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Will I earn money by mining? - An answer to all newcomers (self.Bitcoin)

submitted by ThePiachu[M]

When people start their adventure with Bitcoin, they often go through a small gold fever with the concept of mining (I would know, that's how I started ;) ). Here is a small guide to answer your eternal question "will I make money with it?":

First of all, lets talk about hardware (click on the link for a long and useful list). You won't make money mining bitcoins unless you either have a really high-end GPU from ATI, an FPGA or an ASIC. That's the short answer. Having a decent CPU can be used for Litecoin mining, which can be a small income in itself, but we are here to talk about Bitcoin.

To see whether you will earn any money, you need to input a few pieces of data into a special calculator:

  • cost of your hardware (cost of buying an ASIC, GPUs, motherboards, power supplies, etc.)
  • how fast can it hash (mega hashes per second). This you can get from your hardware list
  • how much power does it consume (again, hardware list)
  • your cost of electricity (check with your power company)

And then there are two magical variables that will either make it all work out, or be doomed for failure: * difficulty - it is automatically filled in by the calculator, but for long-term mining (more than a few weeks), you want to be a pessimist. Multiply the value by 10 for predictions over a few months or 100 for a year or two (it will rise steeply soon) * bitcoin price - also filled by the calculator - it might go up or down in the future, affecting your bottom line. It will probably increase in the long run, but lets be pessimistic and lower that to $10-$20 to make sure we are earning money no matter what

Having all your hard data and your guesses on the last two variables, you put it all into the mining calculator and see what you get. You will get your earnings in BTC and dollars, as well as summary of your costs and when you will brake even, and what will your net income be over your investment period.

Most likely you won't be earning money with Bitcoin mining, and that's okay - mining has become a very specialised process. If you want to invest money into new ASICs, you might be able to turn a tidy profit.

TLDR: Use this to check everything. ASICs may earn you money, GPUs won't anymore.

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[–]UCDelegate 23 points24 points  (14 children)

Even the mining calculators will fool people who are very new. The difficulty is about to skyrocket, meaning GPU/FPGA hw purchased now will never break even (vs a direct BTC investment, at least.) There is a significant barrier to entry with ASICs - only 1 company is accepting orders and they're almost 5 months behind their delivery schedule, and continue to delay it. There is no guarantee they will ever have a working product, being so far behind certainly makes ordering a risk.

Bottom line is that trying to get into mining is a losing proposition for newbies. OTOH, if you decide to make a sizable direct investment, buying an ASICs machine is a good way to further secure that investment, by distributing the network power and making it more secure. However, since you can currently only "pre-order" them, that's not yet a safe option...best to wait until these companies are actually delivering.

[–]vinhboy 4 points5 points  (13 children)

Technically speaking, can't you just get lucky and solve for a hash in your first try? (earning you 25 coins)

It's very unlikely, but it is possible right? Or am I not understanding this.

[–]WORDSALADSANDWICH 14 points15 points  (11 children)

Correct, it's possible. It's profitable, however, in the same way that buying lottery tickets or playing slots is profitable. There's the chance for a big payoff with low investment, but it's much more likely that you'll receive nothing at all.

I'm still brand new too, so I might be misunderstanding something as well, but when people talk about earning 0.08 BTC a day or whatever, they're part of a mining pool that combines the efforts of a bunch of different people and pays out to members based on their contributions. Lower max, but much more consistent.

[–]DiHydro 3 points4 points  (9 children)

You are entirely correct, pools allow a miner to have a steady income vs the chance of solo mining a block.

[–][deleted]  (8 children)

[deleted]

    [–]DiHydro 5 points6 points  (0 children)

    Payout is proportional to work done for the pool.

    [–]kristeal 0 points1 point  (6 children)

    The probability isn't worth the effort. Better to look into /r/gpumining of Scrypt based currencies for the average desktop pc user.

    [–]cyborggold 2 points3 points  (5 children)

    Actually with the price of BTC in the past few weeks... Mining is profitable again. BTC actually hit 1250 on mtgox.

    [–]irvinestrangler -4 points-3 points  (4 children)

    Only if you can sell it for that. Good luck making that happen.

    [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (3 children)

    When people say "BTC hit value V, they mean it was being traded at value V, which means people are actually selling BTC for that value. Currency exchanges aren't magic random number generators, they're records of actual transactions.

    [–]bitcoinnz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I don't think you will profit unless you have a substantial amount to start off with to invest in ASIC machines that can run 24/7 making you bitcoins, then you got to consider other costs like power to run the machines, I think for the small time investor its better buying bitcoins and selling them. Just find a good guide and website to teach you the ropes http://the-bitcoin-secrets-review.blogspot.co.nz/

    [–]andrew_depompa 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    It's also just as possible that you will find no blocks and earn no money. You're rolling three different hundred-million-sided dice and hoping they come up the same number. If they are, you win $3000. If not, well... good thing you can do it a couple hundred million times a second.

    [–]razorbeamz 15 points16 points  (36 children)

    I have a question. My computer's already on all the time anyways. If I mine when I'm not using it, and I get about 45 mh/s when I do, am I earning money?

    [–]ThePiachu[S] 11 points12 points  (32 children)

    Your hardware will degrade faster costing you more money than its worth. Not to mention increased electricity bill.

    [–]l3un1t 14 points15 points  (4 children)

    Can you explain why the hardware will degrade faster if it is continuously mining?

    I ask because I've recently begun to look into Bitcoin mining with my current gaming comp, and I don't see how my 7850 could be degrading faster. It's currently overclocked, mining whenever I am not playing games, reaching ~305MHash/s. It only reaches temperatures of 54C, and my PSU is more than enough for my rig.

    Under these circumstances, I'm certain the only way it could degrade would be from continuous use. However, I don't know why it would even degrade from this, so an explanation would be fantastic.

    [–][deleted] 77 points78 points  (2 children)

    TIL about silicon degradation:

    Electrons in one transistor are not supposed to be able to reach other transistors in normal circumstances, but according to the principle of quantum tunnelling, an electron can actually escape from an infinitely deep energy well; it just does not happen that often. A transistor is made up of positively and negatively doped silicon around un-doped silicon. Every now and again, through chance alone, an electron can tunnel away from the conductive silicon keeping it in place. Usually it will only burrow in a couple of atoms and then return, though sometimes it can travel into another adjacent transistor. This does not normally cause a problem, because you need a lot of stray electrons to cause an error in how the gate is read. The problems start to occur when an electron attaches itself to one of the silicon atoms in the un-doped section of the silicon, or knocks another electron out of its orbit. This is known as silicon degradation, and over time, usually measured in years, a path is formed by the damage caused by these tunnelling electrons between two gates. Electrons can then flow across the junction freely, causing it to malfunction, and the value be misread by the computer, resulting in an error.

    The more energy an electron has, the more likely it is to tunnel, which is why if your CPU is running hot, or has a considerably higher voltage going through it, electrons can tunnel through far more easily. All CPU’s are built so that there is an inbuilt resistance to quantum tunnelling for an extended period of time, but when you overclock your CPU, that period is reduced.

    If you overclock or over-volt the chip too much, you can actually physically destroy the silicon lattice of gates within a processor.

    http://www.overclock.net/t/19390/info-why-does-too-much-heat-voltage-damage-the-cpu-scientific-version

    [–]Endlessa 8 points9 points  (0 children)

    nice great info :) upvoted :) though I doubt any of those things will occur before the card is out of date hehe

    [–]0_p 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    Thanks, just read that whole thing.

    [–]ThePiachu[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Generally hardware wears down with use. Since you will be mining at full speed for a long period of time, you will wear down your fans and since the whole system will be working at high temperature, it has a higher chance of breaking sooner. I am not entirely sure how it happens on the level of integrated circuits, but since we are talking really tiny architecture, anything goes.

    I guess it would be best if you asked this question in a more specialised place - I'm not a hardware expert.

    [–]ExtraneousMachine 3 points4 points  (4 children)

    If you're going to be buying new hardware anyway, as many people do (to keep up with rising hardware and software reqs) then is there any reason to give up mining then?

    Also, even if mining may not be profitable assuming you sell at the time, you have to take into account the fact that you're getting Bitcoins, not USD - changes in value may mean the mining you did when it was unprofitable is now worthwhile, or vice versa.

    [–]ThePiachu[S] 2 points3 points  (3 children)

    For most hardware it would still be cheaper to buy Bitcoins than to pay for electricity used to mine them.

    [–]ExtraneousMachine 5 points6 points  (2 children)

    Fair enough. So, our ideal bitcoin mining setup is this:

    • You're never going to do anything else CPU-intensive such as video games on the computer anyway.
    • You're going to replace the computer soon anyway.
    • You rent the place, or have tapped directly into a power cable, or some other method that gets you free electricity.

    So what we're essentially saying is that if you don't spend anything, you can only make a profit! Well, at least that's sorted.

    [–]ThePiachu[S] -1 points0 points  (1 child)

    Yeah, more or less. Although Bitcoin mining is rather GPU intensive thing, it doesn't use much CPU.

    [–]ExtraneousMachine 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Oh, yeah, sorry. I've been working too much with Litecoins recently.

    [–]acg33 2 points3 points  (10 children)

    Does mining really depreciate the lifetime of your hardware that fast?

    [–]CrobisaurCroney 1 point2 points  (5 children)

    As long as you keep your hardware maintained (clean heat sinks regularly) and make sure temps don't go above 100F You won't be hurting much. The only thing that would get the most wear is if you are pushing your power supply to 100% for long periods. You want to keep your PSU in it's optimal efficiency range while under high load. It will reduce energy waste as well as not shorten the lifespan of your PSU.

    [–]Peterowsky 9 points10 points  (2 children)

    100F is just a bit above your body temperature.

    On stock clocks and voltage, a pc can run 8-10 hours a day at double that temperature for well over 5 years before things start going south.

    I realize this comment is old but people still use this thread for reference and 100F is lower than the idle temperatures for most systems.

    [–]CrobisaurCroney 5 points6 points  (1 child)

    Yup sorry I meant 100C not 100F, huge difference there.

    [–]Peterowsky 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    I figured that.

    Sorry if I came off as the pedantic jerk I sometimes post as.

    [–]acg33 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    Well I have a 650 watt power supply...I'd imagine that that's enough.

    [–]CrobisaurCroney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    It depends on your hardware, pcpartpicker.com does a quick & dirty wattage calculation, if that number is ~2/3 - 3/4 of the rated wattage of your PSU you should be fine. Most are adjusted for peak efficiency around 80% load.

    [–]ThePiachu[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I am not sure how much it affects it.

    [–]phYnc 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    Running any hardware at high temperatures for long periods of time will reduce it's lifespan. As by how much, I'm not sure.

    [–]acg33 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Well proper cooling will stop this right?

    [–]ka9dgx 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Every transistor has a finite lifespan, but it's temperature related. At high temperatures, the voltage across the various structures causes migration over time.... but as with all chemical reactions, each 10 degrees Centigrade reduction in temperature reduces the reaction rate by 1/2. By the time you get down towards room temperature, it's essentially infinite.

    Keep chips cool, don't over voltage them, and they'll last forever.

    [–]hasoon004 1 point2 points  (7 children)

    Let's say I mine 25 Bitcoins

    • Do I get them instantly ?
    • What happens when the Internet/Computer goes off
    • Can I use more than one PC with the same power to mine at the same time to the same wallet ?
    • Will my "Wallet" be the same if I change PCs (Let's say I upgrade to a better PC)

    Thank You for your time :)

    [–]ThePiachu[S] 2 points3 points  (5 children)

    You get them instantly, but the coins need to mature for 100 some confirmations as far as I remember before they can be spent - this is to prevent double-spends in case of some blocks being orphaned.

    As long as you have broadcast the newly solved block and it propagates through the network, you will be credited. If your wallet becomes corrupted due to sudden power outage of the computer, there might be a problem with spending those coins.

    You can use as many computers to mine at the same time as you wish - only one computer needs to run bitcoind and act like a pool, while others would be simple miners connecting to it.

    Your wallet is a file on your computer that is generated at random - you can (and should) backup it regularly to protect your money. You can move the wallet between multiple computers without a problem - just copy it as any other file. You shouldn't be using the same wallet on multiple computers at the same time though - the files will start drifting apart and grow different from one another over time. Best use a given wallet only on one computer.

    [–]hasoon004 1 point2 points  (4 children)

    Thank you so much , I chose my wallet from here (http://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet) , will my wallet be the same on all computers I migrate to ? the thing is , I got the wallet code without creating an account or anything ! Is this the right way ? So basically it's just a chunk of DATA with an address withing (ex:31uEbMgunupShBVTewXjtqbBv5MndwfXhb) , and the only way to verify my wallet is by the data that was generated right ? No username , password , email , or anything related ?

    [–]ThePiachu[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

    Your wallet is a file created on every computer you use - it won't be the same unless you copy that file over. And yes, you don't need to sign up for anything - Bitcoin doesn't need usernames, email or the like, although securing your wallet with a password is advised.

    [–]hasoon004 1 point2 points  (2 children)

    Aha ! But the time I want to exchange my money , I use that Address ? Lets say I copy the wallet data from someone's computer ! Will I have there wallet ??

    [–]ThePiachu[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    If you want to exchange money, someone will provide you with their address to send the money to. If you copy the wallet from someone else's computer, you will be able to spend their money, provided you also know the password.

    [–]hasoon004 3 points4 points  (0 children)

    Damn !! Thanks for the info a lot !!

    [–]gacbmmml 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    I should note that a wallet and a bitcoin address are two completely different things. A wallet is simply a private key that only you know. You can set up the same wallet on multiple computers using that private key.

    A bitcoin address points to a particular wallet and can be thrown away or kept at your discretion. Meaning: Addresses can be a one-time use thing or you can use the same address for a long period of time.

    Hope that makes sense.

    [–]PhantomPumpkin 1 point2 points  (2 children)

    I'm curious now. I run folding@home already. Why not recoup some of my costs while support bitcoin? :)

    [–]ThePiachu[S] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

    Well, I think it would be hard to run both at the same time.

    [–]PhantomPumpkin -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

    I'd stop the folding. :)

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    i would recommend looking into low difficulty scrypt based alt-coins. You can exchange them for bitcoins and still use your CPU.

    For a list of several cryptocoins see this website: http://dustcoin.com/mining

    [–]gacbmmml 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    With the current difficulty of over 100 million, running 1,000 Mh/s will net you about 0.005 btc a day... (about 50 cents). So if your computer is only hitting 45 Mh/s, you're looking at about 2.5 cents a day.

    Factor in your electricity costs keeping your GPU on all day long, you're probably not making any money. I assume you're using a GPU and not a Block Erupter (USB Miner).

    [–]cyborggold 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    As of today it'll net you just under 5 bucks a day. Today's BTC avg price point is $912

    [–][deleted] 88 points89 points  (38 children)

    TL;DR. NO you will not make money mining. Go and buy some Bitcoins on the exchange and sell your XBOX or something for Bitcoins.

    [–][deleted]  (17 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]ButterflySammy 7 points8 points  (0 children)

      TIL my power companies rate is "insane".

      [–]ragmondo 17 points18 points  (15 children)

      The "lol GPU mining is no longer profitable" circlejerk has been around in this subreddit since December and it's getting old.

      Yep.. and I got flamed for suggesting people should get mining now before the ASICs really take hold. Funnily enough.. all by people who are currently mining themselves !!

      [–]ferroh 16 points17 points  (13 children)

      Probably because redditors here don't want to see people go out and spend money on GPUs that will never pay for themselves.

      If you have a GPU now, okay sure, mine with it. Buying a GPU now is a bad idea, and if you suggested that in December and someone followed your advice, then you may have caused that person to lose money.

      Mining with a single GPU that you already have might amount to a dollar a day if you're lucky, at an average $/kWh electricity cost. So even though that more than covers electricity costs, it's very questionable whether it is worth a user's time to bother with the $30/month for 3-4 months.

      [–]spartacus73 2 points3 points  (12 children)

      Is CPU bottlenecking an issue with bitcoin mining? I have a two year old CPU but I'm thinking of getting an AMD 7970 for gaming with bitcoin mining as fringe benefit.

      Also, do which statistic is the most important when GPU mining? Avg. Mhash/s, Mhash/J or Mhash/s/$? Do you want to optimize mining ability per watt by going for Mhash/J?

      [–]ferroh 3 points4 points  (10 children)

      CPU speed will not bottleneck you.

      Do you pay for electricity?

      It will cost more money in electricity to mine with a 7970 than you get back in coins when the difficulty adjusts for ASICs. This could be as soon as two months from now.

      which statistic is the most important when GPU mining?

      It depends.

      MH/s is meaningless by itself, so you are concerned with MH/s/J and MH/s/$.

      The short answer is: Calculate what you will earn from the card. Calculate what the card costs to run. Assume that you will make 1/2 as much in a month, and 1/4 as much in two months. Decide if this is worth it to you.

      You currently get 0.138 bitcoins per day per 1000 MH/s. So a 7970 stock does about 550 MH/s, therefore it gets 0.55 * 0.138 = 0.0759 bitcoins per day. At $29/coin, that's $2.20/day. It uses 180 watts roughly. At $0.13/kWh, it costs (180w/1000w) * 24hrs * $0.13 = $0.56/day to run.

      So you make $1.34 per day with a 7970 at 550MH/s and $0.13/kWh.

      When difficulty doubles (say, in a month), you'll be making ($2.20/2 - $0.56) = $0.54/day.

      When difficulty is 3.93x higher (if the price is still $29 per coin) 7970 mining will cost more in electricity than you get back in coins.

      [–]Philosophantry 4 points5 points  (1 child)

      Do you pay for electricity?

      So... If I move in to the dorms on campus and set up a few of my machines for the next 3 or 4 years while I'm finishing up my degree, you're saying that...?

      [–]ides_of_june 5 points6 points  (0 children)

      No ASICs are now a reality. It's a matter of months not years before you will have a hard time making back your capital investment. That said if you have a GPU now and don't pay for electricity go for it. I've made 2 BTC in the last ~40days with a 7870 (~$20 in electricity) so I'm up $140 at the current rate. 30ish more days to pay off the capital in full if the difficulty doesn't go up too much more (I'm not confident in that).

      [–]ihatemaps 0 points1 point  (4 children)

      I leave my computer on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. How much electricity is it using? It won't use more if it is mining will it?

      [–]ferroh 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      It will use more if it is mining.

      Mining on a computer is generally a bad idea these days.

      A 7970 uses about 180 watts or so (as I said above). Cost per day is $0.56/day (as I said above also :).

      [–][deleted]  (2 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]chiropter 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        Perhaps you could offset heating costs via mining in the winter? I think there was a xkcd on that

        [–]redfacedquark 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        Winter? Doc! ASICs, they're three months away!

        [–][deleted] -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

        i really don't know where you got that exchange rate per coin... $29/BTC?! no way. maybe back in 2010, or early 2011. in 2013, it has never dipped below $89ish

        [–]ferroh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        in 2013, it has never dipped below $89ish

        What are you talking about?

        On Jan 1 2013 the price opened below $13.60.

        http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg90zczsg2013-01-01zeg2013-01-02ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv

        You are responding to a 3 month old comment. At the time it was written, the price was around $29.

        The price was below $35 for the entire first 2 months of 2013.

        [–]hitforhelp 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        I just bought a 7970 and am currently getting 550mh/s~ without overclock currently it works about to be around 0.03BTC/24hrs. My intention is to mine with it when not using it for playing games etc It really will not pay for itself in any time soon however like you said buying to have as an actual card to play games on is worth it. Im just mining until more ASIC's hit the market and the difficultly goes up too high. Im hoping it will pay off in the long run and not be a short term thing.

        [–]tibbon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Its an arms race.

        [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

        Too bad it's nearly impossible to buy bitcoins.

        [–]andrew_depompa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        I had this problem, then found someone local who had some and wanted out so I paid him for his.

        [–]redfacedquark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        I also had this problem (in the UK). Bitstamp was the answer for me.

        [–]misternumberone 2 points3 points  (1 child)

        but I have a good GPU, in a good PC, which I bought for the purpose of other things, and my electricity and internet are fast and paid for by my landlord. Are you sure?

        [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

        Okay if you want to make like thirty dollars a month running your computer non stop just to get one Bitcoin. I bet some people would consider that a profit...

        [–]degoba 10 points11 points  (14 children)

        Making money isn't the only reason to mine. I do just because I like supporting bitcoin.

        [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        I commend you for doing so! If there ever comes a time when the network is under attack I will definitely put as much processing power as I can back into the system.

        [–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

        I've already hit my break even cost with a GPU. Everything from here on out is profit, but yea not much.

        [–]ccrraapp 5 points6 points  (0 children)

        GPU done.okay.

        but electrical costs which are recurring?

        [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (14 children)

        What is the complete hard ware list to get an ASIC Bitcoin Miner up and running? Is it more beyond the $1,299 price tag?

        I plottet some numbers into the calculator, and even with high power price it seemed to be a pretty good earning. When will the next difficulty level be and what will it be? Are there always 25 bc in a block?

        [–]ThePiachu[S] 6 points7 points  (12 children)

        Difficulty is adjusted every 2 weeks more or less (quicker when the power of the network is rising). Block rewards halve every 4 years, so for the next 3 it will be constant.

        For the ASICs you probably will need to get some basic computer with them as well, but that probably doesn't need to be anything fancy.

        [–][deleted]  (11 children)

        [deleted]

          [–]ThePiachu[S] 4 points5 points  (2 children)

          It is adjusted so as to make the average block be created every 10 minutes. If the mining power doubles, the difficulty will double. Times 10, times 10.

          I'm guessing it will go x10 in a couple months (once all companies start shipping), and probably x100 in a year if not more (once ASICs are produced in regular batches).

          [–]triggerhappy899 1 point2 points  (1 child)

          is there a place where i can get information on when the difficulty will increase?

          [–]ThePiachu[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          I think there is an estimate and ETA on top of this page:

          http://bitcoincharts.com/

          [–]HighBeamHater 3 points4 points  (3 children)

          the rig would bring in $6545/month net profit

          That's assuming bitcoin continues to stay at or above $27 before you decide to sell.

          [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

          Oh, sure! I see a lot of growing interest and a lot of volume trades in the charts. I think we could be in for quite a ride this time.

          [–]ATwig 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          I think one of the safest ways to decide weather or not to invest in an rig or ASIC miner would be to plan everything around 1 BTC being $10 USD.

          If the difficulty jumps up around 20 mil (Its just under 3 million currently IIRC), and the cost of BTC is $10 USD and you are still "supposedly" going to make a profit then it could be considered a "safe" investment.

          [–]HighBeamHater 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          I heard the same thing a year ago. Not trying to dampen your spirits!

          [–]ziekke 0 points1 point  (3 children)

          Where do you get a rig like this? If it was so simple to invest $1300 to generate $6500/month why isn't everyone doing it? :)

          [–]domorethanyoucan 0 points1 point  (2 children)

          because the hardware is vaporware. you can spend $1300 all day long, but at the end of the day, the equipment hasn't shipped.

          [–]ziekke 0 points1 point  (1 child)

          That's kind of what I figured. Are there ASICs for sale elsewhere that are commonly used?

          [–]domorethanyoucan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          ASIC stands for Application Specific Integrated Circuit - these are custom designed chips. So these particular ASICs, no. There is another company (avalon) which has shipped some units. But not many and the buy-in was north of seven grand last i checked.

          [–]ef4 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          You need to keep in mind that everyone else is also looking at that "pretty good earning" and ordering ASICs.

          As soon as they all come online, the difficulty is going to go through the roof.

          [–]Anenome5 5 points6 points  (0 children)

          Suggest you replace the calculator in the OP with this one: http://www.coinish.com/calc/#

          which includes diff increase over time and thus is much more realistic.

          [–]ZombieMMMBrains 2 points3 points  (1 child)

          I am so lost.

          [–]ThePiachu[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          Well, mining boils down to answering:

          • Am I willing to invest a couple thousand dollars into this endeavour that I am ready to lose?

          If the answer is not "I can afford to lose that money, lets try it!", it would be best not to bother.

          [–]bitcoinfirehose 3 points4 points  (9 children)

          the GPU i bought a month and a half ago is making about 2.5BTC/mo for me; at current value i will clear ROI in a few more weeks. YMMV i guess...

          [–]salgat 17 points18 points  (8 children)

          Did you factor in the power costs also? The average cost for a 1 GPU miner will be around $42/month on electricity alone which would cut your profit down to approximately $23/month.

          http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%240.1174%2Fkwh+*+500w+*+30+days

          [–]ccrraapp 8 points9 points  (0 children)

          That is one the best use of WolframAlpha i have seen.

          Thank you for reminding me again how awesome Wolfram is. :)

          [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          Thank you, been looking for alot of these answers for awhile. This seems like a fun project to tinker with to really learn the process before investing serious hardware in. Thank you so much.

          [–]Skinkelynet75 1 point2 points  (1 child)

          Using a 16 Gb Ram, 2 Gpu's (660 TI) would i be able to make a profit, considering i do not pay the electrical bill?

          [–]ThePiachu[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          I'm guessing those mine at 100MHash/s each, so you would be making this much. NVidias aren't the best miners.

          [–]bennyha1 1 point2 points  (1 child)

          what can i use to mine with my mac. im a noob in every way

          [–]kerstn 1 point2 points  (4 children)

          following this formula you will lose 300 dollars on investing in a 5GH/s BFL miner. In the course of a year. The unit costs 274 dollars.

          [–]ThePiachu[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          Well, you can always speculate on future price rise. At any rate, if the numbers don't add up, they don't add up.

          [–]SteamTrading 0 points1 point  (2 children)

          Are you sure you entered 5GH/s into the calculator correctly? 5 GH/s is 5000 MH/s, and I get that the break even time with the current difficulty is 8 days.

          [–]kerstn 0 points1 point  (1 child)

          Multiply difficulty by 10 and lower trading price by 20. As OP suggested was a good margin.

          [–]SteamTrading 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          Oh, didn't see that part of the estimation... Looks like the break even point for Difficulty * 10 & -$20 is much higher now...

          It would be impossible to get a BFL 5 GH/s for $274 anyways :/

          [–]PzGren 3 points4 points  (2 children)

          Thuis may be a little off topic, but does anybody know what those botnet BTC mining programs look like that piggyback on your hardware?

          Are they profitable? how many "normal" desktop PCs have to be infected for these guys to actually make money?

          I downloaded a torrent recently and there were claims that their was BTC software hidden within.

          [–]ThePiachu[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

          Well, does your GPU act louder than usual? Is it hotter? If so, it might be the case.

          On the other hand, you might have some malware that is just out there to steal your wallet - beware of decrypting it and so forth.

          It isn't too profitable. Generally it is more lucrative to do spam and what have you than to mine Bitcoins. Stealing wallets might be a plausible attack.

          [–]PzGren 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          Yeah it seems WAY out there to actually have someone install a BTC miner but in the comments there were a few comments on TPB claiming this guy was packing mining programs on his torrents.

          Interestingly, the torrent(its a game) installed a strange little commnd window in my applocal file that would launch on startup, I erased it and my GPU defintiely isnt working hard, so I think im good but if anybody wants to check it out here is the TPB page

          [–]garr255 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          The answer is yes, mining is still extremely profitable IF you get in on an ASIC hardware order that has already been placed. Currently the only way to do this is to purchase shares of mining company, https://btct.co/security/COGNITIVE

          [–]deafinitely 1 point2 points  (1 child)

          This is a serious flaw in the design of bitcoin. Eventually, some massive entity will control 51% of the network. Why not create a new protocol that requires everyone using the network to help verify the network? In this way, it is guaranteed that no one entity will control 51% of the network. For example, in order to spend a coin, I first have to verify for myself that the previous block was correct and pass that on to other nodes, or something like this.

          [–]ThePiachu[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          What you are describing is what Bitcoin does. There are also various other means of preventing a 51% attack used by other alt-coins. Also, as far as I remember Bitcoin has a mechanism designed to prevent orphaning of blocks by chains that contain fewer transactions and transactions that are younger. This means that a 51% attack might damage the network, but not destroy it completely.

          [–]TheCheesy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          As someone who has never bothered. Litecoin, it mines at 10% cpu doesn't use gpu, why do you skip all the basic stuff?

          [–]NathanFontaine 1 point2 points  (5 children)

          If I buy the "60 GH/S BITCOIN MINER" form butter fly labs would I make a noticeable profit?

          [–]domorethanyoucan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          No. They haven't shipped any ASIC hardware. There is some question as to the hardware existing or shipping ever/while it's still profitable to run it.

          [–]ThePiachu[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          Put in 60000 in the speed bracket and see the results.

          [–]fctc 0 points1 point  (2 children)

          It's possible, there haven't been a huge number shipped though. http://decentralizedhashing.com/bitcoin-mining-equipment-table/ (4 mo later)

          [–]andreireiand 0 points1 point  (1 child)

          My question is - all these old or unprofitable ASIC mining hardware modules - it's amaizing how people are willing to pay for useless hardware. Take for example, the below ebay advertisement (for Bitcoin ASIC Blade miner ASICminer, 10.7GH/S):

          http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=131063082273&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:GB:1123

          and do a quick computation as following:

          http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/a/fc5fef9fcc

          we can clearly see this useless piece of hardware that's getting sold at ~500 pounds - not only won't pay for itself, but will start losing money after 6 months ...

          it's amazing how one can profit from people's ignorance.

          [–]bitterbit 0 points1 point  (1 child)

          (Comment moved to http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/18s53t/5jwbu755zw7sk1dbak759dlxabsnhhdjenrkuxrtfetht1rajc/c8hket6)