Is Mining Worth It Now?

bchainmusketeers (25)in #cryptocurrency • 6 years ago

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Is Mining Worth It Now?

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With the huge explosion of cryptocurrencies last year, the first global market to immediately react were GPUs, or graphical processing units. Otherwise known as video cards, GPUs were extremely sought out for mining purposes as many tokens have become ASIC resistant. ASICs, or application-specific integrated circuits, were small boards that would sometime house hundreds of the same chips found in a single GPU for the sole purpose of mining. This was highly demanded as you would often have the power of 12-15 GPUs on a single ASIC, making mining more feasible due to smaller energy costs and saving space. With the explosion of cryptocurrencies in late 2017, cards such as the popular AMD RX290, Nvidia’s 10XXs, and even higher-end powerhouses like the RX Vega and Titan V. Some cards were even market up to be 2-3x the price.

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2018 began with a steady decline of market prices for tokens across the board. This gave the market a general uneasiness about cryptocurrencies in general. As the market generally sloped into the latter part of Q3, amateur and professional miners alike started to have doubts whether the resources being pushed for mining will be worth it. This was capitalized with the announcement of the new Nvidia 2080X cards that would promote better performance than reigning 1080 GTX TIs. After this announcement, posting boards across the internet were flooded with GPUs selling for their initial MSRP or less in hopes that these cards will bring better performance.

So ultimately, is mining worth it? With cards being fractions instead of being marked up in multiples, the time to get into hobbyist mining is feasible. Whether you are looking for a single or multi-rig solution, it is easy for a hobbyist to invest in a mining rig for fractions of the price of what it was. Used RX290s that were once marked up to $850 on Amazon are now listing at $280. Similarly, 1080 GTX TIs that were once sold at $875 can be seen bundled with PSUs and Mobos for roughly half the cost. In the end, mining will expend the initial cost and energy resources to power the rig in order to reap fractions of a token. That token is relative to the market price, but if more and more people are fleeing crypto-mining altogether with cheaper parts being readily available, this could be an opportunity to dabble into this venture.

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