having so much fun I didn't do much record keeping. Anyway why would the spreadsheet only be for an S9? I mean difficulty and hashrate don't care right? It's simply how much I paid for the machine vs. how much it can produce? I do agree that earnings can and will be affected by difficulty, that is a given. I am just trying to understand how a machine can go non-profitable in such a short amount of time. Because again if that's true then S7's or any old miner for that matter should not be profitable either.

Pretty sure they make next to nothing anymore depending on what you pay for power where you are, see:
https://www.coinwarz.com/calculators/bitcoin-mining-calculator/?h=4700.00&p=1293.00&pc=0.2&pf=0.00&d=2227847638503.63000000&r=12.50000000&er=12294.11000000&hc=0.00



My power rate is $.057 kw/hr. In addition you ignored my posted image Smiley

Little more realistic setup https://www.coinwarz.com/calculators/bitcoin-mining-calculator/?h=4700&p=1200&pc=.06&pf=2&d=2227847638503.63000000&r=12.50000000&er=12398.68000000&hc=667

Like I said before, if your miner is paid off then sure.
If that $100/month (and decreasing every month) goes towards paying off that miner (at $3000), it's definitely next to nothing in my view.

In any case $100/month can only be seen as a hobby in my view.

I **did** have to pay off my miner. That's what I am trying to get you to see. I bought it, it had a cost, I must recover that cost to be profitable. If you'd look at my posted pic you can see clearly how much it's earning. And again that's why I am questioning your math, that miner, as old as it is, should not be making anything at all. But it is, now you're qualifying what's profit and what is not. That's not math, that's subjective Smiley

I know, I believe you. You did, indeed have to pay it off, BUT, when difficulty/hashrate was much lower, that miner would have been making much more than it does today no?
Also, your initial investment was much lower as well.
And there is one thing you can be (almost) sure of, it will make less and less as time progresses.

And that is what I am trying to show in this spreadsheet for the S9 specifically, bought today at $3000,
But you could adjust the numbers to an S7, bought today at ~$700 and see what you get.

And to answer your question from before, the reason miners can(will) go from being profitable to non-profitable in such a short amount of time is because the difficulty is increasing at ever increasing rates.
If they were increasing in a linear manner, you would be able to put a fixed "profitability" time on a miner, but the curve is not linear, it's exponential.

Yes sir, I understand and agree with everything you're saying. However my disagreement is simply with the accelerated rate to 0 you propose. True enough that difficulty is not linear, however it is not as predictable as you lay out either. And that in my noob, uneducated opinion, is the flaw in the math.
jr. member
Activity: 42
Merit: 1
Darn close, I'd have to add everything up. Initially I was having so much fun I didn't do much record keeping. Anyway why would the spreadsheet only be for an S9? I mean difficulty and hashrate don't care right? It's simply how much I paid for the machine vs. how much it can produce? I do agree that earnings can and will be affected by difficulty, that is a given. I am just trying to understand how a machine can go non-profitable in such a short amount of time. Because again if that's true then S7's or any old miner for that matter should not be profitable either.

Pretty sure they make next to nothing anymore depending on what you pay for power where you are, see:
https://www.coinwarz.com/calculators/bitcoin-mining-calculator/?h=4700.00&p=1293.00&pc=0.2&pf=0.00&d=2227847638503.63000000&r=12.50000000&er=12294.11000000&hc=0.00



My power rate is $.057 kw/hr. In addition you ignored my posted image Smiley

Little more realistic setup https://www.coinwarz.com/calculators/bitcoin-mining-calculator/?h=4700&p=1200&pc=.06&pf=2&d=2227847638503.63000000&r=12.50000000&er=12398.68000000&hc=667

Like I said before, if your miner is paid off then sure.
If that $100/month (and decreasing every month) goes towards paying off that miner (at $3000), it's definitely next to nothing in my view.

In any case $100/month can only be seen as a hobby in my view.

I **did** have to pay off my miner. That's what I am trying to get you to see. I bought it, it had a cost, I must recover that cost to be profitable. If you'd look at my posted pic you can see clearly how much it's earning. And again that's why I am questioning your math, that miner, as old as it is, should not be making anything at all. But it is, now you're qualifying what's profit and what is not. That's not math, that's subjective Smiley

I know, I believe you. You did, indeed have to pay it off, BUT, when difficulty/hashrate was much lower, that miner would have been making much more than it does today no?
Also, your initial investment was much lower as well.
And there is one thing you can be (almost) sure of, it will make less and less as time progresses.

And that is what I am trying to show in this spreadsheet for the S9 specifically, bought today at $3000,
But you could adjust the numbers to an S7, bought today at ~$700 and see what you get.

And to answer your question from before, the reason miners can(will) go from being profitable to non-profitable in such a short amount of time is because the difficulty is increasing at ever increasing rates.
If they were increasing in a linear manner, you would be able to put a fixed "profitability" time on a miner, but the curve is not linear, it's exponential.
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