3 ms·

Do the miners also offset their investment cost? It seems that, depending on how expensive they are, it may be a better solution to just run the space heater.

• SwellJoe 12y ago
  Did mine? Pretty close to it, at least when Bitcoin was high. Would they today? Certainly not. I bought my ASICs and within a couple of months had recouped about 80% of the cost, and probably another 5% in the following couple of months before I turned them off due to heat. The GPU miners continued to make a reasonable amount of money by using currency hopping pools. But, they probably reached only about 65% of being recouped. Now, it would take a couple of winters to make another 5% back (but, since I'd be running heaters anyway, it might still work out OK...or, I may still be better off selling the GPUs, since they are still roughly current generation technology (I have a mix of R270, R280, and R290). I bought before the demand drove prices up, but still it was a pretty big chunk of change compared to the four or five space heaters they could replace. I certainly don't recommend mining. I got involved partly for the experience, as I was writing a novel that included Bitcoin oriented stuff, and partly for the GPU (I wanted a better gaming system anyway, so one 290 was getting purchased, no matter what), and partly for the gold rush (knowing it was probably a poor investment). But, it seems like there ought to be a system that pays people for their GPU cycles. Though what they'd be doing is up in the air. I can't think of much that doesn't also require fast communication. Folding@Home and SETI@Home are cool, but don't pay, which is unfortunate, since I don't run these things without something offsetting the electrical cost.