Quote from: C.Steven on July 02, 2014, 07:52:40 AM

Quote from: gmx95 on July 02, 2014, 01:36:40 AM

Is it really worth it to do mining these days? I mean, the energy consumption would probably eat all the profits. Am I wrong?

If you are hoping to get some profits in bitcoin mining, I am sorry to tell you the good days are gone.

Not only you need to consider the electricity cost, you also need to account for the uptrend of difficulty.

Or, to put it more simply, No, it's not worth it. Most of the mining equipment is overpriced, and you'll probably not get a quick return on your investment as difficulty rises constantly.

Difficulty rises constantly because people keep buying and using mining equipment to mine, raising the total network hashrate (or network power) which in turn raises the difficulty, making the equipment less and less efficient. Which brings the need for more efficient, more powerful equipment, which can bring a profit. But that new equipment makes the network even more powerful and so on and so on.

The electricity cost is something to take into consideration, of course, but the biggest problem is that new ASIC equipment is very expensive and it needs to be maintained properly. You don't want a $6000 mini computer sitting in a closet - you need cooling, adequate electric circuits (surge protectors etc) because you don't want a power spike to fry it and so on. These are usually found in datacenters, which could host your miner(s) but add cost themselves, as hosting isn't usually cheap. On the bright side, hosting usually includes power, so there's that

So the investment is quite big, and even if you do everything perfectly, accidents happen and you could lose a miner to bad luck. That means you should invest in more miners, just for the risk mitigation... It's not something you should consider without a lot more reading up on the subject.