Time to sell?

[TechElucidation]

So I finally came to the decision to sell off my two mining rigs. FirePit was 12 X 3060 Tis, and RedWood was 10 X Radeon 6800 XT.

The reason I chose to sell now was for a couple of reasons….

First and foremost, here in NH, our electric providers just got permission to double the generation cost for electricity, so our effective rate is about to jump to around $0.30/Kwh for the next 6 months (at least). With the price of natural gas going up, legislation targeting miners, and the pressure being put on the grid all over, I expect these price increases will start to spread (perhaps not as bad, but I expect they are coming).

Then when you consider the current crypto winter, it will be cheaper for me to just buy coins than mine them. That is the most important factor any miner needs to consider for profitability and if it is still worth it. I know some people talk about “don’t look at the value now, but what it might be worth in x years” – but if I buy the coin now I still see that same benefit if the coin goes up.

While the price hike is only supposed to last 6 months, in that time Ethereum most likely will go proof of stake, and so far no good contender for a replacement has shown up. So even when (if) it comes back down, not sure what would be worthwhile mining at that point.

The next thing that came to my mind was the value of selling the equipment. Once Ethereum goes proof of stake, I expect the market will get flooded with old GPUs, and the bottom will fall out of the market. It has already dropped quite significantly. I keep seeing videos where people are saying “you can sell it again later for 50% of MSRP” – I can tell you that even right now that is a challenge for a used mining card. When the market floods, don’t expect to get close to that. Also this assumes you got your cards at, or close to, the MSRP.

Also Nvidia and AMD both announced the next generation of their cards. While I have 3060 Ti’s, I expect when the 4000 generation starts hitting the market, the 3000’s will drop from that as well. Making it even harder to get close to that 50% mark.

So I figured with all these factors, I might as well sell them off. And here is where I ran into my next surprise – Ebay will limit how many cards you can sell per week. For the 6800’s I was only able to list 3 per week. With the 3060’s they only let me list 2 at a time, and had to wait 7 days after the last sale before I could list another 2! So you may find that selling them is not as easy as you had hoped.

NOTE – if you have a well established EBay history, and good reviews, you can call the support group and ask them to increase your limit. I was able to get my limit increased, but a friend was not the first time, but tried calling again the next day and that person did it for him. This can help, but I still wouldn’t recommend flooding yourself in the market. Keep the number on sale at one time to a reasonable level.

Finally, remember Ebay (or any marketplace) likes to make money as well. Even if you manage to sell your card for 50% of MSRP, EBay then takes 13% of your sale in fees. So a 3060 TI sells right now for about $500 (MSRP is actually $400), but if you can get 50% of that you are looking at a sale around $250ish, then Ebay is going to take 13% ($32.50), so you are only going to get $217.50 – or 43.5% of current prices. Average price for a 3060 TI over the last year has been closer to $600 to $700, so only getting $220 back is really going to hurt – and I honestly think in time that is just going to get worse and worse.

Anyways – not sure about all your situations, I know many people are just doing it on the side on their gaming rigs, etc. but some of you may have larger rigs and want to start thinking about these things. I happened to look at the ProHashing chart on the number of miners, and looks like they have dropped about 10% month-over-month, so some people are dropping out already (and probably trying to sell off equipment where possible).

Keep safe!

[Steve Sokolowski]

Tech, I think this is a really bad decision.

First, the "winter" won't last as long as the previous three "winters" did because the circumstances are different. This winter was entirely due a credit crisis, like occurred in 1907, just on a much larger scale. The price decline was caused by Genesis, BlockFi, and others liquidating collateral from 3 Arrows and companies that were margin-called. It isn't caused by a lack of interest in cryptocurrencies like the other ones were; NFTs are still around and a big driver of prices.

The price of these rigs has already been crushed. You're selling at the bottom of the market.

If you believe that graphics cards will be worthless after ETH merges, you still have at least three months before the merge happens, and prices are likely to rise. Profitability will increase at a faster rate because people are getting rid of these graphics cards on the flawed assumption that the September 19 announced date will actually be hit. It's difficult to see how card prices will be any lower in 3 or 6 months, but during that time profitability may be the highest it has been in years due to people buying the merge news.

And furthermore, Ethereum Classic is making a huge run, up at a greater pace than ETH. I know that PROHASHING is currently adding two additional algorithms for GPUs at Salad's request, and there will always be coins to mine. It's also a mistake to assume that the graphics card market is solely dependent on ETH.

I have multiple 3090 cards and one 3060 card and do not plan to sell them.

[TechElucidation]

Hi Steve,

The issues for me go beyond specifically mining. As I mentioned, my electric costs are about to almost double, so even if Ethereum was still good, at double the electric costs there is no way I could make that profitable. When you consider I was already may 19c per KWh my margins were already thin, going up to 35c to 40c will kill any chance at profits on any algo. The best I could do is shut them down and wait 6 months (the length of the first emergency order that allows that price hike) and just hope it is not renewed for another 6 months. Considering that would be in the middle of winter, when natural gas goes up anyways for heating, I really expect that order to last at least 12 months here.

As I mentioned in my original post, at those costs mining would cost me more than buying the coins. So that is what I have been doing, the couple hundred I was spending on electric has been buying the dip as much as I can (as well as a couple NFTs).

Another thing is with them shut off for 6 to 12 months, regardless of if Ethereum is still minable, difficulty would have changed, the new Nvidia 4000's will be out, things like that wich make picking up where I left off hard or impossible. So looking at the choice of having them shelved for 6 months to a year, and hoping at that point to turn them on again - or selling them off for what I can and using the proceeds for other crypto investments, I chose the latter.

It was a hard decision, but I did keep one card, and building a new desktop that I can hobby mine with, but just not sure GPU mining for me right now will work. But just not sure if, at least for me, home mining makes sense.

As well as some of the investment projects I am looking at, I have also been looking at a couple of hosted ASIC miner solutions. Found a few that let you configure your own pool (since I wouldnwant to use ProHasing), but they were in TX which recently had faltering grid issues again and makes me nervous. Indeed this whole cost of electric in NH is making me take a much deeper dive into hosting facilities and where they get power, cooling, etc from. However some were offering hosting with electric at 9c plus a hosting fee, or another for 11c all-in. That is even better than my regular electric before this madness.

A couple places did do GPU rig hosting, but they seemed a little fringe use cases, and wanted specific case types and sizes. In the end I wasn't comfortable with any of them.

[Sarah Manter]

As I mentioned, my electric costs are about to almost double, so even if Ethereum was still good, at double the electric costs there is no way I could make that profitable. When you consider I was already may 19c per KWh my margins were already thin, going up to 35c to 40c will kill any chance at profits on any algo.

@TechElucidation I think you need something like this! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT2Cz3A5nj4&t=4s

[Sarah Manter]

Another one. This one's funnier though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFf29sIGaXY
But still cool.

[TechElucidation]

Hi Sarah,

I did actually look at trying to do solar! Both adding Solar to the main house, or just doing a "Solar Shed" setup where you only mine during sunlight hours. I probably got to excited about the nerdiness of building a solar setup and shed and everything.

But from that second video (which yeah, was pretty funny) you can see what it took to run a 78w system. FirePit alone took close on 1,300W to run! Not to say it couldn't be done - I actually did the calculations and drew up some plans to do just that.

Then as nerdy boy got tired and started to doze off, that annoying reasonable MBA education kicked in and took over once again. The amount of crypto that I could buy for what I would spend on solar was just ridiculous. Plus the fact I was going to setup more solar power than the two of I used to live off, and would probably be better off focusing on just doing the house (without mining) on solar.

[Sarah Manter]

Hi Sarah,

I did actually look at trying to do solar! Both adding Solar to the main house, or just doing a "Solar Shed" setup where you only mine during sunlight hours. I probably got to excited about the nerdiness of building a solar setup and shed and everything.

But from that second video (which yeah, was pretty funny) you can see what it took to run a 78w system. FirePit alone took close on 1,300W to run! Not to say it couldn't be done - I actually did the calculations and drew up some plans to do just that.

Then as nerdy boy got tired and started to doze off, that annoying reasonable MBA education kicked in and took over once again. The amount of crypto that I could buy for what I would spend on solar was just ridiculous. Plus the fact I was going to setup more solar power than the two of I used to live off, and would probably be better off focusing on just doing the house (without mining) on solar.

Haha! I went through a similar process. Got nerdy and excited, realized how much power it took to run my computer, and realized I don't have the know-how or the money right now to make it happen. Although I definitely am considering roof solar panels in the wake of the electricity increases right now, not gonna lie. Need to replace the roof first, though. Have to find a reputable roofer. #adulting

[TechElucidation]

Need to replace the roof first, though. Have to find a reputable roofer. #adulting

Oh yeah, that was another thing that came up in my plans. There just wasn't enough room for the number of panels I would need on the ground, so was thinking about the roof, but then like you realized I really needed a new roof first.

The costs just kept adding up and up, and the feasibility kept dropping.

[Sarah Manter]

Need to replace the roof first, though. Have to find a reputable roofer. #adulting

Oh yeah, that was another thing that came up in my plans. There just wasn't enough room for the number of panels I would need on the ground, so was thinking about the roof, but then like you realized I really needed a new roof first.

The costs just kept adding up and up, and the feasibility kept dropping.

Understandable. I guess one way to look at it is that you can ignore the cost of the roof because you'd need that to stay dry in the relatively near future anyway.

[rusgal25]

Now after the merger of Ethereum, the situation of graphics card mining is even worse, and there is basically no profit coin anymore, but i don't worry too much, I feel that there should be a currency that may take over the GPU computing power in the future, just like I saw a post before said that ZK mining may be a trend in the future for crypto mining market. If you are interested, check this zk mining post link:
https://minernav.com/mining-technology/ ... placement/
Now I still have a lot GPUs left, and I only shut down them and just wait and see. Hope the mining market will recover soon.