Topic: If mining BTC isn't profitable like people say -- how are OTHER people doing it? (Read 2361 times)

Yeah in my case at 13c kwh that boat don't float...so unless I just want a toy (like the sidehack 8gb usb stick for 25 bucks with the ROI of a smile ) I got zip for any ideas
on wtf I'll ever be able to mine with again and be within 1000 miles of sighting ROI land

 "how much you had to pay for your mining gear" - which would include VAT and import taxes where applicable.

mine n trade. either do it on cloud platform or  sell the machine while it still has value. plug n play is too slow and risky. thats for the bigger farms.

As they have said, elec is everything. Personally I got 0.07$/kwh, but a 25% VAT/import tax. AND the UPS bastards are probably gonna send me a bill for "handling" as well (For the S7). If I remeber correctly, they wanted 600$ in "handling fees" for 5x S1's back in the day.. I'm worried

Edit: I also need to pay a 28% tax on all BTC profits.. I actually don't know yet how I calculate this when I'm mining, and not trading!

I would agree on electricity rate.  One a lot of people look over is VAT/Import taxes.  Some places a 20-25 percent tax could kill ROI.

Mining is still alive and will just takes a lot of variables to line up for it to work.

Pools have very little to do with mining profitably.

 It's ALL about the electric rate, the efficiency of your mining gear, how much power you have to use to keep the gear COOL and how much you had to pay for your mining setup, and sometimes incidentals like "pay for help if you have a Mega Farm"....

How is it profitable? Well most people are mining in pools so they get a steady paycheck. For me, it's been more profitable solo mining. I know everyone says it's "dead", "over", "a waste", but I made a 12x ROI on my entire small farm in 30 days just solo mining with a single S3.

Remember, it's a luck game. You just pull a ticket and keep doing that. Eventually you win.

It is true and helped many of us hobby miners.  I wish I could go back and buy more, but I was maxed out during winter.   With summer got a new mining area and got 100 amp just for mining if I need it.   

But those of the miners who kept believing and bought gear profited... which is good.

Aside from electricity costs, timing is very important. A home miner with reasonable electricity costs that bought S5s or SP20s in Jan. 2015 has done very well, as the resale value of those miners has actually increased since then, while they've made decent revenue over cost.

Someone that bought the three SP20 deal for $1195 with free shipping, for example, can probably get that much back even on eBay after fees right now, and will have essentially had free equipment to run for six months. Of course, that is obvious in hindsight.

The best thing to do is closely watch difficulty changes, stay up to date on what manufacturers are up to, and monitor hashrate for new, unannounced farms that may be popping up (or new hardware being tested - it's pretty easy to spot when Bitmain started running their S5s if you study it close enough).

Basically, mining can be profitable. But you have to put some work into it, not just learning how to run the equipment (that's he easy part), but also studying the market. Luck helps.

At this point, ROI is mostly about what your electric costs are. Forget it at 15 cents/KWh, very iffy at 10, fairly easy at 5.

 Cost of the miner vs. performance is also a factor, as is the probability of the miner LIVING long enough to ROI (Titans are very efficient, but their reliability is NOT GOOD. See also Gridseed blades and their poorly designed VERY marginal power conversion design.).

 Even at 15c/KWh, a SP20E or a S5 are technically PROFITABLE. You're just not going to profit ENOUGH to pay back the cost of buying the unit AND needfull power supply/supplies, unless the price of Bitcoin goes up faster than the difficulty does for YEARS.


 When you factor in the cost and how long a typical windmill/solar panel lasts, AND needed auxillary equipment, AND needed battery capasity, solar and wind are NOT competative with average power costs from the utility company in most of the 1'st and 2'nd world countries. 3'd world or some remote areas, they become practical because (1) there IS no reliable power and/or (2) power is WAY expensive and/or (3) the cost of installing the power LINES is way more expensive than the cost of the panels/windmill.

 You also have to be carefull and do your research into the companies - just because a company is large doesn't mean it made GOOD RELIABLE equipment (can anyone else out there say Clipper Windpower, for one of the better known failures (technically in process, they still exist sorta) in the Wind Power field).

And with right conditions you really can ROI.  So many say ROI is not possible, but it's not one size fits all.

And as far as solar... look for cheap electricity don't spend a ton on solar/wind energy.

I am running a full node as well .  I dunno about "rich" but I do okay.

People seem to forget you can't just scale up without spending way more money. Sure the farms might get bulk discounts, but a home miner running a single miner is much easier to manage and requires no extras that a farm would need. Farms need a place to put the miners, shelves, power equipment, wiring, networking, breakers, list goes on and on. A home miner with low power cost is going to have a higher profit margin than a large farm. A home miner with the same miners as a farm may be able to run much longer than the farm. The problem right now for home miners is a lack of choice of ready available miners and the longer initial break even point. Mining for quick profits is unlikely to happen again. You may come across short events like the paycoin fiasco where lots of us made extra coin for a few days, but I doubt there will ever be another large spike in bitcoin price that isn't followed by difficulty increasing rapidly to compensate. Mining will always trend towards barely profitable.

Mining is still  profitable with right conditions.  Electricity price is key.  And no import tax/vat helps.  Sadly those thing keep SOME from mining.

Others that have right condition the difficulty only rising in little bits.  BTC went up some in price.  Really a heck of a lot better then most of us thought it would be.  There is profit to be made.   But takes right conditions.

The "people" mining are not people but rather companies who typically are the same ones selling you miners.  They charge you double so they can get their hardware for free 

I support the network and want it to be safe.  But when I go negative on miner's I sell them and get more efficient gear.   

I really like ROI .  I will keep doing support with ROI as long as I can.  The summer has been good in my mind for miners.

isn't better to support the network with a full node? at least you won't go in negative, well if you are rich, i don't think you care about a small loss 

As it has been suggested it is a great heater in the winter, ESPCIALLY the S1 that guy pours out heat.




I mine slightly negative but I like to decentrlized mining and support  the security of the chain.. hey every giga hash counts!




U3, you can grab one for like $60 off kijiji, power draw is negligible mind you so is the profits but you are mining and adding more security to the network.

it is at my friend's office  he rents ¼ of a floor and pays 1/5  the power bill.  For 10 years he used very little power and lost out on the power splitting deal. For the last 12 months he has made back some of those losses on the power bill.   The bill was 500 or so with him paying 100  now the bill is  600 or so with him paying 120

 the extra 100 is the miners   so we pay 20 and get an 80 dollar subsidy.

 two other benefits :
he does not control the heat
the office is cold in the winter  the miners warm it

 he no longer uses  this heater in the winter.

How are you getting this "3 cent power"? lol