Topic: Please bail me out - I'm an idiot bought mining gear at the peak - page 4. (Read 21418 times)

Wow some of you guys haven't even read his post. He has EXTRA costs along with equipment and doesn't have most of his equipment setup yet. Anyway, I would sell while you can. Difficulty is going to sky rocket and the prices will be remaining as they are. That 25 BTC per block is coming sooner than you think because of over mining. When that happens, everyone is going to take a 50% loss compared to what they are bringing in now regardless of how much hashing power they have.

How the hell did you manage to spend what, $12,000 on 3600mhash?

It seems like you didn't research computer parts at all to be frank. The *only* thing that needs to be of pretty high quality is the motherboard and PSU. The graphics cards can be anything from 5770s and 5830's to 6990's. The processor can be a sempron, the RAM can be some cheap 512MB stick etc.

*All* my expenses so far have been a little over 8,800€ euros (give or take) and I run a total of 15ghash/s, plus I've paid a monthly rent at a datacenter for a long time.

I spent 1000 and my hashing power is 1.2 ghash. Well, what can I say.... Mining is not for the faint of heart.

yep,  I think they are also in love with the idea and its broader implications.

Your statement reads to me as confusing. If the OP had bought in @ $30 and watched the coins plumet to $15 he'd have $5000 worth of coins now. Bitcoin prices can go... anywhere. Back to 30, up to 10000, or down below 1. OP doesn't sound like the patient optimistic type with $10,000 he can have lying around without regards for months or whatever potential time it would take to get back above $30.

Perhaps you bought in around march? In what way would you have made triple? In march prices were about $1 per coin? Let's say that. And prices were $30 per coin around Jun7th right? Difficulty was around 70,000 I believe.

So lets say you bought a mining rig on whenever and got it running march 7th, and you bought some coins on whenever around march 7th as prices were pretty flat until around april.

You could build mining rigs for about 1.7Mhash/$ pretty easily back in march, so let's compare a $10,000 buy:

$10,000 -- 10,000 coins vs 15GHash (bein generous with overheads other than rigs to compare to OPs costs), and use 15¢/kWh like OP, $26.64/day costs.

March 7th: Miner 0BTC $10000Debt , Buyer 10,000BTC $10000 Debt.

2 difficulty changes, both minor, avging to 80k difficulty generates 5,733 bitcoins in a month

April 7th: Miner 5,733BTC $10799Debt, Buyer10,000BTC $10000 Debt.

2 difficulty changes, both reasonable, averaging 90k difficulty generates 5,096 bitcoins in a month

May 7th: Miner 10,829BTC $11598Debt, Buyer10,000BTC $10000 Debt.

Here is where things got crazy, 4 difficulty changes, ending at 400k difficulty. for ease of my lazy brain will calculate whole month at 300k to be generous again.  Generating 1528 coins in a month.

June 7th: Miner 12357BTC $12397Debt, Buyer10,000BTC $10000Debt

If the buyer cashes out on June 7th smartly surmising the $30 bubble line, he is still $70,000 behind the miner. If you assume the miner cashed out to cover his costs each month the miner still has 11292 coins on june 7th, putting him $40,000 ahead of the buyer. This is a far cry from making 1/3rd as much. Not to mention even at todays difficulty rate a 15GHash machine produces 125BTC/wk

Your scenario is only true if you assume a miner must cash out immediately the moment he has generated coin all the time. Which doesn't make sense. If you have $ you can just let sit in the market, why couldn't you let your $ sit in easily resalable machines? If you were so finnicky about money that you need to see it recovered INSTANTLY would you really have been able to see bitcoin prices surge up, then make huge drops and not sell off? In the optimum scenario of a terrified miner vs a super bold coin investor maybe your statement makes sense, but otherwise not.

I feel for you bro, I guess it will come down to getting your 30 day return policy or gamble on bitcoin going up (difficulty wont drop). just keep in mind why the bitcoin went up in price in the first place... "Silk Road" and the media frenzy, I dont see them pulling another media wild card out of the hat, Faith is what keeps these dreamers alive, but truthfully it will go down and stay down for a long time before it goes up again...

P.s I am in similar situation but only sacrificed $3000 on 1 system (3 x 6990). I worked out I would loose $2000 if I keep mining, but I end up with a really cool gaming machine

P.s.s thats if I don't melt my cards they reach temps of 100c+... im using hashkiller so it disables the 100c+ GPU's while it lets the others work. and yes I have a very well ventilated box "coolmaster HAFX" but temps still rocket...

Like I said before, the best answer to the important question "to Mine, or not to Mine" is personal, and varies by individual.

I built my last rig essentially on my lunch break yesterday! Actually, I threw together TWO systems yesterday; one was in an actual case and involved building from scratch; the other was an old Dell motherboard that just needed a few things plugged in and an OS installed. But I got two systems built, running Linux AND mining software, in a couple hours. I have actual experience and talent in this department, just like many others on this Mining sub-forum.

ACTUALLY, I should rephrase that. It didn't take 2 hours from start to finish -- it just took 2 hours of my time. You see, I work from home so I can keep the Linux install "cooking" while I do my day's work. I can also keep an eye on my miners -- even the rigs themselves (cooling, etc.) which comes in handy!

If I actually worked outside the home, I wouldn't have the option to install software while I work.

Here's my experience.

I bought my first rig for about 850 and it pushes 1.2Ghash nicely.  I felt it was very efficient.  I had this up and running on Wednesday the 8th.  As soon as I had my first paid out coin I ordered two more.. However 5830's were out of stock so i went with 6870 which do the same hash rate, but 25watts less energy, I belieive.  However they were quite a bit more expensive then the 5830's.

I essentially spent 1800-2000 more dollars to get the other 2 rigs setup.  I have some money coming back in rebates, so I almost got it down to as cheap as my first one.  

I'll admit, when it was at 32 i'm singing in my head.  But when it dropped to 9, I was beginning to get really nervous.

Luckily my friend called me that day and said, how much to build me a miner.  Knowing that difficulty was going up fast I agreed to let him be co-owner of one of my rigs for 575.00.  He is half owner of the equipment, and houses it at his house, since I am about out of juice in my tiny apartment.  We are splitting power costs and doing 55/45 split on the coins.  This made me feel a lot better as, a little of the weight had been lifted.  But I still have enough confidence in bitcoins that now i'm wondering if I screwed myself by giving away some hashing power.

Either way, I think 3000mhps for me is good.  I am a total computer nerd (system admin as a living) and I am super fast and efficient at learning new things.  Hardware was essentially cake walk.  Overclocking/Underclocking through the BIOS was a 5 minute session.  You need to get that stuff up and running if you have it.... or get rid of it if your not efficient enough.  I thought mining would be easy, but it is a challenge, I will not lie.

I just want you to feel better, knowing there are plenty of other people out there, in your situation.  and $910 per 1200mhps is a decent build!

Get the ones you have running more efficient, build whatever your comfortable with and sell the rest.  I think if you get up and running now with minimal downtime you still have a chance.

but me.... I am comfortable eating a little depreciation on a few thousand dollars.  I figure if worse comes to worse bitcoin profits will covers the depreciation and then all i've lost essentially is my time.

WOW and here is me being tight about thinking about spending £300 to give me 1k+ mhash. Im 100% going shopping. at worst I get left with a good gaming rig

I Already have a room that has its own 32a 240v line well I say room more like outbuilding. (was for another project but never finished because of time. so heat noise etc is not an issue.

Really I should try and get a few investors to limit my loss if any to go in with me on hardware on some kinda share not for just 1k mhash tho. For quite a bit more power.

for me to hit around 10kmhash I worked it out at around (this is a quick est)

£2400  for gfx cards
£270    for cpu's
£550   motherboards
£160    Ram
£400    power
£270    HD
and say an extra 500 or so for cables extras etc . I already have loads of networking kit spare
£4550

and that would make me If the market stayed around what it is now with the hardness increase. 2 months back for my investment. Just money I would not risk myself. And I doubt any Investors are coming forward any time soon

per Day   ฿11.47   $174.62
per Week   ฿83.60   $1,273.30
per Month   ฿348.56   $5,308.59

But for anyone that has done this and made there cash back + extra well done to ya. Wish I got in there earlier.

Very bad advice and total speculation.  As difficulty increases and people generate less BTC and money per day the excitement will fade and so will peoples use and interest in bitcoin, the price will drop, use of bitcoin will drop.  This is only one scenario and is just as likely as the value of BTC increasing, no one knows.  If I have ever seen anything that resembles the Tulip Boom though, this is it, do some reading if you are not familiar.  The mere fact that you bought at the peak with no notion of a crash or difficulty increase is evidence enough you are not cut out for this endeavor and should return all merchandise IMO.

My long opinion is that the value of BTC will hold fast to at or below the average cost of power required to mine them, all value above that currently is massive speculation and when that unwinds the price will drop.  The value will go below power cost because of utility of already generated coins and many people don't have to pay for power or hardware.

Another very large unknown is security, with no government to create laws and more importantly enforce them with regards to stealing bitcoins, it is just like the wild west, people are stealing them and then the victims are creating lynch mobs and trying to go after them, except with absolutely no recourse as there are no laws pertaining to bitcoins.  People tout the decentralized nature of bitcoin as its greatest attribute, that may be true, but is also its greatest weakness.

How much are the 6870's? 

Was there a reason of efficiency to go full capacity with no incremental purchases?

Check your power company, if they offer night/day rates you can save 15-20% of your electric bill.

Also if you want be more efficient, run fewer machines but overclocked (you get 10-15% more efficient with the cost increase included).

Some people are selling mining contracts. You already have the gear, if you feel that the bitcoin value might go down, you can sell your hashes for dollars, getting power bill money in advance.

Should've read my threads first, idiot.

Imagine if you had that same 10k at mtgox with the prices dropping. Buying and holding is so much easier on your life in everyway possible. I learned the hard way as well. Luckily I got in earlier than you it looks like and I'm not facing huge losses for my mistake. But I could have easily made triple what I recovered from mining + equipment cost had I just bought outright. 

Mine does that, it defaults to the current estimated difficulty increase.  http://bitcoinstuff.appspot.com

Well now I feel bad for yelling at all the people who made those little spreadsheets and proclaimed doom on mining. Some people need to read those things I guess. I also feel bad for laughing a little bit while reading the OP (mostly the bit about flies).

So anywho. Yowza. 10 grand that's an ugly figure. It sounds like you built somewhat inefficiently, but better than most (1.2Mhash/$?) are doing these days (6990s will be < 1Mhash/$, sigh). It's bad to make rash decisions though, as evidenced by where you are now.

Stop, breathe deeply and calmly consider your situation. How much will you eat in terms of return restocking fees and whatnot? How much of your sunk costs are you never going to recuperate unless you mine? As others suggested, can you repurpose some of the things you cannot get a good return on?

I personally wouldn't say mining is dead yet, you might still eek out some returns. I pay 40¢ (yes FORTY) / kWh, and while its true that I built super efficiently and got in months ago, that's still a heavy cost, and I'm still way in the black. And if you can make a modest return (say 50% ROI) and then drop the hardware to cover the rest in a couple months that's not something to panic about just yet. Might even come out ahead.

So stop and calmly analyze the situation and your options. That's my advice.

beeph, http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

I think its reasonable to think difficulty will go up lets say 30% until electricity costs will eat up most of the profita, for now we are still far from that. What you need to calculate is the ratio between bitcoin price / difficulty for how long you are still making some profits.

Send me a pm with your Skype address, maybe we can work something out. I'm starting mining, and just bought a bunch of equipment and intend on expanding.

I think the power is your main problem, you pay more 2x than i do at peak, my electricity on the west coast is 4-8c at peak

Thank the loving liberals

Is there a calculator which will allow u to put reasonable difficulty increases in the formula?

As someone who suffers from mental illness, don't let this get the best of you, if you are getting too stressed consider a psychologist. (probably overboard to recommend this but mental health is important )