I am new to Bitcoin and I read some article about bitcoins and Most articles says "When using CPUs, GPUs, or even the older ASICs, the cost of energy consumption is greater than the revenue generated."

What I want to ask is why people still trying to mining with their CPUs and GPUs?


Just for fun. Many actions can't be explained from the point of view of logic

  • 1
    Yes, there are some us out there that mine as a hobby, which means I'm okay with losing some money. There's also altcoins. – 4276 Jan 13 '15 at 2:10

In my case I wanted to test the whole thing and see if I was able to get some coins (cents or whatever). Truth is that my test was almost 2 years ago and I was able to mine 0,01 BTC in a couple of weeks if my memory serves me well.

After that I started investing and bought a real miner. As of today, that can't be the case, because there are no pools that pay you if you don't mine a minimum so you may never get what you mine with your CPU.

My conclusion is that they may be testing not expecting any revenue.


Maybe the user is not paying for the electricity of their computer. I used to mine with my desktop while in College and living in a dorm. That was also a few years ago but I was able to collect 5 coins throughout the year.

Also, if you spend the time now to mine your coins how ever possible, the hope would be I guess that one day they will be worth more then what you spent to get them.

But regardless when using a Desktop, I was never able to mine successfully from a CPU, needed GPU to ever be able to get coins from a pool.

  • 2
    Some might mine now because they think the value increases, but if you calculate it trough it makes no sense! Just use the money you'd need for power to buy coins. You get more coins and if the value increases, you win more! – Josef says Reinstate Monica Jan 13 '15 at 8:04

I'm currently mining with an KNC Neptune Asic miner since june of 2014. At 20nm silicon it's the most energy efficient miner currently in use(0.07 w/Gh/s) and currently it produces about 1 BTC per month at current difficulty(I got 1 BTC every 3-4 days for the first few weeks after delivery). It's pulling a steady 2140 watts at the wall socket(3500 Gh/s) so at today's price(< $200) its definitely losing me money. So financially it would be cheaper for me to switch it off and buy from the exchanges. That said if a large chunk of miners actually did this we would all be in trouble so I'll keep it running. I believe that some of the cloud mining companies have actually started to switch off some of their miners(probably not as efficient as the neptune) even thou peeps have paid contracts.

Profitability from bitcoin mining is all about timing, the neptune cost me 10.5 bitcoin because the price was nearly $1200 on the day I paid for it, less than $2000 at todays price. I owned a 3 board KNC Saturn/Jupiter(28nm) before that which paid for the Neptune and then some, which itself was paid for by GPU mining which was paid for by cpu mining. If you're in the first 1000 of the latest mining technology delivery you can make some coin.


People are mining different algorithm Proof of Work coins with CPUs and GPUs because ASICs have centralized the mining ecosystem for Bitcoin. Therefore miners diverge their resources for more value in return.

  • diverge their resources? Eh? – Navin Jan 13 '15 at 20:50
  • Yes, why mine BTC with a CPU or GPU when you can get more % equivalent on another blockchain (or even more $ profitability instead of mining BTC) e.g. Mining Myriad with a CPU to get something like 2500 MYR / day instead of the whatever nonexistant satoshi you'd recieve mining BTC with a CPU. – JohnHanks Jan 13 '15 at 21:17

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