13

I was searching for Mining hardware on internet and found that a new technology is available known as "bitcoin usb block erupter" for mining bitcoins as 300MH/S

I just want to know if it is useful to use these hardware instead of GPU mining and how to calculate breakeven point for them.

P.S. : I've searched google for many things but there were mixed responses that's why I asked this question here

Improve this question
1
  • go for high-end miners or buy mining shares through groupbuys. Please check bitcointalk.org forum. Beware of scams..
    – vi.su.
    Commented Aug 5, 2013 at 8:42

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
26

A typical USB block erupter will get 333MH/s under realistic conditions. Today, a share is worth about 1/156 of a penny and 333MH/s will get you a share every 13 seconds. That comes out to 43 cents per day per erupter, not counting the cost of electricity. Difficulty is going up, and thus profitability going down, around 25% per month. So you can figure maybe $11 your first month, $8 your next, $6 the next, then $5, and so on. You might get about $50 before it becomes more trouble than it's worth.

Improve this answer
4
  • 1
    +1 Pretty realistic evaluation. Buying Block Erupters right now might break even over the next several months. Under ideal circumstances they might even make a few bucks. But with BFL cranking out monster ASICs it's becoming a big players game.
    – Chris S
    Commented Aug 30, 2013 at 16:20
  • Sadly, it now looks like profitability is going down by much more than 25% per month.
    – David Schwartz
    Commented Nov 13, 2013 at 2:53
  • I guess you could mine other coins with this though?
    – Barrie Reader
    Commented Nov 26, 2013 at 13:57
  • @Neurofluxation Other SHA256d coins, yes. But if any of those ever get more profitable than Bitcoin, the bigger buys running big ASICs move over too, crushing the profitability instantly.
    – David Schwartz
    Commented Feb 24, 2014 at 18:42
7

For anyone coming across this and wondering if USB miners are still profitable. Try this site. But short answer is not anymore. Bitcoin mining has become a big game for big players. Rather invest in big group buys, or convert to scrypt.

Scrypt mining is mining alt-coins (Litecoin, Feathercoin, WorldCoin, etc). You cant scrypt mine with the Bitcoin Asic miners, but just saying that if you want to mine are about to buy hardware rather look into scrypt mining with GPU's.

Improve this answer
4
1

Realizing I'm very tardy to this post, I'd like to throw out this update for those currently googling this question.

Background: I purchased 4 erupters back in November 2013- just to run beside my 4x5970s and 3x7950s, it was an experiment and at the time I was pretty new to mining in general.

Usage: 4-erupters with 92mm cooling fan and powered-USB hub. I've had a constant 1.3-1.4Gh/s with these USB erupters, peaking at 2.2Gh/s (but that's an anomaly and not constant) I use bfgminer and set them up to run @bitminter. They're super easy to use once you get the drivers set up and understand how to mine. I chose mining @bitminter because it seamlessly allows you to mine namecoin through the same port/pool.

Don't use bitminter's flash miner if you want to mine alt coins with your gpus while going after bitcoin with the ASIC cards (it doesn't play nice if you have wallets running or cgminer working and you'll get a lot of rejects)- but by using a command line miner for sha-256, I can also run guiminer-scrypt or cgminer to hash out alt coins.

Conclusion: So is it all worth it? Well.... No. With the 4 erupters running 24/7, @2.5W/ea I use about $0.02/USD of electricity while generating on average $0.12-$0.16 in bitcoin per day. In addition to the BTC, I generated about $0.03 in NMC. Altogether, a daily profit of about $0.15 per day USD.

Here's the breakdown as of today: 4xUSB erupters @$14.87/ea + $42.94 (USB Hub & Fan) + S&H = $106.16 Electricity (@$0.0616/kWH) $0.03/day x 98 days = $2.94 Total Expenditures: $109.10

BTC Generated: .03048521 NMC Generated: .09160374 (currently 0.00053247 BTC)

Based off of the current NMC exchange rate, my erupters have generated a total of 0.03101768-BTC in under 100 days.

At the current BTC/USD exchange rate of $578.86, I've been able to generate $17.96 USD. So after nearly 100 days of mining with the block erupters, I'm sitting at <-$91.14>USD.

Good luck to those who still try the USB-ASIC route, I'll be mining DOGE and MINT with the cool kids :D

Improve this answer
0

Pretty much the only real hope is bitcoin going up in price, that is what I'm basing my mining on.

Taking the assumption that it goes way up in price there are two options: 1) buy bitcoin, 2) but a miner. In the first instance you will have, 1x your money. In the second instance you will have the 1x plus you will still be generation more coins.

It is all really a gamble on bitcoin going up. If it goes down the in either instance there is a loss. I am prepared to loose all in the hopes that bitcoin will survive.

My guess: If bitcoin survives another year, and I think it will, it will be substantially more valuable,

Improve this answer
-3

I would have to say substatiantly it will become the revenue of the future making money obselete. It will make everyone able to live a possibly better life if it is controled bitcoin mining then it will boost our economy not endanger it. Actually soon their might be a transition from money to bitcoin and the profit margrine will go up which means everyone on the planet will be rich wich is better for everyone.

Improve this answer
1
  • 2
    Spelling atrocities aside, the asker is asking specifically about one piece of mining hardware, not bitcoin mining in general.
    – Nick ODell
    Commented Oct 4, 2014 at 4:22

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.