Individual ETH Mining No Longer Profitable, Analysis Suggests

[Leonardo]

Mining Ethereum (ETH) individually with kits containing graphics processing units (GPUs) is no longer viable, according to an analysis from US-based trading and technology firm Susquehanna.

The company’s findings, reported by CNBC on Tuesday, indicate that the monthly profit from ETH mining using GPUs is now an estimated $0, down from about $150 in July 2017. The slump in profitability is due to the recent crypto market downtrend and declining network hashrates, the analysis suggests.

At the time of writing, ETH is priced at $198.09, more than 5% down for the day and some 85% below its record high of around $1,350 in January 2018. Notably, the coin was trading at around $175 in mid-July 2017, when, as per Susquehanna’s data, GPU-reliant miners made a $147 return on investment. With no big difference in the ETH valuation, the network’s declining hashrate is a greater factor in the pattern observed, according to the analysts.

Mining Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies requires hash power, which measures the difficulty of finding new blocks and mining the coin. If more people are mining ETH, the hashrate goes up and vice-versa. A higher hashrate is better for miners as it increases their opportunity of computing the next block and getting the reward of new cryptocurrency.

Susquehanna semiconductor analyst Christopher Rolland told CNBC that even with chipmaker Nvidia’s flagship GPU, the GTX 1080, ETH mining is still not viable, especially in the long run. He added that the company’s crypto-related revenue is down roughly $100 million quarter-on-quarter and will be “likely close to zero” in the third quarter.

“We estimate very little revenue from crypto-related GPU sales in the quarter, consistent with management's prior commentary that they were including no contribution from crypto in their C3Q18 outlook,” Rolland stated.

Source: https://cryptovest.com/news/individual-eth-mining-no-longer-profitable-analysis-suggests/