I would like to just add my real example. I put some money here in GM in June 08: 0,42910000BTC
As of today, December 18 I received: 0.21294324 BTC
This is pure fact how this works. You never ROI. Please do some calculation before you invest.
You can't ROI when your "I" is bad -- at least as a *short* term investment.
Right now, Bitcoin miners are creating 3,600 new coins every DAY! That makes the Fed's paper fiat look like gold in comparison! Yeah, Bitcoin adoption is growing astronomically, but that doesn't matter -- 3,600 new coins per day is just way too inflationary right now. The mining production will halve in 2016 to 1,800 coins per day. Not exactly awesome, but better. And in 2020 it halves again, only 900 new BTC per day. With the 800-pound gorilla status that Bitcoin enjoys, that might prove sustainable. And then it will continue to get rarer and rarer, and thus better and better.
I think if you just don't think about your "R" on your "I" coming in the next several months (years?), I think that you *can* and *will* ROI. That 0.212 BTC could be worth a considerable amount of money 10 years from now (after several halvings of new mining production). Can you wait that long?
The guy who bought a pizza back in 2010 for for 10,000 BTC probably thought he would "never ROI" either. Wonder what he thinks today. I sure hope it was the best pizza he ever had or ever will have.
I think 2013 was a bad year in terms of giving many newcomers a false hope of quick riches in the crypto world.
Personally, I only use Bitcoin for transactions at this point in time. Need to send someone some money now? Easy, I just deposit fiat online into my Coinbase account -- at whatever the then USD/BTC rate is, I don't care -- and transfer that BTC to the person. Beats the heck out of wire transfers, Paypal, sending checks through the mail, etc.
But I don't keep a *store* of Bitcoin, either at Coinbase or in an offline wallet. Too inflationary for me at the moment. I only mine -- and buy -- Unobtanium (UNO). Only 250,000 UNOs will *ever* be created (as opposed to, what is it? BTC's 21,000,000?). And instead of 3,600 new BTCs a day, only 15 new UNOs a day are currently being mined (and that's going to halve twice in 2015!!!).
And even with mining UNO, I don't expect to get rich overnight or even "ROI" in the next 6 months (UNO is way under the radar, but with a solid, enthusiastic community). I'm looking to 6 to 12 years out (and I'm already old).
I may be wrong, but I think that having a store of Bitcoin in the future will be good. But I just don't have that feeling for it at this particular moment.
And nobody can (or *should*) blame GM for any "lack of ROI" within a 6-month timeframe. It's the coin you choose (hopefully wisely), *and* the time frame you have patience for. That's all it is, period. Don't blame GM.
I am mining Unobtanium on my own mining gear (currently, I may sell the gear and switch *completely* to GM), and I'm mining it at GM -- which meets or often exceeds my own mining gear!
ROI is not GM-dependent. It's homework, coin, and patience-dependent.
So kudos to Genesis-Mining!
And do your homework, be smart, and be patient!