Quote from: thsart on November 06, 2017, 06:24:45 PM

I have a complete newbie question. I have $1000 to start and I'm looking at these 2 options to purchase Ethereum.

1. Just buy Ethereum at the open market. Price around $300

2. Buying a cloud mining contract from Genesis Mining
- 2 Years Ether Mining
- Price: $869
- $30 MH/s

Help me with the math. What is the best option.

Just buy Ethereum. Cloud contracts are dubious and there is a good chance you would not even get your money back with one. If you want to mine you would be better off building your own rig.
For $1,000 you could buy a single Nvidia GTX 1080Ti ($700) and a single Ethereum coin. Put the GPU into your current desktop and you will get more hashrate than the mining contract, plus you would have an Ethereum to hold.