Topic: 📈 NastyFans: The Bitcoin Enthusiast Fan Club (est. 2012) - page 114. (Read 958995 times)

Most certainly they will be worth less, but I don't think they will drop to near zero in a month. I was throwing that out there a s point of reference, not specifically suggesting selling on eBay. I actually sold one small miner on eBay and it worked fine -- got a good price and all -- but I gave up after that, and went back to selling at lower prices on the forum for BTC. Too much stress to deal with all the ways I might get scammed by buyer/eBay/Paypal.

The mine-to-own concept is a fine one.

EDIT: I'd consider doing it mostly to help out the group and I have cheap electricity, but part of the deal would be that I supply the PSU, as I don't trust the BFL PSUs anywhere near my house.

Actually no, history has proven you (I'd say us except that I didn't make a prediction a year ago) right. Difficulty has not doubled every month. In fact it is now increasing by only about 60% per month. 


That would require the rate of increase in difficulty to increase, an unlikely (but certainly plausible) prediction.


Well, June maybe, that's 5 months out, not 3. And there will always be people with cheaper (all the way down to free) electricity, so they will never be fully unprofitable, just profitable to a smaller and smaller market (which affects resale value). I agree they don't have much value at that point.


True. "Long term" is a weasel word though. Nobody knows what that means in the real world.

I don't disagree completely with your thinking, but the fact remains that it is impossible to predict profitability without knowing the price.  Since the price is an unknown, any mining arrangement would be a gamble and should be done for reasons that make sense.  For example, you have free power, you want to bet on further price increases, you want the heat, you want to help Nasty Mining, you think mining is fun, you want my trust, you want to be an acknowledged contributing member to NastyFans, etc...

I also think that the price increase in BTC contributed a lot to the increased mining popularity.  Assuming that price will stagnate and mining will continue to grow at the same rate could be a mistake.

I thought the same thing 12 months ago. History so far has proven us wrong.  Difficulty *will* double every month until the most efficient ASIC that is possible to create is only marginally profitable.

That might be gen 2 or gen 3, or gen 10, who knows, but it will happen, meanwhile our singles will be obsolete in June. (making less bitcoins than what it costs to mine in electricity)

tl;dr
Efficiency will determine who will win the long term Bitcoin mining game.

These are the kinds of things that I'm looking to gather input on.  Keep in mind this is probably a month away from materializing, as I will not disconnect any miners unless I'm plugging in something more powerful at the same time.

Besides the shipping costs and the % split, the length of commitment, who supplies the PSU, & what happens once the deal has expired would also have to be defined.  Successful completion of the deal would also earn some trust from me, which I don't hand out easily on the forum. 




In another month when we are looking to sell, I don't think pricing will be as favorable for these devices.  I also don't want to hassle with eBay or support paypal.  I don't think it is entirely unreasonable to think we could find a few fans with free or unusually cheap power, a bullish Bitcoiner without funds to invest in a miner, someone who wants a space heater, or someone who just wants to help out the organization.  With the price of Bitcoin being a huge variable in the equation, even what looks to be unprofitable now could end up making you quite a bit of money if the rate continues to rise.

In any event, I personally would love to see our hashrate grow and if we can find a way to hang on and keep mining with our old equipment, I'm all for it.  I will brainstorm a bit on ways we could reward those that are willing to host a device on our behalf.

They do seem to be worth a fair amount (active auction with 10 bids, high bid $1375): http://www.ebay.com/itm/BUTTERFLY-LABS-60GH-s-BFL-Single-ASIC-Bitcoin-Miner-IN-HAND-/231139562777

Edit: BTW I do not expect difficulty to double every month which is what would be required for these to become unprofitable in three months. In fact difficulty increases have been running closer to 60% for the past few months. Yes TH+ rigs are coming but most of the manufacturers probably premine with their gear so if they were going to ship soon we would already see that hash rate on the network (in fact we probably do). Absent some extraordinary price jumps, I expect the monthly rate of increase in difficulty to continue to decline over the next year or so to something like 10-15%.

What about shipping?
What percentage split are we talking about?

I should have said that I can probably only take 1 machine (though I think you arleady said that), unless I'm able to build my new rig sooner than I planed to..

I might be up for that.. It's certainly cold right now in PA and my windows are old and badly insulated! I'd donate the electricity as my bill is high enough already - I have a household of girls with hair dryers and all sorts of hair curling irons and you name it.

It's your baby. You call the shots.

I guess I'm the only one crazy enough for that.

I'm glad you clarified the intent of your revenue sharing idea.  While the offer may be profitable for a few months, I have no interest in donating electricity to the fan club.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

We definitely wouldn't pay anything for hosting. It would have to be a revenue sharing deal where the host got a % of the mined coins. I also don't think we could get 1.5 BTC each for them. In fact, I don't think we could get 1 BTC for them if we were selling today. Ideally, I guess we'd be looking for folks with free electricity or living somewhere cold that could use the heat.

I spent some time this morning looking at the numbers for profitability on a BFL single over the next 12 months.  It's not looking good.  When I account for electricity, shipping cost, plus some maintenance hassle factor, fan hosting will become uneconomical to the NastyFans fan club in about 3 months.  I've come to the conclusion that the only way this device can remain profitable beyond around April 2014 would be if the difficulty levels off.  With terahash units shipping on the horizon, I do not see this happening. Perhaps mining an alt would prove useful (ppcoin?).

Personally, I think the best bet for the fan club would be to unload these units for 1.5BTC a piece, if you can find a buyer.  Maybe you can find an ebay sucker apprentice who wants to cut their teeth in the crypto-currency mining space.

With that being said, if the fan club decides to take the risk of fan-hosting on some singles, I can offer to host a Single for 0.2BTC upfront for 6 months to cover electricity & maintenance.  No guarantee of uptime.  You cover shipping to Canada.  You supply the pool details. After 6 months, we can reevaluate what to do with the units.

This is the best I can do; maybe someone else has a better deal for the fan club.  I can easily see these units becoming entirely unprofitable by June.

It's great to see nastyfans make decisions for the long term health of nastymining over immediate short term gains.

1 poll closed

[policy change] temporarily increase donations for fundraising to 75%
     no: 818 (23.7%)
     yes: 2630 (76.3%)
     abstain: 21552
     RESULT: FUNDRAISING DONATIONS WILL INCREASE TO 75% UNTIL ALL OUTSTANDING NASTY MINING DEBT PAID


Since fundraising decision now closed I will include 8.48243709 BTC donations from mint sales in next distribution.

What would you consider to be fair terms?

I might be interested in hosting.  I have a personal mini-mine environment set up with 2 BFL products (an LS and a Single) so I have some experience & spare PSU's for these finicky devices.

My decision to host would depend on the terms of the deal.

Although passing to fans is a interesting idea, I would ultimately vote to sell them. Either directly sell, auction them, or have a lottery.

I am interested in hearing what kind of deal you might come up with. 

Unfortunately, I don't have any other ideas to help with the brainstorming..