ddrueding
Fixture
Still holding some, just as speculation, but I've liquidated quite a bit.
Cryptocurrency Mining and GPUs
- Thread starter sechs
- Start date
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
Did you do it before the hard fork?
ddrueding
Fixture
About a third before, a third after, and holding the remaining third.
I'm curious if you'd be willing to share some info on your experience with mining and acquiring Bitcoins. I'm not looking for actual dollar amounts as that's your private business. What I'm curious about is if you can compare your gains/losses between the time you started mining and the value of Bitcoin now. This includes your initial investment cost for mining hardware/software/electricity/time/etc to get your gain/loss.
I would then like to know what the gain/loss might have been if just had just bought the bitcoins with the same initial investment amount when you started this vs buying the hardware to mining them. You could use the start time and the price at that time as a one-time lump purchase.
I'm interested in the percentage difference (if any) between buying coins as an investment vs mining them over time. I realize there are a lot of factors in this knowing that mined coins don't all come at one lump sum which means you'd need to know their rough basis value at acquisition to get to the number I'm looking for.
I would then like to know what the gain/loss might have been if just had just bought the bitcoins with the same initial investment amount when you started this vs buying the hardware to mining them. You could use the start time and the price at that time as a one-time lump purchase.
I'm interested in the percentage difference (if any) between buying coins as an investment vs mining them over time. I realize there are a lot of factors in this knowing that mined coins don't all come at one lump sum which means you'd need to know their rough basis value at acquisition to get to the number I'm looking for.
ddrueding
Fixture
Whether they were purchased or mined doesn't seem to be the big deal. Speculating when there was a lot of uncertainty and lucking out was the important part. I'm not sure that can be replicated now that cryptocurrency is an established thing.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
So in other words you probably wouldn't recommend buying bitcoin or bitcoin cash now as an investment?
ddrueding
Fixture
I'm certainly not considering it. I don't feel that the potential upside is as large as it has been, and the uncertainty is still there. It seems like more cryptocurrencies came out before BTC was able to properly establish itself as a standard. To me this weakens the validity of the system considerably. In the end I'll hold a dozen or so as a speculative play, but don't really expect much of it.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
Are you now also holding Bitcoin Cash?
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
You don't invest in cryptocurrency. You speculate.
Except for tokens like Storj and SiaCoin, which can be traded for cloud storage, most of cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value. At least gold has industrial uses.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
ddrueding
Fixture
I will be shortly, the repository I use will have that available for trading soon.
ddrueding
Fixture
Yup
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
The good news is that it's not insanely good as rumoured. The bad news is that it's at least as good or better than nVidia. If AMD releases the DAG fix for Ethereum, and the difficulty bomb gets pushed back as expected, it's game over.
We can hope that supply of GPUs suitable for cryptocurrency mining meets the demand, because mining is unlikely going away soon. I see new people building mining-only rigs every day.
nVidia, at least, seems to be taking the path of attempting to meet the demand. AMD has built parts that are inherently better at compute tasks but is ignoring it.
ddrueding
Fixture
LinusTechTips pointed out that miners can probably buy every card AMD is able to produce, and that that would be a good thing for the long-term future of AMD.
Stereodude
Not really a
Not according to Coug's link. It shows the 1070 is a better card per watt.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
But do miners really care about per watt measurements, or only in the highest possible hash rate?
Who are these miners that can buy all of the video cards? Are they organized crime?
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
More likely they know people in the distribution chain, and can order/purchase cards before they even hit the retail merchants or end point distributors... Eg especially when miners are happy to pay RRP for cards directly from the local distributors...
I don't know how it works in the US, but here in OZ we typically have 2 tiers in the distribution chain, those that purchase directly from the manufacturer and import the goods, and those that buy from the former for distribution onto the retail merchants... If the minors are buying direct from the distributor doing the importing... that doesn't leave a lot in the smaller distributors and retail channel...
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
You Aussies give way too much money to your children.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
:thumbright::rofl:
Stereodude
Not really a
AFAIK, unless the electricity is free they very much care about hash per watt because they need to turn a profit making more money mining than they're spending on electricity. Ultimately that's why GPU's fell to ASICs with Bitcoin mining. As the complexity went up it cost more to run GPUs for mining than you could make from the mining.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
Yes, but... you can only attach so many cards to a rig.
I see people out there building RX 560 and GTX 1050ti rigs. They have to spread their overhead across those lower-hashing cards.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
I just put in an order for a GTX 1080, my first green team card in about fifteen years. The price difference between the cheapest (new) 1070 and 1080 I could get was just $20.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
In other bad news...
AMD released a blockchain compute driver with the DAG fix.
Ethereum developers announced a delay in the difficulty bomb, to be implemented in September.
And, graphics RAM prices went up 30% this month.
AMD released a blockchain compute driver with the DAG fix.
Ethereum developers announced a delay in the difficulty bomb, to be implemented in September.
And, graphics RAM prices went up 30% this month.
How is the price of RAM related? It seems that every few years the memory firms collude to jack up the prices.
Stereodude
Not really a
As I'm sure you know they use it on video cards. So, if it gets more expensive the cards will too.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
It seems only two firms (Samsung and SK Hynix) make most GDDR and all HBM, so it's not too hard for them to reduce supply, even if not colluding.
The problem seems to be increased demand (thanks miners) and moving of manufacturing resources to other lines.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
On Differences...
http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2826-differences-between-ddr4-and-gddr5
It doesn't....
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
There are ways to give video preference on the RAM, but system memory just doesn't compare to what they're putting on video cards.
GPUs eat bandwidth, and that's why there's not a lot of point to integrating even middle-range graphics with a CPU.
GPUs eat bandwidth, and that's why there's not a lot of point to integrating even middle-range graphics with a CPU.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
Some have to learn at their own pace. Even if they did screw up, they still have a hell of a gaming rig and/or workstation. It's not like the money was wasted but if their intent was an optimized miner, they didn't do a good job there.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
This is an expensive lesson, and he admits as such. I don't think he's into gaming or needs a workstation. He just dumped a lot of money and effort down the drain.
The cryptocurrency mining scene is littered with people who didn't do any research or think about how they would do things. Pretty much nobody getting into Ethereum mining now is going to break even. But they keep coming like this.
The cryptocurrency mining scene is littered with people who didn't do any research or think about how they would do things. Pretty much nobody getting into Ethereum mining now is going to break even. But they keep coming like this.
Howell
Storage? I am Storage!
Burst bubble or major correction?
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I still think bitcoin is a good investment, but not at ~$3,000. I won't go in unless it drops to around $1,000. There seems to be good support for that price level, making my downside risk pretty low if I go in at $1K. Anything higher is a bubble if you ask me, at least for the time being.