Topic: Has Bitcoin mining ever been so unprofitable? (Read 1293 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.

I'd say "one OF the most inflated cycles", not "the most".
But the point is still valid.

All depends on when you track from.

from a year ago today  diff has jumped about 15-20% less then price.

So if you are based on march 17 2017 to march 18 2018  you are better off today.


but if you count from dec 2017 to now you are worse off.

I can tell you the months of nov and dec 2017  were god like and basing your profits on that set of numbers is really not realistic at all.

but I am sure when I say that you are better off today then anytime from Jan 1 2017 to April 1 2017 I fall on deaf ears.

Staying out of the red is key and I want to emphasize what you say here because when others drop out, difficulty drops right behind them which eventually buys you more time in the green.  To me, the name of the game here is EFFICIENCY, because as long as Revenues > Expenses, I keep mining.  When the market is saturated, and everyone has the most efficient miners, and no one makes a profit, there will be a demand for more efficient miners, and that will be the way to remain profitable.

There clearly is overcapacity. That is why these miners are not selling. Breakeven used to be less than half the time dude and profitability was far higher. U now have to mine above the warranty period to break even. I have a friend mining in china and there are other cost such as building, maintenance, staff and reliability of electricity. It isnt just low electricity. It is also harder for them to find low electricity rates these days.

Dude, bitcoin difficulty has increased alot more than bitcoin price and there are tons of unsold asics unlike the past where it is out of stock. U can now get miners in 2 weeks and not 3 months....wat u mean by they cant get enough capacity? If people wanted more capacity, they can easily buy and push the delivery date 1-2 months out. That happened in the past, not now.

If u are referring to gpu, yes, there is a shortage but not asics. Holding bitcoin makes a lot more than buying.

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

If your spending that much money to cool your equipment, your not going to be competitive on the global marketplace.   Yes, you could use geo-thermal cooling, but you still should only do that for your intake air, not your exhaust.  If your cooling cost are anything like miner power cost, even 0.5 to 1, that is REALLY going to hurt you.

El Salvador - TROPICAL climate.
Wouldn't drop the actual miner consumption much - but might drop the AIR CONDITIONING requirement a ton - which is what I think they were claiming.

The problem with that concept is that there is NO OVERCAPACITY in Bitcoin mining gear - total network hashrate STILL has not caught up with the price rise from the lows back when it was pushing $200 AND WAS PROFITABLE AT THE TIME if you had low-enough cost electric.

They're still selling every miner they can get out the door, as they can't get enough CHIPS due to lack of FOUNDRY CAPACITY available.

I suspect that's the primary reason eBang moved to Samsung (and it's why Nvidia put the 1050/1050ti on Samsung) - TSMC and GF can't keep up with demand while Samsung had SOME slack (which has largely gotten eaten now, though not entirely).

How in the world would mineral oil cut your power consumption by half?!?!?  Its a heat transfer mechanism, not a power usage mechanism - except perhaps if your were, excuse me, but stupid enough to air condition your waste heat and recirculate the air.  The vast majority of farms just expel that waste heat.  Even if you recirculated, your air conditioning power usage would not be equal to your miner input power... and you would still need large fans to blow air through the oil radiator.  One way or another, that heat (equal to the power used by the miner) gets rejected to the outside environment.

That aside - from a macro economics perspective, profitability is VERY easy to predict:  Competition will drive it down until only the most efficient survive.  My single person 100+ mining farm has 3 costs to consider:  1) the cost of the building and land that it is on  2)  The cost of the equipment, and 3)  The cost of operating the equipment - which is just electricity since I don't draw a salary.  The first 2 are sunk cost, shy any expansion, which would just be a scaling issue.  Other operations have other issues (like rental of buildings, staff cost, etc.) to add to their electrical cost.  It is my hope that my average electrical cost will balance against their lower electrical cost plus their operating cost, at least for awhile.  Eventually it will not, and it won't matter if I have 100 or 1000 miners - once that balance tips, I'm out of business.  Good news for my competitors.  Others will likely fail before me, which is good news for me.  However note that difficulty just continues to increase, so people are not failing in sufficient numbers yet.

I fully admit your chart is accurate .

I see a gross revenue chart that is being used in a misleading manner, since you left out the gross costs chart,
but if you want to say that gross revenue has dropped  per th okay yeah fine

      To not show that cost per th and power per th  has decreased enough to fully offset the revenue per th is a joke
  Once you do that net revenue shows up.

Frankly gross revenue means nothing to me
Now  the fact that net revenue which is what you are leaving out is clearly what matters to me.
Proper way is to show that  is gross revenue decreased  per th
and show that gross expenses decreased per Th.


 So I fully admit your chart is accurate
I don't bother most of the time but the accountant in me hate to see gross revenue  without gross expense and of course net profit.

That is why I said your chart is a joke. < and that is not what I should have said although I did say I did it as a shock value statement. To get attention
Below is what I could have said:

I stand corrected your perfectly accurate chart on gross revenue  was used in a manner that is a joke. Since you left out the charts showing cost and net revenue many people without a background in accounting  will be mislead and not realize net profits have not dropped.

That is a more  accurate  description on my part. But it lacks the shock value of my first statement.

Hopefully people read this post and realize what I am talking about.

Yep, they did at first. The smart ones are those that sold out early but most sold out only after huge losses or near bankruptcy. Everyone expected to do better than their competitor. In shipowners case, everything from the shipowners to shipyards suffered. Tons of layoffs and some went bankrupt. Survivors lost alot of money.

Another thing shippers did back then when oil price was above 100 bucks was to spend more on more fuel efficient vessels since fuel cost are around 40-60% of operating costs. Unfortunately, everyone had the same idea to outmaneuver their competitors lol. That increased the tonnage overcapacity further as they competed more. I believe this will also be the case if btc price were to suddenly jump. Everyone will wanna buy an ASIC, news sources will trumpet it and mining difficulty will skyrocket to these bad numbers again.

I dont know any bitcoin miner in salvador. Are u sure it is worth it to use mineral oil? Mining profitability is horrible now.

Right now, if bitcoin price rise up suddenly to 20k, a huge flood of mining equipment orders will flood the asic manufacturers. In 3 weeks to 2 months, a ton of asics arrive and mining goes back to this bad profitability or close to it. Only bitcoin holders win. Thats the problem with overcapacity.

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

Lol, I remember when the oil shippers made tons of money and also when they went belly up and lost it all. Too much overcapacity is right. The comparison of shippers to miners is appropriate. And there's a lot more capacity coming online this year so profit will be declining in BTC mining as profit declined for the shippers! Anyone paying over 2k for a 13TH miner now will probably never break even!

You're welcome!

I'm not sure what the first part means, so here's what I actually did.  First, I downloaded .csv data from this chart:  https://blockchain.info/charts/miners-revenue?timespan=all.  It incorporates block rewards, transaction fees, and difficulty (actual data for the entire network).  On a log scale, you can see the downward steps resulting from block reward halving.  Blockchain.info logged the data in USD based on the exchange rate each day (I don't know what kind of averaging they used for that).

Next, I downloaded .csv data from this chart:  https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate?timespan=all.  As I mentioned previously, this is an estimate based on block solution times. 

I divided the first data set by the second one in order to normalize the revenues to a constant mining hashrate and thereby get a result representing individual miners rather than the entire network.  Also as mentioned previously, it's standardized to 1 TH/s.  Any individual miner would see results on any particular day based on his own specific hashrate that day.  And of course, individual results vary because of randomness inherent in the system

That's all I did.  I used the data directly from blockchain.info, and added no assumptions about pools, utility costs, depreciation, etc.  The overall downward trend indicates that over long time periods, the exchange rate has failed to keep pace with increasing difficulty.  There have been many intervals when the opposite occurred (bumps in the curve), but the long-term trend is undeniable.  That's why it takes more and more computing power to make the same money year after year.  And it's only possible to profit from increased computing power because hardware energy efficiency has improved so much.  All of which ties in with Sandal_Hat's comparison to the shipping industry.

Indeed.  I've been looking at mineral oil, but it has a lot of up front expenses. If done right, and at scale, it could provide an edge by consuming about half the electricity.  Though I see the next big area of profit being a big jump in hashpower.  If somebody would make a 50 TH/s miner, that'd surely be profitable for a while.  However, I'm not sure I see that playing out due to high up front costs.


But only other people's gear ... at least that's how I feel. 


Insane, but true. 


We have entered a new era. There were a lot of early promises over the past couple years, from banking the unbanked to overturning the entire power structure.  It's going to take a time and nobody knows how it will develop.  All we know is that before government decree for money, it was commodities like stones, shells, metals.

I, also, know that I've used crypto for many payments and the highest points of friction have been exchange between USD. 



Do you know anybody with experience running a BTM business?  I'm exploring starting one in El Salvador.

Well, my thoughts. The problem is OVERCAPACITY of mining equipment.


From mid Nov to mid Feb, the difficulty went from 1.4T to 2.8T. Price didnt double from Nov to Feb.

-Price of btc rose 10x from a year ago and mining difficulty increased to keep up. BTC price isnt going to increase 10x this year, so, there is EXCESS mining equipment for sale.
-ASICS production capacity has increased greatly and this is without new manufacturers like Dragonmint miners coming in later.
-This thing has 6 months warranty, so, there will be miners that dont break even, regardless of electricity input cost.
-GPUs make more than asics now and it used to be GPUs make half of wat ASICS make. This is because GPU has a shortage now, but ASICS have excess capacity.  
-Current btc mkt cap is 155 billion, a 10x rise makes it 1.55 trillion and a further 10x rise means 15.5 trillion. That isnt possible as gold price is only 7.8 trillion. Max btc mkt cap is around 7.8 trillion and that make take years to reach if it does occur.
-People are used to btc already. It isnt hyped up in news like last year. So, price increases are slower assuming they continue.


That being said, any bitcoin price increase will be accompanied by alot of new miners coming in and thus, bitcoin mining will never be as profitable as before. There is too much stock of mining equipment. The biggest issue is if new stronger miners come in to make old ones obsolete.

This reminds me of the baltic dry index and bulk carriers

http://static3.uk.businessinsider.com/image/54cb8c4edd0895065b8b45b7-1099-514/baltic%202.png

The baltic dry index (BDI) is around 1200 now. It was above 10k at one point. Huge losses for shipowners.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38653546


Miners will be taking this attitude more going forward lol. And there will be few or no winners. In shipping case, shipowners spent more money on more fuel efficient vessels when they were available, thinking they got an edge. The competitors did the same. Many shipowners went bankrupt though some survive but with losses or tiny profits. It is gonna be the same here if new more efficient miners come out quickly.

Many shipowners and shipyards have gone bankrupt, similar to how some miners and asic manufacturers have gone bankrupt. Shipowners had alot more overcapacity than miners I believe. And unfortunately, mining will now enter the same overcapacity issue stage. Low electricity cost is an edge but not a huge edge when the difference is like 5cents per kwh for big miners over home miners. Overcapacity just means intense competition and far less winners.


In my opinion, there is even less reason to be optimistic if u consider that LTC/BTC is going to halve in 2019/2020 and it halves further 4 years later. ETH risks going to POS in the future and stop mining. To me, this looks like the last leg of the race. Companies like bitmain are already going for AI as well.

Anyways, to each his own. If u are optimistic still, good for u. I dont see it. I have never seen anything good come out of overcapacity in any market.

Just my 2 cents.

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Good point on the March comparisons but it has gotten worse than before by quite alot though. Electricity cost isnt a big factor with these kinda difficulty increases.

I calculated 4 months breakeven for antminers around middle last year. It is at least 10+ months now and this is without difficulty increases. And there is major asic overcapacity going forward, thus, bitcoin mining will never have good profitability like before. Hmmm the biggest winners are still bitcoin holders though. From 1050 to 9168, it made 9x the money just from holding. Miners didnt make that much at all.

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

Thanks for confirming that.  So there you go.  The 'joke' chart answers your question, since it gives the full history of 'profitability' (as used in the OP).  It has been somewhat worse in the past.  I think it will get still worse in the future. 

It did not include input costs, though that's the only place where one is able to get a competitive edge.

That makes it easier.

If you took the block rewards off blockchain.info, then it would include the value at time of production.  

 
Thanks for mining the data  

No, it's gross mining revenue in USD.  Basically (block reward)x(market price)/difficulty at a constant hashrate, using published historical data.  Electric bill is not in it.  Did your OP involve utility or other costs at all?  It looked to me like you were simply lamenting low gross revenue.  Please clarify if I misread it.

The joke is your inability to interpret a technical chart.  The 'per TH/s' is just a scaling factor.  If it makes you happier, lop three zeroes off the y-axis labels and read it as 'per GH/s.'  If you understand what you're looking at, it says the same thing you ranted at Sandal_Hat about.

Do the mods actually buy your 'just for shock value' nonsense?

It looks like it has a static price value for BTC, but that skews it because the electric bill is due monthly

Woah!  

I guess it's a case for greater energy efficiency with things like mineral oil.


How long did that last?  Mining at a loss?  

I just turned off one of my stupid D3s.

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(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to trim the quote from Bucc5207.)

your chart is a joke


another shock value statement to get attention.

I started in July 2012  the network was  14 th
which was mostly gpus  2-3 per gh

or say 2500 per th so 2500 hd7970's were worth about 300 each = 750,000 usd a th for summer of 2012

 and power used was close to 500,000 watts for that 1 th so what if it earned 10,000  a th per day

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(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to remove a nested quote and to trim the quote from Bucc5207.)

it has gone up and down every year since 2012 when I started.

if you look at last years price of coin for march 12 2017   it was  1050  todays price is 9168   so

9168/1050 =  8.73 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


so  lets see price goes up  8.73 to 1 and diff goes up 6.92 to 1   this means you are doing great.

that is why the op is clueless.  he dates back to jan 2017  I just dated back to march 2017

and you can check every number  from jan 2017 to march 2017  and the op is far better off  today then he was during the jan 2017 to march 2017 time frame.

when I make a shock statement I am very careful to be able to back it up.

and anyone that thinks  that today march 13 2018 is worse then it was a year ago as the op said is clueless.


Now it goes without saying mining is not as good as dec 2017   but the op did the jan 2017-march 2017 time frame as his start point.

If he did nov 2017 or dec 2017  as his start point I would have agreed or not posted.

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

Why are there so many stupid posts like this on this forum?

Ignorant people that jumped into this during the most inflated profitability cycle the industry has ever seen are now crying and whining that they arent overnight millionaires....

I was mining when bitcoin dropped from $1100 down to $180s....and you guys whine about single machines only making a few HUNDRED dollars a month....

The definition of unprofitable is "not yielding a financial gain"  yet an s9 or an L3 is still making $200 a month PROFIT after paying for power....

Turn your miners off and sell for residual value.   Can't lose that way.

Absolutely!  Hardware has also gotten more energy efficient.  The graph makes no allowance for any kind of expense, but neither did the OP's question (if I read it correctly).  I just tried to answer the question in the same terms it was asked.

Alright, now factor into that the average cost of 1TH. Four years ago 1TH cost a couple thousand bucks, now it's about $100. I bet the graph gets a lot flatter if you normalize against that.

I think you are confusing revenue with profit, but here is historical revenue data.  I downloaded from blockchain.info two files:  Miners Revenue (total value of coinbase block rewards and transaction fees paid to miners) and Hash Rate (estimated number of tera hashes per second).  I divided the first by the second to get revenue per TH/s, et voila ---

https://i.imgur.com/mjIgED9.jpg

Their 'hash rate' is an estimate based on block solution times.  I also downloaded price and difficulty data and calculated expected revenue using the usual math.  That gave a very similar result, but it was a lot more work.  

I hope this provides some insight.

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(Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to remove inline image tags.)

No offense phillip but not all of is have a solar array for power like u do. Mining was easily more than 2 times more profitable a few months back. The numbers are bad now and this is without taking into account future upcoming difficulty increaaes. There will be those who never break even. Mining at loss is no fun. Bitcoin holders have made alot more than miners in the last year.

You are clueless


Shock value answer. Above.


Mining is not that bad at all

If your s9 makes money and you paid 1300 for it in nov you are doing fine.

And. Yes mining at a loss was something we used to do.

I've been mining for a little over a year with my first S9 arriving in Jan 2017.

During this past year, no matter the price, it never dipped below an equivalent of $15 per machine per day.  The last two months, however, the difficulty nearly doubled and daily profits have dipped down to around $8-9. 

I'm considering expanding into a warehouse, as I live in an area with relatively cheap electricity available in the countryside and can maybe get ahead of the game ... but is it worth it?  BITMAIN and others have very large facilities of 300,000+ S9s;  I called the electric company and BITMAIN is paying around 4.3c kW/h.  The public electric company has a moratorium on any new mining farms and are, likely, going to increase the upfront costs.  I was pointed to this document from WA: http://www.chelanpud.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/bitcoin_information_final.pdf

I know there are some people who were around in 2014 when the new miners weren't being delivered and price was so low people were turning off their miners.  Can anybody tell me what that was like? Has the profit ever been this low?  I'd appreciate any insights.

Best.