Topic: Review/Journal/ROI Calc of Litecoin GEAR (LTCGear) | LTC/DRK/VTC mining farm - page 56. (Read 71004 times)

Yeah, I told you it wasn't intuitive!

In general, the trick is to either go to the home page: LTCGear.com and first see if any of the "Featured Products" have an ADD TO CART button. Currently, the  ASIC share1K6X – Anniversary package (160MHs) is available (I just checked, you can still use the oupon code: anniversary1yr and get the 49% off).

Also, the other trick to find "in stock" products is just go to the "Hosted Mining (shares)" inside of the shop and just look for the products with "Add to Cart" links... unfortunately they aren't as buttons, so they don't exactly pop out from the out-of-stock stuff... The only other thing currently in stop is the Dual Mod M10 modifier (coupon doesn't work with this product) which converts shares to mine VTC or DRK.

I don't understand nothing with this site... all in the shop is out of stock ? can we buy something ?

Well, that is still TBD. The Farm itself is something like 6 months old or thereabouts. He was selling FGPA boards before he switched over to this business model. So it's very much a work-in-progress. What we have been told is that you'll have an opportunity to pay a maintenance fee of something like 5%-20% if I remember right.

FYI, the multiplication was pushed back to tomorrow, so i'll have that post tomorrow.

Very useful reviews,after a year contract, what will happen to the shares bought?in the account, will it shows how long the shares remains? Thanks

Thanks all, looks like share multiplication will take place sometime between now and tomorrow. When it happens i'll write it up. I've also been in the process of getting a little more accurate accounting of my own outlay/ROI, etc. and will post that soon.

And finally, i'm also working up a little web-based calculator that (if you're curious about [ur=http://ltcgear.com?apage=50l]LTCGear[/url]) you'd be able to see how the finances of a given week might play out. Though, this is still probably a week or two from being completed... I need to collect enough data to try to get estimates to be as accurate to payouts as I possibly can.

Nice read, thanks for the review sir.

Very helpful review.

Well, remember you can't just buy Dual Mods, you need to have ASIC shares to use the mods (just making sure that is clear). But using today's snapshot prices (CoinWarz) this is what I calculate (obviously these numbers change frequently!):

For example if you bought the 830x (83 MHs) package (which you can use the coupon code: anniversary1yr) and the M10 modifier ($1349.55 not including the 8% BTC discount if you pay with BTC.. coupon does not work with these products), you’d end up with 31.5 MHs of VTC mining and also have 20MHs of LTC mining at the same time.

At current rate, the VTC shares would net you ~0.07214160 BTC/day and your remaining LTC shares would net you 0.00671763 BTC/day… compare this to if you had just been mining all 83MHs on LTC only which would net ~0.02783918 BTC/day.

Lots of people are just loading up on the 160MHs package for around $910 or so, but that still just nets you ~0.05366589 BTC/day.

So, you'd get a better return getting the modifiers, which have been better and likely will be... up until VTC switches algos (end of Nov I think). So by then, you'd likely have your initial outlay back... and also have been through one share multiplication (I think end of Oct is the next one... though if you bought today you MIGHT get into the multiplication tomorrow.... but this is just a guess on my part).

EDIT: Just to add, one of my goals was to just keep mining VTC until the algo switch, which would hopefully be long after I recouped my initial purchase cost and then just mine DRK to support the coin (not flip for BTC).

EDIT 2: You can also look at previous week payment info (on a per-share basis) on the Payouts Page

So instead of buying 3 X Anniversary 1K6X, we can buy 1 X Anniversary 1K6X + 2 X Dual Mod M10.

Is there any risk n buying 2 X Dual Mod or is it better to invest only on 3 Anniversary 1K6X package?!

Here's a current snapshot of earnings (just did it!):

This is broken down on a per-share basis (just using CoinWarz), depending on the product you get. I'm not mining FTC, so I can't comment on that one.

Snapshot for Sept. 18, 2014

LTC qASIC Shares:
0.0000336256/BTC per share a day

VTC qASIC Shares (using modifier product):  
0.00011460451/BTC per share a day

So if you bought the LTCGear.com Anniversary 1K6X (49% off coupon code above), that's 1600 shares which would earn ~ 0.05380096 BTC/day.

Still the VTC/DRK modifiers (Dual Mod M10) still are attractive to addon, which would convert 630 shares to VTC mining, which translates to around 31MHs of mining on Scrypt-N would be 0.0722008413 BTC/day + the remaining 970 shares of LTC which would add 0.032616832 BTC/day... something like that.

Anyways, i'll post on Sat/Sun to see how my first share multiplication goes and how that affects ROI.

Note: All of my numbers/percentages are rough, back of the envelope calculations but are still pretty accurate.

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So, my plan so far has been for only one full month after initial purchase to roll almost all payouts back into additional purchases.

My initial purchases were all the dual-mod packages to mine VTC, which is still very profitable. After reinvesting my payouts back into (mostly) the anniversary shares, my current account is approximately:

25% VTC/DRK Dual Mod
75% LTC Mining

Right now, my VTC mining shares are earning approxmately 72% of what my LTC mining shares are!

So, just looking back at the first month, if I had not kept purchasing and stuck with my initial purchases, I would have gotten about 75% back (again, remember this is just mining VTC). I think it would have been better, but I spread out my initial purchases a little bit.

I am not planning on purchasing anything for a couple more months, but there is a new product coming soon... plus i'm curious to see a couple of share multiplications and see how stable/unstable my returns are over a course of a couple of months before sinking more in.

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My History With ASICs

Like everyone else, I was just a hobbyist miner using a couple of GPU rigs until this Spring. I got pretty lucky on a couple of coins (DRK, VTC & FLT) and had a small bankroll I was planning to invest into ASICs as they came onto the market. I used a portion to do some sample pre-orders from all of the FANTASTIC companies like Alpha, Fibonacci & FlowerTech and even Zeus (for a whole day). Fortunately, I was able to escape most with refunds, I still took a bit of a hit with Fibonacci (partial refund before it went tits up) and total loss w/ Flower. I thankfully only invested a small portion on what I was planning on spending and was able to keep looking as products actually started delivering.

I had been following LTCGear for a while, even having some conversations with some of the loyal customers to try to figure out if it was legit, etc. I was honestly apprehensive about the look of the site and that (at that point in time) you could only mine LTC/FTC.

Bee then rolled out a DRK & VTC product that allowed you to choose either between LTC/FTC or either DarkCoin (at 3x the hash you bought) or VertCoin (about 50% your purchased hash).

Doing the math on what you could mine in VTC (basically full return on investment in about a month) I bit the bullet and did a test purchase. I wanted to see if it worked as explained, if i'd get paid, etc. The first week passed, got my payout and was pleased.

Then I developed my plan to reinvest my earnings for a month and also started purchasing the Anniversay Share package (explained below) as the cost was about $5-6 per MHs!

12/10/2014 Update on ltcgearcalc.com:

Ok, here's the full breakdown for what's coming for the calc. Due to all of these recent announcements from Chris and things like the VTC switch. Here's my list if related issues/changes/updates to the calc site in the coming weeks:

Immediate Issues:
--------------------------

Regard Gen2 Pre-Orders
I will not be adding any mechanism to the calc for tracking the pre-order earnings. When we finally get the announced (and correct) payout for them, we'll all just need to figure out the formula for what a Gen2 Pre-Order Share is worth in terms of qASICs. When we all know what the payouts will be, i'll post a note with whatever formula you'd need to figure it out .

VTC Algo Switch
When it happens, it should be updated on the same day (depending on the timing and how much time that day I'll have). Worse case scenario would be that i'll do that update the following day. But we should be ready to go for the switch on the calc page. Now, on the ROI Tracker... there might be a few, unanticipated things that might affect the accuracy. But as always, i'll try to get those resolved if/when they come up.

The timing for this update is dependent on when Chris updates the final numbers for what the new power of DualMODs on VTC will be.

Upcoming Multiplication (Dec 24th)
Remember that you are responsible for updating your share count on your home page. The ROI tracker already has the mechanism to handle multiplications, so like last time, you don't need to change anything there. I'll post a note on the page when we're close to the date.

Obviously the timing of the multiplication is pretty bad (xmas eve), so I might not be able to make that update until the night of the 25th or maybe the 26th.

Gen 2 Shares
This will be a major addition to the back-end that i've already started working on. My goal is to have it in place for the calculator page when they come online (or shortly thereafter depending on when Chris tells us the final numbers and specific date to when they will be mining).

Initially it might function like the existing calculator, where you select which coin you are mining. BUT, I want to add a "Most Profitable" option that will switch the earnings estimates for you based on the most profitable coin for the week-to-date when you load the page. This will probably happen after they come online, but it's one of the things I really want to implement in January.


Other Features:
--------------------------

The Xardas Laziness Calculator
Once we get through all of these updates, I want to continue working on having the actual payouts displayed on the Calc on Fridays after Chris posts the farm payments... The plan is to have it display all-day Friday from when it's posted to the end of day. This way everyone can see what their actual payouts will be on Fridays (and i'll include the estimated numbers for the week as well, so you can see how accurate/inaccurate it was for the week).

Rewrite DRK estimate routines
This is still something I want to tackle, but all of these other changes are far more important. Will just stay on the "to-do list" for now...

There also have been a number of good, smaller suggestions that i'll look to implement after everything else is done.



11/21/2014 Update: The Road to ROI #3
So, I haven't done one of these for a while, but this is a pretty good point to catch up. After today's payout, my last rogue purchase (where I didn't stick to my plan and made some additional purchases, mostly DualMODs, which already ROI'd and a bit more Anniv.) will have ROI'd 100%.

So at just over 3 months in, i've covered my initial investment amount and now 100% of what I reinvested! Feels good. Almost all of my initial purchases were DualMODs to mine VTC, which barring a few lean weeks has been really good to me. I tried to keep my mining at 25-30% DualMOD originally, but after 2 multiplications and some impulse purchases that's out the window. I will be very sad to see VTC go, but will mine and hold some DRK.

The one thing that i've been good about is sticking to my own strategy of 30% savings, 30% into reinvestment fund and 30% for paying myself. It's pretty nice to either buy some Amazon gift cards with BTC and know that this xmas will be completely paid for w/ BTC! Otherwise i've just been selling to fiat.

So, what's next? I think i'll be sitting on my hands for the rest of the year unless a really great product comes out... i might buy some of the new pack after payday, just to offset some of the diff increases, but i'm not going to chase things right now.

Either something really good comes out in the next month or two or not... I'm hoping something better comes out, like when the Anniv. package first came out.

Regarding the calculator, I have a few things still in the works (a long with a bunch of little things on my to-do list):

- Add the ROI gauges (small) to the home page, so you can see everything on one page.
- Rewrite DRK estimates completely. It's been a pain in my ass, but with VTC leaving us soon, I've got 2 different ideas on how to revise this.


11/8/2014 Update on ltcgearcalc.com:
A quick note/reminder on the multiplcation:

1. The main calc will not do any adjustments to your shares. You're responsible on the main page to adjust the numbers and just live with the fact that this week's estimates will be off (really just for Friday and maybe part of today).

2. The ROI tracker *will* adjust for the multiplication, but it's not implemented yet. It works fine at the moment for LTC, but it's having an adverse effect on any product with modifiers in it. I probably don't have the time to fix it until tomorrow though. I'll post an update note when it's fixed. For now, just leave the share numbers as they are, do not manually adjust them on the ROI tracker. Hopefully it'll get up tomorrow.

10/17/2014 Update on ltcgearcalc.com:
Added ROI tracker thing. More info here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.9280879

10/17/2014 Update on ltcgearcalc.com:
I just added the Shares Conversion to the calculator as well (thanks to some helpful members of Litecoin Talk who provided the #'s)... so you can see that along with BTC/USD estimates...

10/17/2014 Update on ltcgearcalc.com estimates:
Ok, so below are the results for the calculator based on the actual numbers Chris posted today for payouts... The cliff notes version is:

- All coin estimates are under 1% error, with the exception of DRK (which was 8% under estimated). Which means I might have tweaked one too many things, i have a couple little items I can revert back this week... but it also could just be the nature of the friggin coin.

- The only real payout issue is with VTC, the calc over-estimated by 5.98%... even though the coin estimate was pretty solid. The new calculations take the last price I capture for a mining week (Thursday night, before 00:00 GMT) and adjusts the full week by that. I had something like 0.000178 vs. Chris' 0.00017 ...  Now this might be related to Cryptsy's crash overnight, since I believe this is what Chris uses for the payout price (this is where I pull prices from too)... but I did look around and couldn't find any exchange that had it at 0.00017... maybe he just rounds down.. I dunno.

- The DRK price difference matches the estimation % error, so that's ok... we'll see what this week brings.

Otherwise, If I can get everything to perform at something like 1-3% error rate, i'd probably be ok with that... hopefully the VTC price issue is just this one time thing and might be Cryptsy related.

-----------------------

Coin Estimates vs. Actuals (Error)
LTC: 0.01955 / 0.01955602 (0.0307833598043%)
FTC: 2.36183 / 2.34416065 (0.75376019984%)
DRK: 0.09657 / 0.10534306 (-8.32808540022%)
VTC: 5.16733 / 5.13393581 (0.650459827233%)

BTC Estimates vs. Actuals (Error)
LTC: 0.000206 / 0.000203382608 (1.28693009975%)
FTC: No payment info posted
DRK: 0.000552 / 0.000600455442 (-8.06978147098%)
VTC: 0.000925 / 0.0008727690877 (5.98450529883%)


10/12/2014 Update: The Road to ROI #2
So after this past payment, i'm happy to say that i've at least recouped my initial investment after just about 2 months total! With the exception of 1 week of affiliate payments converted to shares, it was all based on my first 2 months of investments (initial + reinvestment).

Just to briefly summarize, I started primarily with DualMODs in August, reinvested for about a month and have almost stopped purchases (I won't like, I picked up some more DualMODs but have -mostly- kept to my plan to hold off on major reinvestments until about Dec.

Right now my breakdown is:
~ 75% LTC Mining
~ 25% VTC/DRK Mining

Moving forward, I plan on tweaking my plan to be:
75% savings
25% reinvestment

And any affiliate payments I get will likely be added to the reinvestment portion. I am not planning on using the automatic share conversion option as i'd personally rather save up a lump sum for the next generation thing (i'm guessing we'll see new offerings from everyone Dec/Jan). The only purchases I might make will be DualMODs to keep my % breakdown to be about the same after the next multiplication.

Next Goal
The obvious next milestone will be when I get back the amount I put to reinvestment from my initial investment. This will be a little more loosely tracked, as i'm occassionally not converting to BTC and just stockpiling some coins...

So far I think i've been through 8 payments and aside from the random delay/date change, so things still looking good (knock on wood).

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10/12/2014 Update to ltcgearcalc.com:
Ok, I am going to adjust the BTC calculations throughout the week to be more inline with what you get on paydays vs. showing what you would get if you were selling those coins throughout the week....

You can read more about it here:
https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=22417.msg212203#msg212203

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10/10/2014 Update to ltcgearcalc.com:
So, aside from really bad data for DRK on Monday (which I went in and just edited) which looks like things were being double calculated... here's how the estimates look:

Coin - Estimated/Actual/Difference

LTC  0.01936/0.01924/~ +.0.6218%
FTC  2.74512/2.75732/~ -.0.4434%
VTC  4.67789/4.63828/~ +.0.8503%
DRK  0.11028/0.11149/~ -1.09120%

For me, this is close enough for government work and a crypto-estimate... aside from some very minor tweaks that I made that i'll probably revert back to on LTC... I think i'm calling the estimate portion of things done for now, unless there's some real big calculation error that pops up.

So, I think i'll move onto the ROI tracker-thingy now.

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10/08/2014 Update to ltcgearcalc.com:
minor fix, if you select a custom date range (instead of the default mining week view) and change coins for example and resubmit... it will now remember those dates for your entire session, so you don't have to keep changing them after a submit. Then next time you visit, it will just be back to the mining week view.

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10/07/2014 Updates to ltcgearcalc.com:
Click on the links (to Litecoin Talk) if you want to read more details on the updates...

X11 MODs added to estimates
Full week forecasting

Note on the full week forecasting, consider it only for entertainment value for now as it's using all of the captured data, which is especially rough for the first couple weeks.

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10/05/2014 - UPDATE #10 - Still working on getting DRK estimates to be more accurate. Also, another week of payouts from Litecoin GEAR in the books... (still knocks on wood)

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10/02/2014 - UPDATE #9.
ltcgearcalc.com has been updated with (knock on wood) more accurate method to produce daily estimates.

Last week's estimates compared to the actual payouts revealed what I had expected:

LTC was fine at around +0.003% over or thereabouts.
VTC was good too at around +0.009% over.

Now, DRK & FTC went as follow:
DRK was about +8% over!
FTC was even worse at +12%!

This was expected due to the crappy original method I was using and the coins w/ wide swings in daily diff. After quickly running through the new approach after just a day's data, FTC looks much better at just a 1% difference... DRK is still going to be problematic, but it looks to be underestimating by like 12% or so. I might have to revisit that one and come up with something unique for it... but I think it's at least better to be under than over.

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9/28/2014: --UPDATE #8. The Road to ROI
Ok, this has been a little overdue, but I got distracted by www.ltcgearcalc.com. Anyways, here's how LTC Gear has worked out for me as I close in on 2 complete months.

My plan was to make a certain amount of purchases and reinvest into available stock for no longer than a month (I did break this though by an extra week reinvestment! DAMN YOU ANNIVERSARY PACKAGE). Note that all of my purchases were made with in-hand (not purchased) BTC that I had set aside to buy ASICs.

I started primarily buying shares + modifiers to mine VTC, as the payout was very good there for a while (it's still good IMO, but it was sweet from early Aug - early Sep). THEN the Anniversary deal came out, so I ended up loading up (at least loading up for me) on those.

My share breakdown works out to (after the multiplication and an additional modifier purchase):
~ 80% LTC Mining
~ 20% VTC Mining

If I hadn't reinvested after my initial purchases, mining mostly all VTC I would have had around 95% ROI (in my original BTC purchases) in the first 30 days or so.

My biggest positive about all of this is the share multiplication that somewhat stabilizes earnings over time. Next one beginning of Nov!

So, after the latest payments combined with the change I had leftover from the reinvestment, i'm now sitting at about 25%returned on the total (initial outlay and reinvestment) I have spent after just about 2 months of being with LTC Gear. It might be a bit better than that overall, but my note-taking/record-keeping is for shit.

You can read my story below as to how I got here, but I have these goals moving forward:

• No more constant repurchasing. No more purchases even considered until investment is recouped.
• Develop a plan and stick with it, right now I'm thinking 1/3rd set aside for quarterly purchases, 1/3rd set aside for savings and possibly 1/3rd set aside for cashing out (though I need to figure out if I have a BTC floor where I won't sell).

Hopefully this keeps working out well. What would bring me great joy would also to earn enough to cover the losses I had in preorders (fuck you Brock). Thankfully (knocks on wood), I did not go all-in on preorders and lost about 20% of my entire "ASIC Fund" in those...sigh.

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9/28/2014: -- UPDATE #7. Important Note About Accounts from Chris/Bee:

Very important. Please fill all four addresses under account page, Scrypt, X11, Scrypt-N and BTC. Payment coin will be selected via “Coin Choice”, except cases like referrals payment (which is sent in BTC). If a payment is to be sent and no address is found, payment will be postponed for a week. So again, make sure all addresses are filled (also make sure addresses are correct) or payments will get automatically postponed for a week – no second payments will be sent after first attempt for a week.

- The second batch of referrals (most of what was left) were paid Sunday to affiliates which had a BTC address filled under their account.

- An option will be added to Affiliate Area – affiliates will be able to direct convert their referral gains into shares

- Support is on holidays until Monday, September 29.

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9/28/2014: -- UPDATE #6. FANCY HISTORICAL ROI CHART IS BACK! Let us rejoice! www.ltcgearcalc.com ... also, initial findings on calculator accuracy posted here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.9005220

9/26/2014: -- UPDATE #5. Weekly payout already received. It's early! Found bug in chart! Working on it....

9/24/2014: -- UPDATE. Share multiplication finally came through. 1.35 was the factor. So you now have 1.35 shares per qASIC share you had before (active mining products aren't multiplied). Still nice!

9/24/2014: -- UPDATE #2. If you're not a customer and want to see what ROI is for various LTC packages, I added sample data options to www.ltcgearcalc.com based on current LTCGear products so you can see what a 1K6X package gets you for mining LTC vs. FTC, or what you can earn by adding a DualMod M10 product into the mix (VTC/DARK).

9/23/2014: -- UPDATE. The first multiplication i've been a part of is happening tonight, will post results ASAP.


If you're considering buying a cloud mining product, you might want to consider a smaller, lesser known company called LTCGear (link in my sig). Unlike many of the larger services like GAW, you are not purchasing "virtual ASICs" but rather you are purchasing a 1-year contract in a mining farm developed by Beekeeper (a 15 year ASIC design vet, according to the web site).

This post is my review of my experience using LTCGear (link in my sig), as well as a journal of sorts to try to be as fair and objective about the type of ROI I'm getting w/ LTCGear (link in my sig).

(moved my back story about previous ASIC experiences below)

I'll post some financial information below (expected return on investment, etc.) below, but for now here's my take on LTCGear:

Pros:

• The anniversary package is about the cheapest you can find per MHs
• With your one-year purchase, your "shares" are multiplied every month & a half to help maintain your ROI (last multiplication was x1.5 shares. Next multiplication is coming up this Saturday).
• Regardless of when you buy during the week, you get a payout for the full week (in either LTC/FTC, BTC, DRK or VTC)
  
• The only place I found that you can purchase ASIC shares to mine DRK or VTC
• You get an additional 8% off purchase price if you pay in BTC!
• You can still purchase Anniversary Shares for around $5-$6 per MHs by selecting an anniversary package and entering the code "anniversary1yr" (without quotes) during checkout. This gets you 160MHs (of LTC/FTC mining) for about $900 or so with BTC payout.
• To mine DRK/VTC, you need to purchase "modifiers" that allow you to mine the coins. To find these products, select "Shop" then "Active Miners" and look for DualMod products (if you already own qASIC shares) or sometimes there are Tricoin packs available that include bother qASIC shares and modifiers).
• The ability for the LTC shares to merge-mine DOGE is coming "Soon" according to Bee. Likely to be implemented after his new ASIC shares come on board. But still a nice bump to the basic qASIC shares

Cons:

• Pretty basic web site, doesn't initially instill confidence. It's no frills, no fancy icons, no real marketing.
• Site isn't that intuitive, mainly when you are mining VTC or DRK and how you choose payouts isn't that clear either, but once you figure it out it makes sense.
• The owner isn't a marketing guy, he is very attentive if you have account issues or questions related to a purchase, but generally doesn't respond to basic questions. You're better off talking to an existing customer for general info (post here or PM me, i'll try to help).
• There is a TBD "maintenance fee" that will come at the end of your 1-year contract.

One other item is that payouts are once a week (not daily), wasn't sure to put that in either pro/con!  

I'll post some financial stuff below. But 1 month in, i'm very happy I took the chance and am mining with LTCGear (link in my sig) after having to shut down my own rigs early this year.

If you have any questions, please post, i'll try to be as honest and frank as I can about the service.