What does it take to mine 1 Bitcoin?

Posted on Jul 19, 2013 by Paul White

When you are considering upgrading your computer's hardware in an attempt to mine for Bitcoin, one the firs tthings you want to know is how much processing power does it take to mine a single Bitcoin, and how long will it take? I have worked the numbers based on the current difficultly level.

Amount to Mine	How Fast	Hashing Power	Via GPU	Via USB ASIC	Annual BTC
1 BTC	370 Days	138 Mhps ( My current Pathetic Setup)	GTX 560 Ti	-	< 1 BTC
1 BTC	90 Days	572.83 Mhps (Where I will be in a week)	HD 7950	2x	4 BTC
1 BTC	30 Days	1.718 Ghps	3 x HD 7950	5x	12 BTC
1 BTC	14 Days	3.682 Ghps	3 x HD 7990	11x	26 BTC
1 BTC	1 Day	51.555 Ghps	43 x HD 7990	154x	365 BTC
1 BTC	12 Hours	103.11 Ghps	86 x HD 7990	310x	730 BTC
1 BTC	1 Hour	1.237 Thps	1031 x HD 7990	3715x	8760 BTC

The previous values were based on the Difficulty Level Today.

You can see my current setup. The GTX 560 Ti makes a pretty lousy Miner. Just purchased a used 7950 off ebay, which should help me generate a few coins. I will only be running my system during the day when I work, so After a year I might have earned 2 BTC. I might add some a second 7950 or upgrade to the 7970 depending on where prices go. The 7990 would be nice but its just priced a little too high for my tastes. $500 for a used Video Card is a bit much.

However next year or this fall, when I build a new workstation I am going water cooled all the way, so I should be able to push my system pretty hard assuming bitcoin mining is still profitable at the future difficulty level.

Conclusion

So if you were thinking of getting rich mining for bitcoin, now you know how much power its going to take.

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Discussion

holimondir | Nov 26, 2013 4:46 PM
Nice Table Thank You.
2013-07-19 the difficulty was 26M.
2013-11-26 the diffculty is 609M. That's times 26! Wow.
Source: http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/

Roger | Aug 22, 2014 10:05 AM

Hi, I'm new to bitcoin mining, and I'm a little confused on all the technoligy lingo, what would I need to buy or build to make a bitcoin per hour or one per day? or how many GHS vouchers would I need to buy? to mine on cex.io with no equitment of my own..

thanks for your time.

Roger

Paul | Aug 22, 2014 11:07 AM

Roger,

You are little late to the bitcoin game. The difficulty to mine a single bitcoin has gotten to the point where its no longer profitable. Even buying GHS contracts from a cloud is a loosing proposition. The value of bitcoin hasn't moved in over a year, yet the amount of hardware required to mine a single bitcoin has gone up 1000x. I recommend you just stay away from it. You will never break even. I got out soon after a I started, because I saw where it was going. Luckily My over sized graphics card still helps with Video Encoding with Sony Vegas.

RakeshHC | Jan 20, 2018 4:20 PM

@Paul, Just wondering Pl take a look at https://bitminter.com/blocks Duration : 34d 12h 13m 2017-12-26 able to mine 16.51613935 BTC No idea if this is paid to pool,feel it is Indivdual.

What is your opinion,while seeking some info on BTC landed here.

Paul | Jan 20, 2018 4:33 PM

Rakesh,

I would say 99.9% of Bitcoins mined today are won by either Pools or large Crypto Farms. The Pools then divide up the winnings to their members. Honestly I haven't minded Bitcoin since 2014. The price of electricity and increase in difficulty quickly made GPU or CPU mining a losing battle. ASIC are the only way to mine Bitcoin Today, and only the latest units are competitive and making a decent profit. If you want to mine, its better to focus on one of the Alt coins, that you can still use a GPU to mine.

I had to laugh reading my post from years back. Today $500 for GPU would be a bargain. And today I count my earnings in mBTC, and not full Bitcoins.

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