RE: How long before you are a bitcoin millionaire? This nifty table tells you exactly what date. (Updated today when bitcoin was at $7000)
This once again got my mind wandering and a pic taken of the chart to look back over time and see that we will have come a long way since this point now. One we get through this forking season, we'll see how strong the true trend is for the next few months. If 2X or BCH flop/go sideways, then the trend will resume as investors will be loyal to the one king.
I have BTC from fiat, but really like the cloud mining for my long term accumulation. Yes, it's a slower game, but I've more than paid off a "lifetime" contract that I started on August 15th ALREADY at the current BTC price. I like this approach because it's like daily cost averaging up a very very long and level ladder so I don't stress about much. It's passive to me and feels like a true investment. Hopefully the mining continues and I tweak hashpower/get a few friends and family on board so they can enjoy the ride at a reasonable risk exposure, while getting some referral bonuses to keep up with the difficulty increases.
Looking forward to your next daydream inducing post.
I tried mining once (in July 2017),for a few weeks. The monthly after costs return was around 17% with bitcoin at $3000. I did some complex maths and concluded that if the bitcoin price stayed still, i would be making a loss before I had recouped 70% of my investment. That didn’t bother me because I was sure the bitcoin price would rise, and the equipment wouldnhave option value to others even if unprofitable to me.
The reason I pulled out of bitcoin mining was counter-party risk.
I figured that I could not know or find out who was behind the online miner in China. No names, no photos, no address, no audited accounts, only 2 or 3 years track record.
It wasn’t a huge investment, only 0.5 bitcoins, but I didn’t like the risk of the website just vanishing one day with no recourse. I pulled out a few weeks later and got back a profit. i think my 0.5 bitcoins turned into 0.62 bitcoins over 3 weeks. Not bad.
The website is still running today, so I missed a fair bit of profit.
At the time I went in the price of mining was around 6000 Satoshi per GHz. There was no fixed term contract - thankfully. I exited a few weeks later at roughly the same price, (in theory the price should fall towards zero unless the BTC price rises). Today the price is around 6700 satoshi. The missed profit was thus 17% per monthmining profit, plus the rise in the bitcoin price of 150% plus the rise in hash price of more than 10%.
Mining is certainly an interesting investment and profits will flow provided the bitcoin prices rises enough to compensate for the increasing difficulty (difficulty increases by about 13% per month). However, if the bitcoin price goes stable, your monthly profits will go to zero gradually over 6 to 10 months. At the same the value of your machine (or hash rate - if you are in a mining farm), will fall, so you won’t recoup the capital invested.
Simple conclusion: mining offers higher potential returns based on 2 assumptions - that your counterparty is safe, and that the bitcoin price rises at least 13% per month. If you get the first wrong, it 100% loss. If you miss the second, the profit may be less than expected, or even negative.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
I've been using Genesis Mining and been 95% happy with it overall. A few hiccups, but it's the crypto space. As for their open-ended BTC contracts (one-time fee), they sold out of their grandfathered prices and should be releasing new ones soon. I have to say that the returns have been fairly excellent for me there. I can't say the same for my 2 year ETH contract, but I had a few solid months of that before I learned my lesson on what an ice age and difficulty bomb is.
I crunched the numbers on the BTC returns via the cloud mining and if they keep it up over the next year or two, it'll be a huge win for me. If they go longer, I'll be ecstatic, assuming that BTC is the winner between the forks. Even if it fizzles out in a year, I'll still be super profitable and have spent less for my BTC than if I bought on the open market.