Has mining ever been profitable "at current rates"?

pixl8tr

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Quote from: precrime3 on April 10, 2014, 06:22:22 PM

Quote from: Meman on April 10, 2014, 05:25:34 PM

Quote from: precrime3 on April 09, 2014, 01:32:51 PM

this, has there ever been a time in the last 5 years where mining was profitable at current rates?

Yes, it was, for the early CPU and GPU birds (early adopters).
The party was over, when the first FPGAs appeared.

Wait so even when btc was basically nothing, the early birds were "profitable" assuming they could sell it?

Yes, partly because you could mine 50 coins solo with spare cycles on a laptop. ;-)

precrime3

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Quote from: Meman on April 10, 2014, 05:25:34 PM

Quote from: precrime3 on April 09, 2014, 01:32:51 PM

this, has there ever been a time in the last 5 years where mining was profitable at current rates?

Yes, it was, for the early CPU and GPU birds (early adopters).
The party was over, when the first FPGAs appeared.

Wait so even when btc was basically nothing, the early birds were "profitable" assuming they could sell it?

Meman

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Quote from: precrime3 on April 09, 2014, 01:32:51 PM

this, has there ever been a time in the last 5 years where mining was profitable at current rates?

Yes, it was, for the early CPU and GPU birds (early adopters).
The party was over, when the first FPGAs appeared.

Doug Rudd

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Quote from: precrime3 on April 10, 2014, 06:33:26 AM

When antminers turn off, difficulty lowers, wouldn't that vest time to mine is when everyone else is turning off there's?

The equilibrium point between people turning off miners because of loss and people turning on miners because of profit is always going hover around zero profit.

pixl8tr

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Quote from: lightfoot on April 10, 2014, 08:43:34 AM

Oddly enough what is happening to Bitcoin is what's going to happen to the universe in a heat death scenario. In a few billion years when we're huddled around the last of the black holes for energy we will be getting about 500 watts per km tops. Not enough to make a good bowl of popcorn; how are we going to keep the blockchain going?

C

Hahah very good made me spit coffee out me nose. Grin

lightfoot

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I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

Quote from: pixl8tr on April 10, 2014, 06:56:23 AM

Quote from: precrime3 on April 10, 2014, 06:33:26 AM

When antminers turn off, difficulty lowers, wouldn't that vest time to mine is when everyone else is turning off there's?

Nope, wishful thinking. Thats the same thing people said when ASIC's were introduced. "When the GPUS' are turned off the difficulty will flatten out." That never happened. Just look at the hashrate historical record.
When antminers are turned off, faster and more powerful miners will be turned on. That is probably a more accurate statement. ;-)

Actually power efficiency will become more and more important. GPUs were turned off or switched to junkcoins, but the problem is the entire GPU world is probably a couple of antminers in power :-). My curiousity is that the new generation of miners is going to be about 4 times as efficient as my 65nm technology, which will buy a few months but that's it. Then what?

Oddly enough what is happening to Bitcoin is what's going to happen to the universe in a heat death scenario. In a few billion years when we're huddled around the last of the black holes for energy we will be getting about 500 watts per km tops. Not enough to make a good bowl of popcorn; how are we going to keep the blockchain going?

C

pixl8tr

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Quote from: precrime3 on April 10, 2014, 07:23:49 AM

Would comparing to how much bitcoin compared to buying an ASIC a good way of gauging ROI?

For example,
one antminer .893 btc
or just buying .893 outright?

From my miners way of thinking, ROI ( Return on Investment) I keep everything in terms of BTC, so, making .893 BTC on an investment of .893 would be a loss when you consider the costs of electricity and your time spent running and maintaining your miners. ( Lots of hidden costs. Internet , cabling, Power, support computers, cooling etc....)

If your paradigm is dollars based( Or Rubles, Yen, Pounds, Euros... ) then you may make a return if you consider the conversion to BTC and back again if the converted value has increased from what was originally invested, minus conversion fees.

If you are a gambler and want to bet on BTC increasing in value compared to your government currency, in my opinion buying BTC with currency and Hodling is the better bet at this point. This wasn't always the case. Early adopters in the mining efforts came out the clear winners compared to those just starting mining now. To make a decent mining ROI now, you need to have deep pockets and be able to purchase ASIC miners at cost or at the very least a deep discount from retail prices.

Cheers!

precrime3

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Would comparing to how much bitcoin compared to buying an ASIC a good way of gauging ROI?

For example,
one antminer .893 btc
or just buying .893 outright?

Soros Shorts

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Quote from: Hyena on April 09, 2014, 03:32:28 PM

The sad thing is that historically you would always make a better investment by buying and holding bitcoins than buying mining hardware.

Others have pointed out that early GPU mining was profitable at current BTC prices.

In addition to that, I paid $1500 for my Batch 1 Avalon which made about 600 BTC in its lifetime. When I gave it away for free to a friend in Nov 2013, it was still making a few BTC a month.

Edit: That $1500 would have bought me at most 120 BTC around the time I paid for the Avalon.

atp1916

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If you aren't getting reamed by electrical costs and you are doing GPUs that can hit other coins, then it is profitable.

ROI is certainly dim at the moment, but it's still there for the GPU people.

pixl8tr

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Quote from: precrime3 on April 10, 2014, 06:33:26 AM

When antminers turn off, difficulty lowers, wouldn't that vest time to mine is when everyone else is turning off there's?

Nope, wishful thinking. Thats the same thing people said when ASIC's were introduced. "When the GPUS' are turned off the difficulty will flatten out." That never happened. Just look at the hashrate historical record.
When antminers are turned off, faster and more powerful miners will be turned on. That is probably a more accurate statement. ;-)

lightfoot

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I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

Quote from: precrime3 on April 10, 2014, 06:33:26 AM

When antminers turn off, difficulty lowers, wouldn't that vest time to mine is when everyone else is turning off there's?

Sure, but as soon as they turn on the power the diff will go right back up. And there will be a certain percentage of miners who will mine at a total loss, so profits probably still will not happen.

We shall see.

precrime3

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When antminers turn off, difficulty lowers, wouldn't that vest time to mine is when everyone else is turning off there's?

lightfoot

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I fix broken miners. And make holes in teeth :-)

Mining is a perfectly competitive market. Therefore it is *impossible* to make any sort of long term profit. This does not mean you can't make short term profits, but over the long term the barrier to entry is too low, the skills are non-existent, and miners compete with each other in a race to the bottom.

Note that if you can enhance the value of mining, or do it in a different way you could make a profit, but that is by using your value-added brain, not by simply mining.

As to turning off miners, I'm watching as the event horizon for electricity prices vs. bitcoin generated is being approached. It is economic suicide to run a miner when the cost of electricity and heat going in matches or exceeds the value of bitcoin coming out. This is not sunk cost, this is sunk operating cost and the only rational solution is to shut down. That should cause difficulty to stabilize, but since people suck at math I expect mining to continue to increase :-)

We'll see. End of May is when I have scheduled to turn off my miners. But even if you have a super efficient ant miner, you will reach this point soon as well.

precrime3

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So at one point, mining was profitable at current rates?

dropt

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Quote from: Hyena on April 10, 2014, 12:38:00 AM

Quote from: Elokane on April 09, 2014, 05:17:38 PM

Quote from: Hyena on April 09, 2014, 03:32:28 PM

The sad thing is that historically you would always make a better investment by buying and holding bitcoins than buying mining hardware.

That is false. I bought my mining gear at the end of May 2011. It has made me many more Bitcoins than I could otherwise buy at the price then with the amount I spent.
The GPUs are still working to this day.

That's not when my history begins. Also, during rallies, mining may become temporarily profitable, depending whether you hold your coins or sell them immediately and maybe buy them back after a crash has occurred. Either way your tales of mining are of primordial times and somewhat irrelevant. Thanks for pointing it out though, it's good to know how the things were once upon a time Cheesy

History isn't limited to whatever time frame you existed in. I started mining in late 2011, early 2012 and my story is the same as Elokane's. Well, minus the part where I have any GPUs running.

Hyena

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Quote from: Elokane on April 09, 2014, 05:17:38 PM

Quote from: Hyena on April 09, 2014, 03:32:28 PM

The sad thing is that historically you would always make a better investment by buying and holding bitcoins than buying mining hardware.

That is false. I bought my mining gear at the end of May 2011. It has made me many more Bitcoins than I could otherwise buy at the price then with the amount I spent.
The GPUs are still working to this day.

That's not when my history begins. Also, during rallies, mining may become temporarily profitable, depending whether you hold your coins or sell them immediately and maybe buy them back after a crash has occurred. Either way your tales of mining are of primordial times and somewhat irrelevant. Thanks for pointing it out though, it's good to know how the things were once upon a time Cheesy

Bit_Happy

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A Great Time to Start Something!

Quote from: Elokane on April 09, 2014, 05:17:38 PM

Quote from: Hyena on April 09, 2014, 03:32:28 PM

The sad thing is that historically you would always make a better investment by buying and holding bitcoins than buying mining hardware.

That is false. I bought my mining gear at the end of May 2011. It has made me many more Bitcoins than I could otherwise buy at the price then with the amount I spent.
The GPUs are still working to this day.

Of course mining has sometimes been profitable.
How else would there have been such a massive mining bubble created?

DhaniBoy

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better if you but BTC and hold it instead buy mining hardware and mining BTC from it

Elokane

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Quote from: Hyena on April 09, 2014, 03:32:28 PM

The sad thing is that historically you would always make a better investment by buying and holding bitcoins than buying mining hardware.

That is false. I bought my mining gear at the end of May 2011. It has made me many more Bitcoins than I could otherwise buy at the price then with the amount I spent.
The GPUs are still working to this day.

Topic: Has mining ever been profitable "at current rates"? (Read 1634 times)