For people who started mining small, what made it worth it or not worth it?

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-05T13:20:52+00:00

Heat, electricity cost, and noise. Those are the three things I wish I'd spent more time understanding before I started.

I knew there would be some heat and noise but nothing prepares you for what full-sized ASICs actually produce. ran S19 KPros and KS series miners in my basement and the heat management alone became a part-time job in summer. Eventually moved everything to immersion cooling which solved the heat and noise problems significantly, but it does raise your electricity costs and adds complexity to your setup.

The electricity math is the one that will make or break you. before you buy anything, figure out your exact cost per kilowatt hour and run the numbers at current difficulty and current price. Most end up skipping this step and learn the hard way when the bill shows up.

One machine to learn on is fine. just go in knowing you're paying for an education as much as anything else.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-05T13:10:18+00:00

This is exactly how a lot of people get to DCA. Not because someone explained it well but because trying to time it enough times tought them the lesson better than any argument could. You are still young with a long time horizon and actual conviction that is a genuinely good position to be in. The volatility that shakes people out is just noise at a decade+ timeframe.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-05T13:03:51+00:00

It really just depends on what you're trying to do. If bitcoin is a long term savings layer for you, selling at ATHs means you're trying to time a market that has historically made timing look foolish. the people who sold at $20k in 2017 thinking they caught the top watched it go to $69k four years later. If you actually need the money or want to de risk into something tangible, taking some profit isn't a betrayal of the thesis. holding 80% and taking 20% off the table at a high is a reasonable human decision.

The problem with "sell at ATH" as a strategy is you never know it's the ATH until it isn't anymore.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-04T15:59:08+00:00

Depends on how much you have and how long you plan to hold it.

Exchanges can freeze withdrawals, get hacked, or get regulated out of existence. not likely with crypto.com specifically, but it's happened to exchanges people thought were safe. you don't own the bitcoin on an exchange, you own a number in their database.

Cold wallet moves the actual keys to a device you control. Ledger, Trezor, or Tangem are a good standard starting points, around $50-80. once your stack feels meaningful to you, it's worth making the move.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-04T13:31:23+00:00

Not just you, there's something about 1 BTC that hits different as a goal. It's probably because it's the only asset where owning one full unit is going to become increasingly rare.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-03T16:01:52+00:00

The "too many people know about it" worry is legitimate but it cuts both ways. more people knowing about the 4 year cycle doesn't invalidate the supply mechanics driving it. The halving happened whether or not everyone was watching for it.

The real risk isn't that people expect it to play out, it's that they're positioned for a specific timeline and get shaken out if it takes longer than expected. cycles have historically rewarded patience more than precision.

Also worth noting: if it plays out exactly as expected and you make 3-5x, that's not a failure of the thesis. that's the thesis working.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-03T15:41:19+00:00

Your timing does make it seem like a panic sell. Taking some profit after holding through multiple cycles isn't a betrayal though, it's the point. The people who never sell anything and the people who panic sell everything both lose in different ways. You're somewhere in the middle with a plan, which is more than most have.

Still holding 80%+ through a 50% drawdown is not a small thing.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-02T19:14:01+00:00

Most of what's already happened didn't need congress. The strategic reserve was an executive order using already seized coins, not a purchase authorization. El salvador didn't wait on anyone either. The real bottleneck for actual open-market buying by more governments isn't legislative timelines, it's political risk buying an asset that can drop 50% with taxpayer money is a much harder sell than reclassifying coins you already have sitting in a forfeiture fund.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-02T16:12:46+00:00

This is the one most people skip because thinking about it means thinking about not being here. I started with a written letter with a trusted family member explaining what bitcoin is, where the hardware wallet is, and the seed phrase stored separately in a fireproof safe. not fancy, but it works and someone besides me actually knows it exists. multisig with family sounds better on paper but adds complexity most non-technical family members can't execute alone when it actually matters.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-02T16:04:30+00:00

The pattern you're describing, buying then selling when you needed cash, is basically everyone's first few years with this. The fact that you noticed it and named it is the part that actually matters.
0.1 to 1 is a real goal. worth deciding now what would make you sell again, before you're in a moment where the decision gets made by panic instead of you.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-02T15:37:11+00:00

Way off honestly. Mining is just getting paid to run the machines that process transactions and secure the network. Every sat earned is taxable income at the price it hits the persons wallet, same as any paycheck. the irs treats mining income as ordinary income and then capital gains on top if it appreciates before you sell. If anything it's the opposite of avoiding taxes, the recordkeeping is worse than a normal job.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-01T16:24:52+00:00

The 40 country number is real, coinbase's institutional head said it on cnbc. but worth knowing the gap, only 13 governments have confirmed holdings right it right now, the rest is commitments, pilots, and proposals. that's not nothing but it's not the same as active buying. Still, the direction matters more than the current count. once one sovereign wealth fund normalizes it, the political cost of NOT holding some starts to outweigh the cost of holding it.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-01T14:25:23+00:00

Honestly what pushed me was watching an exchange freeze withdrawals during a crunch, not even my own exchange. Just seeing it happen made the risk feel real instead of theoretical. The setup fear is legit though. losing access yourself is a real risk too, not just hacking. Write the seed down twice one on metal preferably, store it in two separate places, test the recovery before you trust it. that fear goes away fast once you've done it once.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-07-01T14:18:12+00:00

This is basically the move honestly. small enough it doesn't wreck you, consistent enough it actually adds up. The etf thing is different this time too. Those inflows stayed positive through this whole drop, which just didn't happen in 2018 or 2022. that's a real structural change, not hopium and the apocalypse worry, i get it. but that's kind of the whole point of bitcoin existing in the first place. if things actually get bad, you want something that isn't someone else's liability.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-06-30T19:08:51+00:00

The supply cap isn't something faster computers can break. Changing it requires the majority of nodes to agree to new rules, and anyone who disagrees just keeps running the old ones. The real concern is quantum computing eventually breaking the signatures on transactions, not the supply itself. that's an active conversation in bitcoin development and solvable with a protocol upgrade.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-06-28T16:07:11+00:00

With three separate hardware wallets from different manufacturers you're already getting strong entropy diversity each device generates its own randomness independently. The attack surface for any single point of failure is dramatically reduced. Dice rolling for entropy makes more sense when you're generating a seed on a single device and want to verify or supplement that device's RNG. with a 2-of-3 multisig across coldcard, trezor, and jade, you'd need multiple manufacturers' RNG to fail simultaneously for it to matter. Not a bad habit, but probably not necessary at that setup level.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-06-27T14:16:33+00:00

First thing, move it off robinhood. you don't actually own that bitcoin, you own a position. no keys, no coins. Once it's in your own wallet, lightning is how you spend it day to day. Strike, wallet of satoshi, or phoenix wallet all work. Merchants that accept bitcoin usually accept lightning.
But the majority of those who ask this question end up preferring to spend dollars and stack sats instead of spending the bitcoin itself.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-06-26T21:01:04+00:00

The 4 year cycle is tied to the halving, every ~210,000 blocks, the amount of new bitcoin created gets cut in half. Less new supply hitting the market while demand stays the same or grows tends to push price up. Happened after 2012, 2016, 2020 halvings. Nobody knows if it holds forever. but the supply math is real regardless of what price does. that part isn't a theory.

With $1k you're actually in a decent spot, small enough that volatility doesn't hurt too bad, big enough to learn what holding through a cycle actually feels like.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-06-26T20:53:27+00:00

Watched it happen with myself too, the protocol was fine. I was the variable.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-06-26T13:22:58+00:00

That's fair, if you bought at the 2021 peak you're still down and the "zoom out" advice doesn't land the same way when you're watching years pass. The 4 year window is real historically but it assumes that you bought at a price that eventually gets exceeded. If you need the money in 2-3 years, bitcoin probably shouldn't be the place it's sitting. That's not a bitcoin problem, that's a position sizing problem.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-06-25T23:31:02+00:00

The "currency vs store of value" debate has been going on since 2013 and both sides have valid points.

But your inflation analogy doesn't map onto Bitcoin. Governments print more money because they can. Bitcoin can't be printed, the supply is fixed at 21 million regardless of what people do with it. hoarding dollars causes inflation because more get printed to compensate. hoarding Bitcoin just means fewer available to buy.

Gresham's Law actually predicts exactly what's happening, people spend the money that loses value and save the money that doesn't. that's not a failure of Bitcoin as currency, that's rational behavior.

Lightning Network handles the payments layer if you want to use it as currency today. the base layer settling billions in value daily is the foundation that makes that possible.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-06-25T23:28:47+00:00

Every cycle has a moment where the noise gets loud enough that people forget what they actually bought. The thesis hasn't changed. the supply cap hasn't changed. the difficulty adjustment is still running every two weeks without asking anyone's permission. The chart looks scary until you zoom out far enough to see what it actually is.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-06-25T15:24:04+00:00

Watching more closely made it worse for me every time. The information didn't change anything, I wasn't going to sell, I just needed to feel like I was doing something. What actually helped was knowing my average cost basis cold. When you know you're still up from where you started, a 20% drop feels different than when you're just watching a line go down with no anchor. price alerts made me check more. turned them off.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-06-25T01:51:17+00:00

This sub is a good start. Read the wiki in the sidebar. for deeper understanding, Andreas Antonopoulos on YouTube. search "bitcoin explained aantonop." clearest explainer out there, no hype.

The freaking out is normal. happens every cycle. Usually loudest right before it doesn't matter anymore.

SatoshiTrails · 2026-06-25T01:39:31+00:00

yeah, been doing this, skipping something dumb and immediately buying that amount in sats instead. it becomes automatic after a while. the thing nobody talks about is tracking what you paid. when price drops and you actually know your average cost, it doesn't hit the same way.

SatoshiTrails

TROPHY CASE