Now is the best time NOT to mine Bitcoin
Seriously. While the block speed is relatively stable throughout the days, difficulty / reward steadily doubles. This would also be fine (although we know doubling results in an exponential curve), as long as the hashing capability of mining devices also doubles, so basically Watt used per Terra hash calculated halves in the same pace. W/Th is about 1/3 of what it was in 2018, while the difficulty is now 10 times greater than back in 2018.
Mining returns are dependent on the following:
- initial investment
- W/Th of the rig
- electricity price
- how many other miners are active
- size of the reward
- price of Bitcoin
With that sad it’s a good indicator to look at profitability by checking how much hashing capacity was allocated in a day, and how much reward did that yield, taking the electricity factors and the one-time-investment (one-time every other year) out of the equation.
This profitability index is ~1/10 of what is was in 2022 and ~1/20 compared to 2018.
Now for the good news, as mining gets less profitable competition might thin out, and difficulty increase might slow a tiny bit. If this is combined with some serious price increase of Bitcoin, and say a decrease of rig (secondary market) prices, mining could still be a lucrative side hustle. It’s just there are so many “if”s.
