rone – Member
Um, I was joking dude.

Bitcoin down over the last few days as bitcoin cash sucks the money in. I’m buying bitcoin on these dips.

Oh, you might be down a bit now? Pump more in or is this the start of the bubble bursting? Time to throw the dice?!

I’m holding a combination of eth, bitcoin and litecoin. Seen my wallet drop £300 this week, but think I’m going to hold onto it and see what happens in the new year. I think the time for short term huge gains is gone, it’s now going to be a long term thing. I just wish I’d bought some bitcoin when I first heard about it years ago!

Well it’ll move dramatically in a few hours so if you time trades right you could make a lot. Or lose a lot….

Very true, but I have a feeling I’ll get it wrong and buy at a peak and sell in a dip 😀

Oh, you might be down a bit now? Pump more in or is this the start of the bubble bursting? Time to throw the dice?!

I built my holding up way before the dip so still comfortable.

Don’t forget 10,000 was predicted by Xmas and it’s still way above that currently. In fact it only corrected to early December levels.

I’ve been buying in small chunks of BTC.

In for longer term.

I suppose yesterday’s dip was a just a reaction to the huge climb recently.

Either way it’s a hold for me.

Got a pair of 1080ti gfx for my work machines as part of my normal end of year purchasing.

Interested to see what this expensive mo-fo will do with nice hash in my downtime.

Biggest problem is the ease of getting out of positions quickly – I know someone who lost a chunk trying to sell and struggling to get out of his position. Admittedly the loss was on a theoretical profit but there we go.

BTC derivatives are an different way of betting on the value, it’ll be interesting to see how they take off. Middle of last week someone bought a load of BTC options (approx $1M), expiring in Dec 2018 that it’ll be trading above $50K.

Biggest problem is the ease of getting out of positions quickly – I know someone who lost a chunk trying to sell and struggling to get out of his position. Admittedly the loss was on a theoretical profit but there we go.

Definitely. Lost some myself like this.

That’s way long term is better.

Isnt Google, Apple etc a better long term option?

Isn’t there a risk that Bitcoin might just disapperar to nothing?

Isnt Google, Apple etc a better long term option?

Pick the right altcoins now and you’re investing in the apple/Google/amazon of 20 years ago.

Pick the right altcoins now and you’re investing in the apple/Google/amazon of 20 years ago.

As a pure gamble, maybe. Otherwise, not sure there’s anything in that comparison.

Afternoon all,

I’m glad this topic started some debate, its been interesting reading through all the replies.
For people who think its a bubble and a ponzi scheme, I fully understand why you would think that. However while this bubble is still well and truly inflated, I don’t see a reason not to get involved and try to profit from it.

Yes there is always a risk, but surely that’s the same with most modern day investments. Especially ones that have the ability to offer a decent reward.

Timing is key to a lot of these things, as a few people have mentioned. I find Poloniex a great platform to exchange and invest on. Initially buying currency through Coinbase and transferring it into Poloniex. This enables me to do instant trades between most coins, and getting out of a position is a matter of seconds.
Ripple is a really decent investment at the moment, and I am buying this with funds I hold in Bitcoin.
I am currently buying a selling daily, but keeping a bumper of Ripple which I will never sell just encase a sudden upwards streak comes in!
Today for example I got Ripple at 0.000063 BTC and then I have just sold at 0.0000778 I only purchase 5000 today which cost around 0.312 BTC, but when selling for 0.389 BTC thats a daily profit of 0.077 BTC which equates (at current rate) to $1100 ish after fee’s. Today was a good day, but if you watch the charts and it gets to a 24 hour low, in my opinion that’s a great time to buy. Then just check back every couple of hours and see what is happening.
At first I was hesitating on selling, just encase it went up more. But after a few times where a toilet break cost a couple of $100, that hesitation stopped.

Its also worth mentioning new starter coins or tokens.
There are loads out at the moment, Electroneum looks particularly interesting, and I have purchased a few of these just encase things go well.

But there was a new token called NAGA (NGC) that was crowdfunded a few weeks back, the crowdfund buy price was $1 per token.
It was finally listed on the HitBTC exchange a few days back, and within 4 hours it hit a high of $4.36. Its now back down to $1.65. I got out at $3.56 each, but I only purchased about $100 worth to start with.

Just to clear this up, I have lost too. But forgetting the mining investment, I initially put $500 worth of Bitcoin into my Poloniex Trading account, and I haven’t invested a single penny more since then. I was happy to risk $500, and if I lost it all tonight I would walk away annoyed, but not harmed.

Onto the mining –
I decided to try and do this properly, as it was going to cost a certain amount to set the room up to be suitable for the mining machines.
This initial set-up cost was going to be the same for 1 machine or 20 machines.
The main issue I have had is cooling, the Antminers pump out some serious heat. And the hash rate is seriously effected if it gets too high.
I did start of with the air-conditioning on 24/7, however the electric rates are fair to high, meaning the profitability was taking a hit.
In the end, I decided to cut some 400x400mm holes in the warehouse walls, and install some 14inch fans, rated at 4850m3/h, bringing the fresh and cold air in from outside.
The hot air from the backside of miners gets piped into 100mm ducting, goes up and through the ceiling and into the back of the 2 upstairs offices. Since putting in this system a few weeks back, not a single radiator has been put on in the offices.
The miners now run at around the optimal temperature, and we actually make use of heat they produce.

Onto the equipment –
I now have 16 Antminer D3 units, which are personally mine.
The mining rates vary massively, but the average capability per day, per miner is around 0.01 Dash per miner. Which is around $14 per day for each miner. With an electricity of around $2.
My average cost per miner was $860, meaning the ROI is around 75 days (including a few days for downtime).

Anything mined from this goes straight into a Nano S Ledger Physical Wallet, and does not get touched. My intention is for this to stay untouched until the miners are all paid off. Then I will consider moving any profit over into the Poloniex trading interface.

As for GPU mining, I have stopped this completely.
I purchased 2 x RX Vega 56 and 2 x Vega 64 GPU’s around a month back, and I just don’t see it as a profitable way forward.
I am considering adding a GPU into each office PC, and running Nice Hash in the background while the PC’s are on. But as yet, they are sat on a shelf waiting for a plan!

That’s about it!
As always if anybody wants any advice, please send me an email.

I’ve read this all but not posted until now.
a few weeks ago I brought into eather key chain via etorro i went into it with 3 others and I fully expect to lose the lot and right it off as a gambling folly. we came out roughly after costs with a 35% profit.
even with lots of research it’s still a gamble and nothing more.
I do think Keychain is a viable option

So as I understand it ,the current block reward on Bitcoin is 12.5 BTC (equiv to ~£150k at times!)

So is it ever worth mining solo and getting nothing, but hoping for that big payout one day? Or are the odds just so stacked against individual miners that the only real way is to join a pool?

GrahamS –

Good question, but in my opinion the answer is no, its never worth trying to solo mine anything at the moment.

I have done some work on this, so I will try my best to show the explanation below. This is done on a monthly basis –
The current total Hash rate for mining bitcoin is – 15 million TH/s
Source – Click

A new block comes out every 10 minutes –
(6 x 25 x 365) / 12 = 4380 new blocks per month.

To have a chance in solo mining 1 block, you would need at least –
15million / 4380 = 3500 TH/s of mining power

The antminer s9 is largely regarded as the best SHA-265 mining machine, which on a good day will give you 14 TH/s.
Meaning you will need 3500/14 = 250 Machines at least to have a chance of mining 1 block solo.

Current cost of a S9, if you can get it is around £2000.
So your outlay would be around £500,000 in just mining hardware.

The last block rewards was 12.5 BTC
See the block info here – Click

Obviously 12.5 BTC is currently around £12000, meaning it would only take 3.3 blocks to be breaking even. But this isn’t guarantied in anyway!

Mining in pools means you are sure of a return.
1 S9 Miner is currently bringing in around £25 a day in pool rewards.

If you had 250 miners, that’s £6250 a day almost guarantied. Meaning a ROI on 250 miners would be just 80 days (No electricity counted for here).

That’s why I would choose pool mining!

Thanks handyman, that’s interesting.

What about the lower profile, lower value Blockchain currencies? Presumably many work on the same principle? So is it worth solo mining some of them to earn some speculative holdings while the block rewards are high, the puzzles easier and there are less competing miners?

Or does the hardware/power maths mean it’s ultimately cheaper just to buy with cash?

Upgraded our current editing systems to 1080ti(£700 Inc Vat) cards. When not being used as editing machines they yield 6-7 quid a day before leccy on Nice hash.

After tweaking power we’re looking at 200w.

Set up my dedicated 3 card 1080ti rig. Tweaked the power so it’s not burning too many watts unnecessarily. Got it to 500w in total and turning 20 quid a day before electricity.

No heating on in that room at all.