I read about Bitcoin in June 2011 and built a miner using two ATI 5830s shortly after. It ran at ~550 megahashes and cost a total of $450.00 to build using new

I read about Bitcoin in June 2011 and built a miner using two ATI 5830s shortly after. It ran at ~550 megahashes and cost a total of $450.00 to build using newegg. I live in an area with free power in Tokyo and let the machine run for ~2 years. During some of this time Bitcoin was hovering around $2.00. I was mining as a hobby since it cost no money and I believed in Bitcoin's potential. In the second half of 2012 the price started jumping and I netted a very very nice return. I would not mine now as any real investment. I would like to believe Bitcoin's adoption will increase and the price will continue rising, but short term I think it's still quite the gamble.