Bitcoin Miner does the math, calls it quits
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Bitcoin Miner does the math, calls it quits
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Re: Bitcoin Miner does the math, calls it quits
#2This isn't really news. I did the math a month ago and came to the same conclusion. That I could probably make a little money if I don't mind heating up my house (costing more in AC costs) and dealing with the noise of the computers running all the time.
The projected profits, at the prices that day, were pretty sad.
A week later I learned that the better the machines and programs get at producing bitcoins, the harder it is to actually earn one, so the machine works harder for the same output. (The whole market is in on this, not just 1 machine, so it's possible to be ahead of the pack... But they -will- catch on eventually.)
At that point I realized that even if I built a perfect rig that paid for itself every 3 months, I would have to continuously upgrade it to keep up with the market.
It's simply not worth it.
Re: Bitcoin Miner does the math, calls it quits
#3I also did the math - figured I was better off buying Bitcoins than mining them. It's marginal though.
Re: Bitcoin Miner does the math, calls it quits
#4> The fact that every 2016 blocks (about 11 days), 100,800 new BTC are minted. That means that, to maintain the CURRENT price of $13.50, we'd need $1,360,000 of NEW MONEY entering the system every 11 days.
I don't know anything about economics - literally nothing - but that doesn't seem right to me.
Re: Bitcoin Miner does the math, calls it quits
#5The Mtgox hack has kept BTC prices fairly depressed, but in my opinion that is a good thing. There was never a good reason to build something around the BTC currency before because it was going up so fast that you were better off billing a client half your normal rate, convert it into bitcoins and end up with 4x the money in a month or so.
Hopefully BTC will see some medium term stability around the 10 to 20 mark while actual, usable clients get made, and actual stable markets get setup.
(Disclosure I own a nontrivial, although nonmassive amount of bitcoins, but I've broken even by selling some while it was over 30)
Re: Bitcoin Miner does the math, calls it quits
#6What's interesting, is that this is what should happen. Since Bitcoins are generated at a constant rate (from my understanding) regardless of how many people are working on them, the market should eventually even out so that its a break-even at best. Likely it will be a little worse than break-even, because there are always some people out there willing to attempt to generate coins even if what they are doing doesn't financially make sense, breaking the market.
Just because you've got a competitor in business, doesn't mean that they are profitable or running good business. Trying to meet them can easily run you into the ground. It just happens in bitcoin-world, everyone has the same 'product'.
Re: Bitcoin Miner does the math, calls it quits
#7This isn't really news. I did the math a month ago and came to the same conclusion. That I could probably make a little money if I don't mind heating up my house (costing more in AC costs) and dealing with the noise of the computers running all the time. The projected profits, at the prices that day, were pretty sad. A week later I learned that the better the machines and programs get at producing bitcoins, the harde…
Why buy a new machine after 3 months? Once it makes back it's cost, wouldn't you still be able to earn money from it so long as it can cover the cost of running and storing it?
Re: Bitcoin Miner does the math, calls it quits
#8Now that the hype is dying down, maybe people will start thinking more about how to make bitcoin easier and more available and less about how they can profit off of mining and trading.
Re: Bitcoin Miner does the math, calls it quits
#9Now that the hype is dying down, maybe people will start thinking more about how to make bitcoin easier and more available and less about how they can profit off of mining and trading.
Start? People have been thinking (and working) on that even before the hype began (see for example the Android client now on the frontpage, or the new client UI being developed, wallet encryption being tested now, and various web payment services), it just gets drowned in all the trolling, mining related talk and price speculation.
Re: Bitcoin Miner does the math, calls it quits
#10Seems pretty obvious to me that "mining" is a loser's game, you are fighting over what slice you get of a fixed size pie. By contrast, selling stuff for BTC actually grows the "market cap" of coins, that seems a lot more sensible.
That said, I have a technical question. What happens to the BTC system if people mostly quit mining?