The only benefit I see with a mining rig is to be able to mine coins on credit card. Buying coins on credit card is insane now that visa MasterCard charging it as a cash advance. Plus coinbase had their own fees and we are still in a fall bear trend and have not reached winter accumulating season yet. Times will be slower for most of this year.
Buying a mining rig protects your capital investment from further coin price declines and as long as your breaking even with electricity cost your still paying cheaper than buying on coinbase.
Mining is an arms race fighting for left over pocket change someone dropped in the couch. Profits are very slim to none after IRS gets their cut.
Slim to none doesn't even make sense. They IRS takes a percentage, not a fixed dollar amount.
The IRS takes a percentage everyday you mine it . Most mined coins at the top last quarter and didn't cash out. That means if you mined any altcoins last quarter and held it you got rekt.
For example you mined emc2 at $2 bucks last quarter irs counts that as income right away the day it's mined. However emc2 is now .20 cents And your screwed. People have to pay taxes in a couple of weeks and the coins they mined last quarter are all at a current loss. It was best not to mine in the first place.
It's your choice whether or not you want to cash out enough to pay taxes on it daily or hold it all hoping it will increase in value. If you don't have the extra funds to front the money for the taxes, maybe you should have thought of that months ago.