<p>Just like in any other business, what you would need is some advantage over everyone else. That might be in the form of a very low cost of capital that would allow you to acquire mining hardware at a lower effective cost than others. That might be an exceptionally low cost of electricity. That might be something you can do with the heat bitcoin miners generate rather than having to pay to remove it.</p>

<p>But absent that, you can't make a profit bitcoin mining. That's because the difficulty of bitcoin mining (how much work you have to do to mine a block) adjusts automatically to keep the block rate constant. So if mining was generally profitable without requiring anything special, more people would mine and the difficulty would go up.</p>

<p>That is precisely what has happened. The difficulty has gone up to the point where unless you have some special advantage over others, you cannot make money by mining.</p>

<p>You will be competing against businesses that have covered every base -- the lowest cost for the ASICS, the lowest cost for electricity, the lowest cost for physical space, and so on. If you have no plan to match that, don't mine.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-16T10:38:29.237Z
This should be the default answer for questions like this.
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-16T10:35:28.947Z
2017-04-16T10:35:28.947Z
David Schwartz
<p>To start mining bitcoins you need to buy some mining hardware. A PC is useless. You will need modern ASIC miners.</p>

<p>Things are changing quickly and this isn't the place to discuss specific models. But don't buy ancient USB-stick ASICs that have barely any hashrate. In April 2017 a hashrate of 1 TH/s (1000 GH/s) is slow. Fast miners can do over 10 TH/s.</p>

<p>Make sure you compare the price per GH/s of different options. Make sure you add the price of a power supply, if not included.</p>

<p>Try a bitcoin mining calculator (google it). Some people try to sell ASIC miners at ridiculous prices. If the calculator says it takes 10 years to break even then you've found one of them.</p>

<p>The Bitcoin wiki has a list of miners at <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-14T00:11:52.740Z
2017-04-14T00:11:52.740Z
Dr.Haribo
<p>I have 16gb of ram,gtx 1070,intel i5 6500k(i beleive) and pretty good internet.   What would i need to start bitcoin mining and how much would it cost?  If you can help or give advice please let me know </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-13T18:36:35.193Z
Welcome.  Be sure to take the tour at https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com
SDsolar
<bitcoind><mining-pools>
Starting mining for bitcoins
A456852258654Z 
# Starting mining for bitcoins

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-04-13)

I have 16gb of ram,gtx 1070,intel i5 6500k(i beleive) and pretty good internet. What would i need to start bitcoin mining and how much would it cost? If you can help or give advice please let me know

**Tags:** bitcoind, mining-pools

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Welcome.  Be sure to take the tour at https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2017-04-16. Score: 2

Just like in any other business, what you would need is some advantage over everyone else. That might be in the form of a very low cost of capital that would allow you to acquire mining hardware at a lower effective cost than others. That might be an exceptionally low cost of electricity. That might be something you can do with the heat bitcoin miners generate rather than having to pay to remove it.

But absent that, you can't make a profit bitcoin mining. That's because the difficulty of bitcoin mining (how much work you have to do to mine a block) adjusts automatically to keep the block rate constant. So if mining was generally profitable without requiring anything special, more people would mine and the difficulty would go up.

That is precisely what has happened. The difficulty has gone up to the point where unless you have some special advantage over others, you cannot make money by mining.

You will be competing against businesses that have covered every base -- the lowest cost for the ASICS, the lowest cost for electricity, the lowest cost for physical space, and so on. If you have no plan to match that, don't mine.

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: This should be the default answer for questions like this.  

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### Answer by username_4 on 2017-04-14. Score: 2

To start mining bitcoins you need to buy some mining hardware. A PC is useless. You will need modern ASIC miners.

Things are changing quickly and this isn't the place to discuss specific models. But don't buy ancient USB-stick ASICs that have barely any hashrate. In April 2017 a hashrate of 1 TH/s (1000 GH/s) is slow. Fast miners can do over 10 TH/s.

Make sure you compare the price per GH/s of different options. Make sure you add the price of a power supply, if not included.

Try a bitcoin mining calculator (google it). Some people try to sell ASIC miners at ridiculous prices. If the calculator says it takes 10 years to break even then you've found one of them.

The Bitcoin wiki has a list of miners at <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison>


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