The Bitcoin protocol is a cruel master. Bitcoin mining is profitable, which is why so many people are doing it and the global hashrate is floating around its all-time high. But every two weeks the mining difficulty is adjusted, which has the effect of keeping mining right on the razor's edge of profitable. The biggest factors determining profitability are equipment costs, the price paid for electricity and the value of the bitcoin you mine. I pay USD $0.1024 per kWh of electricity. For every USD $1 worth of bitcoin I mine, I pay USD $0.905 for the cost of the electricity that I use. So, is that profitable? Technically, it is profitable to keep running the mine. But I leave the bitcoins I mine in bitcoin, rather than convert them to dollars, because only an increase in the price of bitcoin will ever allow me to recoup my initial capital outlay. So for me, this is an educational hobby, not a business. The bitcoin mining businesses are all in places with dramatically lower power prices, and they operate at large scales so as to be able to negotiate significantly better equipment prices.