Author Topic: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?  (Read 12779 times)

LaMoustacheFrancaise

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Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« on: September 06, 2017, 08:52:35 AM »
Everyone know how cheap Bitcoin used to be and how a few people got quite a good stash by mining it from their house using their good old computer.
Nowadays, I think it is totally worthless to try mining crypto-money by yourself, with the market overcrownded and the cost of all the technicals issues.
It has become a professional job.
I found out that Genesis Mining was offering customers to rent hasing powers from their facilities.
They are having a new program starting soon who offers to mine bitcoin for 30$.
So you are renting basically computers that do the mining for you, and you get the results of the mining for you.
I know that crypto-money might sounds risky but it seems like the trend keeps going up and new moneys are also starting to climb really fast ( Etherum for exemple )
So, Should I try it ?
I want to specify that I'm french and I don't have enough money to invest in a Vanguard fund for now. So I am looking online  for ways to invest the small amount of money I have , that is why I will try to review every possibilities.
Cheers.

ketchup

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2017, 09:07:10 AM »
Truly the time to invest in this sort of thing was around March.  I jumped in in May/June (bought a few graphics cards and started mining) and made some good returns, but am gearing up to sell off the graphics cards (for more than I paid) due to returns going down substantially (mining difficulty increases not matching market upswing) and unrelated hardware failure (I was using a repurposed old PC).

Anyone offering to let you essentially buy a bitcoin for $30 seems sketchy as hell.  1BTC is worth $4,552 right now.  If I could legitimately buy 1BTC today for $30 I'd cash out my 401k to do it, sell it all tomorrow, and retire in luxury.

Interest Compound

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2017, 09:30:13 AM »
Is it worth checking out stock options? Forex? Penny stocks? All have a similar risk/reward, and all will let you start with as little as $30.

The question you have to ask yourself, if bitcoin mining with the hardware they're giving you is expected to be profitable...why are they giving it up for $30?

Frankly, as long as you're susceptible to schemes like this, you'll likely never get ahead.

shotgunwilly

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2017, 09:36:01 AM »
Anyone offering to let you essentially buy a bitcoin for $30 seems sketchy as hell.  1BTC is worth $4,552 right now.  If I could legitimately buy 1BTC today for $30 I'd cash out my 401k to do it, sell it all tomorrow, and retire in luxury.

You misunderstood.  He's talking about a "mining pool" where basically you provide capital, they use it to mine bitcoin, and you get a return.

alexpkeaton

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #4 on: September 06, 2017, 10:02:39 AM »
Mining only really pays off if the price of bitcoin keeps increasing. But, in that case, you're better off just buying bitcoin directly as a speculative investment.

The reason mining doesn't pay is that competition drives the return down. And some of your competitors don't have to pay for electricity, like those running botnets or abusing their work computers. In the price of bitcoin is flat your expected return is negative. If the price goes up, why not just buy it?

ketchup

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #5 on: September 06, 2017, 10:49:36 AM »
Anyone offering to let you essentially buy a bitcoin for $30 seems sketchy as hell.  1BTC is worth $4,552 right now.  If I could legitimately buy 1BTC today for $30 I'd cash out my 401k to do it, sell it all tomorrow, and retire in luxury.

You misunderstood.  He's talking about a "mining pool" where basically you provide capital, they use it to mine bitcoin, and you get a return.
Ah.  Got it.  I was actually on the other side of that (selling hashing power on NiceHash) when my mining machine was going.  I had a pretty good thing going when Ethereum jumped in price and hashing difficulty hadn't risen to match just yet.

I agree with other posters though: just buying Bitcoin or Ethereum or whatever probably makes way more sense than trying to play the buying-hashing-power-to-mine game.  And is simpler.

waltworks

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2017, 11:33:31 AM »
The more questions I see like this the less I want anything to do with crypto "currencies"... it's about like your shoeshine boy giving you stock tips.

Edit: banner ad on this post: "Invest your IRA in Bitcoin!"

Once I unload these damn tulips and Beanie Babies I'm going all in on crypto, baby.

-W

moof

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #7 on: September 06, 2017, 11:39:52 AM »
It's a big darn bubble.  Period.  If any of the libertarian fantasies about it start coming true it will get outlawed in more and more countries and become worthless.  China is just the start of this trend.  So if you want to gamble <5% of your cash on hand, go for it, but make no illusion that it is anythung beyond gambling.

Regardless, if you can't scrounge up enough to invest you should not be worrying about returns yet.  Go cut your spending, find ways to grow your earnings, and invest according to your investment plan (oh yeah, go write one down and follow it).

Scortius

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #8 on: September 06, 2017, 11:40:42 AM »
Agreed, a recent Reddit FI or PF post asked for investment options and a good 75% of the replies were simply 'Buy Crypto'. Sure sounds like the shoeshine chorus is getting louder.

ooeei

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #9 on: September 06, 2017, 01:06:14 PM »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cryptocurrencies

Yeah Bitcoin and a handful of others have done really well if you got in at the start, but there are over 1000 others nobody has ever heard of.

Yeah if you'd gotten in on BTC early and held on you'd be rich. How many people did that? Most people who got in early also sold early. How many people spent a bunch of money mining the "next big thing" and ended up with nothing?

It's a gamble, pure and simple. If you think the prices are going to continue to rise on your preferred currency, just buy some. Paying a company to mine it for you is just a roundabout way of buying it. Keep in mind you need somewhere to store it, and somewhere to exchange it that is reliable. Additionally there are transaction costs to keep in mind, and there's little/no recourse if you get scammed/hacked. There have been more than one occasions where a popular exchange or holding company just decides to shut down and take everyone's money.

Personally I think your money would be just as well spent at a roulette wheel, but it's your call.

shotgunwilly

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #10 on: September 06, 2017, 04:04:32 PM »
The more questions I see like this the less I want anything to do with crypto "currencies"... it's about like your shoeshine boy giving you stock tips.

Edit: banner ad on this post: "Invest your IRA in Bitcoin!"

Once I unload these damn tulips and Beanie Babies I'm going all in on crypto, baby.

-W

Goodluck with that attitude.

I'll see you in 5 years when the cryptocurrency market cap is in the Trillions and you missed out. 

Blockchain technology is going to be very big. 

Tonyahu

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #11 on: September 06, 2017, 04:10:07 PM »
The more questions I see like this the less I want anything to do with crypto "currencies"... it's about like your shoeshine boy giving you stock tips.

Edit: banner ad on this post: "Invest your IRA in Bitcoin!"

Once I unload these damn tulips and Beanie Babies I'm going all in on crypto, baby.

-W

Tulips and Beanie Babies have no real use cases. Blockchain technology does and it will radically change the world over the next few years.

You are akin to the people who said "the internet is dumb and will never work".

waltworks

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #12 on: September 06, 2017, 07:23:40 PM »
Tulips and Beanie Babies have no real use cases. Blockchain technology does and it will radically change the world over the next few years.

You are akin to the people who said "the internet is dumb and will never work".

Once ordinary people are buying/selling actual stuff using crypto currencies in meaningful numbers, I will concede your point. That's not to say any of the existing crypto "currencies" will be involved, of course.

Keep in mind - "currency" only has a "use case" when it's used on a widespread basis for exchange of things with intrinsic value. US dollars are made from paper. They are inherently worthless. But because they are widely used for exchange, they have value. Bitcoin, not so much, as of right now.

People are just buying to hoard/speculate and the scammers have moved into prey on noobs. That is NOT a good sign.

-W

the_gastropod

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #13 on: September 06, 2017, 07:42:49 PM »
Goodluck with that attitude.

I'll see you in 5 years when the cryptocurrency market cap is in the Trillions and you missed out. 

Blockchain technology is going to be very big.

Well, Paris Hilton is pushing an altcoin (https://twitter.com/parishilton/status/904456098035286016) And Robert Shiller thinks Bitcoin is a classic bubble. (https://qz.com/1067557/robert-shiller-wrote-the-book-on-bubbles-he-says-the-best-example-right-now-is-bitcoin/). I think I'm with the Nobel Prize winning economist on this one.

TomTX

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #14 on: September 06, 2017, 07:43:43 PM »
The more questions I see like this the less I want anything to do with crypto "currencies"... it's about like your shoeshine boy giving you stock tips.

Edit: banner ad on this post: "Invest your IRA in Bitcoin!"

Once I unload these damn tulips and Beanie Babies I'm going all in on crypto, baby.

-W

Goodluck with that attitude.

I'll see you in 5 years when the cryptocurrency market cap is in the Trillions and you missed out. 

Blockchain technology is going to be very big.

You are conflating to VERY different things.

Here's the equivalent, circa 1987  "Computer technology is going to be very big" and betting it all on Commodore. And WordStar.

Sure, blockchain stuff will probably get very big. However, that doesn't mean that your specific cryptocurrencies (or any current cryptocurrencies) will be worth anything.

cantgrowone

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #15 on: September 06, 2017, 10:59:03 PM »
You're better off putting that $30 in BTC. It will give you 0.0065563 BTC and cost a few dollars in fees, but you will own it.

I spent $20 on a cloud mining scheme like that in 2014. The company shut down a few months later and I was left with nothing. Let alone, the payback was ~6 months for $20.

I mine, but would not put my real money into this stuff. It's too volatile.

Kalergie

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #16 on: September 06, 2017, 11:55:50 PM »
This is history totally repeating itself. For people arguing that crypto will be the next big thing. I suggest to consider these:

In the early 20th Century, the car was the next big thing. How many of the original car manufacturers are still operational? Did the car become a big thing? Yes!
In the mid 20th Century commercial aviation was going to be the next big thing. How many of the PAN AMs and TWAs are still operational? Did commercial aviation become a big thing? Yes!
In the early 21st century, the internet was the next big thing. How many original Internet companies are still operational? Did the internet become a big thing? Yes!
Today, electric vehicles, solar power, AI and crypto are considered to be the next big thing. Will they be? Probably! How many of today's start-ups will be operational let alone booming in the future? God knows!

Betting on one currency to make it big is like betting on roulette. One of the numbers will win. But how do you know it is your number that will? Buy the whole roulette table. Or better yet, buy VTSAX. :D

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #17 on: September 07, 2017, 12:22:45 AM »
I still have about a quarter million in Iraqi Dinars I purchased during my deployment in 2004. At the time I paid $200. Guess what it's worth today? About $215.

I knew some guys who bought many times more than I did because the Kuwaiti Dinar had shot up after the Gulf War and they thought the Iraq Dinar would do the same once all the oilfields came back online and the country unfucked itself. Obviously that hasn't happened and probably won't anytime soon so the value of Iraqi currency is pretty much unchanged.

At the end of the day at least I have some interesting looking money that's a nice souvenir to show my kids.



While bitcoin may end up becoming widely used and increase in value, it could also drop precipitously if some other Crypto currency gets adopted by the market instead.

ooeei

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #18 on: September 07, 2017, 06:33:40 AM »
The more questions I see like this the less I want anything to do with crypto "currencies"... it's about like your shoeshine boy giving you stock tips.

Edit: banner ad on this post: "Invest your IRA in Bitcoin!"

Once I unload these damn tulips and Beanie Babies I'm going all in on crypto, baby.

-W

Goodluck with that attitude.

I'll see you in 5 years when the cryptocurrency market cap is in the Trillions and you missed out. 

Blockchain technology is going to be very big.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/293053

Which one are you buying?

One of the big problems I see with these types of currencies is there is a finite number of the "coins" or whatever they're called in your currency of choice. Of course this is a big selling point for the people who like them, but that means they're more a commodity than a currency.

They're basically digital gold without near the history, and with much more competition. From a thread on gold: http://fortune.com/2012/02/09/warren-buffett-why-stocks-beat-gold-and-bonds/

lifeanon269

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #19 on: September 07, 2017, 06:50:51 AM »
This is history totally repeating itself. For people arguing that crypto will be the next big thing. I suggest to consider these:

In the early 20th Century, the car was the next big thing. How many of the original car manufacturers are still operational? Did the car become a big thing? Yes!
In the mid 20th Century commercial aviation was going to be the next big thing. How many of the PAN AMs and TWAs are still operational? Did commercial aviation become a big thing? Yes!
In the early 21st century, the internet was the next big thing. How many original Internet companies are still operational? Did the internet become a big thing? Yes!
Today, electric vehicles, solar power, AI and crypto are considered to be the next big thing. Will they be? Probably! How many of today's start-ups will be operational let alone booming in the future? God knows!

Betting on one currency to make it big is like betting on roulette. One of the numbers will win. But how do you know it is your number that will? Buy the whole roulette table. Or better yet, buy VTSAX. :D


This is a silly argument. Even though over the long term the companies involved in those markets are dramatically different over time, that doesn't mean that the individuals who invested into those original companies lost out or made poor investments. It's quite the contrary. Those who made original investments into many of the ground breaking companies that forged the industries we have today are some of the wealthiest people even if the markets that make up those industries are unrecognizable from their past selves.

I see a lot of people who claim to agree that cryto-currencies and blockchain technology will be around in the future and even be the next big thing, but then go on to say that bitcoin is a silly investment because we don't know which crypto-currency will be there in the future.

Sure, there might be some obscure crypto-currency that exists today that ends up over taking the market. Is that possible? Sure. Does that make bitcoin (or crypto-currencies in general) a bad investment because of that possible outcome? No way.

The truth though is that there is a lot of safe growth potential in the crypto-currencies that exist today, chief among them bitcoin. There is a lot of innovation as well as a lot of new investment vehicles and options that are being developed every day. In fact, there are even index investments you can now make so that you don't need to be fully invested in any one single currency. So if you truly believe crypto-currencies are hear to stay but don't feel comfortable being invested solely in bitcoin, then there are investment options for that as well.

Bitcoin is here to stay for quite the foreseeable future and I don't see that changing any time soon.

ooeei

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #20 on: September 07, 2017, 07:31:12 AM »
This is history totally repeating itself. For people arguing that crypto will be the next big thing. I suggest to consider these:

In the early 20th Century, the car was the next big thing. How many of the original car manufacturers are still operational? Did the car become a big thing? Yes!
In the mid 20th Century commercial aviation was going to be the next big thing. How many of the PAN AMs and TWAs are still operational? Did commercial aviation become a big thing? Yes!
In the early 21st century, the internet was the next big thing. How many original Internet companies are still operational? Did the internet become a big thing? Yes!
Today, electric vehicles, solar power, AI and crypto are considered to be the next big thing. Will they be? Probably! How many of today's start-ups will be operational let alone booming in the future? God knows!

Betting on one currency to make it big is like betting on roulette. One of the numbers will win. But how do you know it is your number that will? Buy the whole roulette table. Or better yet, buy VTSAX. :D


This is a silly argument. Even though over the long term the companies involved in those markets are dramatically different over time, that doesn't mean that the individuals who invested into those original companies lost out or made poor investments. It's quite the contrary. Those who made original investments into many of the ground breaking companies that forged the industries we have today are some of the wealthiest people even if the markets that make up those industries are unrecognizable from their past selves.

I see a lot of people who claim to agree that cryto-currencies and blockchain technology will be around in the future and even be the next big thing, but then go on to say that bitcoin is a silly investment because we don't know which crypto-currency will be there in the future.

Sure, there might be some obscure crypto-currency that exists today that ends up over taking the market. Is that possible? Sure. Does that make bitcoin (or crypto-currencies in general) a bad investment because of that possible outcome? No way.

The truth though is that there is a lot of safe growth potential in the crypto-currencies that exist today, chief among them bitcoin. There is a lot of innovation as well as a lot of new investment vehicles and options that are being developed every day. In fact, there are even index investments you can now make so that you don't need to be fully invested in any one single currency. So if you truly believe crypto-currencies are hear to stay but don't feel comfortable being invested solely in bitcoin, then there are investment options for that as well.

Bitcoin is here to stay for quite the foreseeable future and I don't see that changing any time soon.

I hate to break it to you, but anyone buying in today is not an "original investor". Prices back around 2010 were 14 cents for one bitcoin. Today they're $4,000 each. It's the classic risk/reward scenario. People who invested in BTC in 2012 were taking a big leap of faith, because nobody gave a shit about it and it was just as likely to crash to $0 as it was to balloon up. The same thing happens every time it increases in price. Do I keep my BTC or sell out and triple my money?

Will it keep rising to $8,000? Maybe. It might crash back down to $400 too. BTC are a very niche product, even today. They have high transaction costs, sketchy exchanges, and are generally seen as either drug money or some sort of weird internet money thing by the general public.

What will the next cryptocurrency be that has a 300,000% increase in price over 7 years? Your guess is as good as mine. What I can bet you is there will be hundreds that have a 0% increase, or lose money and waste mining resources.

"Safe growth" doesn't exist in non producing assets. Speculative chance does. All it takes is one big exchange being breached and losing a bunch of people's funds for the price to drop, or for a few major countries to decide they don't like it and make it illegal.


lifeanon269

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #21 on: September 07, 2017, 08:15:55 AM »
I hate to break it to you, but anyone buying in today is not an "original investor". Prices back around 2010 were 14 cents for one bitcoin. Today they're $4,000 each. It's the classic risk/reward scenario. People who invested in BTC in 2012 were taking a big leap of faith, because nobody gave a shit about it and it was just as likely to crash to $0 as it was to balloon up. The same thing happens every time it increases in price. Do I keep my BTC or sell out and triple my money?

Will it keep rising to $8,000? Maybe. It might crash back down to $400 too. BTC are a very niche product, even today. They have high transaction costs, sketchy exchanges, and are generally seen as either drug money or some sort of weird internet money thing by the general public.

What will the next cryptocurrency be that has a 300,000% increase in price over 7 years? Your guess is as good as mine. What I can bet you is there will be hundreds that have a 0% increase, or lose money and waste mining resources.

"Safe growth" doesn't exist in non producing assets. Speculative chance does. All it takes is one big exchange being breached and losing a bunch of people's funds for the price to drop, or for a few major countries to decide they don't like it and make it illegal.

Maybe they're not the pioneers of bitcoin back when it was only a few dollars, but those investing today will certainly be see as early adopters in the long run. When bitcoin becomes a $500 billion dollar market (I don't see that not happening at this point), then those putting their money into it today when it is only a $75 billion dollar market will surely be seen as early adopters. Further, from a growth perspective, a $500 billion dollar market for bitcoin by 2020 will give it a value of about $25k. So those early adopters will also be rewarded for their choice.

For bitcoin to fall to a value of $400, almost $70 billion dollars would need to exit the market. While that isn't impossible, it would be such a huge drastic change from the reality that is actually occurring in the market today. It is easy for somebody not in the market to think something like that could happen, but if you are actively involved in the crypto-currency community, you understand that the reality of a situation like that happening is on the far extreme end of unlikelihood. Repeating the mantra "what will the next big crypto-currency be, nobody knows" doesn't add any validity to your argument.

trollwithamustache

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #22 on: September 07, 2017, 08:46:58 AM »
If you want to make money mining, you need cheap power. Need it bad. its also nice to have the tech skills to set up/ troubleshoot your miner and switch currencies you mine if market conditions warrant it.

but you need cheap power.

Realize the could miners are marking up all their costs and letting you take all the risks.

lifeanon269

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #23 on: September 07, 2017, 08:56:05 AM »
This is a silly argument. The vast majority of people who invested big in new, unproven technologies through the market lost big.  You never hear about the losers though.  The data looking backward suffers from survivorship bias as well as the belief that the winners are winners because they are smart and not just lucky.

You completely missed the point. My argument wasn't that there weren't losers as well. My point was that even though the markets change drastically over the long term doesn't mean that original investments into those markets were failures. I was arguing against the point that even though many of the car manufacturers of yesterday are gone doesn't mean that investments prior to their departures were poor investments. Markets change for many reasons. Some times companies buyout other companies, some die a slow death, some make it big, yada yada. Essentially the argument made by Kalergie a few posts back was that because we don't know who the winners and losers are, we should refrain from putting any money into groundbreaking technologies. That is what I was referring to as silly and I stand by that statement.

Since it is still in the future, it is correct to state that no one knows whether bitcoin will be overtaken or make a good investment.  To paraphrase Ben Graham, "The future is a closed book." It is not even reasonably foreseeable that bitcoin will remain the primary cryptocurrency.  There are serious flaws (not subject to court jurisdiction, hard forking, exponential energy requirements) with the bitcoin technology that inhibit it being applied as a true currency.  Further, since it is decentralized, there is really no established mechanism or governing body for correcting these deficiencies within the bitcoin regime itself.  The only alternative is to start a new cryptocurrency that incorporates the desired features that bitcoin lacks.  This cuts agains the foreseeability of wide adoption of bitcoin, per se, or any other decentralized crytpocurreny to date.

Exponential energy requirements? Can you explain how it is exponential? On a transaction by transaction basis going forward, it will actually accommodate more transactions per kilowatt of energy used as the technology progresses. Plus, with off-chain transaction capability coming in the future, it will be possible to process millions of transactions using very little energy. Yes, bitcoin is a huge energy hog today, but I don't see it as a long term problem that will inhibit its growth its nor do I see it as a serious like you say it is.

How is hard forking a serious flaw? Hard forking is not a flaw and over time will help the currency grow and be flexible to the demands of the market. Bitcoin is not supposed to be some rigid static code base that never changes. In fact, it is easily argued that any software that is static and rigid will actually be hindered by that fact. Hard forks allow the code base to change according to how the market dictates and if the market dictates that a certain code change be required, then a hard fork will allow the market to decide that. When this happens it is a good thing for the eco-system and the markets in the long term. Don't let media hype with fear, uncertainty, and doubt cloud that fact.

You state that there is safe growth potential with bitcoin.  Safety is most certainly not guaranteed by bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.  Nothing about bitcoin exhibits, nor about your argument establishes, a safety thesis of bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.  Safety in the short term is achieved by obtaining assets of stable value in a deep market so that one can be sure that they can be exchanged in the near future, either directly or indirectly, for other desired goods and services should the need arise.  And safety over the intermediate and long term derives from buying assets at a fair price with respect to their intrinsic value so that the investment return keeps up with inflation, taxes, and any fees, thereby providing a reasonable likelihood of having the same or more purchasing power at the end of the holding period.  Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are insanely volatile, so they do not provide a reasonable stable short term value, and therefore are not safe in the short term.   And it is impossible to determine what the intrinsic value of a bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency, is (they have no book value, they generate no income) and whether one is buying at a fair price with respect to that, and therefore they cannot be said to be a safe long term investment either.

Safety in the short-term is achieved by looking at the trends that are occurring and then realizing that because of those trends, there will undoubtedly be new money flowing into bitcoin over the next several years. Futures and options will allow new investment vehicles for bitcoin. Countries are making strides to adopt and/or legalize bitcoin as legal tender for transactions. Many other countries as also investing a lot of money into mining operations themselves which shows that many governments are looking to secure future bitcoins in their reserves. Contrary to the claim that its mostly used for illicit activity, law enforcement agencies have gone on the record to say that they're actually able to better trace monetary activity in the bitcoin realm than with traditional currencies and that they're seeing a decline in illicit activity in the eco-system as a whole. So yes, when I say it is a relatively safe investment, I say this because I can take an objective look at what is happening across the globe as a whole with regard to the bitcoin market and what trends are occurring. In order for this trend to reverse, we'll not only need to see a complete reversal in these trends, but it would need to happen on a global scale involving numerous governments and businesses across the world. Even when the price isn't moving, you have to realize millions of dollars are flowing into bitcoin at those times due to its inflationary nature currently.

The old "intrinsic value" argument gets tiring. A lot of things that humans place value on have no "intrinsic value", but that doesn't really matter at all. All that matters is whether humans actually value it, not whether or not they value it because of any intrinsic property (whatever that truly means). It can easily be argued that humans value bitcoin because of the intrinsic value that mathematics provide. Bitcoin is a culmination of hundreds of years of mathematical principals that have finally allowed us to create a system that allows humans to take trust out of the equation when trading between each other. These mathematical principals have become the foundation that humans can universally place their trust in so that us human beings don't need to rely upon our naturally untrustworthy nature. To me, that's about as great of an intrinsic value as you can get and I'm betting my money that the world will see it that way in 10-20 years too.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2017, 08:59:36 AM by lifeanon269 »

ooeei

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #24 on: September 07, 2017, 09:33:10 AM »
Maybe they're not the pioneers of bitcoin back when it was only a few dollars, but those investing today will certainly be see as early adopters in the long run. When bitcoin becomes a $500 billion dollar market (I don't see that not happening at this point), then those putting their money into it today when it is only a $75 billion dollar market will surely be seen as early adopters. Further, from a growth perspective, a $500 billion dollar market for bitcoin by 2020 will give it a value of about $25k. So those early adopters will also be rewarded for their choice.

For bitcoin to fall to a value of $400, almost $70 billion dollars would need to exit the market. While that isn't impossible, it would be such a huge drastic change from the reality that is actually occurring in the market today. It is easy for somebody not in the market to think something like that could happen, but if you are actively involved in the crypto-currency community, you understand that the reality of a situation like that happening is on the far extreme end of unlikelihood. Repeating the mantra "what will the next big crypto-currency be, nobody knows" doesn't add any validity to your argument.

Ah, so you have some sort of insider knowledge that tells you it's going to quintuple in value? That's quite the bold prediction, and is backed by approximately 0 evidence.

New investors constantly flood into investments that are rising, until eventually they don't. We've seen this same thing happen with stocks, housing, oil, gold, and every other financial instrument out there. "It's going up so fast, of course it'll keep going up!" There were people preaching this same stuff during the housing crisis, and tech bubble in 2000. "Yeah we missed the early money, but by next year this will be double anyway so jump in! Look at these 20 people who all made a fortune, you can't lose!"

Maybe it won't fall to $400, although less than a year ago it was only $700. There hasn't been a fundamental change in how it works or what it's used for since then, it's all been speculative run up. It's not unheard of for a commodity to drop to prices lower than a year ago. The value of a barrel of oil dropped to less than 1/2 of its previous year value in 2015. Gold dropped to less than 20% of its value from 1980 to 2000. BTC dropping to $2000 or $1000 or far less could happen no problem, it just takes one big event to shake people's faith in it.

That same crazy positivity that caused this huge price increase can turn around very quickly and become negativity that destroys it.




Michael in ABQ

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #25 on: September 07, 2017, 10:29:46 AM »
These tulip bulbs are different....

shotgunwilly

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #26 on: September 07, 2017, 10:59:55 AM »
Goodluck with that attitude.

I'll see you in 5 years when the cryptocurrency market cap is in the Trillions and you missed out. 

Blockchain technology is going to be very big.

You are conflating to VERY different things.

Here's the equivalent, circa 1987  "Computer technology is going to be very big" and betting it all on Commodore. And WordStar.

Sure, blockchain stuff will probably get very big. However, that doesn't mean that your specific cryptocurrencies (or any current cryptocurrencies) will be worth anything.

And I completely understand that. Unlike people who say "cryptocurrencies are fantasy digital coins worth nothing."  Because they clearly haven't looked into the actual technology of them and do not understand what some of them are for.

There ARE a lot of scam coins, worthless coins, coins that will fail. A high percentage of them.  I'm looking at the blockchain technologies that will actually solve real world problems. Not the ones just trying to be the next bitcoin or a digital currency that tries to become the main transfer of money.  That's not what most of these are trying to do. 

If anyone is curious about a blockchain that can solve a real world problem, research Factom.  For starters: "Factom provides a distributed mechanism to lock in data, making data verifiable and independently auditable. This simple function is extremely powerful when applied to business transactions and processes. Factom enables people and businesses to use a mathematically provable “notarization” service.  Factom’s use cases span from being used as a shared ledger for multiple parties as a source of truth (secured by multi-signature keys) to creating an immutable, indisputable trail for “proof of process” or “standard of care”"

You will see that the coin tied to it is not designed to be a digital currency, but a reward/incentive for the decentralized "servers" that make the technology work/run.  And it is very much needed in the system.  Now this is just an example, and will Factom be the one that is successful in becoming the standard for the US, or the world, or a certain industry (Mortgages for example have a very good use case for Factom)?  Maybe, maybe not. No one knows.  But you can follow these closely and see if they start to gain traction and start to become successful, or if another blockchain starts to take over, and may be a better investment.  I have a very strong feeling that blockchain will be huge and many good investments will arise from it.  That's not to say that it isn't a gamble at this point. But I'm willing to reduce some risk with diversification and take that gamble with a portion of my money.

Factom had a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop blockchain for a digitized medical record system.

Ethereum has an Enterprise Ethereum Alliance of many organizations and companies getting involved to support and monitor the growth of this blockchain and crypto.  Companies like Microsoft, ING, BP, Intel, JP Morgan, and many more are members because they KNOW that they better be monitoring this technology, as it may become very disruptive. (https://entethalliance.org/members/)

So I'm not suggesting you go out and dump money into cryptocurrencies, but if all of these are excited/worried/interested and monitoring this technology... then maybe we should do the same. 

lifeanon269

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #27 on: September 07, 2017, 11:06:30 AM »
No, actually nothing really needs to exit the market.  There is not $70 billion actual dollars in the market for cryptos.  Only a fraction of bitcoins are transacted on a regular basis, the rest are hoarded.  But, the price of all bitcoin are quoted as if they could be sold at the last transacted price.  All you need is one large motivated (panicked?) seller to decide they want out and have them sell enough bitcoins -- at any price -- to consume available bid liquidity (which I can assure you is not $70 billion of actual cash waiting to be used for all the bitcoins at a moments notice).  At that point, when everyone inevitably rushes for the exits since there is no actual value to backup the bitcoins, there would be no buyers and the price of individual bitcoins will evaporate, and with it the stated market cap for all bitcoins. $70 billion of actual money would not need to change hands for this to happen.  The value of bitcoins exists only in the minds of those who fancy them.

I agree, but what you're saying is true only in the case where bitcoin were to go to $0. In the example I used where bitcoin were to fall to a value of $400 implies then that there are buyers at the price of $400 and therefore the market depth reaches equilibrium between buyers and sellers at that point. Therefore, given its now new price of $400 there would have likely been about $70 billion that had exited the market, otherwise the agreed upon price wouldn't have been determined by market equilibrium. If there were a large motivated seller(s) that caused a market panic sell, and the market stabilized at $400, then at some point there would need to be buyers at that price to cause the market to stabilize.

waltworks

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #28 on: September 07, 2017, 11:08:23 AM »












No way could this be a fad...

-W

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #29 on: September 07, 2017, 11:16:53 AM »
I remember someone posting about bitcoin in a forum I frequented about a decade ago. There were distributed mining groups back then and a regular person could actually get a few bitcoins with just using their personal computer. Or just buy them outright as they were trading at somewhere around $20 or less. I remember thinking it was a gimmick back then. Of course odds are even if I had acquired a few I would have sold them long ago before they went up thousands of percent.

shotgunwilly

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #30 on: September 07, 2017, 11:42:36 AM »
No way could this be a fad...

-W

Since you're so sure, why wouldn't you short the hell out of it?

Bitcoin may die.  Other blockchains WILL be successful.

waltworks

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #31 on: September 07, 2017, 12:02:04 PM »
Shorting has 2 big problems - timing (you need to know *when* the crash will happen), and limited returns (unless you lever up like crazy). Not something I want anything to do with.

It's far easier to just not buy into speculative insanity and invest in stuff that has actual intrinsic value of some sort (stocks, bonds, real estate). The lazy man's short!

-W

Kalergie

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #32 on: September 07, 2017, 01:27:11 PM »
Check this out. in Dubai you can buy an apartment with bitcoin. Not sure if this is just a marketing move to get attention.

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/real-estate/you-can-buy-this-dubai-property-by-paying-bitcoin

effigy98

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #33 on: September 07, 2017, 01:50:56 PM »
Mining only really pays off if the price of bitcoin keeps increasing.

It also pays off to learn about the technology, the hardware, work thru all the problems, learn basic scripting, etc. I have learned so much in just a month of mining, building rigs, etc. It is a good project to push you to learn or refresh skills you would not normally learn. I recommend everyone just build one rig (could be as simple as a single 1050ti $150 video card), get some wallets, mine different coins, really learn about the space so you understand it better so it is not so confusing. There are many random job skills you can learn that can pay you big money outside of crypto and/or just help you with day to day computer issues.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2017, 02:02:13 PM by effigy98 »

effigy98

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #34 on: September 07, 2017, 02:00:46 PM »
I would recommend not investing (gambling) more then a few hundred dollars in bitcoin unless you have maxed all your tax sheltered investment accounts and payed off your debts (with the exception of the house). There is a huge potential for it to take off like nothing we have ever seen before in our lifetime, but there is a good chance it will go to $0 as well so that money you put in should be something you could forget about while holding long and not be too concerned if you lost it.

LaMoustacheFrancaise

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #35 on: September 09, 2017, 07:36:08 AM »
Thanks everyone for your answers.
I have learned a lot from them and I can now see that investing in mining power from a compagny is not worth the try for the kind of person I am ( a 20 years old lad).
I do still see crypto currencies getting big in the world in the next coming years.
But it is pure gamble to bet on only one type of those currencies, as many of you said, Bitcoin might disseapear in 10 years or lose value. We could also look back at that post in 10 years and see that one bitcoin can actually buy a brand new Audi. Who knows?
Like effigy98 said, I think I might give a try in mining some of those currencies by myself, just for the fun of it.
It will also be an interesting study case for my university diploma, as I am taking economic classes and I need to write a memoir on the history of money.
Does anyone can show me where I could learn how to mine by myself?
Regards.

TomTX

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #36 on: September 09, 2017, 03:12:04 PM »
Mining only really pays off if the price of bitcoin keeps increasing.

It also pays off to learn about the technology, the hardware, work thru all the problems, learn basic scripting, etc. I have learned so much in just a month of mining, building rigs, etc. It is a good project to push you to learn or refresh skills you would not normally learn. I recommend everyone just build one rig (could be as simple as a single 1050ti $150 video card), get some wallets, mine different coins, really learn about the space so you understand it better so it is not so confusing. There are many random job skills you can learn that can pay you big money outside of crypto and/or just help you with day to day computer issues.

Sure, as a hobby learning to do your own mining with reasonable cash outlay - I have no objections.

LAGuy

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #37 on: September 09, 2017, 10:06:16 PM »
I'm out here living in Bangkok until next year. EVERY expat/foreigner I come across is either in or getting into blockchain. This is the sort of place that attracts dreamers and scammers, and blockchain is perfect for them. They all think I'm a fool for sticking to my boring stocks. Sure looks like classic bubble behavior to me, regardless of the merits of blockchain technology.

Jeferson

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #38 on: September 10, 2017, 02:21:01 AM »
wouldn't it be better just to buy few coins? This sounds way too much complicated to me.

runbikerun

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #39 on: September 10, 2017, 02:50:26 PM »
No way could this be a fad...

-W

Since you're so sure, why wouldn't you short the hell out of it?

Bitcoin may die.  Other blockchains WILL be successful.

"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

If someone could accurately and safely predict when a bubble was going to pop, they could make themselves billionaires. "Should I be shorting cryptocurrencies?" is a question that needs a whole set of requirements to be met in order to be answerable in the positive, and cryptocurrencies being in a bubble is just the first and simplest of those requirements.

maizefolk

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #40 on: September 10, 2017, 07:03:00 PM »
A number of different exchanges like Bitfinex and Kraken allow short selling. I cannot find recent numbers but I know at one point the annual interest charged on borrowed bitcoins to open short positions was on the order of 2-4%.

Of course you have to trust the exchange to remain solvent and continue to process withdrawals if the price of bitcoin were to suddenly decline radically. ;-)

josh4trunks

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #41 on: September 12, 2017, 10:20:48 AM »
Here's my bitcoin mining story.

I was in college, really into linux at the time (still my main operating system along with FreeBSD for servers) and heard about bitcoin mining from a podcast in early 2011, I think BTC was valued around ~$1 at the time. They had an online mining calculator where you could see how much your profit vs power was, which even factored in difficultly increasing and BTC appreciation. I am fairly conservative and always just assumed BTC would not appreciate. If you did assume BTC would appreciate, it was better to just buy BTC. I really did not care about money in college*, I just thought it was cool I could use my computer skills to build a money printing machine.

*I never had a real job until I graduated with my environmental engineering degree. I just got money from parents for food/rent, or took out loans. I was always fairly cheap though, never spent money on anything but essentials. As soon as I graduated I realized I had $40K in debt (which my parents paid half of since they used my loans as well).


So, I bought a 2 AMD graphic cards, for a bit over $200 after rebate and selling a game code they came with. Setup a headless mining server, running Ubunut Linux. It was super complicated at the time to make the server headless since the graphics cards required a graphical interface (X) normally.
I remember there were so many little details I tweaked over the few years I mined. I started with a mainstream mining program written in python. I remember every once in a while, someone would make a breakthrough with the algorithm and efficiency would increase by a few percent.
I overclocked the crap out of my AMD cards, to the point they would cause the graphics card to stop responding. I even setup a monitoring program to watch if my cards all of a suddenly dropped below some ridiculously high temperature, I think around 68C. Since that meant the program shutdown and I needed to SSH into the server to restart it.
Another think you wanted to optimize was your mining party. I switched to one that had some extra features like sending your mining program hints at what was already tried, so it could increase group efficiency slightly.
I eventually found a new mining program, I believe CGMiner. It was written in C, had features to monitor your graphics card for you, and manage the overclock speed which was better then my manual management.

Things worked great for a few years, I think my server made like $1+ a day, which was about double the electricity cost. I would build up my bitcoin and cash them out to amazon gift cards anytime I needed to buy something. At one point I kept my bitcoin in an online wallet that was super popular at the time. They got hacked, and I lost about half of what I had stored there. I think about 7BTC, at the time, probably worth $45 at most. I was sad and vowed to learn how to use an offline wallet. Eventually ASICS were coming out, difficulty was increasing rapidly, so graphics card mining was becoming not worth it. I sold my AMD cards for nearly the same $200 I bought them for on ebay.

In all I think I got paid out about 50BTC from my mining group. What is funny is my miner was lucky and actually was successful minting twice. So if I wasn't in a mining group I would have made 100BTC. I cashed most of this out at around $2-3

Cornel_Westside

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #42 on: September 15, 2017, 11:04:05 AM »
If you want to mine cryptocurrencies, you should probably not mine Bitcoin. If you do lots of research into which altcoins are

1) still cheap
2) have technology that is unique and will be useful in the future
3) be efficient to mine (kind of similar to #1)

Then you should consider it. Bitcoin mining is basically inefficient for an individual. There are server farms for this whose efficiencies you can't match. There are altcoins that are still relatively cheap to mine. AEON may be a long term bet - it's a lite version of Monero that is still very cheap and efficient to mine, and right now it is priced very low because of some code rebasing that is going on that has caused some to sell. It may not work out, but Monero is one of the top 10 in market cap and it is very slow, so a lite version that is still anonymous has value. But invariably all of the top 10 coins are very inefficient at a consumer level. If you want it to be profitable enough to be worthwhile, you either have to trust in the long term growth of a mainstream coin or to mine a cheaper coin that may not work out. And you can always sell your mined altcoins if you panic about the future.

lifeanon269

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #43 on: September 15, 2017, 11:47:17 AM »
If you want to mine cryptocurrencies, you should probably not mine Bitcoin.

...

Bitcoin mining is basically inefficient for an individual. There are server farms for this whose efficiencies you can't match.

The idea that bitcoin mining for the individual isn't possible or efficient I think is completely exaggerated.

The biggest advantages that larger mining operations have are cheap electricity and being able to purchase hardware in bulk, at a discount, and often with prioritized shipping by the manufacture to ensure that they receive them as soon as they're available. Those things don't impact the profitability of my own mining however assuming that my hardware is efficient enough for the costs of my electricity.

Often (but not always), large mining operations are using the same ASICs that an individual would employ, they just chain them together to aggregate their hash rate. So any increase in difficulty due to a rapid increase in computing power across the network will impact a large mining operation just as much as it will impact an individual. It is just that a larger operation might be able weather a period of lower mining profitability better if their electricity costs are lower.

Also, many mining operations often need to sell off their earned bitcoin immediately into the market in order to continue to stay operational over the short term. So their mining profitably becomes directly dependent upon the current price of bitcoin at that time. Whereas an individual will likely have the option to hold their bitcoin for a longer period of time and then turn a once unprofitable mining operation into something that was profitable over the long term well after their mining rig became too inefficient to continue to run.

I run an AvalonMiner 741 at my home. I don't exactly have the cheapest electricity (about 11 cents/KWh). I've been running it for about 3 months and only have about 2 more months before the equipment is paid off. At that point any bitcoin earned will be profits minus electricity costs. I foresee myself running this miner for about 1.5 years give or take. I have actually been about 40% more profitable that I had originally calculated before I had purchased the unit. If I had the electrical circuit capacity in my home, I'd probably purchase another AvalonMiner 741.

Now, is mining more profitable than just purchasing bitcoin and holding it? That ultimately depends upon what happens to the price of bitcoin during the period where mining would take place. In extreme bull markets it is probably better to just buy bitcoin and hold it. However, under more stable market conditions, there is probably less of a clear cut winner between the two.

If someone were to choose to mine bitcoin at their home, one of the biggest pieces of advice I'd give that would have the biggest impact on their profitability would be to look for a brand new efficient miner that is new to market and see if you can purchase it and get one of the first ones. That will get you a head start in utilizing one of the newest ASIC chipsets with the greatest efficiency. Even large server farms won't be able to get huge farms of newly manufactured ASICs as quick as an individual can get a single one online. Getting a month's worth of work out of a brand new miner will give you a good boost in mining profitability over the life of the hardware you purchased.

hgjjgkj

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #44 on: September 15, 2017, 12:09:14 PM »
LifeAnon, got any resources where to learn more about crypto mining? Was looking to better understand the cashflow breakeven. Would it be possible to do something like purchase old PC equipment and daisy chain them together to mine?

TomTX

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #45 on: September 15, 2017, 12:19:56 PM »
LifeAnon, got any resources where to learn more about crypto mining? Was looking to better understand the cashflow breakeven. Would it be possible to do something like purchase old PC equipment and daisy chain them together to mine?

For most coins - only if those old PCs have really good graphics cards, and you have really cheap electricity.

First mining was done on a general purpose CPU.

Then it moved to a general purpose GPU with massive parallelization on the chip, speeding up the process immensely.

More and more, mining is going to custom-designed chips (ASIC) that are optimized for mining, speeding up the process further.

maizefolk

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #46 on: September 15, 2017, 01:25:00 PM »
As TomTX said, efficiency is the key thing to worry about with older hardware.

With good hardware/software for a given coin, the cost of electricity is often going to take 20-50% of the value of the coins mined. So it doesn't take a huge drop in performance per watt (as little as 2x) before you'd be losing money instead of making money.

waltworks

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #47 on: September 15, 2017, 03:44:07 PM »


Nowhere to go but up!

-W

TomTX

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Scandium

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Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
« Reply #49 on: September 18, 2017, 11:47:02 AM »
I decided to check out some crypocoins. Can buy several from Coinbase.com. Easy to set up account etc, all pleasant so far. Going to buy they charge 4% fee for credit card transaction! And something like 2% for bank transfer, each way! WTF? I know of few other (legit) financial transactions that have such horrendous fees. Weren't cryptos supposed to save us from the scummy rippoff banks?! This seems even worse.. That's not even to mention that the whole balance dropped a few percent within hours of buying.

Furthermore; in order to cash out you have to give your government ID and info. What's the point of an anarchist currency when the government can trance which is mine?!!

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!