When is mining better than just investing in bitcoin?

Doesn’t change much for me as I’m already at scale and very much enjoying the slow gains/time.
I didn’t know the lead time was 3/4 weeks… but that’s still shitty compared to building a rig in a day after spending a couple hours buying all the gear at your local microcenter…
 
if you can get ASICs earlth in their lifecycle and at cost, there is not better investment
for most, doing either is VERY difficult let alone both
 
Yes but Asic returns are far greater per $ spent than GPU rigs
are they not, and power usage per $ earned is far less I believe also.
 
As @JasonMasterNET stated if you get them early in their life cycle you are correct. There are other advantages to GPU’s if you go with the high mide to upper end of GPU’s their resale value is much greater even after they are no longer as viable for mining. Along with the ability to change to a greater number of coins.
@peter I am still trying to understand why “at scale” is GPU mining but “not at scale” is ASIC mining. This may seem like semantics but it needs to be clarified as your explanation seems wrong. If I am missing something here please correct me. I love mining and invest a lot of time in it, but this is just not making any sense.
If one is to say that you are better off investing in Bitcoin than buying 1 mining rig (GPU) then you have to say the same for 30 mining rigs (GPU). This is because payouts (coins earned) scales linearly provided the same hardware is used. In both scenario’s the answer should be the same as it has nothing to do with “at scale”.
 
there are SOME advantges to scale… the more GPUs/Hardware you buy the cheaper you can get the costs. so the cost to build 30 GPU mining rigs is not 30 times the cost of building 1 GPU mining rig
that said, im not sure those savings would make a huge difference
 
3 to 4 weeks until delivery! Wow. You paying a premium for that? Looking on Bitmain website, you can’t even get the next batch of S9 until February. I can see 3 to 4 weeks if you are buying second hand. In which you are paying a markup.
 
Mining is better than investing when electricity is free. Such is my case at my apt. I only have one GPU and even then, I don’t even mine. LOL…🙈
 
Essentially that is what I am getting at. I am in constant contact with loads of miners that try to purchase GPU’s in very large quantities and the savings are not much because the purchasing has to be a sustained purchasing power to get the large quantity discounts.
Essentially for one time purchasers to an extent is the same from 6 cards to 180 cards with regards to the manufacturers. Now some retailers have given small discounts on bulk ordering but if it is not sustained its not much. To the point these larger GPU miners still purchase the cards in the 1-5 quantity range from newegg, amazon, and the like.

 
Fair enough. I probably need to spend more time around my rationale and reasoning for all of this, and small bites don’t really work here. Plus, tbh, I’m just answering quickly as I’m doing this between videos!
Scaling mining = less production costs, less hardware costs, less time costs, less maintenance costs, etc.
Buying in bulk is a big win here, especially when trying to increase your payback period.
The automation we’ve been able to enjoy with scale is a big win too.
What I’m REALLY doing (internally in my brain), and not writing down very well here are all the aesthetic costs associated with mining at scale.
Putting automation into place, buying in bulk, overall maintenance of the rigs, etc is really nice and smooth when you’ve got all the processes down.
Buying NON asic and going with gcards allows also for flexibility when things go sideways.
So, set it and leave it?
You can do both at scale and on a single card or mining rig if you want.
However, the question by OP was: “mining better than just investing.”
My answer still is the same. Investing is better. But for the long run (and at scale), you stand (theoretically), far greater at scale for massive returns.
I just (personally) don’t see a single miner as worth the effort except learning about what mining is all about.
 
I think mining is better than investing when are you able to jump in at a large scale and not build from small to large. For instance, if you build 1 mining rig (6 GPU) and mine until you pay it off before you build the next, it will take longer for you to start earning beyond your initial investment. If you immediately go to a large scale, then all of your rigs start earning beyond your initial investment at the same time. Over the course of starting small and building you will deal with ever increasing difficulties throughout scaling. With immediately going to a large scale all the rigs are going through the same difficulty increases at the same time.


@Nekko you are correct in that the ROI period for 1 rig vs 30 rigs is basically the same. However, after the ROI period, there is a huge difference in earnings and I’m sure this is very obvious to you.


The trick, if you want to call it that, is to scale quickly. Earning as much as you can before difficulty increases and skyrocketing coin gains. Other than that, it’s a hobby and you are supporting the network, in which everyone should thank you:)
 
I love this answer my friend. See! Even my partner in crime in our mining operation has differing opinions than I do…
But, we both concede (maybe through our pigeon-holed-state) that we SHOULD mine.
 
I know you are a busy man and we appreciate all you do.
I guess I am just going to have to accept that we are going to disagree on this topic as I still feel your reasoning for your decision is incorrect.
Other than buying in bulk going to scale has no more advantage than a single miner. To an extent you could say the ROI for your time in learning how to set one up will be faster the more rigs you have.
Yes you will get bigger payouts but linear to the quantity of rigs not a bigger return per rig.
 
@Nekko I really hope you join the stream this Friday. It’s for your buddy. You asked that we do a live stream with BBT and we made it happen. I would love to hear how BBT answers this question as well.
 
I get that @ImaginaryPi. @peter’s description of scale and not at scale is what really threw me for a loop.
In my opinion going large scale is a business decision of whether or not you want to create a business out of it or not. After the ROI there is no more advantage from 1 to 30 as the payout per rig is the same.
Now the scaling quickly I can agree with 100%. As that is the same fight ASIC’s have.
What time Friday?
 
I also believe this is the experience @peter and I are currently conducting. Is there, in fact, an advantage to starting out big in mining? Will the gain become exponential? Does having more than 1 miner on a pool impact share quantities? Lots of factors to consider.
 
You are correct, the payout per rig is the same. Think of it like this though, if I invest $1000 and get 10% gains, I’ve earned $100. If I invest $1,000,000 and get 10% gains, I’ve earned $100,000. Same earnings per dollar (10%) but at scale, larger amount. This is the concept I’m referring to.
Stream starts at 8pm (EST) on my YouTube channel BiteSizeMining
 
but thats also true investing in bitcoin.
invest 1000 in bitcoin and make 15% gains you get 150
invest 1000000 in bitcoin and make 1% and you get 150000
 
I believe there are also elements of mining that you can’t put a value to such as supporting the network.
 
You are correct @JasonMasterNET. Let’s break this down. Let’s take this topic away from mining Bitcoin and think of altcoins. We’ve basically done that anyways when talking about mining with GPUs. Also, let’s focus on “When”. What factors would allow mining to be better than investing in a coin.
  1. Coin must not have huge gains during ROI period
  2. Coin has relatively small losses
  3. Shortest ROI period possible
So by just looking at the factor of “When” we can specifically answer the question.

 
The When is a big deal I agree. When doing ROI of mining and comparing it to investing I think there really are just too many variables to calculate the future. I think looking at history might be a better way than through a snapshot but then you have crazy years like this year.
What kind of discount did you guys get on bulk? Looking for a percentage savings vs say a low volume purchaser like myself. Others I have talked to have only seen 2-5% which is a savings but in some cases not that big of deal.
 
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