When mining is no longer profitable

I have (12) S9 units and (12) L3+ but most are shut down too. I was looking forward to this time of year when I could run everything and not need to deal with the heat issue (live in Rhode Island) but I never thought it would get to the point when the generated income does not even cover the electric even without the cooling expense. I have everything running as lean as possible with the natural cooling, custom firmware for better electricity usage and other cost cutting measures but at best I can only run about 1/4 of the units before I reach the break even point. If I see some (any) promising news I will consider mining at a loss for a few months but right now I don't see any reason.

Maybe after reading Steve's upcoming post I will feel inspired ! (lol)

My bigger concern is the public interest in it now.

The public does not see, that the coins rebounded 10% yesterday, or 5% the day before.
The only news they are treated to is the...Lost 40% value in month of november.
Slides to lowest since 2017....has the bubble burst on the bitcoins.

Last year everyone was throwing in trying to get rich quick and it was shooting the prices up, on coins, on miners, power supplies, video cards.

But once the public has cooled, it's going to be a tuff sale to ever get it turned around and get people back on board.
Oh bitcoins...I remember those. Didnt that become worthless back in 2018 around thanksgiving?
That's the sentiment that's going to be clinging to their minds for the next 2-3 years.

So do I see them rebounding...nope. And would I be the least bit surprised to learn the chinese were manipulating the cost of the coins and the prices to sell more miners to people at higher costs...nope.

Steve has asked in the past what was different with this cycle compared to the previous ones we've seen in the environment.
I think before it was all in house so to speak, under the radar, not televised or known about by average people.
Since its gone mainstream, people are following it now and the eye of scrutiny is not good for this trend. investers see that kind of loss and are wary to ever jump back into it.

Ziggy is correct IMO. Once this went mainstream and "professional users" starting getting involved it was time to grow up. But from what I see the industry didn't. To many of these "companies" are run by individuals who are immature, have some goofy ass idea about creating a new utopia and making us all stop eating meat.
Now things can turn around, but it means getting serious about the fundamentals and I don't think they are up to it.

I agree with you cc4506 but in addition to those "immature" companies I would include some coins as well. When anyone can come along and create a coin that has no legitimate purpose it casts a shadow not only on the legit coins but on the mining sites that carry that coin as well as trading sites.

As for BTC, mining is just 1/2 the problem now. There is a cloud hanging over BTC and other real coins that is scaring away not only miners, but companies that were considering adopting it as a form of payment as well as investors.

RCMco wrote:I have (12) S9 units and (12) L3+ but most are shut down too. I was looking forward to this time of year when I could run everything and not need to deal with the heat issue (live in Rhode Island) but I never thought it would get to the point when the generated income does not even cover the electric even without the cooling expense.

Hi, I'm just wondering, do you actually sell your rewards as soon as you receive them? I.e., are you taking USD via Coinbase or do you take BTC and sell that directly on your favorite exchange each day?

If you don't and you're hodling them to sell at a later date then the daily $ value you reportedly earn is not as important as it sometimes seems. In fact you really want it to be as low as possible relative to the amount of coins you're earning. That way you pay less tax this year (perhaps Zero) and defer tax until you sell your coins later for hopefully more than their 'mined' value and enjoy some capital gains. Some of my highest reward days (measured in coins) have been my lowest $ days relative to the whole macro market.

Lets say you mined 0.8 LTC on Dec 16 when Diff was 5.5M and it's price was approx $24.
You earnt $19.2 but your running costs were $21 so technically you lost money that day. Bummer

Now lets say you mine LTC again today with the Diff at 6.25M (up 13%) and the price at $38. You mine .704 LTC which is worth $26.75. Your running costs are the same ($21) so you've made $5.75 today. Happy days.

But hang on. You earnt .8 LTC on the 16th and .704 today which is .096 less so which day did you earn more? That .8 is now worth 30.4 so you actually made $9.4 on the 16th Dec when you thought you had lost $1.80.

Ok, you could take that $21 you spent on Opex on the 16th and buy more LTC directly (in theory), but depending on where you are, there can be a lot of slippage converting small sums like $21 into crypto, so you'd have to factor that in plus all the hassle. Depends where you are of course but for me, I just keep mining and focus on rewards, not $.

I looked into the liteforex extension on chrome.
Seems like it only has 5 downloads so far.

If they provided information or how they arrived at their choices or taught you something it may be worthwhile.
But it just says what to buy and when, so seems more like a pump-and-dump scheme than some of the other forex apps/designs I have seen on the web that offer more data on why they are picking the pairs and how you should act on that data.

If you are making an account, posting 2 times just to bump the liteforex app, go post/advertise on that thread instead of trying to drum up new business on an unrelated thread.