Quote from: hugeblack on January 26, 2020, 04:46:30 PM

but did you take into account bitcoin halving?

As stupid as it may it sound, the halving is irrelevant in all this, thanks to satoshi's brilliant idea of "difficulty adjustment" mining will still be profitable as long as you have a cheap power source.

The other thing that might sound even more stupid, is that even bitcoin price does not really matter, and that is also derived from the same brilliant idea, so as long as bitcoin is worth something, mining will be profitable to a certain degree.

we are at least decades far from finding a new way to make energy from sources we don't use now, so the calculation is rather simple, we know the following:

- The Chinese have an electricity rate that ranges between 2 to 5 cents per kWh, the number varies based on location as well as season, In the rainy season in china they get to mine at 2 cents but that doesn't last all year long, so safe to assume that the average is more 3-4 cents.

-A few countries have free but limited power sources (long story and probably needs a whole topic or DYOR) or simply take my words for it.

so everything put aside, as long as you have a better power plan than those in China then rest assured that nothing will beat you, not the halving, not the price.

Having the same rate as them, means that they are one or a few steps ahead, that's because they get the gears faster and cheaper, if you live in the other side of the planet, you spend say 5000$ for a mining gear, the Chinese can buy it for less, pay nothing for shipping and get it the same day afternoon, you on the other side, have to wait for a few days or in many cases weeks and you have import taxes to deal with. Add to that the fact that everything is cheaper in china so the initial cost of your mining infrastructure is always going to be higher than theirs.

The above does not mean you can't make money against the Chinese miners, buying the right gear at the right time may very well make you a lot of profit, but since there is no guarantee, at the end of the day your power cost is the be-all and end-all for mining competition.

Quote from: pierobj on February 02, 2020, 08:47:02 PM

Thanks for your experienced words, but I just said "I might be interested". Of course I would do the proper checks before sending any machine to a random old fart in the internet, I might be a newbie here, but not in real life Wink

I don't remember quoting any of your posts, my post was for the OP, but it's a good thing that you took it as an advice, common sense is key when dealing with people online, things like cheap power in the second most expensive country on planet earth is pretty shady, and needs a lot of research. I wish you luck.