$4500 Mining Rig any ideas?!?!? (Comes w/ Story)

[GloriousPain]

So a friend of mine who's well simply put a pot head, an idiot, not the kind of person I'd associate if I had any choice in the matter... He is however charismatic as all hell, a hard-worker, willing to learn, accepting of his own mistakes and in a mere matter of days after I posted a normally negligible status involving crypto-currencies, he has done basic research and now wishes for my help  and has even banded together with some friends and has so far scraped together $4500! which in all reality is quite crazy considering just a few weeks ago he was borrowing money from my uncle to buy some cigarettes (the day after his payday) and the funds are only increasing, I've warned him thoroughly of the risks and the markets status but he wishes to continue and to start with the money they currently have and plan to save up to roughly this amount again at a later time to build another mining rig and repeat til they start making lots of money to them its an investment long term they're happy waiting a few years before making any true profit. and a nice little quote here

 

 

I have followed my cock right into the lion's den, why shouldn't my wallet come along?

He's serious. Deathly serious and all I can do is help him, along with killing some time and making some money. I'll kill a few birds with one stone and he shall follow his dream whether or not he realizes what he's getting into is irrelevant to me. 

 

Here is your mission should you choose to accept it:
 

• Design a mining rig
• Budget $4500 US dollars MAX
• Best Hash/Cost ratio
• Without sacrificing power consumption or Raw Hashing power too greatly.
• Preferably w/ room to upgrade so Custom built using individual ASIC cards would be nice
• Preferably ASIC based for obvious reasons
• Have a nice day

[GloriousPain]

<Reserved>
Also; if you really can't justify it to yourself any good rig over 3,000 should also be acceptable; We may have plans for something todo with any extra money that may cost upwards of 1,500 but if you come up with amazing rig costing $4.5k don't worry about it. So essentially $3 Grand Minimum

[dragoon20005]

ask you bro to buy this

 

https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage-new-products/10-gh-s-bitcoin-miner.html

 

get like 15 of them

[GloriousPain]

ask you bro to buy this

 

https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage-new-products/10-gh-s-bitcoin-miner.html

 

get like 15 of them

Why is it these things seem suspicious like even for crypto-currency mining this seems oddly suspicious. I must be missing something.

[Wano97]

Why is it these things seem suspicious like even for crypto-currency mining this seems oddly suspicious. I must be missing something.

It's legit.

[dragoon20005]

it either a dedicated ASIC miner

 

or you make your own miner

 

 

the advantage of the butterflylabs miners is the low power draw

 

and they can just be run from a powered USB hub and a host computer

[GloriousPain]

It's legit.

It's not I found the flaw they're $250 not $25 like I had thought... 10GH seems somewhat low in comparison to other things I'm seeing by the same company unfortunately those are only available for pre-order

 

 

it either a dedicated ASIC miner

or you make your own miner

Yes doing the latter is more what I was aiming for, and even the company you recommended makes ASIC cards for building your own miner which is more what I was aiming for, just those are only for preorder but there must be One that isn't by a similar company at a higher power 

[NInety]

I'd go with 2 of these:

 

https://bitmaintech.com/productDetail.htm?pid=00020140429083756017VwGm90Xx06B5

[xXxYOLOxSWAGxXx_420BlazeIt]

Make a list of all the ASICs you can find, and rank them based on their $ per TH/s. Then quickly buy as many as you can. The longer the wait the bigger your risk.

[Faceman]

I would dissuade your friend from pursuing this.  This is a very risky endeavor, and it is not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket.  Just too much risk for minimal, un-guaranteed, and fluctuating rewards.

[GloriousPain]

I would dissuade your friend from pursuing this.  This is a very risky endeavor, and it is not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket.  Just too much risk for minimal, un-guaranteed, and fluctuating rewards.

That was the point of the quote and story in pointing out the fact he's somewhat aware and still willing to risk it plus I'm in no position to deny him help and quite frankly he's a nice guy but we've been speaking of this for a while I've fully warned him, and it's to the point I'm just gonna take his money irregardless it's just I'm trying help him make his idiotic decision slightly less idiotic by consulting some people who know more about the subject than I do... And hope for some good karma down the road as hey even he's said he's willing to wait years if he has to... And trust me, he really does have patience of the highest degree.

[Faceman]

That was the point of the quote and story in pointing out the fact he's somewhat aware and still willing to risk it plus I'm in no position to deny him help and quite frankly he's a nice guy but we've been speaking of this for a while I've fully warned him, and it's to the point I'm just gonna take his money irregardless it's just I'm trying help him make his idiotic decision slightly less idiotic by consulting some people who know more about the subject than I do... And hope for some good karma down the road as hey even he's said he's willing to wait years if he has to... And trust me, he really does have patience of the highest degree.

Read this:

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/175129-what-do-i-need-to-start-bitcoin-mining/

[Lays]

That was the point of the quote and story in pointing out the fact he's somewhat aware and still willing to risk it plus I'm in no position to deny him help and quite frankly he's a nice guy but we've been speaking of this for a while I've fully warned him, and it's to the point I'm just gonna take his money irregardless it's just I'm trying help him make his idiotic decision slightly less idiotic by consulting some people who know more about the subject than I do... And hope for some good karma down the road as hey even he's said he's willing to wait years if he has to... And trust me, he really does have patience of the highest degree.

 

 

wait for @RuecanOnRails or @AK0490 to reply, they're 900x more knowledgable than 99% of the other people that post in this subforum.

[RuecanOnRails]

--

 

 

At this time, I can not recommend any ASIC's to purchase. Even the current round of "pre-orders" are already looking not to break ROI. Butterfly labs is a scam of a company do not listen to anyone who recommends them. They neither deliver, nor are their prices remotely competitive.

 

First of all, mining is a zero sum game, it's not something to see a profit. It's a way of indirectly purchasing Bitcoins with hardware and electricity. There is no "free money" to be made. There have been 4 generations of ASICS in less than 2 years, and it's not slowing down yet. Making an "entry" level purchase of hashing power is unlikely to get positive results.

 

Instead of dumping the money into mining equipment, consider purchasing the coins directly. For the same amount spent, you will get more coins instantly than you could mine over the life of the hardware.

The difficulty over the past 5 months has increased by an average 18.26% every two weeks; 36.532% every month. Do the math before any purchase of mining hardware, ignore the ads of a positive return on the various websites.

 

What is your "friends" goal/reasoning for wanting to mine? If it's for "profit" he will not find any.

 

 

If you/he is set on mining, where abouts do you live? What is your electric cost per kw/h. If you like, we can do some quick calculations to see if the lack of potential with current ready to ship mining hardware and pre-orders.

[Lays]

q

 

I gotchu buddy.

[GloriousPain]

If you/he is set on mining, where abouts do you live? What is your electric cost per kw/h. If you like, we can do some quick calculations to see if the lack of potential with current ready to ship mining hardware and pre-orders.

He pretty much is; And quite frankly I have no issues with just taking his money I am getting paid for doing so I run a psuedo tech wizard business out of ye olde home... It's just he's enough of a friend where I don't wanna just take $5Grand and leave him penniless but I have no moral issue just warning him then helping him blow his money on his "dream" and making a slight profit... 12cents/Kw/h if I'm not mistaken... And I'm sorry I never give out location for multiple personal reasons.

[1823alex]

I'd say that you should get to AntMiner S2.

[AK0490]

He pretty much is; And quite frankly I have no issues with just taking his money I am getting paid for doing so I run a psuedo tech wizard business out of ye olde home... It's just he's enough of a friend where I don't wanna just take $5Grand and leave him penniless but I have no moral issue just warning him then helping him blow his money on his "dream" and making a slight profit... 12cents/Kw/h if I'm not mistaken... And I'm sorry I never give out location for multiple personal reasons.

First, everything @RuecanOnRails said is spot on, but if you insist..... 

 

Don't preorder anything! If a shipping product is just out of stock it is fine to order for the next batch but don't preorder! Especially with your cost of power I would have to recommend something like the Antminer S3. https://bitmaintech.com/productDetail.htm?pid=00020140704023505485N5SxDMkW0693 You could purchase as many as you want to reach your price point.

 

With the current state of Litecoin and other scrypt based currencies I cannot recommend any scrypt Asics. 

 

Personally If I was investing more money into mining I would still go GPU, but atm I'm trying to keep the power bill under $600 a month   There are MANY new coins and algorithms that are currently asic resistant and can mostly only be mined with Gpus. It is far more work then Asics to run and maintain but there is still some money to be made. Any Asic you buy will become obsolete, I have some Antminer S1s that will be paperweight before long. They did actually produce more Bitcoin than they cost, it's not "impossible".

[RuecanOnRails]

He pretty much is; And quite frankly I have no issues with just taking his money I am getting paid for doing so I run a psuedo tech wizard business out of ye olde home... It's just he's enough of a friend where I don't wanna just take $5Grand and leave him penniless but I have no moral issue just warning him then helping him blow his money on his "dream" and making a slight profit... 12cents/Kw/h if I'm not mistaken... And I'm sorry I never give out location for multiple personal reasons.

 

Location didn't have to be specific, just country/region to compare electric costs for both residential, business, and industrial.

 

Here's some quick calculations if you were to purchase the new, soon to be shipped Antminer S3. The Antminer is considered one of the "best" options for mining as it's cost efficient and the company is known to ship products.

 

https://tradeblock.com/mining/a/63cf52a928

 

The numbers used can be seen on the left side, a quick breakdown:

10 Antminers = 4.78 Th/s

costing 7.25 Bitcoins, roughly $4500 USD

3660 watts power consumption at 12 cents

No shipping, no cables*, 1% fee for pools (even on zero fee pools 1% can be used for stale shares)

36.532% monthly difficulty increase. (based on past 5 month trend) https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

 

 

The only thing you really need to pay attention to is the Mining Payout Schedule.

With the above parameters you will never break even, and will remain continuously in the red. It would be more "profitable" to hold the 7.25 Bitcoins initially used to purchase the miners.

 

Even if you're looking at the current loss projection optimistically; Thinking maybe the difficulty increase will slow substantially, or upper limits on difficulty will be reached, maybe ASIC production stops allowing your miners to remain usable. None of these Antminers S3's includes power supplies. This adds the need for 5 800 watt power supplies pushing your costs much higher and further away from ROI.

 

 

 

As @AK0490 said, it is potentially better to invest in GPU's and mine on the various ASIC resistant algorithms. Although that space is currently getting flooded with GPU miners switching from scrypt mining making it much harder to predict. It also comes with a hefty power bill It's not impossible to see a return on currently available hardware, but it's somewhat unlikely at this time.

[AK0490]

The problem with a GPU rig in this case is that if he needs your help in the first place he probably isn't going to make money. It's the kind of thing that if you have to ask the answer is probably no....

[Builder]

Get one of the ASRock mining boards and attach all of the R9 295x2s you can to it.

[AK0490]

Get one of the ASRock mining boards and attach all of the R9 295x2s you can to it.

A 295x is $1500, a 290x can be had used for $300. Use math, it's amazing.

[Builder]

A 295x is $1500, a 290x can be had used for $300. Use math, it's amazing.

How rude. Yes, I realize 290x are cheaper, however you will fit more GPUs total with 2 R9-295x2 and the rest R9 290x.

[AK0490]

You aren't going to want to have more then 6 gpus on one motherboard anyways, the software will be a bitch.

[LapX]

So basically you're asking us to do all the research so that one of our friends pays you ?

 

By the way, I think butterfly labs do not deliver quickly(by that aI mean months and months before you get your thingy), so it's maybe not a good option there.