Topic: Has Bitcoin mining ever been so unprofitable? (Read 1352 times)

We are now at 9050 per coin  mining is a lot more profitable then it was 2 days ago.

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(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to remove an unnecessary quote.)

I've mine Bitcoin as my primary source of income, transitioning from a hobby to a job back in November.  The post above is accurate.  However my method just considers all previously spent BTC on equipment as a sunk cost.  e.g.  I can't undo it, its history.  My "Happy Factor" is now simply making enough money per month (as displayed by Awesome Miner under the Coins tab - where electrical cost are subtracted for me) to live on.  My "Really Happy Factor" is when I can put a bit of cash away for rainy days and a bit of bitcoin away for replacement equipment.  December was a "Stupid Drunk Happy" month .

I'm still fond of the thought that the current lows are due to last year's "Bitcoin Millionaires" in the USA discovering they owe a boat load of taxes that they didn't put money away for.  As such, they are panic selling their remaining bitcoins to pay those taxes.

Time will tell.  Filing date is 4/16/18.  Lets see what it is shortly thereafter.

That said, governments out to suppress Bitcoin as a threat to their fiat currency, despite the recent G20 statements, can have a field day with this news:  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/child-abuse-imagery-bitcoin-blockchain-illegal-content

The best way to calculate for me, seems to be to take btc invested to purchase equipment and use that to find your ROI based on total btc. Many miners use btc to buy their equipment so its fairly simple to go back and look at btc bought vs. earned. If you spent .5 btc on equip, when will you reach that to ROI? Its a bit more easy and fair imo, than to use pricing as that fluctuates so much and a hundred dollars last year is a tenth of what it is this year.

this is the way to go.






and btc is cresting up again 8800

it was 7300  the other day.

so 7300 to 8800 in  2 days  a factor of 1.2



means  in 2 more days   March 22

8800 x 1.2 = 10560

2  more days                 March 24

10560 x 1.2 = 12672

2 more days                   March 26

12672 x 1.2 = 15206

2 more days                 March  28

15206 x 1.2 = 18247

2 more days                  March 30

18247 x 1.2 = 21896     all time high!!

2 more days  

21,896 x 1.2 =  26275   On April Fools day!    




So as you see that is silly stupid optimistic


just like the negative stuff on this thread  projecting doom and gloom  are silly stupid pessimistic.

It is very likely  cryptocoins move on  as they have been doing with ups and downs.

 Hopefully we will move upwards  starting today.  In a sane manner and go  past 10k  in april.

Mine and HODL. Calculate profits only when you sell. It's fine, everything will be ok. BTC 2020 here we come!

If you can find S9 at 1000 usd, you might be able to ROI....  (my best guess is 10 months considering your earning decrease by only 5% a month). Above that price, better buy BTC directly. And your earning always decrease more than 5% per month.....    and this doesnt count new game changer miner out yet.

Again, buying BTC now and hodl is a much better choice than start mining at current situation (new delivered S9 13.5+psu (March batch) is being sold in my country on trade website for less than 2200 usd already). Those miners with already ROI S9 can stay profitable until price drop to 3000 region. Below 3000 usd/BTC, continue mining is just plain fun hobby. It becomes an expensive hobby. Even you have solar farm, I dont think it will worth the maintenance cost of the farm.

No dude, if they could do that, the delivery dates will be 3 months ahead still because they would have secured orders for all their production batches for 3 months. They havent been able to sell. That is why delivery is in 1-2 weeks now instead of 3 months. Are u selling alot of antminers now or something? I am surprised there is a need to argue over something so obvious.

Back then, ROI showed 3-4 months and people kept buying. Now it is like 15 months.

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(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to remove multiple nested quotes.)

I believe we are already there actually. Thats why these machines arent selling and u can buy them at huge discounts in marketplace. There are even people selling big mines with 5000 antminers in them.

Currently at 10 cents power = 145 USD per month profit
S9 with PSU = 2000 X 1.1 (VAT) + 80 shipping = 2280
2280/ 145 = 15.7 months

This is about 471 days which means ROI is a possibly never. This is already with a generous assumption of only 10% VAT, no setup cost, no staff or cooling costs. The machine only has 6 months warranty and may not last 400 over days and new machines may possibly appear to push difficulty even higher. This is why there are alot of antminers being sold in secondary marketplaces now. Well, to each his own and I guess.

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(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to trim the quote from philipma1957.)

Error - they ARE still selling every S9 miner they can produce, it's just taking them longer to do so.
They were out of stock on the S9 when I checked this morning - but seem to have had a sale payment not go through some some back in stock this afternoon.

Yeah  I would think buying a s-9 right now with 10 power is not a good move.

but a s-9 for 1915 + 100 = 2015 - 200 coupon = 1815

that could make out if you have 4-6 cent power and the gear does not break.

Most buyers do not have 4-6 cent power  and s-9's break

Math seems to check out, except ROI on a new miner is impossible now. New people don't realize this.

@ Sandal_Hat  you are pushing bear and we are not really there yet.

IF IT IS MAY 1 WITH A DIFF OF 4,000,000,000,000
AND COINS ARE AT  ----------- 6,000 USD WE WOULD BE THERE

Now the guess for players is  do we go to those numbers and btw those numbers still make the s-9 a money maker.

if you have 10 cent power coins at 6000 diff at 4,000,000,000,000

you make 44.82 per month

So till we get there I have zero worries
Once we get there if we do it will interesting to see what happens.

And even at that point The op's answer would be no it has been worse.

so we are here

coins 8300
diff    3,400,000,000,000

which is not close to

coins 6,000
diff   4,000,000,000,000

Now be negative and say it will get worse then that , it could I don't know what moves a coin or a market.
I make moves to survive that.

My moves could be terrible.

Dude, this is the definition of overcapacity "the situation in which an industry or factory cannot sell as much as its plant is designed to produce.

They have not been able to sell what they can produce. That is why delivery-date/lead-time which was 3 months ahead is now 2 weeks. This is the same for any other industry. If they could sell as fast as they could produce, the lead time would be maintained at 3 months now.

So, when they changed to BCH only payment, it took longer to sell for abit due to currency issues. That has nothing to do with demand/supply. Not everyone had access to an exchange like poloniex that had BCH back then and exchanges take many days to verify. So, customers take time to sign up and verify at exchanges before being able to get BCH. Coinbase didnt have BCH yet back then. Shortly after those issues, the website was using BCH only payment and miner stocks were once again out of stock quickly and with 2-3 months delivery lead time. Now, it is just overcapacity unfortunately.

Looking at the rate of difficulty increase, any rise in BTC price can easily be accompanied by a quick and sharp rise in difficulty because new units can be plugged in, in just 2 weeks. It used to have a 2 month lag time, so, that gives older miners some time to mine at that lower difficulty and sell at good btc price but that wont be the case from now onwards.

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(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to trim the quote from QuintLeo.)

Not quite true.  I bought my 14TH units on 9/27/17 and believe they were the last of the BTC accepted orders.  Within days of me placing that order they had switched to BCH.  So all of the 2 minute sell-out actions that happened in December and January were under the BCH flag.

I know it has cost them a few sales... I was about to buy (12) more a couple of weeks ago when I found myself 0.25 BCH short.  By the time ShapeShift converted some BTC for me, my order had timed out.  By the time, a few days later, when I got the associated coupon situation under control, BCH had dropped so far it didn't make sense to buy.

Which STILL is not "overcapacity", it is "demand dropping to CLOSE to capacity".
NOT the same thing.

If current Bitcoin price trend continues, they MIGHT actually hit overcapacity in the next 2-3 months - but they're not there YET.

Also, you might want to pay attention to the fact that the length of time for them to sell a batch increased a LOT when they moved to the "require payment in BCH", even though Bitcoin price was still rising at the time and demand was still INCREASING.
Instead of "sold out in a few minutes with massive website clog delaying the sales" they went to "needed a few days, then needed weeks" to sell out a batch over the next 2-3 batches after that - DESPITE a still huge demand level.

They've also had more competition appear in that timeframe, AND new models from existing competition that were comparable on performance to the S9.

There are a LOT of factors behind why S9 pricing has dropped the last month and change.

Dude, it used to be that it takes 3 months to receive an antminer S9. They have not been able to sell for the last 2 months, that is why u can now order and received them in 2 weeks. It is very much in stock. Out of stock means u cannot even place an order. In the past, any new batch of S9s get announced on twitter and are sold out in 10 mins.
They are also selling the V9 which are new S7s, for cheap. Apparently some ppl can make some profit with them.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/5000-s9-located-in-canada-available-for-viewing-3077083   -Take a look. Even big mining farms with 5000 antminers S9s in canada which has cheap electricity are trying to cash out out.

U can find users selling used miners as low as 0.06 btc and some selling new S9s at 1000 USD at marketplace https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=75.0  ...among other things.

If btc suddenly rise to 20k right now, the bitcoin holders make 150% profit. Bitcoin difficulty will rise very quickly since new miners can be bought and be received in 2 weeks now. Even if u mine to hold, one 14TH S9 mines only 0.0305 btc right now per month. And it gets lower as difficulty rises.

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(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to remove multiple nested quotes.)

Depends on which point taken really.
Jan 2016 = 0.15T difficulty
March 2017 = 3.2T Difficulty

3.2 / 0.15 = 21.3 times difficulty increase

Jan 2016 price = 1000 USD
March 2017 now price = 7700 USD

7700 /1000= 7.7 times price increase.


Thus, From Jan 2016 to March 2017 , difficulty has increased 21 times but price only 7.7 times.
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Following your calculation:

(new btc price) 7700/1050 =  7.33 to 1


if you look at diff  for march 17 2017  475,705,205,061
if you look at diff for march 5 2018     3,290,605,988,754

so 3,290,605,988,754/475,705,205,061= 6.92 to 1

Well, it is still marginally better.


Anyways, right now, no doubt, difficulty is rising alot more than price and there are alot of asics that can be sold by asic manufacturers to easily push it higher. Stronger asics may appear also. I hope it doesnt.

Just my 2cents.

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(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to trim the quote from philipma1957.)

If you scale by dollar it was the biggest jump ever.

900 in jan 2017 to 19000 in dec 2017 + 1500 for dch

900 to 20500 is a 22.77 x 1 increase   but a 19600 dollar increase

I have seen 6 to 240 that is a 40 to 1 jump. but only 234 dollars

Odd, I don't see S9 in stock on Bitmain on a consistent all the time basis, which WOULD indicate overcapacity.
They're STILL selling out every one they can make.

The ONLY units they're not selling out on are those old "relabled S7" things that are UNPROFITABLE for most folks because of their low efficiency by current standards.