
"If I invest $XXX will I be able to make money on YYY Bitcoin mining hardware?"
This is a very valid question and a somewhat difficult one to answer succinctly.
As the photo on the left shows there have been some significant changes in the Bitcoin mining hardware over the past 3 years. The Bitcoin mining hardware began with people using standard CPU power on their computers to generate the early Bitcoins. It then escalated to using high power/high performance GPU (Graphics Processing Units) video cards in dedicated hardware rigs. The next step was to utilize FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) that were more power efficient.
Currently, we are on the last step of Bitcoin mining evolution with the ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) mining hardware platform. This ASIC platform is a custom computer CPU in a sense doing the Bitcoin mining calculations required.
That now brings us to the question posed above....What hardware makes sense if you are interested in getting into Bitcoin mining at this stage of the game?
Disclaimer: This information is provided below is for informative purposes only, is not guaranteed to be entirely accurate and is subject to change without notice. It is NOT to be used solely to make purchasing decisions or used as investment advise. Please do your own research prior to making any investment decisions into Bitcoin hardware.
CPU Mining
- No Payback (Electricity costs > Bitcoin Revenue)
GPU Mining
- Essentially no payback with Bitcoin (Electricity costs > Bitcoin Revenue).
- See alternative coins for payback.
FPGA Mining
- Essentially no payback with Bitcoin.
ASIC Mining
- Mid to high rates of payback. See ASIC VENDOR summary below.
- Note: ROI Calculations are based on $140/Bitcoin, $0.15/kW electricity, current difficulty of 112M and 84% monthly increase
Virtual Mining Corp - http://virtualminingcorp.com
- Fast-Hash One - Silver Edition (64GH - $999) = ROI > 1 Year
- Fast-Hash One - Gold Edition (128GH- $1560) = ROI > 1 Year
- Fast-Hash One - Platinum Edition (256GH - $2400) = ROI 100 DAYS
- Fast-Hash-One Silver PCI-E Module (64GH - $699) = ROI > 1 Year
- Fast-Hash-One Gold PCI-E Module (128GH - $1300) = ROI 170 DAYS
- Fast-Hash-One Platinum PCI-E Module (256GH - $1900) = ROI 56 DAYS
- Fast-Hash One Combined (24.5TH - $150,000) = ROI 38 DAYS
Bitmine - https://bitmine.ch/
- CoinCraft Rig (500GH - $4249) = ROI > 1 Year
Butterfly Labs - www.butterflylabs.com
- Jalepeno (5GH - $275) = ROI > 1 Year
- Little Single (25GH- $1250) = ROI > 1 Year
- Single (50GH - $2500) = ROI > 1 Year
- MiniRig (500GH - $22500) = ROI > 1 Year
- Monarch (600GH - $4680) = ROI > 1 Year
AVALON ASIC - http://launch.avalon-asics.com/
- Avalon Miner (65GH) = NO LONGER SHIPPING
ASICMiner - http://www.asicminer.co/devices.html
- USB Block Eruptor (334MH - $30) = ROI > 1 Year
- USB Blade (10GH - $560) = ROI > 1 Year
KNC Miners - https://www.kncminer.com/categories/miners
- Mercury (100GH - $2000) = ROI 160 DAYS
- Saturn (200GH - $3000) = ROI 60 DAYS
- Jupiter (400GH - $5000) = ROI 46 DAYS
Bitfury (US) - https://www.megabigpower.com/shop/
- Starter Kit (25GH - $1300) = ROI > 1 Year
- Full Kit (400GH - $8000) = ROI 140 DAYS
Hashfast - https://hashfast.com/
- BabyJet (400GH Batch 2 - $3500) = ROI 71 DAYS
- Sierra (1.2 TH Batch 2 - $9500) = ROI 57 DAYS
Cointerra - http://www.cointerra.com/
- Terraminer IV (2TH - $14000) = ROI > 1 Year
- Terraminer IV JAN (2TH - $14000) = ROI 150 DAYS
TerraHash - https://terrahash.com/
- DX Mini (90GH - $6000) = ROI > 1 Year
- DX Large (180GH - $10500) = ROI > 1 Year