Quote from: Biffa on January 16, 2018, 11:10:18 AM

My thoughts are you should have done more research into this beforehand.

Bitcoin mining is not something you can do at home. Its something you do in a datacenter where the miners can be kept cool and have lower electricity costs.

You also have to keep up with the difficulty increases by buying more miners as you go forwards. And you have to understand its all a risk and that drops in BTC price can wipe out your profit.

I still don't see what your problem is, $15 a day still takes only 80 days to break even on your investment. What other investment opportunity gives you that?

Ta for the thoughts but despite the way it sounds, I did my research and I was perfectly happy to take the chance, why not, it's great to learn things. I do not agree however with your comments regarding Bitcoin mining being only a datacenter thing. There are plenty Antminer S9 owners who have 1 or 2 of these devices and they seem to manage. Quite often though people tend to focus on the gross payout per day and forget about the costs involved. Electricity for specifically the M3 is higher than other miners, also it gets pretty hot under regular operation which requires cooling. I live in Africa, it's very hot here on a normal day and it is not so simple to calculate what kind of cooling requirement one would need in my type of environment, so as with any investment, you make an educated guess based on the facts that you have and you take the chance. It either works out or it doesn't, I could keep running the M3 yes, but the payoff is not what I would call worth it, despite that it will pay itself off eventually. For some the Antminer S9 seems to be profitable, either their parents pay for electricity and cooling and they can run their rigs without concern or they have subsidised electricity or the climate in which they operate is naturally cooler. Either way, I have watched several hours of YouTube vids of S9 owners happy with their investment.

My argument has not quite been considered in its entirety. @ $15/day, with $6/day on electricity, that leaves $9/day before I calculate cooling costs. Cooling costs will erode that value further, as I said it is very hot here in Africa so cooling is a huge factor. On the GPU rig mining equihash, the electricity usage is much lower, and the rig does not require serious cooling, I have a 100w fan blowing in the rig rooom and that is good enough, however the 100w fan is not enough to keep the M3 from overheating. So, I do not walk away with $15 per day, it's more like $6/day after costs have been taken into account, not to mention the fact that the machine is very noisy. And before you mention it, I was aware it would be noisy but one doesn't know how your environment will react to something until you have the kit and you run it. In terms of the GPU's, I initially bought 8 x GTX 1070's, the risers I had (8 of them) were mostly faulty so I ended up only being able to use 5 while I wait for new risers. In terms of overall rig size and value spent, it's a pricier rig for sure, but the return is greater pound for pound and is cheaper to run. I can't recall the exact values as I don't have the invoices to hand but I definitely did pay more for the GPU rig components. I average between 2300 and 2500 sol/s on the 5 GPU's, they can go higher as they collectively inch over 3000 sol/s sometimes at night for some reason, but I'm not convinced these risers are all that as the GPU hashrate is eratic during the day. I OC each GPU a bit to where it is stable but these risers are definitely bad grade. I'll add the other 3 GPU's when the new risers arrive, that'll push the hashrate to between 3500 and 4000 sol/s (depending on my OC settings and rig stability). On current values for equihash, that's anywhere between $500 and $700 per month depending on equihash value and my hashrate (never sure how accurate these calculators are) but between 2:32am yesterday morning and 12:28 today these 5 GPU's earned $29, with less than $6 of that is electricity. So while in time the M3 will pay itself off, it's not the kind of return I am looking for, and I don't think I'm being unreasonable. It does represent SOME kind of return, I agree, but we are all into crypto mining for our own reasons and we all have our own expectations.

Anyway, my point is that the GPU game pays off quicker than the Bitcoin mining game and I totally understand why and all the technical considerations such as difficulty, I sell enterprise blockchain as a service so it's my job to know what this technology is all about and how the various algo's work and their short comings, so allow my comments on the basis that I've done my calculations and research and the M3 numbers don't work for "me" as well as the GPU numbers work, despite the fact that the GPU rig is more expensive. The GPU rigs will pay themselves off sooner, by comparison, and the post breakeven earnings will be in line with my expectations. That's all. Everyone if of course free to have their own opinion of things.