Can anyone new make a profit mining in 2014?
I looked up the specs on the new 3,000 GH/s Neptune from KncMiner and thought that it would make a great purchase. But when you try to work out the ROI, the numbers don't work unless BTC gets somewhere close to $2,000, you get the unit next week or you have solar panels.
In my opinion, you really should be comparing the number of bitcoins you can buy with cash now with the number of bitcoins the Neptune will mine.
e.g.
- today, buy 15 bitcoins for $13,000. Wait a year. You have 15 bitcoins.
- today, buy a neptune for $13,000 or 15 bitcoins. Wait a year. You have whatever bitcoins it mined.
Therefore you make a "mining profit" if the number of bitcoins you mine is greater than the number you could buy now.
To put that another way, if you could have bought 15 bitcoins now for $13,000 but instead you buy a neptune and it mines only 5 bitcoins, but the exchange rate has tripled, you may think you've broken even but really from a mining perspective you lost 10 bitcoins.
Thus, in reference to the subject line, I don't think BTC needs to be any particular value in 2014 to determine if mining will be profitable or not. The value of BTC does on the other hand determine whether holding bitcoin (and buying a miner is like buying bitcoin in the future) will be profitable.