What’s the deal with BTC mining?

I still recall the first time I stumbled upon BTC. Back then, it wasn't worth much, and instead of really getting into blockchain, we were all about using 2GO. If only I had paid more attention then, I could’ve been rolling in it by now. But hey, life goes on and who knows what the future holds. I remember them talking about BTC mining back in the day. Is it still a thing? What do I need to get started, at least to make up for my past ignorance?

The mining difficult has increased so much as many people are now miners with powerful mining machines (ASICs). Unlike before that mining bitcoin is not expensive to setup. This would be helpful: First time/Small miner reference for getting started. You need ASICs which are much expensive You need constant electricity. So the electricity should be cheap You will need to join a mining pool

You can use the link Charles-Tim provided for you to know the requirements to set up a solo mining farm. If you are not wealthy just forget about going into mining because the cost of equipment is very expensive. The cost of electricity is the most expensive which has discouraged a lot of people that wanted to go into mining. However, if your country has cheap electricity, that would be helpful. Cost of maintenance of equipment and overhead cost is also there. Solo mining is no longer profitable because of the mining difficulty has increased, and this is why it will be better for you to join a mining pool so that you can make profits.

A friend of mine told me that now is not the right time to mine Bitcoin, because this area is almost completely hegemonized by rich people. As a beginner, of course I believe that, because he is one of the veterans in the mining field. If that opinion is wrong, please correct it to show the actual truth. Then my friend said, there is still an alternative to do it, that is by mining altcoins that have a low difficulty level, then after you get the block reward, you can sell it & buy Bitcoin.

If you felt you have missed out from owning Bitcoin, you have not because Bitcoin has big future potentials and mining is not the only way in which you can own Bitcoin. You can also be an investor, investing  progressively and comfortably in a flexible DCA strategy. To set up a Bitcoin mining rig, it will cost you thousands of dollars to purchase the required machines but investing in Bitcoin could be more flexible but if you have the money to start a rig, I recommend you watch this videos. For a rough estimate, you can spend more than $12k to set up a profitable mining rig. RTX 3080 Mining Rig Build | 600 MH/s and 1500 Watts GPU Mining Rig Bitcoin ASIC setup and install guide| Bitmain Antminer S19J pro. If you also like to read, this article is so comprehensive. Is ASIC Mining Profitable in 2025? Factors, Tips, and Future Trends

Ohhh thanks for this, also can i get how to share picture i want to show a clear one of how a friend set up mining recently although he didn't want to tell me how to go about it because he thought i was broke (which he didn't lie), someone said i must get merit for it to show, is that true? Can i get it for this my content?

Yes, you need to be a junior member before your images can show on this forum. And for that, you need at least 1 merit and 30 activities. You have the activity already, it remains just merit. But you can post the image link instead. You can upload the image on https://talkimg.com/ and post the link here.

If you ask me , I could say depending on some major factors it could be too late for you to venture mining. Mining was much more profitable back in the day and not now when you need an enormous amount of hash rate to run a setup. Back then it was possible to mining with a good GPU and CPU unlike now. Another big set back is cost of buying , maintenance and even electricity costs for running the wares and sometimes if you are in a region with high electricity costs you could end up in loss or zero profit net.

You can still share images, although they will not automatically appear on the forum. Just upload the image to one of the free image hosting services and post the link.

HOME MINING IS DEAD. I could write for hundreds of pages but the best you can do at home is buy a space heater. I built the one below it goes for about 800 usd it earn 4.5 x 32 = $1.44  a day before power cost it is a space heater and will lose money in every case unless your power costs 5 cents a kwatt or less. 19 x 5 = 95 cents that will do $1.44  - $0.95  =$0.49 a day profit which means 1600 days to break even. if you want the commercial models  for a home there are 2 that are smaller like this one. https://altairtech.io/product/bitchimney/ the lessor Loki is 1199 mine is a tiny bit better https://www.ebay.com/itm/375910466441? I would rate the Avalon a bit better than mine so altairtech 1199 Avalon 1199 me 800 all of them are good if you use a space heater. none of them make money at 10 cent power cost.

Yes. Without miners, Bitcoin network would die since no one create block and no TX can get confirmed. As for requierment, check whether you have access to electricity with price rate about $0.06/kWh or lower. Otherwise, ROI could take very long time or even never happen depending on hashrate growth and Bitcoin price in the future. It's not that simple. Low difficulty usually means that altcoin have low price or mining reward, where you usually mine at loss. And if that altcoin can be mined by ASIC, it's probably dominated by big scale mining business (or "hegemonized by rich people" according to your word).

Actually not true, you can still mine some altcoins and transfer and HODL them in BTC and make it profitable lol

If you really really want to do this, the top priority is electricity, the cheapest the better it will be for you. A single Asic miner takes 3500watt from the wall and this have to be in the wall socket for longer to make money, that's a lot of power you got to pay for if you ask me. Electricity first then Asic miners later, this is the mistake that I've seen few friends of mine did in the past, they ended up selling the miners at loss value because they realized they have failed woofolly for not doing some research and calculations first. You have the money, I get it, but I am glad you come on here to ask this question, people like you might just take actions first and ask questions later.

So modern asics already consume much more than 3500 watts per hour. I think that most houses do not have sockets that are suitable for connecting such equipment. Usually this is done by enthusiasts who modernize the electrical wiring in the house.

this is true. I have 3 circuits in the house that I added. they can do 30 amps and provide 240 volts. so 30 x 240 =7,200  watts which I derate to 5760 watts for safety. I also mod asics below is a bitmain t21 instead of doing 3 phase and 400 volts it does 1 phase and 240 volts rather than 190th at 3610 watts which is 19 watts a th it does  112 at 2083 watts which is 18.5 watts a th I listed 3 on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/156984520065 note price is 2222 but I will take 1950 on best offer ' I am running one at the house as it is kind of cold and I can use the heat

An interesting observation is that Russian miners very rarely use amperes. In Russia, miners often make calculations in Kilowatts. I also lay a wire, and I know that a copper cable with a cross-section of 6 mm can withstand a load of 10 kilowatts, but I load it no more than 75%.

When sizing wire you MUST use amps! The reason is simple: power lost in a wire (as heat from voltage drop) is strictly determined by how many amps are running through it. Aside from insulation requirements the voltage used is meaningless in this case.  ref https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm Watts = volts x amps. Saying that a wire can carry x number of watts or kwatts is meaningless if you do not know both the voltage used along with the current. Now assuming the voltage used is always the same yes you can get away with using watts/kwatts because it will infer the amps being pulled but if the voltage is changed that idea is no longer valid. If in your case is the voltage is 240v then 10kw = 41.666 amps Using nice round numbers, eg: 10kw = 100v x 100a or 200v x 50a or 400v x 25a, etc.

and he does do a derate to 7500 watts   so while the method he uses is a shortcut it works if he gets close to 240 volts constant. At safari1980 do you put in a 40 amp or 30 amp circuit breaker or just direct wires (unsafe in my opinion) to a kill switch

@phil, note that I edited the cross-section comments and included a chart giving all the data https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm added this because safar1980 likes quoting entire response chains...

philipma1957, NotFuzzyWarm I looked at your data in the link and it seemed very complicated to me. I will show you the Russian GOST You can see the cross-section of the copper wire, the current strength and power At my locations the voltage is 220 volts, and the Russian miner will say that it consumes 3300 watts and not 15 amperes. P=IxU I have a general circuit breaker and an additional circuit breaker for each branch of the wire for the mining equipment. Usually, even if the load on the wire branch is no more than 4 kilowatts, I still use a cable with a cross-section of 6 mm, because the difference in price is not big if you buy a cable with a cross-section of 4 mm.