Quote from: allinvain on January 25, 2014, 08:42:46 AM

What in the heck are you guys thinking?!? Have you ever even tried the currency exchange game?

Please explain to me how spending say 110 in the past say for a BFL single to have it mine maybe 10 or say 15 btc over it's lifetime EVER EVER going to be a profit?! Why is mining better than buying and holding on to the coins? The only way mining will ever be worth it is if you paid with fiat. Then and only then you are truly betting on the exchange rate of btc -ie you are long BTC to use trader speak. So if the exchange rate keeps on going up and up even if the hardware only mines less than what your fiat bought you in btc terms at the time you purchased the hardware then you are still IN PROFIT IN FIAT terms, but then that begs the question why did you even do that. Why not just keep btc that you bought with fiat at whatever price and go long btc. You would've had MORE overall had you not spent it on some digital gold digger that will likely mine less than what you put into it!

Let's be honest here. The main reason we do this is because:

a) we enjoy playing with the technology
b) we have some fetish about mining
c) we are fools cause we think we will actually make a profit in btc terms
d) we are too gutless to trade btc
e) we don't have enough fiat cash to buy hardware so we reinvest or invest btc instead
f) we enjoy making the ASIC mining companies rich

The reality is that you will be outgunned by people with more money than you when it comes to mining.

Why don't any of you do a little test. Buy a miner with X $ and also buy some btc with the SAME $ amount. See in the end which has made you MORE money in $ terms. Just do it.

"If you invested 10BTC at 10 bucks back a couple years ago to get back 1 BTC today, you made a massive profit"

WTF? Are you really saying this? Tell me honestly, were you drunk when you typed this

? If you spent $10 for 10 btc and during the time span of a couple years all you got was 1 btc you now have ~$1000. Had you kept that 10 BTC you bought with $10, you would now have $10,000. So in fact you _lost_ the opportunity to gain $9000.

Oh, Jumpin Jeezus. I rarely drink. Yes, I was drunk.

What I meant to say was that if you spent the equivalent of 10btc back a couple of years ago on something that makes you ONE btc today, then you made a massive profit. I think. I seriously only drink about twice a year. See why?

Sorry about that.