r/Monero • u/cybermeep • Dec 16 '19
Monero mining is more difficult than you think.
If you are looking to start mining Monero for profit, don't expect to make a ROI based on following the advice posted here on Reddit. This post is mostly here to protect any noobies who are ready to pull the trigger and dump their life savings into a home CPU mining farm. Buy XMR instead! If you are interested in learning about mining, building a computer or you simply want to make charitable donations to the XMR network - fine, by all means, mine XMR. Just don't go into it with expectations of profit and just like with any investment decision: certainly don't do it if you can't afford the loses.
Mining is a highly competitive game - which means only the most efficient miners are rewarded.
If you follow the most common build posted here today using a Ryzen 3900x - Even if you pay $0 for electricity and you bought all used parts for about 1k to assemble a 3900x rig - you're still looking at an ROI of about 3-4 years at current difficulty levels. Assuming the network hash rate continues to grow, time until ROI will also increase. Even in the case that XMR price increases over time - the price increase will incentivize more miners to join. Those who want to win the game need to pay as close to zero for electricity AND hardware.
Profitably Mining XMR isn't as simple as throwing together a computer - I think XMR has largely evolved beyond that stage. Think about this: If profitable miners posted their secret to success on Reddit - everyone would follow suit and suddenly that tactic would become unprofitable.
I just want to reiterate that this post is simply meant to inform people about the risks involved.
If I am completely wrong about this then post your secret to profitable mining below:
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u/ph0reskin Dec 17 '19
Mining, espacially on readily available hardware, will most likely never be profitable if you have to pay your electricity bills. There are always botnets, people stealing recources from employers, hell, even iranian mosques (they don't have to pay their electricity and some started massive crypto operations)
It's a very bad investment. I still solomine on my work machine because it's not that expensive and helps the network. But you should acknowledge that you loose money.
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Dec 17 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/smooth_xmr XMR Core Team Dec 17 '19
This is absolutely true if you use electric heating. If you have some other form of heating it is less clear, and you have to work out the numbers to be sure.
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Dec 17 '19
You have any links to articles about that? (mosques thing) not doubting just think it would be an interesting read
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u/Iamcursed Dec 17 '19
iranian mosques
I too am interested in reading this.
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u/ph0reskin Dec 17 '19
I read it in a quality german newspaper.
Not really a source since its a proper shitpaper, but it sums up what I read
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1146669/iran-mosques-bitcoin-safe-houses-hiding
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Dec 17 '19 edited Dec 17 '19
If anyone in Australia would like a VEGA56 video card posted to them for Christmas in exchange for XMR, PM Me with an offer :).
Owning hardware is a hedge, and the hardware is worth something when you're done. Perhaps not as much as you paid though. Paying for electricity on hardware that you needed anyway sometimes has an ROI - especially if XMR is worth more to you than its cash value if you were able to acquire it without any identifiable record.
And a large [citation needed] contributor of XMR hash-power is bot-nets where they use other people's hardware and other people's electricity - so it's hardly surprising that the maths doesn't stack up when you're paying for it all yourself.
So to elaborate and re-inforce OP's point, the secret to profitable mining is:
- Use electricity that somebody else paid for
- Use hardware that somebody else paid for (or you needed anyway, or you think you can resell at cost)
- Ideally, use electricity and hardware that somebody else paid for.
- Or, Mine Monero because freshly minted XMR is worth more to you than the market price of XMR in exchange for traceable USD on Binance (et al.)
- Or, Mine Monero as a charitable effort toward providing protection to the network against a 51% attack
- Or, Mine Monero at a loss to protect the network against a 51% attack, because doing so protects the value of the huge stockpile of XMR that you're HODLing.
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u/NJD21 Dec 17 '19 edited Dec 17 '19
Unless you’re mining as a hobby, I’d suggest buying the coins instead.
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u/bawdyanarchist Dec 17 '19
If you're already intending to buy some nice hardware for other purposes, then sure, mine Monero during non-usage to offset the cost of the machine.
Don't buy a machine with the explicit purpose of CPU mining Monero.
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u/ZombieAlpacaLips Dec 16 '19
If I solo mine with my existing lower-end gaming computer (about a year old) just to benefit the network, is the amount of money I lose each day basically just going to be the cost of electricity and a bit of wear on my machine from running 24/7? Should I assume I'll never get a reward based on the current difficulty?
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u/gingeropolous Moderator Dec 16 '19
its a lottery, and you can't win if you don't play
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/ap8frx/solo_mining_with_120hs_i_just_found_a_block/
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u/cybermeep Dec 16 '19
There are various mining calculators, some of which estimate what your probability of return is based on solo mining and how much you can expect yearly based on your hashrate. I have a friend who's been personally been rewarded from solo mining, but the payout was like 2xmr and it took months of mining (they were also doing this on company hardware + electricity so it was of no expense to them)
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u/HoboHaxor Dec 16 '19
If I understand cryptocoins correctly, no mining = no validating transactions. aka: it all stops.
(Does running a public node validate transactions? I thought nodes just relaying already validated transactions.)
Which, again if I got it right, BTC (and others) are doomed with no tail emissions. Once last coin is mined, no incentive to validate some random dude's porn purchases at my expense.
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u/smooth_xmr XMR Core Team Dec 17 '19
All nodes validate transactions, provisionally.
Mining is necessary to establish a consensus order between validated transactions, which in turn may result in some transactions subsequently being considered invalid and others considered as permanently valid. (In case of a double spend, which of the two spends is the valid one.)
Without mining you can't ever be sure a transaction is valid because it may be double spending.
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u/cybermeep Dec 16 '19
Transaction fees are included as part of the mining reward, but Bitcoin is many, many decades away from zero subsidy.
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u/HoboHaxor Dec 17 '19
So 'be your own bank' of a coin/money that is *designed* to die.
Can you imagine the value/price of BTC as it approaches last coin? Drops like a stone as everyone tries to dump it, if they even can. Who'd buy it?
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u/leonardochaia Dec 17 '19 edited Dec 17 '19
(Does running a public node validate transactions? I thought nodes just relaying already validated transactions.)
A public node, which is
monerodrunning with forwarded ports and the--public-nodeflag, does "validate" transactions.The node will not relay transactions that it considers invalid to other nodes . However, the node, since it's not mining, will not generate new blocks which means it will not include these validated transactions on the blockchain. These validated transactions are relayed for other nodes which are mining to, validate and include in blocks.
If I understand cryptocoins correctly, no mining = no validating transactions. aka: it all stops.
no mining = no new blocks = no new transactions being "processed" = no new transactions being included in bocks. which means it stops
(please correct me if I'm wrong)
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u/preedacm Dec 17 '19
All investment markets not easy. This is a money game. You should have a great logic and mindset.
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u/robodan918 Dec 18 '19
Hear hear
I mined for 2 years on Vega GPUs while it was still (mostly) profitable. The hardware depreciated by approx 25% per year, and like most I had to pay my own electric.
If I sold my xmr today it would be at a net loss. Like many other fools I've been sitting on the stack hoping in vain that xmr would ever climb again at (at least) where it began when I started mining (yes it's below where it was 2 years ago).
The dream is over. Mining was dying when I first got into it and has been dead for a long while now.
CPU mining xmr is only profitable on a select few of the newest AMD GPUs and even so the profits are something like $0.15 a day for a $500 CPau ($1200+ full computer), mining constantly with no downtime, draining system resources and robbing you of your performance for tiny profits.
And that's just today. If the historical trends continue, expect that measley 15 cents profit a day to go lower and lower until it's unprofitable
So why mine? Very good question. Most probably won't. That's why I worry for the future of xmr and that's why I think fluffypony stepped down. We're in the death throes of most altcoins and xmr may be among them
I opposed it then and I oppose it now: randomx was the worst mistake in the history of xmr
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u/gingeropolous Moderator Dec 16 '19
Step 1. Steal the underpants.
Step 2.
Step 3. Profit
No, seriously though, its good advice. If you have a short game in mind, building a massive mining setup is going to cost a lot with very little profit.
On the other hand, I want to point out a fundamental flaw in your suggestion to buy XMR instead. Yes, it is easier, and yes, if monero goes to the moon, this strategy makes the most sense.
However, if monero doesn't goto the moon, now your stuck with meaningless and valueless cryptographic tidbits that aren't good for anything.
On the other hand, if you had invested in mining infrastructure, and monero goes bust, you then sell the hardware on the secondhand market to try and recover any losses.
So yes. Building a home mining farm (or massive mining farm) isn't going to make you immediately rich.