Thinking about starting mining? Need your advice!

Hey everyone, I'm considering diving into the world of ASIC mining. Got a few questions that I'm hoping some of you can help with.

1. Are you mining currently? If not, what's holding you back? I bet it's money related for most... but curious.

I've mined before but gave it up. Not worth it anymore since it’s so unprofitable. I’m holding off for better miners. Waiting game now.

Solo mining feels like a lottery to me, so I’m with a mining pool. Much better odds that way!

Yeah I hear ya. Pool mining is way more stable than going solo. I've been doing it for a while now.

What do you guys do about the noise and power costs? Running a few miners creates a lot of heat and sounds pretty loud.

It’s a good idea to explore what gear works best on your budget. I mean, gotta factor in the kWh rates and all that too.

I’ll add more questions to the top post after this. Trying to get a solid understanding of everything.

Mining solo is a real risky bet unless you've got free electricity. Pool mining is way safer if you want profits sooner.

I've been through both. Profitability mostly depends on your local power costs and network difficulty. Math don't lie

Basically we talk about $0.2, so we are far away from the $0.05 benchmark that you said. Guess I 'll have to wait...

Have you tried calculating your possible mining cost and profits with a tool like whattomine? It would help you calculate the exact numbers to help you decide how much you need to prepare to start a mining business. I do think that you need to think twice if you can't access cheap electricity.

If your electricity bill is high then sorry my friend, mining isn't for you, the first thing that clears the road to mining for everyone is the electricity bill, the cheaper it is the better it will be for you on the long run. I don't care about the noise because it's my place, I don't have any neighbors living in the same place as I am, I am living in a fenced compound and there are companies nearby using very noisy machines than asic miners so... I am from a country where electricity is generally bad, maybe six hours of power per day so I moved to solar energy years ago, my panels are still working very well today, so I switch back to the grid power when available but I use sun for mining more than the grid energy. I was running two asic miners and it was in a bull market of 2021 then, I sold one and I have one running right now, so the profitability wise just makes it less attentive to me right now.

Take note using tools like whattomine to calculate your profit is not accurate its just an estimation based on the current mining difficulty the real-time profit might be lower or higher because it still depends on the unit's performance and where you mine. @OP if you haven't decided yet which unit you want to buy that can give you the best profit there is a tool that will give you insight into what ASIC units are currently profitable with your electricity cost. Check out this link https://www.asicminervalue.com/

Then you may be interested in this information, because you are better off buying cheaper ASICs, but you will have to deal with their firmware https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5465088.msg62974759#msg62974759 Chat with these ASIC firmware developers https://vnish.net they will offer you interesting overclocking for old modeo S19 ASICs. At $2,500, the S19k Pro is expensive.

Thank you all. So, having high electricity cost and based on your comments, I decided to stay away from mining for the time being. I will certainly leave the thread open in case anyone want to add their opinion. @BitMaxz I checked and none of them is very profitable, at least not a "cheap" one. Thanks though.

I didn't notice this topic. but if the price of electricity is 20 cents, then mining is not your business. The price of Bitcoin must increase 4-5 times, and the difficulty must not increase, in order for it to be profitable to mine with 20 cents per kilowatt. But I don’t think we will see this.

I agree. I have stopped thinking about it. I just left the topic open in case anyone wants to express an opinion. But yeah, 20 cents is too high for considering mining.

1. Yes. I probably mine at break even or slightly below, but I mine for non-KYC purposes and am willing to pay that "premium." 2. Pool. I use Antminers. I have used numerous pools and each have their strengths and weaknesses. I encourage you to try multiple pools to find what works best for you. Some considerations: type of payouts (PPS, FPPS, PPLNS, PPS+, etc.), KYC issues (e.g. Foundry), does the pool re-use addresses or can you use an XPUB, accounting features, etc. Because of the cost to mine where I am, I use a pool because the chances of solo mining paying off are akin to winning the lottery. If you want to consider solo mining, maybe consider something like Bitaxe a relatively low risk and low cost mining solution, although the chances of finding a block are significantly reduced. 3. Hosting facilities because the cost to mine where I am located is prohibitively expensive. I prefer self mining but the costs in time and money were too much for me. 4. Mining is not for everyone. Unless you can obtain really cheap power and really cheap machines, it's not likely to be profitable, and it is really hard to find cheap power but costs of machines have come down. The looming halvening is also a big threat to profitability for obvious reasons. New generation machines consistently come out making your current machines that much less profitable. Having said all that, I am glad I mine because I have learned so much about the network, how it works, and non-Bitcoin things like how power works, computers, and software. I feel relatively secure in my jurisdiction that the threat of seizure, sanctions, etc. are quite low.  I am also glad I mine because I have a stack of non-KYC coins. I don't view mining as something I will do for years to come. I will likely mine until my machine efficiency is reduced to the point that the costs significantly outweigh the benefits. I wish you good luck in your journey.

1. I am mining - S19Pro 110T. I do it as a form of DCA of non-KYC corn (and an willing to pay the premium for that), to participate as a miner and promote decentralization, and as a geeky hobby. 2. Send my hash to f2Pool. Considering Braiins Pool once I get BraiinsOS going. I prefer the constant and predictable stream of sats now model, so I use a pool as opposed to solo mine. 3. At home. I built a box to house it and it does a good job of keeping noise down. It’s 55db around 5ft away in the box. Exposed, the S19 screams at well over 75db. I have it tucked away in the basement and you don’t hear it elsewhere in the home. If you have a smaller space, the sound will always be there. These things of course pump out mucho heat. I live in Canada and in fall, winter, spring it truly does help heat the home. In the summer, recommend finding a way to vent outside. Electricity is $0.11ish - costs a little over $200 a month to run. The economics of mining are brutal and constantly changing. If you’re planning on selling what you mine, price volatility is a huge consideration. The difficulty continues to march higher and you’re also getting fewer sats for your hashing power over time. I enjoy it though and it’s not really about running a ‘profit’. I’m just stacking sats.