Topic: Deciding Between Mining and Direct Investment (Read 247 times)

I would simply buy the bitcoin instead of mining. While there are certainly some advantages to mining, it requires a relatively high technical knowhow as well as an understanding of the basic economics or hardware costs, electricity costs, difficulty adjustment, the halving, and how bitcoin price discovery works. I can see that you have done some basic calculations but the halving is less than a year away and historically the price doesn't pump for at least 6 months following the halving. No way to know if this time it will be different or not but it seems like a heavy capital investment with a lot of work between now and your potential break-even point.

If you have access to cheap mining hardware and free electricity such as curtailed energy, an oil well gas flare, or maybe even a farm that produces bio waste gas, then it absolutely makes sense to do anything to convert that surplus electricity into bitcoin via mining. Unfortunately, most people don't have access to surplus or wasted energy so it makes a lot more sense to just purchase some bitcoin which does a couple of things for the bitcoin ecosystem.

1. It puts upward pressure on the price of bitcoin because you will need to take bitcoin off of the market in one way or another and that not only supports other bitcoiners but it also supports miners who may be mining at a loss already. If you want to help bring the bull market back, then you can help simply by purchasing bitcoin.

2. You don't put any upward pressure on the hashrate (if you turn off miners cause they are mining at a loss, you actually put downward pressure on the hashrate) and that also helps the existing miners who may be mining at a loss. The difficulty keeps hitting new all time highs but the price has not been hitting all time highs along with it which, to me, is an indicator of some sort of state sponsored involvement or a lot of people mining with surplus energy that cannot be monetized otherwise. I tend to think it is the former and not the latter but I can't prove it one way or another.

I have been meaning to write an article on this exact topic for a while now so perhaps this thread will provide the motivation to consolidate my thoughts and publish it.

Have you deducted the personal labor on the maintenance of your farm?  Also the possibility of a unit malfunctioning along the course of taking ROI?  The possible noise pollution and the discomfort of running multiple mining rig at the same time?  If you are ok with those troubles then I think it is ok to setup a mining farm of 10 units of S19XP.

If I am in our shoes, I would rather buy BTC directly with that amount.  You are spare of the burden of setting up a mining rig, the maintenance and the negative possibilities that may happen along the way.  Having the investment fund converted directly to Bitcoin, it gives you a direct ROI and profit if in a month or two the price of BTC goes up which setting up a mining farm won't give you asap.

For me, I don't choose mining over Bitcoin. Why? Because if you consider the cost of maintenance, it is really expensive and could just beat you down. Unlike if you are just investing in Bitcoin, you did nothing aside from waiting for the price rises and then selling, then repeating the strategy. But if you are into mining, you need to compete with others which is why you need to upgrade as possible which is costly, and if not manage well, you can be like others that had already shut down the operation.

I'd never choose mining, even with cheap electricity. That's because by choosing bitcoin you're, so to say, putting boots on the ground and exposing yourself to your government.
I'm a bitcoin holder and I got my coins long ago on a now defunct exchange. There's no way to link these coins to my identity. Nobody knows what and where I hold and they can't take it from me.
If I were to start mining, I'd reveal that I'm into bitcoin to my power company and my government (taxes). I'd depend on their decisions. If they were to limit my power, no more mining and no more bitcoin.

I'd have a location that's "raidable" so that any government agency can use a warrant to come in and search my place if I'm not secretly growing weed or something, because there's a lot of energy consumption and heat generation. I know they're doing that. They're even flying helicopters with thermal cameras to spot hot houses. I just don't want to deal with them.

Mining is a long-term process, comparable to DCA. I'd rather buy my coins now instead of buying it over the next 12 months or  something like that.

If you're not a fan of numbers and calculation, then mining is gonna be a recipe for desaster to you. Are you trying to spam here for this ASICfinder site?

As a normal person or habitant in a town or similar, how do you have reliable access to more than say 40kW power capacity (use your powerlines no more than ~80% of nominal capacity) and you'll need extra power for airflow and cooling.

How do you plan to get rid of ~31kW of heat 24/7/365? It's not gonna be easy and cheap! And then there's the noise of ten of those beasts including airflow and cooling. You have an industrial location site?

How about constant surveillance, you don't want to run +35kW gear unattended?

Use a mining profit calculator that can take difficulty adjustments and halving into account. That's some very basic stuff if you plan such an investment and you'd be crazy if you don't care about difficulty changes.

Changes in Bitcoin price can't be predicted, but don't forget that you have to pay your power and running costs bills.

Wait what! Let me tell you something dear, there is not a term of steady source in the field of Crypto. It's the business of volatility so you aren't going to get any exact and 100% correct answers here which you could blame after. But still, here is my suggestion. If you are 100% sure that you are going to generate $8.33 daily which means by next ATH which might be around 2025 you would have generated $4,233.
510 days (approximately) * 8.33 = 4,233$

But if you would invest that money in BTC and buy 1 BTC and will sell it at the ATH of around $100k which is also not sure but mostly predicted so, if BTC hit $100k then you are making $more than $60k while in mining you are only making $4,233.

I think answer is pretty much clear for you here.

Although you might not be good at racking your brain with calculations, but this is a business you are going into, and you have to put in your best effort to map out your requirements for the mining and also the possible daily earnings you will be making, how long you will need to mine before you can accumulate one Bitcoin, even before you mine and archive one Bitcoin, how much it will cost you to maintain your mining rig and the electricity bills. I Think taxation might also apply since it's a business you are running. But if it's just to accumulate Bitcoin, you can easily set a target for how much you are going to be Investing regularly, depending on how you plan it and also how much your monthly or daily income is.

If the electricity is cheap on your country and you got funds for nrw or second hand equipment then go for it. But if you think the money would cost would be so high to run it and not sure of the expenses then just invest directly and you dont need any things or you wont be hassle for. Its not easy to set up for mining as I have friends who started and eventually they close it too due to massive expenses and the earning is not worth it according to their observations.

Do you have the necessary equipments and knowledge for mining? Also, is your environment relatively cool in order to compensate for the energy being released by the amounts of mining rigs required? If yes, then feel free to explore this zone as it may be profitable. If not, then consider direct investment for relatively easier profits.

The problem with mining comes with the equipment and geographical location on where you are staying. Most miners live in a cool environment to compensate the heat being released by their equipment. Of course, more heat means more energy being used, thus increasing your costs further.

Like what was suggested by others, try to make a rough estimation of the amount of electricity that you will be paying once you start your mining venture. Personally, I would definitely choose direct investment due to its simplicity and convenience in nature.

You are a newbie that I guess don't know much about mining. The risk of mining is very high and one can run at loss,which will discourage you to continue with mining. It is better you put all your funds together and buy bitcoin in lump,because we still have a good price which one can use as an opportunity to buy bitcoin. The halving event will pump bitcoin price next year and by late 2024 or 2025 will be the bull run. There is high hope of making profit if you buy now and hodli till then. If you start mining from now,I don't think that you will be able to makes such profit when you buy within two years. Remember to use a noncustodial wallet and back up your seed phrase. It is easy to hodling than to mine. Mining is very expensive and the cost can be affected by inflation.

The cost for mining machinery is very high at this time and in coming times the rewards are also going to be halfed with no proper guarantee what will the outcomes afterwards in price mechanism.Suppose you invest a significant amount like for $30k+ on machinery only then there are maintanence cost, electricity cost in your country so it will be add on to you.So it's better to invest that money directly into bitcoin at the current rates that will be more beneficial to you.

Say if you invest $30k now you will gain full bitcoin that will really help you in top percentage by the way and with price pumps you will get more profits without incurring any cost so go with it it's the best choice.

Mining would be no problem if the electricity and maintenance costs are cheap. here are people who are mining for profit or for fun purposes. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and we will respect that.

I would love mining some BTCs but the electricity rates here aren't cheap especially for guys who just live in a 3rd world country. And of course, no guarantee as well for profit if you choose to buy and hold BTCs.

We should acknowledge the risks and learn how to manage them at the same time in both buying and hold & to mine BTCs.

I argue. I totally understand the point you have shared so far.
But, as I said in m previous post, Mining Bitcoin is more than just profit. Buying Bitcoin does not guarantee that it will give you profit within a certain time. It can take longer to get ROI if someone buys Bitcoin. The opposite happens too. Someone can get ROI within a month. It depends on the market. But as I said, Mining is fun. If you are tech geek people who love to play with your gear setup and maintain your rigs, mining is perfect for you. If I had cheap electricity like OP and had enough rigs, I would mine for the long term.

A mining rig will generate Bitcoin for you until it breaks.  A miner will mine Bitcoin with their ASICs until it gets too old and unprofitable to mine. If someone mines Bitcoin just for profit only, I am not sure if this is perfect for them or not. But the perfect thing is mine Bitcoin and hold it just like holders hold their Bitcoin.

Honestly, you're just a spammer for that shitty website along you're alts that have filled my report card last days!

Everyone!
Stop replying to such spammy topics and report them the moment you see anyone linking to asicfinder(dot)com, they just spam the forum with the same topics where they pose as wanna-be miners when their whole agenda is promoting that website!

If you have the resource and the means which include knowledge, finances then mining bitcoin is the way to go. The most crucial component is electricity. Once you have this whether you are paying for it or you are using a renewable source of energy, consider mining. A reason I said this is because you get more bitcoins when you mine than when you just invest a large amount and hold, the bitcoin you have through direct investment will remain constant,

If you are not a fan of numbers and accounts, do not invest in bitcoin mining. There are many variables that turn mining from a profitable activity to forcing you to stop because of losses.

There are additional factors other than electricity, which are space, cooling, capital recovery, depreciation, taxes, noise reduction, and can you sell mining tools later. Also, your country plays the effect of whether the weather will be good all year or if there are more risks.

Therefore, the easiest option is to buy bitcoin, although it is less profitable, but a small gain is possible better than a lot of gain that is difficult to obtain.

Based on these calculations, it becomes clear that it will take you almost a year and a half just to break even. Considering that the Bitcoin halving event is less than a year away, I would personally opt to invest directly. Many of us anticipate the next bull run to start sometime next year and reach its peak in 2025. Thus, rather than investing in hardware, I would choose to invest money directly in BTC. The money that would otherwise be spent on electricity can be used for dollar-cost averaging (DCA), so that I accumulate even more before the next bull run.

You can do both if you have the budget for it since mining need a budget for the gear needed to use in mining and the electricity cost and don't forget the internet connection which is also needed plus the maintenance of the gear. if the electricity cost in your country isn't cheap and have limited budget then it is much better if you just buy Bitcoin but if you have something like a solar panel or other source of electricity that doesn't cost much like or if you have a generator then the money you are going to spend for mining will decrease as you have other source of electricity and you will only need the money for the gear and maintenance.

If you can do both and if your budget isn't limited, choose to do both. But for people like me that has budget constraints, I'll just choose to buy and hold. Considering the electricity cost and consumption, you're aware of how much you'll be taking and how much will be the operational cost upon doing it. I think for miners, it's not just all about the profit but of course, it has the biggest portion and reason on why they do that. So, you help the network more secure through your miners and that's a contribution that you've got in your mind that you're one of those folks that helps to maintain it.

Buying bitcoin directly for your investment is better and it requires less time, less resources and less skills. With mining, you will need many things, location for your mining farm, technical set up and maintenance, safety for your farm and human who operate it for you and lastly it requires time to get bitcoin from mining.

You must get a break even before get a profit from your initial investment. It will be months and not like with investment, less time, less resource and if you buy around the corner of market break out, you will not have to wait too long.

You can never get the right estimate of setting out the mining plant because you may likely omit some costs which cannot be account for.

I don't know much about bitcoin halving but if I am right, it is a time where miners reward will be divided by halve which maybe is the reason why the price of Bitcoin is going high during halving so that miners can keep their work and maintain the little bitcoin, they mine.

If this is right, then it will be better if you invested these money in Bitcoin and wait for your profit instead of going through the mining stress.

Both are beneficial between mining and one time investment. But if you want to invest your money potentially then I will suggest you to invest in Bitcoin as we are now in a Bear Market. So probably very soon we will see a huge pump or a bullish season. So in my opinion if your money is ready to invest then just buy Bitcoin and store it to a safest wallet which may be Hardware wallet or an open source non custodial wallet. Then when you make profits then do your mining setup. It's all about my opinion and you have to choose the most potential way to grow by doing own research. I just shared my observation or opinion.

As your destination is to make profits that's why I want to add another option which is Trading. If you have passion on mining or can effort on it then go for mining and as already calculation have been posted so I don't need to add more. Another way is to invest half of your investment in Bitcoin for long term and you can do some short term trades with another half if you are good in it or well experienced. Obviously you must have a good knowledge in technical and fundamental analysis.

I've been away from the mining world for a long time so I don't follow it. But I know that what is calculated often does not correspond to reality. Maybe all the calculations you do give an idea of the expenses and income that you might get. But you should know that this is just a calculation and we don't know the actual conditions.

As long as we are mining Bitcoin, electricity costs will never increase. Will the rewards we get always be like that and there won't be any changes? Many possibilities can happen after you start mining Bitcoin. You also have to calculate maintenance costs for mining tools and others, which you don't know how much.

So my advice is that instead of buying those mining tools which cost a lot of money, you better use that money to buy Bitcoins on exchanges and hold them. That's to avoid everything you don't know while mining Bitcoin, including costs that can arise later. If you directly buy Bitcoins with that money, you can have many Bitcoins or you can use DCA to buy Bitcoins. But this is just a suggestion and all the decisions depend on you.

I say keep it simple as just invest in bitcoin directly instead of going for mining. Thing is, mining is not just you plugging in asics and collecting satoshies but instead it is a constant responisbility, especially at the start when you are still figuring things out.

Add on that the fact that equipment can die, price of electricity can go up or there might some other unforeseen circumstances which makes buying bitcoin even more logical.

It depends actually. Mining is lot more than just making profit. If you mine and keep selling them, there is no reason to buy mining gears. But, If you can pay the electricity costs from your pocket or you sell coins only to cover your electricity costs, then you should go for mining. We are around 278 days far from the next halving event.

We are observing 29K at this moment which may get doubled before the halving. The current block reward is 6.25 which will be 3.125 after the halving. Mining is fun as well. Sometimes you need patience. I feel like your electricity cost is fairly low compared to the most part of the world.

All matters on your financial capability since if you can run a mining farm and you can support all finances then maybe this is better than choosing investment where you are unsure on results or even don't know on when to invest your capital. But if budget is tight then maybe try to choose the second one since mining is so expensive and we are still not sure if we can earn,break even or totally at lose.

Let's do some math

S19 XP = $3145

10 x S19XP = $31450

Ethernet cable, PC, and other accessories for configuration = $2000, So lets assume the total cost will be $35000

Daily earnings from units will be $83 so you need to run 35000/83= 421.5 days to make the capital alone. Remember I didn't include the operational costs which is maintenance and cooling.

And the price of bitcoin is highly volatile so your profits will be highly dependent on BTC price, Mining difficulty.

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I will prefer to buy the bitcoins directly instead of mining and accumulating over the years because I feel it is best choice especfially when we have low capital but the profits will not be steady as mining so I presented the calculation so you can decide which one suits for you based on your preference.

It all depends on your preference.

You do the calculation for how long it will take to reach your one time Bitcoin purchase if you go the mining route, while factoring in regular maintenance of the mining gear and factoring in cost for any miscellaneous product you will need like a circuit breaker and others.

Then consider the pros and cons of both;
• Mining, if the gear is managed well, gives a long time investment of many years,
• A one time purchase does not need maintenance, you just need to buy a suitable wallet, store the coins and back up the keys.

If I buy 10 units of S19 XP, each with a daily production value of $9.8 and a daily electricity cost of $1.44, considering my electricity cost is $0.02 per kWh, my net income per unit would be $8.33 source: (https://www.f2pool.com/miner?id=155037).
Currently, its price is $3145 source: (https://www.asicfinder.com/frontend/hardwares/bitmain-antminer-s19-xp-141t).
Now, BTC is priced at $29,048, which is quite low, and we are all waiting for the bull market to come.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of numbers and calculations, but I'm determined to make the right choice. Should I pursue mining for a steady source of income, or would it be more beneficial to directly purchase coins with an eye on long-term potential?