Can Bitcoin Home Mining Still Be Profitable?
Back in 2014, I loaned a friend my snowboard and gear to go snowboarding with other friends. Upon returning it, he explained bitcoin to me and then sent me one for using my snowboard. I was hooked. With a few months I was mining. I started with a small Butterfly Labs ASIC, then slowly added to my arsenal until I had just over 2 TH. This was a considerable amount of processing at the time. Bitcoin had went up to $600-700 but had retreated to the $250-300 range and the block reward was 25 BTC per block mined(currently 6.25 and will reduce to half this in 100 days or so). I was getting .05-.06 every 2-3 days. It was barely enough to pay the huge light bill I was generating. I keep mining for about 11 months and then deemed my hardware obsolete. Sure it technically and profitably-wise, was, but if I could've somehow kept mining and just eating the losses while stacking satoshis, I'd be a wealthy man today! I checked the blockchain from my wallet address and I had in my possession at one time or another over the past 10 years, almost 24 bitcoin!
I didn't manage to hang onto anything. It stings when I dwell on what could have been. My question today is, even though home mining wouldn't be deemed "profitable" right now, wouldn't it pay to just mine away and sit on the rewards for the next 10 years?
I remember the Butterfly Labs rigs back then.