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Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

coindesk.com

11–20 of 96 posts

Re: Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

#11
post #8

>Solis bought a Bitmain Antminer S9 on eBay for $2,400. >As of this weekend, Solis has mined 1.01 BTC, worth a little more than $2,584 in his bitcoin wallet. >Solis said: >"When I bought the miner, the price per bitcoin was around $1,200. I thought I’d break even in one year, but actually it’s been about five months." So he would have been much better off just spending that 1,200 on Bitcoin rather than on a mining ri…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

#12

The premise of mining bitcoin is not really about being cost effective today, but taking a long position on its value, and what you perceive the value will be, for totally anonymous money at some point in the future. Because the profit earned from mining is pretty close to the definition of untrackable in a crypto.

You need to buy the equipment from some third party and hide your IP address. It's possible to do both while maintaining anonymity, but if you can hide cash transactions then bitcoin get's you zero net benefit while exposing you to new risks.

Re: Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

#13

Yes, but the volatility of Bitcoin could make it not profitable again. Instead of buying a miner what if he took that money and bought bitcoin at that point of time. Wouldn't he have more money?

the difference is the miner continually payouts.

Re: Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

#14
post #6
post #2

Wouldn't there be a big advantage to running a bit coin miner somewhere cold with cheap electricity like Quebec?

I have heard from a trusted source that people in Russia are buying graphics cards by the truckload and building mining farms, and getting free electricity by bribing utilities / government officials. So keep in mind that you are likely competing with Chinese and Russian miners who don't have the same costs.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

#15
post #8

>Solis bought a Bitmain Antminer S9 on eBay for $2,400. >As of this weekend, Solis has mined 1.01 BTC, worth a little more than $2,584 in his bitcoin wallet. >Solis said: >"When I bought the miner, the price per bitcoin was around $1,200. I thought I’d break even in one year, but actually it’s been about five months." So he would have been much better off just spending that 1,200 on Bitcoin rather than on a mining ri…

Even more importantly, electricity costs weren't accounted for, while they should be pretty relevant.

Re: Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

#16

The premise of mining bitcoin is not really about being cost effective today, but taking a long position on its value, and what you perceive the value will be, for totally anonymous money at some point in the future. Because the profit earned from mining is pretty close to the definition of untrackable in a crypto.

would it be better to just buy hold and use Bitcoin?

mining adds slightly to the decentralized nature but I am curious about comparing buy and hold vs mine.

Re: Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

#17
post #8

>Solis bought a Bitmain Antminer S9 on eBay for $2,400. >As of this weekend, Solis has mined 1.01 BTC, worth a little more than $2,584 in his bitcoin wallet. >Solis said: >"When I bought the miner, the price per bitcoin was around $1,200. I thought I’d break even in one year, but actually it’s been about five months." So he would have been much better off just spending that 1,200 on Bitcoin rather than on a mining ri…

Even more importantly, electricity costs weren't accounted for, while they should be pretty relevant.

According to its Amazon listing, the Antminer S9 consumes 1247 watts at the wall. Assuming he ran it 24/7, over a year he would consume about 11,000 kWh, or about $1,300 at the average U.S. electricity price of $0.12/kWh. Without knowing how much he was paying for power of course we can't know exactly how much he spent, but this certainly doesn't seem like a slam-dunk win, compared to just buying Bitcoins outright.

And indeed, it couldn't possibly. The EMH almost guarantees that hobby mining can't be profitable once the coin is popular enough.

Re: Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

#18
post #8

>Solis bought a Bitmain Antminer S9 on eBay for $2,400. >As of this weekend, Solis has mined 1.01 BTC, worth a little more than $2,584 in his bitcoin wallet. >Solis said: >"When I bought the miner, the price per bitcoin was around $1,200. I thought I’d break even in one year, but actually it’s been about five months." So he would have been much better off just spending that 1,200 on Bitcoin rather than on a mining ri…

Even more importantly, electricity costs weren't accounted for, while they should be pretty relevant.

Is anyone tracking the electric costs for mining? I would love to see the stats on that. What about using something like solar to power this? Then you would have your upfront costs for the solar panels, but not have recurring electric costs?

Re: Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

#19
post #8

>Solis bought a Bitmain Antminer S9 on eBay for $2,400. >As of this weekend, Solis has mined 1.01 BTC, worth a little more than $2,584 in his bitcoin wallet. >Solis said: >"When I bought the miner, the price per bitcoin was around $1,200. I thought I’d break even in one year, but actually it’s been about five months." So he would have been much better off just spending that 1,200 on Bitcoin rather than on a mining ri…

This is hindsight. He would have been best off staying the fuck away. As I mentioned a billion times cryptocurrencies (which are not currencies either) have zero legal real world use cases, currently the two uses are illegal money transfers out of China and hype. It's the worst sort of gambling: you do not even know the odds.

Re: Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

#20

The premise of mining bitcoin is not really about being cost effective today, but taking a long position on its value, and what you perceive the value will be, for totally anonymous money at some point in the future. Because the profit earned from mining is pretty close to the definition of untrackable in a crypto.

would it be better to just buy hold and use Bitcoin? mining adds slightly to the decentralized nature but I am curious about comparing buy and hold vs mine.

Mining anonymously is much easier that buying anonymously.
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