Worth Mining ETH Or Better to Buy?

cybereality

cybereality

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I've been wanting to get into mining for a while but never took the time. Been researching more lately because of the boom and want to get into it.

My question is do you think it's worth mining at this point, or is it just better to buy ETH on the exchange? The cost of the rigs is not a problem, but if (for example) I spend $6K on 3 computers, it would take several months to break even and the craze may have died down. Or I could spend the $6K just buying Ethereum now and maybe make a quick buck (assuming prices continue to climb for a short period).

Though even if ETH busts, there may be other coins like ZCash to mine so it may not be a total loss. Any advice?
 
I'm just buying ETH for now. No interest in buying, building, operating and maintaining rigs etc. Dramatically increased my income this year and have over 100k in savings doing jack shit. Bought a bunch of different coins and plan to buy more. Many under $1/coin. Who knows if they'll ever gain anything, but at worst I'll be out a few grand which doesn't bother me too much. Hopefully one of them goes up like 1000% lol.

Wish I had the stones to just go all in on ETH or something, but only bought a few. Feel like it has to crash soon with the amount of increase it has had in the last 2 months, but I know little of these things.
 
Aside from the usual corrections, eth isn't going to sink anytime soon, in my opinion. BTC on the other hand, is a sinking ship. Eth is so far ahead with their tech, it's not even funny. Before the end of the year, I suspect most of the BTC money will be in ethereum.
 
tacos4me said:
Aside from the usual corrections, eth isn't going to sink anytime soon, in my opinion. BTC on the other hand, is a sinking ship. Eth is so far ahead with their tech, it's not even funny. Before the end of the year, I suspect most of the BTC money will be in ethereum.
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Well I hope you're right :D. Plan to buy some more, but transferring money to these Coinbase fucks takes a damn week & fees aren't cheap either.

Any recs on how to convert USD to BTC or ETH quickly for low fees?
 
since you already have 2x GTX1080, you should give it a try. They should give over 60mhs. I'm currently doing 27MHS with my GTX1070
 
BeavermanA said:
Well I hope you're right :D. Plan to buy some more, but transferring money to these Coinbase fucks takes a damn week & fees aren't cheap either.

Any recs on how to convert USD to BTC or ETH quickly for low fees?
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Assuming you're in the US? USD transfer to coinbase, then move it all over to gdax and do your business there. On coinbase.com, you're buying eth from them. On gdax (also a coinbase product) you're trading. Fees are less on gdax.
 
tacos4me said:
Assuming you're in the US? USD transfer to coinbase, then move it all over to gdax and do your business there. On coinbase.com, you're buying eth from them. On gdax (also a coinbase product) you're trading. Fees are less on gdax.
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Awesome thanks. Damn Coinbase ripping me off :mad:. Way higher fees, the buy price is more, and sell price less.
 
BeavermanA said:
Awesome thanks. Damn Coinbase ripping me off :mad:. Way higher fees, the buy price is more, and sell price less.
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Yep, they're sneaky. They upped fees on CB.com too without much notice maybe a few weeks ago. Eats into profits, for sure. Glad to help, anything for a fellow April 2006'er.
 
Thanks for the advice. I think buying is probably the better play. I got $1,000 on Thursday it's already up $300. Probably get some more soon.

That said, I got an itch, so got parts for a new rig (around $2,500). Not sure it will be worth it, but I like playing with computers and I'll see how the mining thing goes.

I didn't want to go too crazy w/ the machine so I went with six GTX 1060s since the price wasn't bad. I'll see if I can even mine at all (if things don't crash) and then upgrade or build a second machine once better cards are available.
 
cybereality said:
Thanks for the advice. I think buying is probably the better play. I got $1,000 on Thursday it's already up $300. Probably get some more soon.

That said, I got an itch, so got parts for a new rig (around $2,500). Not sure it will be worth it, but I like playing with computers and I'll see how the mining thing goes.

I didn't want to go too crazy w/ the machine so I went with six GTX 1060s since the price wasn't bad. I'll see if I can even mine at all (if things don't crash) and then upgrade or build a second machine once better cards are available.
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I've just started mining today and it was smooth. I had more trouble setting up my wallet and a pool, but mining is easier than I thought.
 
Hmm.. I got silly last night and returned the 1060s for 1070s. Even though the 1070 was a bit expensive, I figure I have a better chance of getting a return if the current craze only lasts a few months.

Plus, I have limited space in this apartment, so it may be better for me to just have one powerful miner rather than going crazy with a bunch of lesser machines.

Wish me luck!
 
In hindsight it's easy to say 'buy Ethereum' since it's gone up so much so quickly. I spent $2200 on a mining rig a month ago and could have quadrupled it had I bought Ethereum instead and sold today.

Problem is, nobody knew it was going to quadruple. Today, it could keep going up or it could go way down. Mining is a safer bet since, as you pointed out, you can switch to another coin should Ethereum become less profitable, but buying it outright is higher risk with potentially higher reward.
 
PiERiT said:
In hindsight it's easy to say 'buy Ethereum' since it's gone up so much so quickly. I spent $2200 on a mining rig a month ago and could have quadrupled it had I bought Ethereum instead and sold today.

Problem is, nobody knew it was going to quadruple. Today, it could keep going up or it could go way down. Mining is a safer bet since, as you pointed out, you can switch to another coin should Ethereum become less profitable, but buying it outright is higher risk with potentially higher reward.
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That's why you do both :)
 
Panic selling is where you can lose your shirt. Nobody has ever lost money holding eth. Easier said than done at times, that's why I treat my stack as a long-term investment and try not to check prices 500 times a day. You'll drive yourself crazy, and potentially make bad decisions.

Way I personally see it, blockchain tech solves too many issues for this technology to not take off (already starting to, look at all the dapps, major corporations on-board), and ethereum is the clear choice. Look at the total market cap of all these cryptocurrencies compared to the amount of money in traditional markets. We've got a long ways to go yet, these are still early days. Eth is good investment.
 
tacos4me said:
Panic selling is where you can lose your shirt. Nobody has ever lost money holding eth. Easier said than done at times, that's why I treat my stack as a long-term investment and try not to check prices 500 times a day. You'll drive yourself crazy, and potentially make bad decisions.

Way I personally see it, blockchain tech solves too many issues for this technology to not take off (already starting to, look at all the dapps, major corporations on-board), and ethereum is the clear choice. Look at the total market cap of all these cryptocurrencies compared to the amount of money in traditional markets. We've got a long ways to go yet, these are still early days. Eth is good investment.
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I wish I had the mindset for that. I'm into ETH for $5k right now between the rig and buying outright, and while I don't need that money back any time soon, if it was suddenly worth twice that amount, I'd have a hard time not selling. I'm always worried that if I don't, it'll tank. Similarly, if it goes way down way quickly but I can still get out for what I put in, I'd do that as well.

Doesn't help that I lost a bunch on the Paycoin fiasco a couple years ago.
 
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nextuszerodmd said:
buying is appreciating faster than mining
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This does, in fact, appear to be the case. If I'd bought $1000 worth of Ether around noon yesterday, I'd have like $1200 worth now.

I've been playing around with this the last few days, on my two reasonably powerful gaming rigs, one with a 290X and another with a 1080. Total, I seem to be getting ~45 MH/s without really doing any tuning. That's with the 290X at stock, and the 1080 watercooled and overclocked pretty much as far as any Pascal card can do. Apparently, the 1080 is a poor choice for this, as its memory's latency is too high or something. Anyway, I'm really tempted to buy a couple more cards and give this a legit go. If nothing else, it seems like it makes overclocking worth doing for a grown-up reason.
 
I've bought all I could afford in ETH and its already gone up 50% in value... had I bought a month or whatever ago well I'd be much happier....but we know all those stories.

I'm debating right now if I should "invest" in a newer video card then pay for it by mining when not playing. A 1070 would cost me ~$400 and mining 24/7 would pay for itself in 2 months ... so realistically in 3 months taking out gaming time.
 
tacos4me said:
Panic selling is where you can lose your shirt. Nobody has ever lost money holding eth. Easier said than done at times, that's why I treat my stack as a long-term investment and try not to check prices 500 times a day. You'll drive yourself crazy, and potentially make bad decisions.
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Yeah, I hear you. I had a pretty stressful experience today after I installed the Ethereum price widget on my phone and was checking all day long. What a wild ride. Up $50, back down, a roller-coaster. Ended up selling a few hours ago, but I'm not sure that was the right choice. All in all, I'm still up $400 from my initial $1000 investment on Thursday, so that is nice, but this is intense.
 
So with the spread of Ethereum going to 1% seems alot of people are selling, now it is dropping, a good time to buy?
 
I'm thinking this is a good time to trade Ethereum. Just during the last week I've seen it fluctuate from as low as $290 to as high as $390. and on some days from $310 to $360.
 
I think buying is a better route, at least while it is $300.

I am still waiting for verification to buy some and I have been waiting for a few weeks now. It was under $200 when I applied and was kicking my own ass when it went up to $400 in a week. But now it has settled down (and I do mean down) but I think it will come up again.

My main worry is losing my wallet (because then you are screwed). I have a lot of money in the stock market and I don't have to worry about my bank account.
 
you guys sound like you have loose money to gamble - that's fine - but you need to be fully aware there is no oversight and regulation and consumer protection in the bitcoin exchanges like there would be on the traditional stock exchanges. It's signficcantly more wild west in that cryptocurrency exchange environment. Also chart out the ETH and BTC in the last few years and look at the HUGE spikes since May of this year. We could be on a tremendous bubble and I'd be cautious throwing money in there and expecting it to continue shooting skyward -- nobody knows. Don't gamble money you can't afford to outright lose.
 
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I ended up buying a bunch at the height (around $390), which now seems silly but it looked like it was shooting up. Will probably hold for a little while and see what happens but it may have already peaked.

That said, I'm in the middle of building my first mining rig. Got most of the parts in there and Linux installed and it seems alright. Going to add in the GPUs now and test out some mining tonight.
 
Buying is probably best unless you already have the hardware. Its probably at its peak for this run, I'm going to wait till the crash before I buy more. I had a bunch that I bought at $11 but sold it at $40, still a good profit. Been buying bitcoin every week since its been down to 200, good profits and no extra heat/noise to annoy the wife.
 
Buying is looking like the route to take now. It's down $150 in the last few weeks. It may yet still have a bottom to find, but if you are looking to buy, and assuming it makes back some of the losses, now is the time.
 
sephkeene said:
Buying is looking like the route to take now. It's down $150 in the last few weeks. It may yet still have a bottom to find, but if you are looking to buy, and assuming it makes back some of the losses, now is the time.
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It's down a double digit percentage just today. I think I'd wait on buying until it at least until it stops dropping precipitously.
 
Where are you guys buying? I am one for buying but not finding it easy to do.

I live in California and coinbase is illegal. I've been waiting several weeks for verification on Kraken (just to buy). I don't know why it is so hard to buy crypto currency. At this rate, mining may be my only option.
 
Staples said:
Where are you guys buying? I am one for buying but not finding it easy to do.

I live in California and coinbase is illegal. I've been waiting several weeks for verification on Kraken (just to buy). I don't know why it is so hard to buy crypto currency. At this rate, mining may be my only option.
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Since when is coinbase illegal in california? I've been using it weekly for a couple years and no google searches I've found say its illegal now.
 
Staples said:
Where are you guys buying? I am one for buying but not finding it easy to do.

I live in California and coinbase is illegal. I've been waiting several weeks for verification on Kraken (just to buy). I don't know why it is so hard to buy crypto currency. At this rate, mining may be my only option.
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Coinbase is legal in CA. Best thing to do is make a coinbase account, transfer USD to your wallet. Then go to GDAX which is owned by Coinbase, and you get free trades buying and selling.
 
BeavermanA said:
Coinbase is legal in CA. Best thing to do is make a coinbase account, transfer USD to your wallet. Then go to GDAX which is owned by Coinbase, and you get free trades buying and selling.
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there are IRS rules for declaring crypto profits and losses, just be aware of that as well. With the litigation against coinbase right now from the IRS its something to keep in mind.
 
Staples said:
I don't know why it is so hard to buy crypto currency. At this rate, mining may be my only option.
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Because everyone and their mother is stampeding in trying to buy coins or spinning up basement rigs, believing this is their get-rich-quick moment.
 
BeavermanA said:
Coinbase is legal in CA. Best thing to do is make a coinbase account, transfer USD to your wallet. Then go to GDAX which is owned by Coinbase, and you get free trades buying and selling.
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Well that is interesting. I tried to sign up a few weeks ago and it said something like "not authorized" or something like that. Then I looked it up and read that it could not be used in CA or NY.
But I signed up today and put in a payment method. I still need verification but it will probably only take a day or so because of the method they are using.
 
Just wanted to update, I don't think mining is worth it for me. Had this rig running for around 2.5 months, made around $880 (if I sold at current pricing) but *paid* over $900 in electricity.

Granted, some of that bill is from gaming on my other computers, but still. Maybe I netted out $200, but it will take forever just to get an ROI on the parts, let alone make any profit. Kind of a fun experiment, but doesn't seem worth it.

The machine has been shut down.
 
I haven't mine eth. I do mine zcash and ubiq for a while. I real don't care about the ROI. The amount of money I have wasted thru out my life way greater. You can't take it with you.
 
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