Why does this have nothing to do with the bitcoin/usd exchange rate? Why do I need to see it as if my initial investment was done in BTC, not USD? Who made up that rule, you?
NO, of course I havent its simple maths.
Maybe Ive confused you with those extra columns so let me explain differently:
Only look at what BTC/USD is right now (around $11500) and look at the first set of 3 columns where I predict how much BTC your miner will make in the 3 scenarios.
Dont look at the other sets of columns because they make assumptions about the BTC price in the future.
Now,
Scenario 1:
You buy an antminer today for $3000 (incl. PSU, shipping & tax), you get it straight away and start mining.
Youre down $3000 you have an antminer in hand and 0 BTC in your wallet.
Scenario 2:
You buy $3000 worth of BTC which equals 0.2608BTC.
So youre also down $3000 you have no miner but you have 0.2608BTC in your wallet.
In scenario 1 look at the 3 columns on the spreadsheet that predict how much BTC you make per month (again: THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT BTC/USD WILL DO ON THE FUTURE)
At which point have you actually made 0.2608BTC in each of the 3 scenarios and can you start getting ahead on scenario 2?
In the standard forecast its September, in the pessimistic one its right at the end of the year.
And what we have not done (because were ignoring the next 2 sets of numbers) is add in power cost, so its actually much worse but we cannot predict that unless we assume todays BTC/USD exchange rate. Also if we do that we would have to increase the value of the investment in scenario 2 by the same amount every month and add that to those 0.2608BTC, so you would always stay behind.
Now at that point in time (where youve reached 0.2608BTC), your miner is making next to nothing unless you look only at the most optimistic scenario where difficulty/ hashrate decrease, so your asset is worth next to nothing at that point as well.
Hence, my conclusion