Quick little story my buddy wanted to mine BTC last year around sept. Looking at spending around 7-800 usd to get started. choice between bitmain s7s s9s vs cards on nicehash in an apartment setting.

reason's asic didn't get picked, dropping price of used gear with rising difficulty dropping returns, no fast repair, products being received by others were used/not new oh, and the HEAT NOISE!

Was able to put him together a 4 card rig on one i5 PC 1 1050ti $150, 3 970s $160ea all from a local store with warranties and plenty of spares if needed as time = $ cuz maths.

all 4 plus the CPU have been mining ever since. Was able to get in early on some coins and now has a diverse portfolio with a very solid base in BTCZ.

others include BTC through NH, Musicoin, Zencash, Vert, Sumo, CMM, 0xBTC, Raven, Masari, Wavi ect ect ect same gear which has been nice and quiet is worth more today than paid for it prolly.

When local stores carry several brands of asic's with spares NIB and all are 300-600 watts then we can talk, otherwise only thing i keep hearing from bitmain is "Dear customers,

There has been another wave of phishing emails sent by fraudsters. If you do receive such emails offering Antminer models that are not available"

edit: for case and point. had he chose to buy an s7 or even an s9 today it would be about worthless.

from NH prof calc

BITMAIN AntMiner S7 makes currently 0.00775354 BTC $51.20 and costs $93.00 in electric

BITMAIN AntMiner S9 0.02295104 BTC $151.00 and costs 98.00 in electric $52.00 profit

this 4 card miner consistently makes $100 plus per month and the electric is only 35.00 40.00