Quote from: TheGull on August 19, 2014, 10:44:04 PM

Quote from: puwaha

My miner doesn't generate enough BTC to matter what happens to the price. It's dismaying to see the price drop, but it doesn't hurt me in the long run. It's the investors who are worried... generally not the miners, unless they are upside-down on that as well.

If it rallies, then my meager mined coin will be worth more. If not, then it was a fun experiment, and I learned a lot.

This seems to be a fairly common point from miners. What I don't understand is this: if you need the price to rally for your mining to be profitable, aren't you just better off buying bitcoin? Much less hassle plus you can liquidate whenever you want, unlike your mining equipment which probably has very little resale value given how rapidly the technology is improving.

I'd say no. There is no guarantee that there will be a rally. Buying and holding is just as dangerous as mining in this respect. Now, if you spent a small fortune on your mining gear, then yeah... maybe you should have just bought your coins. The simple fact is... there will be winners and losers in the buy/hold game. Most will lose.

The way I see it, mining increases (albeit, slowly) your holdings in bitcoins sort of like an automatic faucet that will eventually dry up. Buying coins requires a lot of willpower to drop it in an investment, and is a bigger mental hurdle. I didn't invest a lot of money in mining, and I'll probably lose out over the long run. But I don't see mining as an investment... just a good way to get your feet wet and generate some coin.