So the FBI shut down Silk Road...and BTC is down pretty significantly from ~$140 to ~$114 right now.
Don't care about SR. Hopefully more legitimate businesses start using BTC...and takes LTC along for the ride! 
I was using the Mining Calculator at http://www.coinish.com/calc/# to check for profitability of the newer ASIC devices. Under the Novice tab, all looks well since that only takes into account the current difficulty levels, but when you change it over to the Expert level, it factors increases in difficulty into the equation and things take on a decidedly different result.
My first check was using the BFL Jalepeno as sort of a baseline, since you can pick one up for $300ish, which I thought was a decent price considering the Hash Rate. Once I plugged it into the Calculator under Expert, it showed that it would never earn enough to pay for itself, because the difficulty would increase faster than it could keep up. Granted, if BC pricing increases with difficulty, that might be a moot point, but I am not willing to invest money on a "prices may increase".
The next miner I tried out was the new "Monarch" 300 GH/Sec card from Butterfly labs for $2800. The Monarch cards are pre-production now, so who knows what difficulty levels would be when they actually are shipped, but inputting the numbers from the Monarch card, it shows a profit of $2885 or roughly a doubling of my money after 12 months. If I change the utilization from 12 months to 24 months, the profit increases by $3 to $2888. Double the time using and only $3 increase in profit? Increasing the time to 36 months shows the same $2888 profit as 24 months.
Does this mean that in 12 months time the difficulty level will increase so much that even a 300GH/Sec miner is no longer profitable?? What am I not understanding here?? None of the of the other calculators seems to factor in the increased difficulty levels like the coinish one does.
My first check was using the BFL Jalepeno as sort of a baseline, since you can pick one up for $300ish, which I thought was a decent price considering the Hash Rate. Once I plugged it into the Calculator under Expert, it showed that it would never earn enough to pay for itself, because the difficulty would increase faster than it could keep up. Granted, if BC pricing increases with difficulty, that might be a moot point, but I am not willing to invest money on a "prices may increase".
The next miner I tried out was the new "Monarch" 300 GH/Sec card from Butterfly labs for $2800. The Monarch cards are pre-production now, so who knows what difficulty levels would be when they actually are shipped, but inputting the numbers from the Monarch card, it shows a profit of $2885 or roughly a doubling of my money after 12 months. If I change the utilization from 12 months to 24 months, the profit increases by $3 to $2888. Double the time using and only $3 increase in profit? Increasing the time to 36 months shows the same $2888 profit as 24 months.
Does this mean that in 12 months time the difficulty level will increase so much that even a 300GH/Sec miner is no longer profitable?? What am I not understanding here?? None of the of the other calculators seems to factor in the increased difficulty levels like the coinish one does.
philipma1957
Golden Member
- Jan 8, 2012
- 1,714
- 0
- 76
you can not do any long term calculations on any calculator since no one knows what % increase to use each difficulty adjustment. it has been as low as 5% and as high as 38% so picking any number for more then 4 or 5 months is a shot in the dark
https://bitclockers.com/calc
use this one and use 5% per month all the way up to 100% per month and you will most likely be able to see why picking more then 2-3 months is hard to do.
taltamir
Lifer
- Mar 21, 2004
- 13,576
- 6
- 76
Very simple. Take the illegal/criminal usage of bitcoins out of the equation and their relative worth goes down. Everyone knows their main appeal is as an "under the table" currency.
pandemonium
Golden Member
- Mar 17, 2011
- 1,777
- 76
- 91
I must admit, it seems compared to other markets and stocks (I'm no expert trader), BTC sure did stabilize relatively quickly.
taltamir
Lifer
- Mar 21, 2004
- 13,576
- 6
- 76
taltamir
Lifer
- Mar 21, 2004
- 13,576
- 6
- 76
so
was actually a single grad student from san francisco. Who created it as a libertarian economics experiment, and the FBI was unable to catch him until, several years later, he had posted his gmail address online, thus revealing his identity?FBI said:
Wow, just wow.
FBI doesn't deal with drugs, they also don't deal with tax evasion.
That makes this purely done to try to stop bitcoin.
That's not true at all.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/faqs
"The FBI has divided its investigations into a number of programs, such as domestic and international terrorism, foreign counterintelligence, cyber, public corruption, civil rights, organized crime/drugs, white-collar crime, violent crimes and major offenders, and applicant matters."
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/faqs
"The FBI has divided its investigations into a number of programs, such as domestic and international terrorism, foreign counterintelligence, cyber, public corruption, civil rights, organized crime/drugs, white-collar crime, violent crimes and major offenders, and applicant matters."
I like how they listed literally everything any branch of the US government does on an enforcement effort.
They even put a catch all at the end that says "anything we feel like"
It's not true in reality.
taltamir
Lifer
- Mar 21, 2004
- 13,576
- 6
- 76
apparently 1 college student is organized crime.
I remember all the news were saying the silk road was a mafia/triad ran black market. I guess that was wrong
Since this activity took place across state lines it comes under federal jurisdiction. It wouldn't matter if it was an old granny illegally selling parakeets.
Since this activity took place across state lines it comes under federal jurisdiction. It wouldn't matter if it was an old granny illegally selling parakeets.
FBI != SEC
FBI != IRS
FBI != DEA
The FBI is tenuously claiming jurisdiction under the RICO act.
1 person is definitely an extremely large and sprawling organization, obviously.
FBI does not have jurisdiction directly from the Controlled Substances Act unless it also falls under the RICO act.
Once that line of reasoning fails in court, they will argue the shit they made up about the guy hiring another guy to kill another guy, which is the flimsy pretense they used to arrest him in the first place.
By the way, the real reason the FBI is the one tasked with this job is that the Patriot act applies to the FBI, allowing them the same free reign in the communication domain that the NSA is afforded. The DEA/SEC/IRS does not fall under that act automatically.
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Nearing $200 again. At first I thought the recent rally in value was due to the US government shutdown, but it's continued to rise. Maybe we will see a new all-time-high before 2014.
I don't really have very many bitcoins anymore, wasted a lot buying USB ASICminers which have proven to be a terrible investment. Even my 60GH/sec BFL single is only bringing in about 1 BTC a week, and that will go down significantly next difficulty adjustment.
Still, I think bitcoin has a future, even if mining bitcoin is becoming less and less relevant. I'm going to start buying something like $50 worth of bitcoin per week, every week, just as a savings plan.
I'm also holding a few primecoin and Peercoin as alternatives.
I don't really have very many bitcoins anymore, wasted a lot buying USB ASICminers which have proven to be a terrible investment. Even my 60GH/sec BFL single is only bringing in about 1 BTC a week, and that will go down significantly next difficulty adjustment.
Still, I think bitcoin has a future, even if mining bitcoin is becoming less and less relevant. I'm going to start buying something like $50 worth of bitcoin per week, every week, just as a savings plan.
I'm also holding a few primecoin and Peercoin as alternatives.
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I made money on USB miners. I bought 9 then sold 7 at a 50% profit (should have sold all!). Then I bought 7 more with "coupons" and eventually sold them for a 25% loss. Including earnings, I made a small profit. I am 100% out of the game now. It was an interesting ride.
AnonymouseUser
Diamond Member
- May 14, 2003
- 9,943
- 107
- 106
ASICs have really killed mining for profit. I just hope they never come out for Scrypt (Litecoin).
KentState
Diamond Member
- Oct 19, 2001
- 8,397
- 393
- 126
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