Topic: Free Elec - Avg Temp 18º - Budget 30k. Start or not? (Read 1384 times)

Right, they're 60CAD on the forum, so two month ish ROI. Assuming diff is going to stick to the +3~4% range for a while. If you can haggle them down, it's even better, but you need to pick them up yourself. If you have them shipped, you'd need to have the seller eat the costs. Otherwise S5's are just better deals by far, even for free electricity.

Just looking at the forums now I still don't see S3's for 30 or 20 dollars.  I don't think most are going to be that lucky.  You are right if you got them at 20 with free electricity.... heck of a bargain.

But I think 50 + shipping on most out there.  And ROI math.... hard to say.  I just don't see the ad's supporting 20-30 dollar S3's.  If you can get 20 dollar especially you could turn a profit flipping them on ebay at that price so I just don't see a big amount of sellers in that range, most are higher.

You're not even providing any information, you're just plugging your ears and saying Nonono not true.
I'll elaborate, since you, honestly, don't know what you're talking about;

-Hydro IS that cheap. This means that you can pay a flat fee for access to it and not pay more for a higher usage. It is near Free as in you won't pay more if you use it, its so cheap its included in rent. The downside is you have a amp cap on your sub-panel.

If you don't pay more for higher usage, this mean your access to the electric portion you will use for mining is effectively 100% free. You're not consuming more fuel or any fossil fuel. Using more electricity does not equate to the Government spending more money. No one is shouldering a higher bill because you are using more electricity.

Saying you're not mining for free here is just incorrect.

-Solar array equating to free; You are also wrong. Look at phil's setup. There is an upfront investment and the goal here is to Zero out his complete electric bill. Then he can run miners on his array to recoup the cost and soon profit on a repaid array while it last.

I'll give you an example since the concept of obtaining free electricity with an investment on an array seem to baffle you: If you do $50k USD out, then receive $50k USD in... your + or - at the end is 0. 0 Seem pretty free to me, since he then have electricity he doesnt have to pay for 20~years.

The actual numbers are more complicated but thats how it is conceptually. If profits with mining just get that bad, he can simply sell the portion he'd use for mining and sell it back to the grid.

Yes there's an upfront cost. Yes he's able to mine for effectively free at one point. The portion he'll use for mining, he won't pay more for it versus his mining earning, therefore it is effectively free.

-Turbines, you have no idea what you're talking about. You can get compact, long turbines, they're really not that big and they generate the electricity 24/7, so no need on a big expensive battery setup. Its cheaper to setup and a solar array as well.

This is the option i know the least about. But I guess it doesnt matter, since you didn't actually provide any actual information to support your claims or your logic.

If you have something to say beside repeating what you seen other people say about free electricity, as in actual details, please share. Otherwise you're just wasting people's time repeating misinformation.

Electricity is just really that cheap in places with Hydro Electricity. Or maybe someone live in a place where electricity comes down to near free... Or maybe he has a solar array setup, that once bought, the cost of the electricity over the estimated period of the panel's lifetime, it comes down to free, or he has a small hydro turbine.

TLDR; there is such thing as free electricity, copy pasting the typical ad sig campaign reply isint helping anyone.
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That is actually not true, every example you listed still requires cost for the electricity in some form or another.

Hydro - yes it is that cheap, but it is still not free.
comes down to near free - again, it is not free.
solar array setup - extremely high costs to run a couple of S7's, the amount of space and cost associated with setting up a solar array to power 30k worth of equipment would be so expensive, over the life of the miner, you would be better off just paying over 50 cent a kilawatt for power.
small hydro turbine - again, extremely high setup costs and you would need a large hydro turbine to run 30k worth of S7's.

So again, there is no such thing as free electricity.  The main point I was getting at with my post is that every now and then, someone comes along with subsidized electricity for whatever reason and I am usually the person paying for it through my tax dollars.  This really pisses me off that they get to think they are getting free power and get to mine for free, when they really aren't, and instead of tax dollars going to something good, they are going to paying for these people to mine.

There's a guy selling for about 60CAD not too far from where i live, so ROI there is about 2 months. They havent been selling, so could probably haggle them down. But directly locally i've gotten them much cheaper. Even at our cheaper electricity here, they don't profit anything. (1.7USD per month @ 0.06).

Within Canada to ROI them + shipping, they would need to be 30$. Getting S3's at 20$ locally was kind of a fluke, but at the same time, S5's going for 120$ or less, its not all that much of a stretch.


Electricity is just really that cheap in places with Hydro Electricity. Or maybe someone live in a place where electricity comes down to near free... Or maybe he has a solar array setup, that once bought, the cost of the electricity over the estimated period of the panel's lifetime, it comes down to free, or he has a small hydro turbine.

TLDR; there is such thing as free electricity, copy pasting the typical ad sig campaign reply isint helping anyone.

Don't forget also that there is no such thing as free electricity, someone is paying for it, it just may not be you.  Said person may not always be happy to see a utility bill jump the way it would by adding 30k worth of gear onto the system either.  Food for thought, don't screw over something good you have (aka free electricity) until you can be absolutely sure its OK and you are not cheating anyone (aka Taxpayers or someone else).

But who is selling S3's for 30 dollars? I just don't see major sales for this price unless I'm missing something.  If you get on here I think it's closer to 50 + shipping.   So don't see the 1.5 month ROI.

And go over to ebay and it's even higher to buy them.  So still over 1.5 months.

With strictly Bitcoin its a bit hard. If you score a S3 for 30$ you have 1.5 Months ROI. S5 for 100$, 2.2~ Months ROI. Assuming free electricity and reusing PSU's you already have on hand.

For the S5's you need to be close to a Datacenter that's selling out. For S3, or i guess S1's would work too... but it would have to be local pickups.

For most 2-3 month ROI is pretty hard to do.  Long ago it was common place. I don't think we can say it takes 3 months as with difficulty changing... even with free it's hard to speculate.

I have not seen anyone who can accurately predict 3 months of BTC mining anymore.  Just to hard to predict.

How sad is it that people with "free" electricity can't even help secure the network against centralization.  Damn you China farms! *shakes fist*

Yeah, it does not seem very profitable to start BTC mining, even with cheap/free electricity, as the equipment and time to set it up and maintain it cost money too... and price is not going up.

I was thinking about getting the ASICS chips and make an engineer to build machines with a SMT mounter also buying some "asics pcb".. But i can´t get the ASICS chips... That was my idea to get ROI faster, looking on internet saw that there are bitfury chips new i think, but the investment must be 1m at least to buy.. i am looking 10k in chips and buy the PCB,  then with a smt mounter....... but i think all of that is not easy.
Finally though in S7 that had the best Price/hashrate... In my market i can´t find any used bitcoin machine, that´s not a possibility

I think scrypt mining is good

A number of factors are going against newbies:

Rising diff
Reward Halving in 4 months
Price of btc not rising
Etc

Do you get the picture of what you are against? Any one of those factors is enough to make a potential miner think twice, any two of the factors should STOP a potential miner.

Free electricity comes with a cost. Also remember any time you give your money to Bitmain, they buy 3 additional S7's themselves so why are you giving money to your mining COMPETITOR? While you only add 1 S7, they add 3 more.  Also, they keep the best ones themselves and give you the garbage. Look at used Spondoolies, you will ROI faster.

There will be, but the ROI will be longer. When you have free electricity, your advantage is you can buy cheap obsolete gear in term of efficiency and not raise your costs, beside more PSUs.

Thank you, that´s a little greedy for doing this business i was wondering to buy some s7 and the ROI is 6-7 month at least.. So was expecting if there was going to be a new machine Price/MiningGH

So many people losing money, yeah. If the ROI takes more than 3 months(right now), its pretty risky. Aim for 2 months ROI. With used hardware and free electricity its definitively doable.

Hello thank you for you answer.

I was only expecting to sell BTC, i am thinking as normal business don´t expect to speculate so much with the price. Just think about if i invest 10k for example in Miners with refrigeration system how long will take till i get money back..

If i check the difficulty it makes me not to invest.. but so many people doing it

I will give you the same advice i give everyone start slow.  To jump in with 30k would be a bad idea, growing pains from adding so many miners... would happen.  But don't let me stop you from mining totally as free electricity is very good.

So my advice start with a few, buy a few coins.   And get use to watching gear managing BTC etc.   Start pretty slow don't invest your whole 30k.   Eventually if you keep doing it... maybe one day.  But not starting out.

Hello i am wondering the same, Start or no Start

My situation is this:

I have free electricity (unlimited) 220v
My city area has average temperature 18º.. Winter from 0 to 15, Summer from 27 to 36  (we have some electricity problems in Summer but it´s short, expect to lose about 140 hours in Summer (2 month)
Budget: 20-30k no problem
Idea: S7 Antminer or wait for new one..


My main problem is: Difficult of mining is going up like crazy...

I can´t predict how long will take to get money back.

Also it´s not my main business.

Looks interesting but can´t decide.

Can anyone help me?