Topic: Buying a miner with fiat has merit (Read 1594 times)

I'm still scratching my head as to why anyone would buy your money sink of a block eruptor off of you. I stand by the idea that this is a phenomenon unique to block eruptors in the short term, and will not apply for BFL equipment, KnC, Hashfast, Cointerra, Avalon or really any other ASIC that will become nothing more than a doorstop once difficulty gets to the point where you would want to sell.

It has happened, is happening, and will happen again.  And, while you're sitting on unspent fiat (if buying btc is always a better option, why haven't you spent 100% of your fiat on BTC yet?), I'm profiting from the miners I purchased.  I can make money from my miners whether the price of btc goes up or down, and I've done this repeatedly and successfully.  Why/how?  Because I've found that buying miners continues to be profitable if you find a decent deal.  Experiencially, your contention that nobody will buy "unprofitable" miners is misleading...I'm not buying unprofitable miners because I'm buying profitable ones, like block erupters. Hell, i still make a killing on GPU mining and am considering expanding my GPU farm for alt coins.   Trying to convince me that mining isn't profitable when I'm profiting is kind of dumb :/ 

This is a phenomenon unique to block eruptors now because of how low their price is and the novelty factor. No other miner ever in the future will be subject to this phenomenon, because no one is going to buy an unprofitable miner.

Why is everyone in here trying to argue a point I agree with?  
If the price goes up, it's better to buy btc.  No shit.  So why haven't you cashed out your life savings for BTC yet?  Maybe because you don't know the future?  

And I think you're missing a few steps...


Scenario 1)... Person A sells erupter for .25 btc adding to his .85 btc yielding 1.1 btc.  

Scenario 2)... Person A sells erupter for $25 and now has $93.

Now person A has more than B in each case.

Someone didn't read very well, because if you did, you'd know that I agree with that statement.  Thanks for playing!

Sorry OP, but you're flat out wrong. If you buy a miner with BTC then repurchase the BTC, yes it's equivalent to buying the miner with fiat, but what you're ignoring is the opportunity cost of buying and holding, i.e. increasing your BTC holdings with that fiat. Whether the price of bitcoin goes up or down, the fact that your miner is giving you back bitcoins means that you still need to be calculating profit in bitcoins against using that money to buy and hold bitcoins.

The only way that a miner can make profit against buying and holding BTC is if it mines more BTC than was originally paid, and the only way that the price of BTC can influence this is if price drops equate to decrease in difficulty, which has not been the case thus far. Miners are not infinitely profitable in the face of increasing difficulty; even with free power there comes a point where they asymptotically approach a number that they never pass.

Selling your mining equipment only has relevance if you can find someone to buy an unprofitable in hand miner which while possible, is at best a short term phenomenon.

=========================================

Person A buys a block eruptor for 1 BTC ==> rebuys the 1 BTC for $100
Person B buys 1 BTC for $100
Both have $100 less in their bank account.

Scenario 1
Person A gets block eruptor just early enough so that it makes back exactly $100 today, when the price of BTC is $118. This is only 0.85 BTC.
Person B still has 1 BTC = $118.

Scenario 2
Person A still mines 0.85 BTC, but the price went down to $80. Person A now has $68
Person B still has 1 BTC = $80

QED

You're saying that you are pinning your ROI to value BTC has against the dollar.

This is just to make yourself feel good. Sorry.

If you had taken that 1500 and just bought BTC you would have even greater gains than if you had "just mined $1500 in BTC"

The hypothetical examples you selected are much more fabricated than the hypothetical example I gave of the BFL Single which suggests a realistic scenario unfolding from present market data.  I created the examples you selected as extreme cases that simply highlight the plausibility of the scenario -- if extreme examples are plausible, non-extreme ones are indicatively so.

Addressing the part I have bolded, keep in mind the name of the game is ROI independent of whether you initially purchased with, or whether you end up with, fiat or BTC.  Every miner I have purchased (with the exception of the BFL pre-order which will never achieve ROI) I purchased with fiat which has allowed me to achieve ROI, even with block erupters.

If I had purchased BTC at the time I purchased erupters, of course that would've been the best scenario -- hindsight is 20/20, and we all know the price of BTC has steadily increased throughout the past two months.  But, purchasing erupters with cash has allowed me an opportunity to achieve ROI and then some, and I will still achieve ROI even if BTC drops below the price it was at the time I purchased the erupters (i.e. assuming the price doesn't REALLY drop, like to sub-$50).  I purchased the erupters knowing that BTC ROI would likely never be reached, but yet I still bought them anyway.  Now, why do you think I would do that?  It's because I knew I could make money with them even if BTC takes a dive because there are tons, and I mean fucking TONS of irrational, stupid buyers.  Quoting Tommy Boy, I could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves in this market.

Why didn't I buy BTC instead?  Because there is no opportunity to profit in that scenario if the price of BTC drops.  With a miner, I can make money whether the market moves up or down.  Buying BTC outright, I can only profit if BTC goes up.

And, I disagree with your way of selecting a "better method" which you have defined as whatever method allows you to end up with more BTC.  By purchasing a miner, you simply have more KNOWLEDGE to guide your financial decisions, and not only do you know where you stand in the present, but you can predict on an ongoing basis where you will be in the future.  To me, this can be a much "better method," not because it yields a larger profit, but because you can calculate your actions instead of essentially flipping a coin on the market and hoping for the best.  And, with the bullshit clients are frequently experiencing with various exchanges, I'd argue that it's just about as easy to get someone to buy an ASIC for an inflated price as it is to exchange BTC for cash in your pocket.

Yes you do have the option to sell and earn like you have described.

Notice that if you do sell if for 1000$ or 14.28BTC, together with the BTC minded before selling, you could end up with more than 15BTC!
15BTC which were impossible to mine directly with that miner! (according to your scenario)



but the only question is, who will buy it for 1000$ in this situation? (assuming no stupid people in the world)

Why buy a miner for 14.28 BTC with no chance to mine 14.28 BTC with it? ( "No chance" becuase this is the situation you have described).

It's is better to just buy 14.28 BTC directly rather than buying your miner!


Here, again you assume that one will sell you a miner for 1000$   which will make you 10000$ a month (0.1BTC).
Who is stupid enough to do that?




You can play all day long with hypothetical scenarios which requires a stupid buyer/seller but in the end it all comes down to this :

To buy and to mine are both equal to acquiring BTC.

The better way from these 2 options is the one which ends with more BTC in your wallet than the other.

And in that same "better way" you would also have more USD comparing to the other way (becuase more btc is more USD).

A very wise read BUT I have to say that the miner either way will help out on the network. 

Well, if you're expecting the value of BTC to rise, you'd be better off just buying BTC and holding.  Now, I like mining and think that holding BTC is boring, but economically, that's the best.

Say BTC are 100$ apiece, and you spend 2 BTC on a miner.  That miner only mines 1 BTC!  But, luckily the price of bitcoins rose to 200$!  So even though you only mined 1 BTC, and spent 2, you still make your fiat back.

But wait!  There's more!

You would have been better off buying 2 BTC, instead of a 2 BTC miner, and then when the price rose to 200$, you can sell those BTC for 400$ total!

Yes, you can try to resell your hardware, but once it's no longer profitable to mine, noone will buy.

So if you're hedging on the price of BTC to rise, you're best off buying and holding BTC.  A miner must make its BTC value back to have been profitable (if you bought with BTC).


That all being said, I just bought a block eruptor for 0.49.  It may never make that 0.49 BTC back, but that's ok, I just wanted a miner to stay in the game with. That 0.49 BTC was mined with free electricity, so it's a free eruptor!

1)  Valid point, and although it's totally plausible that Bitcoin will become worthless, the mere fact that I'm even talking about buying miners suggests that I'm assuming Bitcoin will stick around for a while.

2)  I can't speak for others, but ongoing math helps me determine a good time to sell, and I can move stuff pretty easily...

3)  ...because there are always irrational buyers.

4)  I've bought mining hardware on six separate occasions, all at different price points ranging from $4 to $108 with btc value oscillating between purchases (i.e. btc price neither rose continually or declined continually with each subsequent purchase).  Four of the six have paid for themselves.  One of them appears like it will because those are the erupters, and with the recent btc hike I'm still earning the same amount in fiat as I did last week despite the difficulty adjustment.  One hardware purchase will never achieve ROI -- a BFL Little-SC that I sold as a pre-order.  Because I purchased with BTC, I lost out on about 30 BTC by the end.  If I had purchased that Little-SC with PayPal, I would have about 350% ROI.  I agree that if BTC price goes up it's better to buy BTC outright.  But I disagree that buying a miner is either better or it's not, at least in the sense that I'm not a fortune teller.  Price oscillation changes the variance in profitability between each method, and I think that the way in which it affects that variance can make buying a miner a safer bet (obviously given certain conditions, but I think those conditions are more likely than you'd think).

5)  I disagree with the words "no matter what the exchange rate is."  If you can sell your equipment at a price such that (selling price + mined btc value) > (fiat purchase price), then you can still profit even if the value of BTC goes down.  However, the more BTC value goes down, the less likely this scenario becomes.  But, if you purchase BTC directly and the price drops, there is no possibility of ROI unless you wait and hope the price goes back up.  

As an example, I think it's entirely reasonable to think that someone could privately purchase a 60 gh/s  BFL Single for $3000 today (good for ~23 BTC), mine with it for a month, watch the value of BTC drop to $110, and sell the thing for 22.7 BTC (~$2500, so assuming a $500 depreciation in value in a month).  He would have mined between 10-15 BTC during that month, giving him 32.7-37.7 BTC in holdings, or about $3,600-$4,150.  If he had purchased BTC from the get go, he would have lost ~$470 (i.e. 3000 - (~23 x 110) = ~470) and would have 23 BTC.  Obviously this is a hypothetical scenario, but I think it's just one of many that are plausible and not unlikely.

6)  I didn't even take this into consideration, probably because I assumed that I'd have already sold my equipment long before the price breaches any freak-out low resistance level.

7)  The fundamental goal of any monetary investment is to at least break even.  The name of the game is ROI, and how fast ROI is achieved is influenced by many variables.  The analogy of choosing between $100 or $200 is irrelevant because you're assuming $200 already exists.  Again, if we know without a doubt that BTC will go up, then buying is always the better option.  But right now, $131.57 is the reality and it would have already been to $200, $500, $1000 and beyond if people knew the price was going to go there (they'd buy instantly with this knowledge, and so would you and I).  But, were not rushing to our wallets right now because we don't know $200 exists.  But, we do know that 1) miners generate daily income x(y) where x is the amount of btc mined per day and y is the fiat conversion rate, and 2) miners can be sold for a varying value, z.  Having (xy + z) as part of a known profit formula p = ([(E_(n)-->...xy) + z] - i) can be better than taking your chances on the unknown formula of the market, and unlike when you purchase BTC, you can actually calculate on the fly where you will be in the future.

 In practice, I get about 98% up-time. I get it up all the time.

9)  Yep, that would suck.

Edit:  Fuck my math notation skills.  How would you notate the sum of daily income xy?

Of course, the exchange rate also affects the dollar amount you can receive by reselling your equipment. What I meant was that there is no floor to the resale value of your mining equipment. With GPUs, people will always buy them to game, so you could always count on recouping at least that much. If bitcoin dies, ASICs become worthless.

Also, you would have to sell very quickly to get 66% of what you paid back when you sell your ASIC. If you assume that difficulty increases 20% forever, then you would need to sell after 3 weeks to get 66% back in a rational market. Obviously, difficulty isn't going to increase like that forever but it will continue that way for a long time and by then, you will be barely making anything so the calculations should result in a similar result.



This is a possible scenario but unlikely. Most of the time, either buying the miner is better or it isn't regardless of the price of btc. You can estimate your return on the miner as the amount of btc mined and the amount of btc it will mine in the future, which should be equal to the resale value. If this amount of btc is greater than the amount you could have received by purchasing btc directly, then it will be the better option no matter what the exchange rate is.

The only way this changes when the btc price goes down is that the amount of btc you expect to mine in the future to increase. If btc crashes, less people will order miners and future difficulty won't be as high so you can mine more btc that are worth less. However, the effect of this is very small because most of the btc a miner will make in its lifetime will probably happen in the first few months since the difficulty will continue increasing for a long time.

Even if you end up profiting in terms of fiat because the price increases, that doesn't mean buying mining equipment is a valid choice. If you're offered $100 or $200 and you pick $100, then you will have made a bad decision even though you gain money. If you want to argue that buying mining hardware is a valid option, then either you think you can get such a great deal where a miner can produce more bitcoins than what you can get by buying directly or the small benefit in the event that the btc price decreases is worth the difference. However, I believe that the disadvantages of mining far outweigh this one small advantage.

1. You have to set up the miner and make sure it stays running. Most people run calculations assuming 100% uptime.
2. You receive btc over time rather than all at once. Let's say that some news comes out causing the price to drop. If you bought btc, you could sell them immediately. On the other hand, a large amount of your value is tied up in the resale value of your mining hardware and you can't sell it quickly.

Before you start with the ad-hominems, Ill tell you flat out that you're wrong.  First, you're wrong in the context of your argument.  I'm not saying purchasing a miner with fiat is always the best approach, I'm saying it has its merits.  So, I'm not even going to try to rebut your argument because it's a straw man fallacy.  You should be feeling stupid right about now.

Second, While you are correct that the objective profitability of a miner remains the same whether or not you bought it with btc or fiat, YOUR ability to profit absolutely changes.  I'm currently on track to achieve 100% ROI with my block erupters in about 3 months, and that's accounting for difficulty adjustments of about 33% each adjustment.  If I purchased with BTC, I'd likely never achieve ROI.

Think before you speak.

Of course the profitability question is still whether it will mine 15 BTC or not. The original 15BTC are irrelevant, whether you bought 15BTC after buying the miner makes no difference to the profiability of the miner. You effectively bought a miner for 15 BTC. You could have bought coins instead and had 30 BTC.

case a) buy 15BTC + 15 original BTC = 30BTC.
case b) buy miner, buy 15 BTC with fiat (e.g 1500)

The only way case b is more profitable than case a)  is if  (mined coins) - (running costs) + (resale price of miner) > 15 BTC

regarding the resale you're relying on someone else buying it from you at a price where the miner will not be profitable to them.

If you can't do this basic reasoning maybe it's better to stay away from ASICs

I'm assuming the price of BTC, in the long run, will rise. As I think that unless BTC fails completely this is inevitable. To hedge against falling BTC prices, you could buy in gradually, buying some every month instead of all up front - you don't need to get miners involved to achieve this.

It's true I made a generalized statement, and of course you can always make a poor hardware purchasing decision.  Some purchases are dead right from the get go, and sometimes people just flat out overpay for things.  However, acting within the right time frame, I think expecting 66% resale value for an ASIC isn't unrealistic.

However, the value of an ASIC is not "purely" determined by the BTC it generates because the value of an ASIC in terms if btc is mediated by fiat conversion rates.  If I spend $1000 on an ASIC that makes 0.1 btc per month, it's a good decision if the value of btc is $10,000.  It's better to receive 0.1 btc valued at $1000 than to receive 1 btc valued at $100.  Of course, if the price of btc drops, then the profitability of the miners also drops.  What I'm saying is that, given a reasonable purchase price, purchasing a miner with fiat may incur less loss than using that fiat to purchase btc.

So two general mathematical statements representing my point might be:

1) If btc price drops, buying btc < purchasing miner with fiat < do nothing
2) if btc price rises, do nothing < purchasing miner with fiat < buying btc

You are making the assumption that you can sell the block eruptors for $1000. The argument that the miners retain value in case BTC/USD drops only applies to GPUs. The resale value of an asic is purely determined by how much BTC it can gain. If BTC price drops, the value of your asic hardware drops as well.

I have been saying this for ages

It's been suggested that purchasing a miner (e.g. Block Erupter) is futile because ROI should be calculated in terms of mined coins and not fiat.  This line of reasoning is based upon the idea that it is better to purchase coins and sit on them rather than buying a miner.

Contrary to this belief, calculating ROI of a miner in terms of fiat has its merits.

I purchased a few dozen block erupters a while back with BTC, but then immediately repurchased the BTC spent on the miners.  In other words, I essentially purchased my miners at a set fiat price since my total BTC holdings didn't vary.  

For kicks, lets say I purchase these miners with 15 BTC at a $100 USD conversion rate.  Is it likely that I will mine 15 BTC with these erupters?  Not likely.  But, since I effectively purchased them with fiat, recouping 15 btc is no longer a concern.  I simply need to recoup $1500 in mined BTC to achieve 100% ROI in the scenario.  If the value of BTC increases and continues to do so significantly, achieving 100% ROI becomes more and more likely.

This method protects against a drop in BTC value because the hardware itself serves to hedge against the initial investment.  If I spend $1500 to purchase 15 Btc and the price per btc declines to $70, then I'm down $450 (I.e. 30 x 15 = 450).  But, if I purchase the miner instead and the price drops to $70, I always retain the option to sell the miner.  For example, selling the miner purchased originally at $1500 for $1000 at a $70 conversion rate, I can receive 14.28 btc for it, and that's on top of the few btc I would've mined already.

In other words, purchasing a miner with fiat is better if the price of btc drops, but it's also better than doing nothing at all if the price of btc goes up.  Buying btc outright may be better if you assume that btc value will only continue to increase, but this is a riskier approach.