Ask HN: does bitcoin mining pay off? I'm curious whether there are people who do (semi-)professional bitcoin mining, for example with hardware like https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison, and whether this really pays off? In the worst case, the costs for powering these devices is higher than the value of bitcoins mined, plus there is the risk of dropping exchange rates. If it is somewhat profitable though, then I'm wondering why not more people are doing it, as it seems easy enough? If more people did it, would there be a risk of cannibalizing each others efforts? It might sound like naive questions as I don't know much about the mechanisms of bitcoins. |