Gold vs BTC mining!

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I fired up the AI again to grab the latest 2026 data on what it actually costs to pull these things out of the ground or out of the air so you can see what you're up against.

If you’re a regular person looking to get into this the barrier to entry is basically a wall vs a hurdle.

Mining Gold (The Physical Grind)
For gold the industry uses a metric called All In Sustaining Cost (AISC). Right now most major mining operations are sitting between $1,200 and $1,650 per ounce.

If you’re trying to do this yourself obviously you aren’t building a massive open-pit mine in Nevada. But for a small scale operation, your costs are basically equipment (shovels, sluice boxes, or a small trommel) and your time.

The Margin: With gold trading around $4,500 an ounce right now, the profit margin is insane.

Reality Check: You’re mostly paying in sweat and diesel. It’s a tangible asset you can hold, but finding a "pay streak" is mostly luck and geological research.

Mining Bitcoin (The Digital Burn)
now Bitcoin is a completely different beast. The network difficulty is through the roof. For a professional setup with top-tier ASIC hardware (running at about 16 J/TH), the cost to mine one single BTC is hovering around $130,000 USD.

The Margin: Since BTC is trading between $90k and $105k lately, most miners are actually underwater unless they have access to dirt cheap industrial power (under $0.05/kWh) or they're speculating on the price going to the moon later.

Reality Check: As an individual, you’re basically cooked. You’d need to drop $15k+ on a single machine just to start, and teh electricity bill will probably eat your lunch before you even find a block.

Bottom line: If you want to actually "make" something for less than it’s worth on the market, gold still has the better math for the little guy. Bitcoin mining has become a game for giant corporations with warehouses full of hardware and sweetheart deals with power companies.

For a person just starting out, you’re better off buying a pan and hitting a creek then trying to compete with a zettahash of computing power from your basement, eh.

I am a financial advisor ! If you can't take personal responsibility for you investing, I hate to brake it to ya, but you ain't nothing but a sucka, you supposed to lose your shit.

Hive account@bitcoinman's bits of wisdom

• Invest only what you can afford to lose and be mindful of the potential risks.
• Unless you can accept delivery stay away from futures and stick to physical.
• Leverage is a great tool for losing money fast.
• Numismatics for the lows stick to smart stacking baby.
• Be cautious of new schemes in crypto, like ICOs, DeFi, and NFTs, do your research before investing.