Topic: can I get any meaningful mining done with a 1k budget? (Read 288 times)

If you have free or very cheap energy you can buy used mini rigs for 1000 USD. But if your energy cost is high the only possibility in my oppinion ist to mine solo and hope for the best

Well, I have couple of customers who are mining on S9 series rig, machine cost is like $300 .

I have over 6.42 BTC thanks to my Compac F's so as novel as you may think they maybe I am proof that they do work and I'm incredibly happy with my purchases of them... A lottery ticket of sorts I would agree but they do provide great education on mining plus the added benefit of contributing to the decentralization of the blockchain.

Now lets discuss a few other facts that you are leaving out of your previous post. The biggest one is that you can't effectively mine BTC with a GPU not even with the most powerful RTX3090 or RTX3090TI  (and good luck finding either of these under $1800). Suggesting GPU based mining for BTC is just plain silly particularly since you won't make anything if your trying to mine BTC this way.  If you are suggesting mining altcoins and getting paid in BTC I would say that you AREN'T MINING BTC and with a 1K budget you still aren't getting far with a GPU...   Plus with ETH 2.0 around the corner the earnings of GPU's are almost certain to tank when they move from POW to POS.

I can't comment on the helium miner as I have no knowledge of them or their mining capabilities. Do they mine BTC or some altcoin?  

So that leaves us back to the OP's question. With a 1K budget buying new equipment to mine BTC you can get 3 x Compac F's or a Futurebit Apollo Miner. That's about it as far as I am aware.

If buying used hardware then I would consider 2 x S9's (13TH a pop) assuming you have a place with ultra cheap power, can keep them quiet and cool.

Not everything is about making money though. When running these devices at home you're decentralizing the network a bit more, and you're getting experience mining Bitcoin with real ASIC devices. Plus, if you run them solo, you also have a built-in lottery running for you every day.

If you want a $300 powerball/lottery ticket by all means go ahead.
Odd's of being struck by lighting 1 in 500,000
Odd's of finding a bitcoin block with a compaq 1 in 243,474
Odd's of hitting roi with this purchase? 1 in 243,474
I guess the sun shines on a dogs ass once in a while though.
If you guys are going to suggest this hardware to people you should disclose the facts.
Here's the facts of profitability on your suggestions. Hardly meaningful but to the 3 people that have ever found a block using them . Novel at best. buying one only benefits gekko.

The Compaq F's would be a great option as they start at around $300 a pop if you can find em. Just remember you'll need a fan to cool them and a higher powered USB hub to get the most out of them.

I can personally attest to their effectiveness in solving / finding a block. 

Hello Ivanko88,
I'm using a 40' (FT) Rohn tower , I got it free by simply asking a neighbor if they wanted to get rid of it as most people do not use them in 2022 at least in the US,
I have 30ft of LMR400 and the unit is 6FT (1.82M) from the ground in my garage on the wall by the tower on CAT8e on POE, I installed an OTA antenna on the top of the tower and a j-mount antenna for satellite antenna (so it doesnt get in the way of the rotary ota antenna) and put an efigur 5.8dbi ($50) antenna on it  with lightning arrestor kit ,my antenna is probably 33' (FT) (10m) from the ground and about 10' (ft) (3m) over my roofline clear of major obstructions.
I hear good things on the McGill but regulations here limit us to around 8dbi @915mhz
Before I relocated it I was only making about 1 HNT a month(all stock in a window) , now I'm making about 1.5HNT a week.
as far as your data goes I cannot relate as I have unlimited bandwidth, if your limited on data I personally think its worth trying to optimize your setup and give it another try considering the cost for a elaborate setup doesn't add up in the same way as gpu/asic mining.
I believe in BTC all these little methods such as eth mining and hnt mining are just ways to get more BTC much more efficiently. Also considering 90% of BTC is mined up already I personally feel that entering the asic game right now is a fopaux. It seems like every other day I read about a new 100-500MW asic mining operation opening, I can make the same as any asic with much less electricity and less purchasing cost, and I can run at home. (remember shipping to a datacenter is a longer roi since it adds to overall investment cost especially if your insuring your investment)

s17 64th
2900watts
cost $3500
earns $12.90 a day
uses $8.30 a day in power. @ 12c kwh
profits $4.60

rtx 3080
225watts
cost $1400
earns $4.65 a day
uses $0.60 a day in power @12c kwh
profits $4.02

hnt miner
5 watts (lets say 10 for shits n giggles)
cost $650
earns ~$3-$10 a day
uses $0.03-$0.05 in power @12c kwh
Profits $3~10

WhyFhy Good post, but problem with HNT is that the aerial must be high and depends on how many other hotspots in area.
I have some setup and the return is really low... embarrassingly low. $6 from 4 hotspots total. some of them also using so much internet data that I decide to turn off... I wont give 40GB data a month to HNT network for just $30 a month revenue... its like a scam when I think of it.

However, I know it is possible to make alot, but it depends on few factors...
When HNT started people making  $1400 per month, now check reddit, alot of complaints and ppl lucky to make $50 a month.

But you are right... for the OP, he should consider it. or he should save another $1000 and if patient will get a good deal on a profitable asic thats worth it like S17 etc.

you have 35M high? Or 35ft?

Also which aerial did you use?
I notice alot of ppl mention McGill... but I dont like that they are 4x more expensive than the cheaper...

I am going to test some cheap china ones very soon.

Here's my take on budget mining.
It's a start for a 1 GPU mining rig, you wont make a lot but its a foot in the door and something you can run at home with multiple algorithm options. Your looking at about $1.00-$3.00 a day this route minus electricity cost.
 
Helium mining is another way and probably the most profitable as far as equipment cost goes, 1k should get you a nice top of the line setup, A lorawan helium router $450-700 on ebay right now (bobcats are the best from what I hear, but avoid sensecap and syncrobit) , antenna (5.8dbi or 8dbi) lmr400 cable , copper rod, lightning arrestor,  4ft satellite mast, cat8 and some awg10 wire for your lightning arrest system.
If your lucky and have a rohn tower at your house you can make about 50% more then the network average putting it 10+ft above your roofline. every foot of LMR-400 cable degrades your signal about 0.04 DBI
(so a 30' cable =1.2DB strength degrade so turns a 5.8dbi antenna into a 4.6 dbi antenna essentially)

I make about $4-$7 a day on a helium router 35' in the air on a 5.8 dbi antenna. The wonderful thing about them is they only use about $1 in electricity a month.
If you go this route dont shy away from moving the antenna outside , before I put mine outside I ran it in a window and made like $30 a month,

My helium router outperforms all my other gear profit to cost wise. The crappy thing about them is you can only really run one profitably at home but if you have friends that would let you install one around town you can make a killing! (just check helium maps and dont install too close to other helium routers or your profits will go down, they can measure signal RSSI strength and if its too strong they can tell your too close to another unit.

edit goldshell is very little rewards vs electric cost, and stick miners are just pissing in the wind. out of the many units sold only a few people ever have made anything on them mining solo

Yes. Two options that come to mind below that price range:

Up to three Compac F miners from GekkoScience and a USB hub kit from BitcoinMerch:
https://bitcoinmerch.com/products/3-x-gekkoscience-compac-f-with-fan-upgrade-bitcoin-merch%C2%AE-7-port-usb-hub-combo-up-to-1-05th-s

You can run kano's cgminer (open source) with these guys:
https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer


An Apollo BTC from FutureBit
https://shop.futurebit.io/products/pre-order-apollo-btc-a-bitcoin-asic-miner-and-desktop-class-computer-running-a-full-node-and-much-more-batch-1-ships-in-late-april-to-may

Binaries (closed source) to run the miner are available here:
https://github.com/jstefanop/Apollo-Miner-Binaries

You could buy some of the low-power Goldshell BOX used ASICs.

this thread has probably been posted dozens of times before, whatever. dont got a huge budget but I'm trying to diversify as much as possible. is there anything good around 1k or should I look to bump up my budget a little? thanks.