Quote from: visdude on September 16, 2013, 10:09:40 AM

Quote from: trasla on September 16, 2013, 07:58:44 AM

Quote from: visdude on September 16, 2013, 07:44:10 AM

What part of "after all the operating expenses are applied" makes it "counting the coin's value twice"? I reiterate: if I ended up with a -$100 (loss) after all the expenses are subtracted, it stands that I have one BTC that cost me $100 (debit) which is actually worth $138 or so in the market.

Expenses are subtracted from what amount?
If you subtracted from the coins value, like:
1 BTC: 138$
minus energy 200$
minus value decrease of hardware 38$
= -100$

than its not a coin which cost 100$ and is a good buy, its a coin which cost 238$ and is worth 138$, thus a bad buy which made you loose 100$.

If you just list all expenses and get 100$, thats not a 100$ loss, its 100$ costs, and if compared to the BTC price, you end up with a 38$ win.
If you did it that way, you calculated right, and i was just confused by the terms u used.
But the point of my initial post was to say that there is really no way for energy costs alone to not exceed the value of the mined coins by far.
So what i want to say: If you mine BTC with GPUs, even when not considering hardware costs, you will always end up "buying" BTC at a very very very expensive rate.

Again, it's after all expenses (equipment depreciation, energy bill, etc.) are applied, i.e. if you create a balance sheet after producing one BTC, a -$100 balance resulted. However, an asset worth $138 has also been acquired in the process (1 BTC) in my example. That leaves a $38 profit ($138 less $100).

Perhaps, I should have taken your post from my original quote; my post was in reference to my concept being similar to scooter's and not your post.

p.s. I see your point though. It would not be a loss. I tend to isolate BTC mined and apply them last (since they are very volatile) in my way of accounting (more like ghetto accounting).

(emphasis mine)

Again: To what are the expenses applied? To the market price of the BTC generated?

If you create a balance, as you say, there's -$238 on one side and +$138 on the other side, the result being -$100. But you have accounted for the BTC value once already (as if you have "sold" it). So you can't say you have one BTC for $100. You have it for $238. You can't get $138 for the one BTC and still have it. :-)

You say an asset worth $138 has also been acquired.
Yes, it has. But you can either keep it (and it costs you $238 at your expenses) or sell it for $138, then you decrease your direct loss to "only" $100.

You can't say I have one BTC that cost me $100 (debit). If you are in the position that the process has cost you $100, you already do not have the BTC. If you still have it, it cost you $238.

[edit]:
In case you mean $100 are only the expenses and you really end with $38 profit, then you can't call the $100 amount balance. In that case, it's no balance, it's just expenses. Balance has always two sides, one being the earnings, i.e. the BTC value in this case. In that case, balance would be those +$38.
It's impossible to have a balance of -$100 and a profit of +$38 at the same time. :-)))