April 03, 2022
ENERGY COST, DOES IT STILL PAY?Last week, I talked about the fact that GPU prices have been going down, so it might be interesting to invest in a third GPU. But is it worth taking a risk now, with the price of energy rising?
As you know, I'm not counting the energy spent on this adventure, I classified it as an investment and not an expense. But that doesn't mean I don't look at the values and do the math. When I only had one GPU and before these price increases, I spent an average of 15~20€ on mining per month (this is a rough figure, because I don't have any specific monitoring system). With a second GPU since January 2022, the value has doubled, +/- 35~45€ per month.
But, because of recent events, energy prices have increased in the last two months, which has increased by 5~10€/month, the expense likely related to mining. There is still some uncertainty as to whether the recent agreements by the governments of Portugal and Spain will stop the price from rising or not. So right now, the energy cost I'm having, based on previous averages, is the equivalent of having 2.5 GPU's. Basically one GPU is mining to pay for energy and another is profit.
It's true that, after all, it's still profitable, but is it worth increasing the number of GPUs right now? On the other hand, this can make the purchase of GPUs more attractive, as the price of the cards should continue to fall. Added to this is the unknown when Etherium will become PoS. Anyway, these are accounts that must be done, although at the moment I am not considering the energy costs in this adventure, and for now I will continue on this path until I recover the Bitcoins invested in the purchase of the second GPU, and only then do this more careful analysis.
In this path of recovering the investment, another month spent with the values within the expected. On 2miners I made an estimated total of 0.00147460 BTC, and on NiceHash I made a total of 0.00137130 BTC. At the moment I have a global average of 0.00006492 BTC/24h, counting since I started this adventure. This leaves me about 100 days to reach the goal. We hope this continues.
All these numbers are available
here.
April 10, 2022
A YEAR IN THIS ADVENTUREIt's been a year since the story of this adventure began (in Portuguese). And during all this time I've been through several situations: from high profitability, one or another technical problem, high valuations, changes in strategies,... in short, a little bit of everything. But one thing is for sure, I had not planned a year later to continue living this adventure and continue to share it.
The initial plan was to buy a GPU and recoup the investment made in Bitcoin and then use the card for gaming and other purposes. It was expected to recover the investment in 6 or 7 months, and it was
achieved in November 2021. Along the way, I had months that were very profitable, like in
May 2021, which was the best month so far, as I managed to mine 0.00364130
BTC with just one card. But I also had less profitable periods, particularly the weeks before reaching the first goal.
After reaching the initial objective,
was left wondering what I would do, whether to continue on this mining adventure and risk more or finish this route. But, excited about what I had already done, I decided to take the risk and
acquire a new GPU, again with the aim of recovering the invested Bitcoin, within 6 to 7 months.
Throughout this adventure, I found new projects in the cryptocurrency world, which I added as extras to this adventure. The
first was Chia, which I discovered a month later, and taking advantage of the money earned in campaigns here on the forum, I invested in some HDDs and mine to this day. It's not a big source of revenue, but it's been an interesting project and one that
has been going well. Another extra that came up and that I'm still mining
was Theta Network, which is the least profitable, but also the least work - basically it's leaving the program on and that's it. And more recent,
have been exploring is STEPN, where a person gains by doing physical activity, and it has been positive.
It has really been a very interesting adventure, and I hope that my reports will be useful for everyone who is following this journey. Well, that was the idea for creating this topic: to present real information on how mining is. Not forgetting to thank everyone who has helped and everyone who has been following this diary.
The second phase of this adventure - the recovery of the investment of the second GPU, is within the expected, being now more or less halfway to the goal. But very dependent on how the profitability of ETH mining continues, which as we know has been gradually decreasing. This past week, on NiceHash I averaged 0.00004912 BTC/24h, and on 2miners I averaged 0.00004731 BTC/24h. I'm like this with 83% of the overall goal achieved, leaving 0.006 BTC left for the final goal.
All these numbers are available
here.
April 17, 2022
THERE IS STILL TIMEThe entry into force of Ethereum 2.0, seems closer and closer to happening. Despite the dates for the implementation of PoS on Ethereum, have been postponed for years, there is concrete data that this change should occur this year 2022. Initially the changes were expected to take place in June/July, but this week Tim Beiko, developer at the Ethereum Foundation, said that “It will not be in June but probably in the following months... There is no specific date yet, but we are , without a doubt, in the final chapter of PoW on Ethereum.". Also leaving the warning, for miners to stop investing in hardware to mine ETH.
This information is useful, as it would be difficult for me to reach the goal until June, which could delay the whole process. But if this change will only take place a few months later, I will certainly have the time to recoup the investment made. At the moment, my estimates point to that within 3 months, thus predicting that between July and August, I will be able to reach the goal.
Therefore, this new delay in the implementation of PoS on Ethereum, turns out to be good news for this adventure. It remains to be seen whether it will give time to generate some profit. Of course, there is always the possibility of further delays, but there will be a day when the changes are implemented, and the tests that have been carried out, show that this is really close to happening. Therefore, it will be trying to take advantage of the little time left to mine as much as possible, in order to achieve the objectives of this adventure. It is true, that there will be other coins to mine, but it may take some time before they are really profitable.
In that sense, the last week kept a steady pace, with an average of 0.00004829 BTC/24h on NiceHash, and on 2miners the average was about 0.00004701 BTC/24h. Interestingly, I have had a higher return on NiceHash, but that may change a little, because of a slight appreciation of ETH against Bitcoin. Based on these values, there is only 15% left for the objective, which is expected to be reached in 84 days.
All these numbers are available
here.
April 24, 2022
THE RHYTHM IS KEPTA few months ago, there were greater variations in profitability between weeks, with weeks being much better than others. But, at the moment, these variations have not been noticed over the last few weeks. I would say that we are going through a plateau period in mining, with no big rises or falls in mined values. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we are waiting for when Etherium will finally come to PoS. Although this will still take a few months, miners must have slowed down their acquisition of new equipment, as it is not yet known what currency will prevail in PoW.
On NiceHash, the average has been more or less constant week after week, with this last week being 0.00004748 BTC/24h.
On the other hand, 2miners has seen much more variations, with some weeks having higher averages than others, and this last week was an example of that, having had an average of 0.00004407 BTC/24h, lower than usual.
The fact of continuing to use both platforms to mine, it has been possible to perceive that for small miners, with one or two cards, and who want to obtain their earnings in Bitcoin, the best solution remains NiceHash. Of course, for those who want to receive in ETH or another specific currency, it is better to use pools directed to these currencies. But, based on these numbers and contrary to what some say, I think that for small miners NiceHash is the best option.
All these numbers are available
here.
TO BE CONTINUEDMay 01, 2022 - RENDER 20% LESSMay 08, 2022 - BITCOIN PRICE VS GPU PRICEMay 15, 2022 - LHR 100% UNLOCKEDMay 22, 2022 - NINE HOURS WITHOUT MININGMay 29, 2022 - ONLY ONE MONTH LEFT