Quote:
Originally Posted by ainarssems
I never looked into it in depth but my impression was that while its was profitable at the start these days it would barely pay electricity bill.
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Quite the contrary. That may have been true at one time, and still is true (in most cases) for CPU mining but ASIC and GPU mining are very profitable right now.
Cryptocurrencies and mining are a vast subject. I wouldn't want to hijack your thread by going off on a tangent, but I'm happy to share any info. It would probably be best to start a new thread to discuss it properly.
But briefly, as a comparison ...
I own an (ASIC) Antminer S9. Cost was about £1800, inc PSU:
Running cost is about £120 per month and it makes about £350 per month. So ROI is ok, but not great. However, it's relatively plug and play, low maintenance, compact and it's an easily scaleable solution, hence the popularity of ASICs in some mining farms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxeF6364M-8
However, mining with the right graphics cards is more profitable:
A rig containing 6 AMD RX 480 GPUs costs about the same as an Antminer S9. However, it will make more like £550-£600 per month and costs less to run (approx £80 per month). You may notice that most of the better AMD graphics cards are sold out -- that's no coincidence. Presently the Nvidia 1080Ti is about the best available. It's more expensive than the 480 cards, but it mines at about twice the rate.
GPU mining is also more flexible than ASIC mining in that it's possible to run different algorithms to mine different currencies. A lot of the larger mining farms now use GPUs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd25gifGXVQ
Bear in mind also, that the depreciation of high-end graphics is very low and you can eliminate electricity costs if you invest in solar and/or can make use of the by-product (heat).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjP5ekChJJ0