obobskivich wrote:Agreed if you didn't get into it early, it's too "late." Many miners have moved onto other forms of cryptocurrency that have higher ROI, but in general all I see is that (like other "rushes") the folks making money are the folks supplying the mining equipment. That means the guys selling the Radeon cards at 100% mark-up; not the people buying them. Basically if you have $500-$1000 to throw away and want it as a novelty, go ahead, but don't expect to get rich or make money at it. Even if your $10/day estimate is correct it'll have to run nonstop for better than two months to even approach breaking even (remember you're paying for power and an ISP connection and maintenance/support and so on).
There's also the big unknown about stability of the coin exchanges (which means your "money" can just go poof with no warning), especially now that various law enforcements agencies have started to take an interest due to the criminal elements that have been attracted to cryptocurrency.
Seriously, underscore the above several times. I almost spent $6000 that I could ill afford to lose on miners from Butterfly labs, thinking I would make the money back in a month or two and have some easy money for a year. Now I am REALLY glad I didn't, the 50 gigahash miners are nearly worthless (at least the Jalapeno can heat your coffee) and there are tons and tons of stories about people never even receiving what they ordered
from BFL. On top of that, Butterfly Labs has been mining with customer hardware, then shipping it when it is
just about worthless (if they ship at all). Their forums are filled with pissed off people.
Everything about bitcoin smacks of tulip mania or other speculative bubbles. If you really think bitcoin will be worth big bucks in the future, you're better off buying bitcoin directly and holding it. Or mine some altcoin with a GPU and then at least if it isn't worth anything your GPU is still worth something. Or better yet, join a Folding at Home network.
Remember, there is no such thing as easy money and if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.