The Best Mining Rigs Are Now Barely Profitable -- Now What? - page 5.

bitndx

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Quote from: joshv06 on April 23, 2014, 01:27:03 PM

Quote from: bitndx on April 23, 2014, 09:33:57 AM

Quote from: joshv06 on April 23, 2014, 01:14:50 AM

I think that as long as Asic manufactures can make a profit, they will keep selling and difficulty will continue to rise. The prices of miners will continue to fall and their efficiency will rise. I keep seeing posts of people saying to put them on Ebay. When they do, the person that buys it will plug it up. Prices of miners will fall but difficulty will keep rising unfortunately. There will be more HashFasts and BFLs selling pre-orders that will be plugged up down the road.

Mining will never be profitable unless you have free electricity.

Aren't you the guy posting the videos of the "biggest mining operation in Texas"? the electricity in that data center you are running in Houston is not free yet there you are.

Correct. I can see myself paying electricity for the DC down the road and that's it.

What I am pondering about is that Bitcoin has only only seen one halving dro, and we are just about 5-6 years into it. If it keeps going up at this rate, it could be unprofitable in terms of electricity toward the end of this year.

Agree. something will have to give

a.miner

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Quote from: Puppet on April 23, 2014, 06:10:31 AM

Your math is way off. If the trend you pictured would continue we would see:
7B * 1.11^36 ~=300B

Of course it will level off at some point.

Good catch, Puppet! I calculated 1.11^36.5 ~= 45, but I forgot to multiply in the 7 billion. When I do, it comes out to about 316 billion.

joshv06

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Quote from: bitndx on April 23, 2014, 09:33:57 AM

Quote from: joshv06 on April 23, 2014, 01:14:50 AM

I think that as long as Asic manufactures can make a profit, they will keep selling and difficulty will continue to rise. The prices of miners will continue to fall and their efficiency will rise. I keep seeing posts of people saying to put them on Ebay. When they do, the person that buys it will plug it up. Prices of miners will fall but difficulty will keep rising unfortunately. There will be more HashFasts and BFLs selling pre-orders that will be plugged up down the road.

Mining will never be profitable unless you have free electricity.

Aren't you the guy posting the videos of the "biggest mining operation in Texas"? the electricity in that data center you are running in Houston is not free yet there you are.

Correct. I can see myself paying electricity for the DC down the road and that's it.

What I am pondering about is that Bitcoin has only only seen one halving dro, and we are just about 5-6 years into it. If it keeps going up at this rate, it could be unprofitable in terms of electricity toward the end of this year.

bitndx

newbie

Activity: 47

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Quote from: joshv06 on April 23, 2014, 01:14:50 AM

I think that as long as Asic manufactures can make a profit, they will keep selling and difficulty will continue to rise. The prices of miners will continue to fall and their efficiency will rise. I keep seeing posts of people saying to put them on Ebay. When they do, the person that buys it will plug it up. Prices of miners will fall but difficulty will keep rising unfortunately. There will be more HashFasts and BFLs selling pre-orders that will be plugged up down the road.

Mining will never be profitable unless you have free electricity.

Aren't you the guy posting the videos of the "biggest mining operation in Texas"? the electricity in that data center you are running in Houston is not free yet there you are.

Puppet

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Quote from: a.miner on April 22, 2014, 10:01:44 PM

Well, I'm just looking at historical trends in difficulty and trending them out.

Difficulty is now at almost 7 billion and increasing at 11 percent every ten days. That puts it at 45 billion a year from now.

Your math is way off. If the trend you pictured would continue we would see:
7B * 1.11^36 ~=300B

Of course it will level off at some point.

Quote

So... are people expecting difficulty to level off, or much more efficient technologies to emerge...

or what?

Mining hardware prices will continue to drop, and difficulty will continue to increase almost to the point where mining revenue equals electricity cost. Which is we know is really low in some places. Individual miners will continue miscalculating or betting on BTC price increase and therefore will continue getting raped.

frankenmint

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HoneybadgerOfMoney.com Weed4bitcoin.com

Another way to look at it is to calculate the amount of BTC you expect from your hardware and the money you will pay for electricity. If you pay more in electricity, then turn off your gear and buy the BTC with the cash you would have spent on electricity - still a win. Keep your hardware for when BTC value rockets up again or to mine an alt sha-256 like terracoin or continuum.

nuff

sr. member

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Miners will continue to mine, even at a loss. It's hard to explain, it's like once you start you can't stop, at least, not before making back roi. I myself am still looking to at least another 3-4 months on before I can breakeven, only then whatever I mine after is profit. Fat chance that I'm shutting down my miners until I get my roi, but what else can I do, already bought into it.

joshv06

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I think that as long as Asic manufactures can make a profit, they will keep selling and difficulty will continue to rise. The prices of miners will continue to fall and their efficiency will rise. I keep seeing posts of people saying to put them on Ebay. When they do, the person that buys it will plug it up. Prices of miners will fall but difficulty will keep rising unfortunately. There will be more HashFasts and BFLs selling pre-orders that will be plugged up down the road.

Mining will never be profitable unless you have free electricity.

jimmothy

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Quote

Terraminers and Neptunes won't be able to pay for their own electricity in another 12 months' time

Terraminers won't but neptunes will be nearly twice as efficient so they will last longer.

In my opinion whoever has the cheapest/most efficient asic will always just barely profit.

Difficulty can only rise as much as people are willing to throw money in to it. For difficulty to follow last years rate we would need to see the value of btc increase.

If nobody is making a profit they will shut off their inefficient miners until only the most efficient miners remain.

Nagle

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Quote from: a.miner on April 22, 2014, 03:03:09 PM

The fastest rigs from KnC and Cointerra are barely able to make back their purchase price.
Yet the difficulty keeps increasing.

It's like any other commodity manufacturing industry with a fixed market size. Eventually prices stabilize just above cost.

The difficulty is probably still increasing rapidly because many of those "pre-orders" eventually get delivered. They may not be cost-effective by then, but the buyer, having paid for them, will probably plug them in and run them until the power cost overwhelms the return.

(I'm in Silicon Valley, where we have Hacker Dojo, a co-working space/club. A few months back, someone bought a membership, brought in a mining rig, and plugged it in, drawing a few kilowatts. Hacker Dojo put up with this until they discovered he was using about $500/month of power. (Membership is only $100 a month or so.) Then they refused to renew his membership and threw him out.)

a.miner

newbie

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Quote from: ChuckBuck on April 22, 2014, 03:17:12 PM

We're all hosed, time to close up shop now. Sad

Attention, all miners. Turn off all your equipment now and go home. I'll catch up with you guys later (turns miner back on).

Har! That's funny... but seriously, if a significant fraction of miners were to go under, then difficulty would return to manageable levels.

Or we could hope for a dramatic increase in the price of bitcoins.

Or a breakthrough in mining technology.

What other way is there to return mining to profitability?

a.miner

newbie

Activity: 43

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Quote from: jimmothy on April 22, 2014, 03:12:40 PM

Please share how you are able to see in to the future.

Magic crystal ball?

Well, I'm just looking at historical trends in difficulty and trending them out.

Difficulty is now at almost 7 billion and increasing at 11 percent every ten days. That puts it at 45 billion a year from now.

Unless the difficulty stops increasing, Terraminers and Neptunes won't be able to pay for their own electricity in another 12 months' time, let alone recoup the purchase price.

Even these new SP-30s are only about 3 times the perfomance per dollar, so they won't make it past 16 months from now.

And those estimates are very generous.

So... are people expecting difficulty to level off, or much more efficient technologies to emerge...

or what?

ChuckBuck

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Activity: 1372

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better everyday ♥

Quote from: a.miner on April 22, 2014, 03:03:09 PM

I guess the title says it all.

The fastest rigs from KnC and Cointerra are barely able to make back their purchase price.

Yet the difficulty keeps increasing.

If you haven’t taken delivery of your miner yet, you will almost surely lose money on it.

Is there any new technology on the horizon?

Or are we all hosed?

We're all hosed, time to close up shop now. Sad

Attention, all miners. Turn off all your equipment now and go home. I'll catch up with you guys later (turns miner back on).

jimmothy

hero member

Activity: 770

Merit: 509

Quote from: a.miner on April 22, 2014, 03:03:09 PM

I guess the title says it all.

The fastest rigs from KnC and Cointerra are barely able to make back their purchase price.

Yet the difficulty keeps increasing.

If you haven’t taken delivery of your miner yet, you will almost surely lose money on it.

Is there any new technology on the horizon?

Or are we all hosed?

Please share how you are able to see in to the future.

Magic crystal ball?

a.miner

newbie

Activity: 43

Merit: 0

I guess the title says it all.

The fastest rigs from KnC and Cointerra are barely able to make back their purchase price.

Yet the difficulty keeps increasing.

If you haven’t taken delivery of your miner yet, you will almost surely lose money on it.

Is there any new technology on the horizon?

Or are we all hosed?

Topic: The Best Mining Rigs Are Now Barely Profitable -- Now What? - page 5. (Read 5878 times)