Quote from: Mabsark on August 31, 2014, 04:06:10 PM

Quote from: DrG on August 31, 2014, 08:33:57 AM

I would also avoid all mining and cloud mining - it does nothing other than transfer money from your bank account to the company - there's no option for profit really when you do the numbers.

If you think mining is just there to transfer money to the miner makers then you have a serious misunderstanding of how bitcoin works. Mining is absolutely essential to bitcoin. Without it, there would be no transactions at all.

You don't need to mine with the purpose of making a profit, you can do it as a way to convert fiat into bitcoin without the hassles of dealing with banks and exchanges with regards to bitcoin. Some people might even mine for ideological reasons. Sure, making a profit is nice but it's not a necessity. If you're in it to make a profit, you're best off going with in stock miners instead of pre-orders as it makes difficulty estimations far easier and more accurate.

Mabsark - we're both here since 2011. We don't need to explain to each other why people/BTC needs mining. If you look back at my post history you will find I have told newbies there are several reasons to mine, unfortunately I haven't posted it recently

I always posted this as my list to newbies:
-support the network/decentralize
-enjoy the mining process
-make more from mining than you could from buying
-mine your own coins that have no transaction history for greater anonymity.

The first 2 reasons are still valid and for many people like myself will be until the day IF BTC fails.

The last 2 reasons I can't say are true anymore. I think most miners agree they cannot make ROI with current hardware. And nobody can really solo mine at home - if they could I would see a thread "I found a block with my S3 or Dragon"

But cloud mining is does not support decentralization. It forces hashes into massive farms that get digitally sold out but the farm owner could always lend themselves to a 51% attack. Cloud mining is only good for miner employment. That's my view - tell me if you agree.