I have ~10THs mining at home which is about $1700 per month in BTC income at the current difficulty. Everything I have running is at 1w/GHs or less.
My last 3 electric bills have been an average of about $1700 per month. Of course my electric bill isn't from mining alone but I would estimate that 70-80% is from my mining gear. It's still summer in the desert where I live so my A/C still runs most of the day.
So I have another month or two (max) before I'm mining at a loss. Although I might run some of the most efficient miners (S3's and Monarchs) for auxiliary heat in the winter even though I have a gas furnace.
This should be your answer.. Granted, bitcoins could shoot up at any time but could go down too.. Id steer clear of mining.. not profitable.My last 3 electric bills have been an average of about $1700 per month. Of course my electric bill isn't from mining alone but I would estimate that 70-80% is from my mining gear. It's still summer in the desert where I live so my A/C still runs most of the day.
So I have another month or two (max) before I'm mining at a loss. Although I might run some of the most efficient miners (S3's and Monarchs) for auxiliary heat in the winter even though I have a gas furnace.
If you weren't mining anything ever before. The only reason to start mining now is to feel how it is. You would later can tell some of your children or grandchildren that at some point you were bitcoin miner in the past. Other that that standard mining is not that good for individuals.
In my case, I was lucky and timed my first miner purchases well... paid fiat for early mining gear when BTC was very cheap. And I reinvested my BTC earnings in more mining gear when BTC was very high. I've had a positive ROI (bitcoin and fiat) for many months now. I had zero bitcoin when I started and now hold some in my wallet. And I earned back my fiat investment by selling some used gear on eBay early on.
I was extremely lucky, there was absolutely no skill involved, lol. But those days have long passed and anyone hoping to duplicate a similar situation is going to be very, very disappointed.
Mining is basically buying bitcoins for future delivery (with a lot of volatility on the quantity of each future delivery). At prices below $500-600 and this current difficulty, you receive far more coins TODAY by just buying the bitcoin vs. buying a miner (and the coins from the miner will not be delivered at once).
Could also sell you a smaller amount of shares for the same price per Mhash.