Topic: Mining .vs buying in a bear market (Read 539 times)

Basically both are equally good jobs to do, buying in a bear market and mining I don't think they differ significantly, just different levels of risk maybe. mining actually needs to pay attention to several factors, one of which is mining equipment and also power and costs, electricity costs are very influential in the success of crypto mining, but if the investment is just waiting for the right time or the desired price target to get a profit.

If you have free good amount of money you can embark on bItcoin mining but make sure you are deriving more than money from mining, it has to be fun for you to enjoy mining, those who are into mining for the gains only don't always last long, the end up selling their mining machines and quit.

Right now Bitcoin halving is coming and your earning will go lower, if you are not ready to hold your Bitcoin for the long term do not buy Asic Miner. Also, it's advisable to have an affordable power grid, if it's not affordable or cheap don't buy an Asic miner.

For most people, they are better off buying Bitcoin vs mining Bitcoin, some people don't find mining as fun or something that could be turned into a hobby.

Buying bitcoin has less risk than mining because having a miner requires maintenance, which can be more expensive, and power rate changes, but because you stated it's free then it's lucrative. Both mining and buying have various risk tolerances, and it relies on you what is your investment goal.

The only issue I can see with purchasing bitcoin is that it does not directly provide income like mine does.

Buying bitcoin has less risk than mining because having a miner requires maintenance, which can be more expensive, and power rate changes, but because you stated it's free then it's lucrative. Both mining and buying have various risk tolerances, and it relies on you what is your investment goal. The only issue I can see with purchasing bitcoin is that it does not directly provide income like mine does.

In general Mining and also buying in a bear market are two different things, as well as different risks later. maybe so far there have been several ways for them to do mining, some have used Rig mining and also ASIC for them to make it a mining tool, but between Rig Mining and ASIC of course if it is used to mine Bitcoin I think ASIC is much more effective, and the problem is here is the cost and electricity.

ASIC itself has a higher power for its use, and an important factor here is to investigate the cost of electricity around, maybe we agree when the cost of electricity around is relatively low you can try to do Bitcoin mining. You will be able to calculate the profit later, to get the maximum profit maybe you can hold it to wait for the Bull Market and try to spend it.

Mining usually requires different equipment. And along with machinery, electricity is the most needed. If you have enough knowledge about mining and if you can connect the electricity line at low cost and if your mining cost is relatively low then you can decide to mine. If we have the capacity to do mining then we should think about mining.
If you think like this, if you can buy bitcoins with the amount of money it costs to mine, is it possible to earn more profit from mining? It all depends on you if you can invest by monitoring the market movement on time then you will have a chance to earn good profit.

Provided that there's no active bans for crypto-mining within your state/country, you should be good to go. I reckon that the next couple years will be relatively the same difficulty-wise since there's only so few bitcoins left to be mined and crackdowns left and right are of course expected even with apparent signs of a bull market approaching. In any case, both is profitable, but if you want to have the power in yours hands, I would highly suggest you look into mining bitcoins instead of buying them, gives you the power to earn more if you want to, since I guess electricity's not really going to be a problem given the fact that you pay dirt cheap for lights, and idk, buying bitcoins right now is a little less appealing to many compared to mining (my personal observation).

I purchase most of my miners with one year free credit.

And I can’t buy BTC on one year free credit.

But yea if you can’t buy miners properly (credit or cash) buy and hold btc is okay.

In fact I recently cut a deal for a ‘free’ miner.

I take 2 from the dealer.
He gives me one
The other I let him mine for zero power cost for one year.

Thus no btc out of pocket.
no cash out of pocket.

Can only do this with cheap power.
better yet he repairs gear. So I get good repairs.

Our expansion issues are cooling.
Still waiting on the liquid coolers from octominer they are now sixty nine days late.

Well from a simplistic BTC view, you'll probably never buy a miner that will mine more BTC than it cost to buy.

If you're not seriously ready to face the difficulties associated with mining then it's better you avoid going into it and not to be consumed by the difficulties along the way where you may have to abandon what you have already spent much time and energy to build. If your guts tells you to buy $3700 worth of bitcoin then it's also a rational decision as you don't have to face hassles in making profits compared to mining. All you get to do is to HODL which may not even get to 250 days before you start making profits from concurrent rise's in bitcoin price.

Buying coins is almost always wrong if you have cheap power.

Buying gear is almost always correct if you have cheap power.

For all the years I mined 6 cent power turns power almost every day mining ever existed.

not so true for 10 cent power.

Bear markets are good for me as I get to buy gear cheaper.

we went from 1.2 ph in sept 2022 to 2.7 ph in march 2023

cost of gear was far far lower than it was in April 2021.


power cost 0 to 6 cents buy gear slow but sure = winner

power cost 6 to 9 cents  harder to know if coins or gear is better.

power cost 9 to 14 cents very tough to mine buying coins is more often best shot.

over 14 cents don't mine maybe a little for fun or hobby

over 25 cents forget about it. buy coins via DCA method.

If all cases above do not buy so much that you are in real financial trouble.

A week ago a f2 Tornado with winds at 120-130 miles per hour missed my house by 2500 feet.

So you could have a great mine with great gear and by by if Mother Nature says so.

Did you take into account the Bitcoin halving in April 2024 in your calculations? After that, the miner's income will drop by about 50%, while the mining difficulty and the cost of electricity will increase. This business gives good profits when some big miner shuts down their equipment, as was the case in China, and others get an increased profit.

But that 'big' profit would only be made by BTC price rising ... so buying BTC would work out better.

Congratulation you have the possibility to mine ! Still there is a very good chance that you will be better of if you will simply invest the money that you will put into the miner. Energy prices can rise and you would have a large problem or your miner can be defective etc. YOu need to make a very good profit to beat simply investing in bitcoin.

Maybe so far now, many Bitcoin users, they choose to prioritize investing over long distances, and the ROI is more in the realm of investing, now we can say we are more attractive to investment paths in long-distance and long-term use, and what seems to be evaluating efficiency performance is more to ROI in the long term in my opinion, and maybe it's true that now the practicality is more to investment. although depending on the situation in the next

The problem we see is that it will take several years before the investor's capital is recovered. If the cost of electricity is at 0.07$ per Kwh.

      Its ROI seems to be in 2 to 3 years but that depends on the situation maybe. So I think that if practicality is the basis for investing here in bitcoin is a really good way in my opinion.

Actually what you said is true, electricity is one of the most important components for Bitcoin mining, of course, but what we understand is what you mean, maybe this is in terms of the electricity cost factor for calculating income from mining, it seems like using ASIC and also like Rig mining, this really requires a higher Power Empowerment Performance, and from here the electricity cost factor greatly influences the profits of a Bitcoin mining.

Choosing between Mining or buying in the bear market, maybe I think these are the same two jobs even though the methods and nature are significantly different, but basically they both have the same goals to be achieved. Especially we say that people's point of view is different as well as the technicals that brands use, most take advantage of the bear market to buy and increase their assets, and maybe most people choose the option of Bitcoin mining.

mining is far lower risk than buying coin.

but buying coin means more possible profit.

the idea of say .1 btc at 28000 in coin

or using .1 btc at 28000 to buy a miner  is comparable is the problem.

they should never be compared ever since they are different method of investing.

one buying coins is passive
the other buying a miner is active.

if your power is cheap enough profit in mining ⛏️ is pretty certain.

i can buy mining gear with credit cards and pay zero interest for 15 months.
i cant do that with buying a bitcoin.

i get endless tax writeoffs expanding a mine
i get to build solar arrays with my partners with mining
cant do it with buying coins.

I made profit every month since nov 21 price was at 69k because i mine.

I confirm that mining is really hard to make a profit from it unless you have a lot of equipment and you don't pay for electricity. Most casual people who buy miners start to make a decent profit  in the first few months, but after about half a year, the profit usually decreases significantly. In some cases you'd pay much more for electricity than the profit you would make from mining.

Personally, I started mining using 3x GTX 1660 SUPER a few years ago, and I made almost 80% of their cost. However, i stopped because the earnings were too low and it wasn't worth to keep going.

1 Month Update      All in on miners or bitcoin?

Total Hash Rate + 12%     Network difficulty + 9%   Bitcoin  + 23%

4/2/23   0.16 BTC  ($28,400)             $4,544
3/2/23   0.16 BTC  ($23,100)             $3,700
 Buying Bitcoin made                            $844
 Mining made .0175 btc est.  ($28,400)  $500
                           Buying bitcoin made   $344  more than totally free mining

Even with free labor, free electric, no pool fees, 100% up time, buying bitcoin was more profitable than mining this last month.

Bitcoin can “mine” dollars faster than a miner can mine bitcoin. The price of bitcoin can grow exponentially while the miner has a fixed, or limited, maximum hash rate going against an increasing difficulty rate as new faster miners come on line and the price of bitcoin increases.

A miner mines bitcoin slower over time, loses value, and becomes obsolete.  Bitcoin “mines” dollars faster over time, becomes more valuable, and is never obsolete.  

Looks like a big percentage loss to mine.  Smaller losses will become larger over time.  If bitcoin goes to 1M then .08 would be $80,000 vs .16 at  $160,000

Smoking Hopium Bitcoin Mining Calculator
https://smokinghopium.io

Of course there is also the more relevant issue that the amount of BTC you spend to buy miners will almost always be less than the total BTC you will get back.

So while people like playing luck with $ prices vs $ cost for miners and running them,
the actual BTC cost you pay for the miner at the time you buy it, will probably always be higher than the amount of BTC it generates, no matter what the market is.

Yea like many have said the only way this could work is if you didn't have to pay for electricity.  The only way you're going to get zero cost for electricity is if you build your own power source... IE solar, wind farm, or if you somehow find a way to tap into zero point energy (not likely).  

If you CAN find a way to offset the cost of electricity or even turn the deficit into a profit by putting more energy back on the grid than you consume, then the BTC mining venture would become the side hustle, as the incentives from utilities paying you for generating electricity would almost certainly be more profitable.

NOTE on zero point energy:
It's not possible to build a zero-point energy device right now.

Zero-point energy is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical physical system may have, which is also called the ground state energy. This energy is always present in any physical system, even in a vacuum. However, it is not possible to extract energy from this state, as it is a fundamental property of quantum mechanics.

Attempts to create devices that could harness zero-point energy have been made in the past, but none have been successful. There is currently no known way to access or utilize this energy. The laws of thermodynamics, which govern the behavior of energy in physical systems, also limit the possibility of extracting energy from the vacuum.

While the idea of a zero-point energy device may seem enticing, it is important to recognize that such a device would violate some of the most fundamental principles of physics. Therefore, it is not a practical or feasible goal to pursue.

I think mining needed to invest in hardware and software to solve complex mathematical problems that validate transactions on a blockchain network. As you mine, you will rewarded with newly minted cryptocurrency.

on the otherhand, buying cryptocurrency in a bear market can be an option. as prices are generally lower than during bull market. But there will be a risk that is no guarantee that prices will rebound. you will keep losing money if the price continues to fall.

but i don't think mining is dead, the decision to mine or buy crypto in a bear market will depend on the circumstances and risk tolerance.

You will be paying for the electricity bills, that is where I have a problem with Asic miners, they take too much energy and I can't add an extra miner because of this, it is better to just buy Bitcoin instead, there is no need to deal with calculations and other little headaches surrounding Bitcoin mining, unless it's your hubby like some members on here, even while Bitcoin mining is less profitable they don't see the need to stop mining, they believe in long term mining and holding.

In cases like this, it's better to just buy bitcoin and hold it for a long time in our wallets or just make a trade depending on what we want rather than buying mining rigs.

    Because here in our country, bitcoin mining doesn't seem to work because the electricity consumption here is high per kilowatt hr (KWH), but if you are in a cold country like antartica, maybe it's possible hehehe, just kidding aside.

Difficulty will increase for sure in the coming days and with recent inflation, electricity cost could increase again too. Also, mining rigs needs maintenance. And with electric devices, there's no guarantee that it will always work smoothly. If not from a reputable brand, there's a risk of getting scammed and warranty void problems. And most likely you will need two and a half years to get your investment's return.
On the other hand, if you buy Bitcoin in this bear market before halving in 2024, you could get a good amount of profit. Meanwhile you can DCA with it too. And KYC is not a concern because there are many decentralized exchanges available to buy BTC without the need of KYC. This is just what I think. It's your asset, and you should invest in which you feel comfortable.

Hello, I don't know much about mining, but there are ways to buy Sats without KYC.  (You will need a card though, but nothing more than that)

If there is suitable electricity, it is definitely more suitable for mining

If you want no hassle or worry and think about it, if I were you, just buy bitcoin while on these occasions he went down in the market.

      If you choose to mine bitcoin, you need to monitor it every day as much as possible from time to time, unlike if you just buy bitcoin if you are a long term holder you will really just wait for a bull run. That's all you do, it doesn't affect you if its value falls or not in the market.

Well to be fair to you dude, if your electricity is cheap there and you only consume 0.05$-07$ per kwh you can do it by mining bitcoin. But if your electricity consumption is not included in the amount I mentioned. My advice to you is not to go ahead with the Bitcoin mining that is being planned.

It's more practical to invest or buying bitcoin on a trading exchange. At least there's no hassle, especially if you have an idea for trading, but it's better if you're a long-term holder all you gonna do is to wait for the right time of bull run.

By the way I will Prefer Bitcoin buying in bear market with the lowest possible price.
Because if I have some technical knowledge than I will be able to buy Bitcoin at lower possible price like current situation at 12k dollars if Bitcoin comes and in this way I will be in huge profits too.

mining is not dead, I hope that everything will work out

For profit, the average person is always better to buy bitcoin, never mine it, and don't buy at the top.

The company that sells the new miner will raise the price of it to take away your profits and maximize theirs.

The person that sells a used miner knows that there is no more profit in it.

The price of bitcoin and the difficulty will rise faster than you can mine it.

Depends on many variables
Right now it shows me 0.00030942 BTC and $6.93  but Viabtc is 0.00028699 BTC and $ 6.41338274.
I'm a bit unsure how would Nicehash pay more if it weren't just for luck, and just from renting power for sure you can't get that much difference constantly as it would make no sense from the buyer side to overpay.
Anyhow, last 7 days we had a -4.5% drop in price and we're going to get 3% in diff, so, there goes the Nicehash bonus! 

The funny thing is, that, maybe, just maybe the miners themselves can be treated as assets. If a Bull cycle comes, the asic miner prices will shoot up again. Some people even do both things even used they sell them for more bitcoin while maybe renewing with more efficient models.

Since we can't guess the future, it is unknown. I have seen many past scenarios where buying bitcoin and holding would have been better than buying miners. But sometimes, if you bought the miners cheap (like with a bear market) and then later because of the Bull market they end producing more than anticipated reaching their ROI faster.

So yeah make your guess.

I don't like Nicehash, its not Bitcoin, they rent your hashrate for whatever clients want to do. If the altcoins are green you will get that perception, when altcoins go red, well you will see. It happened in 2018, it will happen again. Supposedly when altcoins go red, they now fallback to Bitcoin. There are other rentals with more control too where YOU define the fallback pool, etc.

I am getting paid more using NiceHash.

I average about 31,000 - 33,0000 satoshi's per day with a single 100th machine.

That's a good deal if you can get it.  I haven't heard of any hosts that offer this to the community at large and assume this is a private deal you have with your partner, right?  If not, I'd love to hear how I could get into something like this.  I currently have gear sitting around collecting dust that would be better put to use mining away for someone else and me getting 1/2 of what is mined.  I think a lot of people, especially now at the bottom of the market would love to participate in something like that.  Did I miss out on something?  Not a lot of people can profitably operate a miner while only keeping 50% of the revenue.

Once I pay the unit off my cost is 50% of price of BTC

many have my deal.

I buy the gear and give exactly ½ the coins to the host.

So a 100th s19 gives me 50th for free until it breaks or I sell it.

that is 50 x 6.5 = 3.25 a day for a 1500 dollar machine  around 462 days and it then generates coins at half price.

as long as I do not over expand to quickly I am good to go.

My hope is that in 2030 when I am ready to get out, there will be other options or that BTC will be accepted for what I want to purchase.

Only do mining if your electricity cost is profitable because mining is for long term investment and will definitely generate more money than buying upfront since you can sell the rig afterwards.

Only buy token if your electricity cost is expensive and not profitable because it’s just a waste of time and money to mine at loss than buying the tokens up front.

FYI. You will still need to KYC if you mine your tokens when you are already cashing out your profit to fiat. You will still need CEX no matter what happened if you are planning to get a fiat out of your token investment.

It sure is a scary time for miners these days. I am surprised hardware is not cheaper.

It's cold where I live so that is an advantage for once!

I just setup an AC Infinity Airlift T16 fan for airflow in my garage. That keeps the S19j Pro fans running at 3500rpm so not much noise anymore.

Please don't go with this standardized cost of mining.
This is just a gimmick invented by some bored blogger who had no article to write to make his quota.
You can read what other miners, not just me  think of it here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--5405856

Here on this board there are members with a far lower mining "cost" per BTC and I was one of them too prior to my contract expiring which had way better rates than anything you can possibly get in Europe nowadays. There is no such thing and for sure it ain't in some 25% margin, there are some who average spend 1/5 of a BTC to get one and there are some who mine at break-even point because if they don't they will have to sell all their assets to cover credits and loans.


Of course, buying gear when it's 5x times cheaper is obvious, the thing is that not even that alone can sometimes offset the energy prices.

Let's look at the 7 to 5 cents difference.
3000W running 24 hours is 72kwh, in one instance it is $5.04 in the other is $3.60.
Earnings right now are at 0.06 per th/s so that's $6.60 per miner.
The first miner makes $1.56 second one makes $3, 25% drop in price, and the first miner mines at a loss the second one still makes $1.4.
Same for a difficulty increase with linear price.

Also note, it's not that I'm telling you my crystal ball is 101% sure you're going to lose money, what I want to point out is the risks of doing so and if the KYC thing and the DCA income are enough of an offset for the pain in the ass those miners might turn out to be. Canada you say, so no much of a heat issue but noise and maintenance will still be around.

I am not too concerned with the halving because that usually brings higher highs. I am more worried about the network difficulty.

I can afford to pay for the electricity and hold. I have zero plans to sell until at least 2030.

There is no guarantee that my electric company wont increase cost /kw but I live in a province that has the cheapest electricity in the world due to the massive hydro dams we have here (Quebec, Canada).

What exactly do you mean by "cost of mining before halving is 14-20 thousand dollars" ?

Very doubtful profit, considering that the having will be in about 13 months
https://www.asicminervalue.com/miners/bitmain/antminer-s19j-pro-100th

Do you have money to pay for mining and not sell bitcoins for several years?
Do you have a guarantee that the cost of electricity will not increase?
Even in my country prices are growing by 12-15% per year

The cost of mining before halving is 14-20 thousand dollars, after halving the cost will be more expensive, and it’s not a bad decision to buy at 22 thousand dollars for bitcoin now, but use the using Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) Strategy.

Buying gear in a bear market is what everyone recommends. These S19j Pro's were selling for $13,000 USD at the peak so I am buying them at an 85% discount.

7cents per kw is not far from what the large mining farms are paying.

Both mining and buying have different risk tolerance  and it depends on you what is your investment goal but buying bitcoin have less risk than mining because having a miner needs maintenance that can cost more and power rate changes but since you said it's free then it's profitable.

The only problem that I think of buying bitcoin is that it does not direct generate earning as mining does.

No!
It tells you that buying gear now with electricity at 7 cents/kWh is really risky.
People that have access to cheaper gear, that have already ROI, that have cheaper prices per kWh don't have the same problems as a new guy, not forgetting the ones trapped who have already paid in advance a lot of stuff who would just lose more money if they would stop mining.

With a hashrate increase of 10% last period and maybe again going positive for sure mining is not dead, but the profits from it are really anemic soon to be hospitalized 

So does the math tells us mining is dead?

So in 250 days, you would have earned $3700 (I went with your numbers) and spent $2500.
That means you need 750 days to get the investment back and from there you start your profits, that is if there are going to be any since we're going to have a halving in the meantime. And assuming the price would double by then, then you also need to take into account that you have bought those $3700 worth of BTC now!


There are other ways to avoid KYC, especially with these low amounts, since you're going to get like $500 a month.

I pay $0.07cents USD per kw.

#1 question is: What do you pay for electricity? Miners are very power hungry... Would you theoretically earn enough to at least pay the electric bill? If not - forget it.

Should I buy two S19j Pro's for $3,700 USD and mine it for the next few years or just buy $3,700 worth of bitcoin (0.16 BTC) ?

My worry is that mining difficulty will keep going up and I will run out of time being profitable before I reach 0.16 BTC.

At the current difficulty of mining, it will take over 250 days to mine 0.16 BTC with two S19j Pro's (assuming electricity is free) but the difficulty will be WAY higher in the next 250 days...

I love the idea of mining because it allows me to dollar cost average into the market and there is no KYC involved.