People always said that buying is better than mining (and they have been right almost all of the time), but where's the fun in just buying?
When you're an ex-miner, recognize how unprofitable and a pain in the balls it is to run a mining operation, end up doing the math on a miner + electricity + Time to ROI... fuck the fun.
Time is money. Cheaper to buy what you would spend on a miner now, than what it would likely generate 18 months from now, IMO.
Unless you have cheap or free electricity, I don't see the benefit of mining right now vs just buying corn outright.
Er, you could be mining right now with something that you bought 2 years ago for CASH.
The equipment is paid for already, now you are just stacking stacks for LESS.
That, plus often neglected fact that the cost of equipment is amortized, possibly within one year (if you opened an LLC or some other entity).
Of course, you would need to declare mined btc as income; then, after you sell, that income becomes the base cost, which is subtracted from the sale proceeds (if ever0, generatig cap gains.