Re: Bitmain's Released Antminer S9, World's First 16nm Miner Ready to Order

Its been like this many times in the past. People use all kinds of weird logic and math to come up with awesome profit scenario's to justify mining. Mining rigs fly off the proverbial shelf with manufacture's getting interest free loans from investomers! Most newbs don't understand a basic fact about Bitcoin POW mining. Mining was designed as a "near" zero sum game and the network is constantly making its way towards that goal.

Another often over looked perspective is that mining can be looked at as a bet AGAINST diff increase. Based on available data this doesn't like a good bet to me right now! I think a lot of people will find this out over the coming months!

That's exactly what I'm trying to explain here and the numbers show this so very clearly. Only in the most optimistic scenarios will your miners make some money for some time.

For those who have S9's on hand now, new, used or coming soon, sell'em now!!!
You will make a massive profit given the prices they sell for on Ebay right now.
Your miner will never make that kind of money, the numbers are just not in your favor no matter how you put it.

But, wait a month or 2 and they will be worth peanuts and your miner will be making little or no money at all.

Again, It's really NOT about the bitcoin price, it's about the growing network hashrate and given Bitmain has been dumping S9's like there is no tomorrow in the last month or two, the most pessimistic line on the graph above might well not be pessimistic enough.

I made this chart a little while ago when I was deciding whether or not to sell my S9 miner (which I did at a massive profit), and looking at what the network hashrate has actually done since then: https://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/difficulty/5y?t=l,
It appears to be tracking well above the middle line towards the pessimistic line.
(I had it at 14.9E at Jan 1st, it was actually 15.4E)

You couldn't possibly know that in a month or two the S9 will make little or no money at all.

The price of bitcoin could continue dropping, the difficulty continue rising, and the S9 would still be profitable, so how in the world is it that you think in 2 months it will be making little to no money at all?

Just look at the numbers, even the most optimistic scenario where total network hashrate growth (and thus also difficulty growth) decreases only makes you a small profit by the end of the year. And be honest, is there anyone in their right minds who believes that will happen? Hashrate/difficulty has never gone down other then a blip here and there, it has always increased and rate at which it increases has always increased as well.

Again, bitcoin exchange rate has nothing to do with it because if you put that money in btc now, it would equally go up/down.

You can say "the hashrate/difficulty has never gone down other than a blip here and there" the same way that I can say the price of bitcoin has never gone down other than a blip here and there over the course of it's lifetime. Every time bitcoin tanks people come out of the woodwork and say the end is near, mining won't be profitable anymore, sell your miners now, and every time they've been wrong. They've always been wrong because bitcoin has always rebounded to reach new all time highs. Whether it takes a month to do so, or a year, it has always happened. Now is no different.

If you don't believe bitcoin will rebound, then yes sell your miners, sell your bitcoin, sell it all, the end is near. If you do however believe in bitcoin and it's future, then of course you would be a fool to sell your miners. It just depends on what you believe will happen, which is why I say you can't possibly think you know what will happen.

Ive said it in every post now and Ill say it again: this has nothing to do with the bitcoin/usd exchange rate, which is unpredictable as you say, I totally agree with that.
You need to see it as if your initial investment was done in BTC, not USD. And also your power consumption gets added to that in BTC btw.

It has everything to do with network hashrate/difficulty and that is very predictable, within ceratin tolerances as I have done.
I look after forecasting systems in our business and I can tell you, those numbers are the most forecastable I have ever seen, I wish our products were forecastable like that, we could manage our stock levels a hell of a lot better.

Anyway, you want to bet the network hashrate is not going to increase at those rates, all I can say is good luck, and I would call that wishful thinking at best.