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Well first you aren't making money out of thin air. You can think of mining new coins as "buying them" using your hardware & electricity. Currently you are buying them at a continual loss. The second thing is the network has a concept called "difficulty" which adjusts. More hashing power = higher difficulty = harder to solve a block. You won't break even in a week because even if you bought one you would be at the end of the line. Long before you received your unit difficulty likely would be 10x to 20x higher than it is now. Redo your calculations with difficulty being 20x higher and use some realistic electrical costs.
I'd rather think of it as making money out of running hash routines because that's what it is.
But yeah, I didn't think of the time it takes to arrive, that's a valid point, adding that to my calculations.
DeathAndTaxes is correct, of course. A much more complicated estimate of the future difficulty is here.
There's also the fact that the price of Bitcoin itself is volatile -- no one knows for sure what the future price will be.
But, yes, especially if you started much earlier and even if you started now, if you play your cards right, it can be a pretty sweet gig. But of course do not under any circumstances invest anything more than you can afford to lose. Essentially there is a lot of risk with the potential for a great reward or a substantial loss.
There's also the fact that the price of Bitcoin itself is volatile -- no one knows for sure what the future price will be.
But, yes, especially if you started much earlier and even if you started now, if you play your cards right, it can be a pretty sweet gig. But of course do not under any circumstances invest anything more than you can afford to lose. Essentially there is a lot of risk with the potential for a great reward or a substantial loss.
That's and extremely useful link, thanks a bunch, it explains a lot and has plenty of things I didn't think about.
I definitely wasn't planning on spending more than I would lose; I just have a tiny bit of money put aside that I might use for an ASIC.
The "catch" is that you are grossly under-informed about how the bitcoin works, how they are generated, how the hashing network operates, and just about every other aspect. I suspect you have a few more hours of browsing the forums before you shed your newbie status. I suggest using that time to become more educated about bitcoin.
That's wildly unhelpful and you might as well have not made that post.
So from everything I've read, mining seems too good to be true. And in my experience, if something seems too good to be true, it is.
But I can't find the catch. I've been running my crappy laptop at about 60 Mhash/s for a while now with bitcoin.cz, and it seems I'm actually generating money. I'm generating less money than what I pay for electricity right now, but I'm literally making money out of goddamn thin air.
However, when I grab the stats from this bitcoin ASIC miner and put them in this simple calculator, I get a base income of nearly 10 bitcoins or 1000 USD per month. Which seems absurd, even before I've started factoring in the costs.
So when I looked at this thread, I expected to see some rather high costs that I didn't think of, but those don't seem to be there either. I can't find the wattage for that ASIC unit, but a 4,5 Ghash machine from the same company was marked at 4,5 W, so supposing the5 Gh machine grabs 5 W, I would spend... about 35 dollars if I run it for 10 000 hours. What. If I randomly grab percentages out of thin air and say that it will cost me 30% of my income for power, 20% will be lost on downtime, 10% will be lost on pool fees, conversion costs and other expenses and that the hash difficulty rises 10% per week, I would still earn enough to break even in the region of a month.
If I put my ASIC data into this calculator, it tells me I will break even in a week.
This can't be true, there would not be any point in selling the ASIC units if they break even in a week, you'd just make them and then use them yourself.
So where's the catch?
But I can't find the catch. I've been running my crappy laptop at about 60 Mhash/s for a while now with bitcoin.cz, and it seems I'm actually generating money. I'm generating less money than what I pay for electricity right now, but I'm literally making money out of goddamn thin air.
However, when I grab the stats from this bitcoin ASIC miner and put them in this simple calculator, I get a base income of nearly 10 bitcoins or 1000 USD per month. Which seems absurd, even before I've started factoring in the costs.
So when I looked at this thread, I expected to see some rather high costs that I didn't think of, but those don't seem to be there either. I can't find the wattage for that ASIC unit, but a 4,5 Ghash machine from the same company was marked at 4,5 W, so supposing the5 Gh machine grabs 5 W, I would spend... about 35 dollars if I run it for 10 000 hours. What. If I randomly grab percentages out of thin air and say that it will cost me 30% of my income for power, 20% will be lost on downtime, 10% will be lost on pool fees, conversion costs and other expenses and that the hash difficulty rises 10% per week, I would still earn enough to break even in the region of a month.
If I put my ASIC data into this calculator, it tells me I will break even in a week.
This can't be true, there would not be any point in selling the ASIC units if they break even in a week, you'd just make them and then use them yourself.
So where's the catch?