Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable Again

&gt;Solis bought a Bitmain Antminer S9 on eBay for $2,400. &gt;As of this weekend, Solis has mined 1.01 BTC, worth a little more than $2,584 in his bitcoin wallet. &gt;Solis said: &gt;&quot;When I bought the miner, the price per bitcoin was around $1,200. I thought I’d break even in one year, but actually it’s been about five months.&quot;<p>So he would have been much better off just spending that 1,200 on Bitcoin rather than on a mining rig.

This headline is simply not accurate.<p>It should say: hobby miners barely break even over a year after the rise in bitcoin prices if they ignore the cost of power.<p>However, the difficulty of mining has gone up so much that they are unlikely to recoup the power costs going forward.

For those thinking, &quot;now&#x27;s a great time to join the party!&quot;, the price surge happened from about March to about May of this year, with BTC more than doubling in USD price. However, it&#x27;s been completely flat for over a month now -- longer than any other point in recent history -- and there are currently some big questions about the future of BTC that are being addressed next month and may result in a loss of value for some number of people, depending on how things shake out.<p>Smart money right now isn&#x27;t in BTC, unless you think you can predict what&#x27;s going to happen in the next six months and you&#x27;re willing to keep it for a longer period. And, even then, you&#x27;d be better off selling it back to USD and re-buying when it likely falls back down to sub-$2000 in a month.

I am not a financial expert. Some people have maxed their plastic out on bitcoin. I think that someone somewhere sometime will be left with the bill if there is no actual resource behind the currency - it is just an IOU after all. The UK PM talks about terrorists having no place to hide their money today, it dives $200. Too much feels like an elaborate scam - a silkroad clone goes completely dark or exchanges &#x27;getting hacked&#x27;. I know I know: if I&#x27;d kept my .bitcoin I&#x27;d be even richer now...

Wouldn&#x27;t there be a big advantage to running a bit coin miner somewhere cold with cheap electricity like Quebec?

I think this article is mistaken. People are mining Ethereum causing GPU prices to spike 2-3x. Eth is designed to use a lot of memory so GPU mining is always viable.<p>GPU prices: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;camelcamelcamel.com&#x2F;search?sq=geforce+1060" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;camelcamelcamel.com&#x2F;search?sq=geforce+1060</a><p>Mining centric cards are being released as well: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.anandtech.com&#x2F;show&#x2F;11607&#x2F;cryptocurrency-mining-cards-update-zotac-manli-biostar-products-formally-confirmed" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.anandtech.com&#x2F;show&#x2F;11607&#x2F;cryptocurrency-mining-ca...</a>

Yes, but the volatility of Bitcoin could make it not profitable again. Instead of buying a miner what if he took that money and bought bitcoin at that point of time. Wouldn&#x27;t he have more money?

What is fun is the Litecoin one, and the fact there are ASICs with crappy power efficiency like the GAWMiners Fury and any other miners using the Zeusminers chips.

The premise of mining bitcoin is not really about being cost effective today, but taking a long position on its value, and what you perceive the value will be, for totally anonymous money at some point in the future. Because the profit earned from mining is pretty close to the definition of untrackable in a crypto.

I sure hope anyone who&#x27;s mining Bitcoin isn&#x27;t also complaining about climate change. Also, electricity costs and various other externalities (depreciation of the machine and inevitable waste handling) are never accounted for.

Is it profitable because the mining is easier or because the price is rising. It&#x27;s almost certainty the latter.

Bitcoin is down like £450 since last month the guy is a little bit late to the party.

Time to party like it&#x27;s 2013

Bitmain is what&#x27;s keeping Bitcoin from progressing right now. Stop supporting them with your money.