I guess almost everyone here on steemit has seen the increase in crypto currencies this year. Having previously held a large number of BTC (for a regular guy over 2000) but sold very low and made only a few hundred euros profit.
Not wanting to miss out on becoming a cypto millionaire again (unrealistic but you never know). I decided to invest a small amount of my hard earned cash into ethereum at around 50 euro per ETH which payed off very quickly. I then noticed the bull rush of the past month or so seemed to be slowing so decided to cash in for cold hard cash.
Like i said previously i have always been interested in technology and started looking into mining ET. After looking at various Ethereum mining hardware / hash rates i decided this would be a no brainer as the AMD RX graphics cards would give me a very fast and good ROI.
I decided on a set of hardware which seemed good value for money and would be profitable. Having previously purchased many items online i thought this would be the easy part.
My search started with the motherboard i had chosen the ASrock h81 btc as it seemed like the standard for mining with 6 gpu's. After noticing it was sold out at many online retailers or at a massively inflated price i found ethereum mining webshop which had stock and shock horror they also carried open air mining cases for a reasonable price (under 100) so i decided to go for that as well as a cheap processor. I made my purchase (money left my bank account) and then on return to the retailers website i was greeted with an order error. I suddenly panicked - had my money been stolen? After emails to the retailer i was assured they had my order and it would be shipped however the payment method i took takes 3 days (it was an online payment and left my account immediately). Over a week later i havnt revieved my items however i have been assured that my items have been shipped today (7 days later).
So after being assured my items would be shipped i decided i should really order my graphics cards - how hard could that be. I decided on hunting down the MSI AMD RX 570 armor 4gb graphics cards as for the price point they seem good value for money. I found a large retailer who appeared to be receiving stock on the 26th June, i checked back a day later and it had moved back to the 30th June - maybe a different batch who knows? Not wanting to miss out I decided to buy 4 at a 25% markup on the amazon price - however i couldn't find anywhere that was stating under a month delivery and many were quoting over 10 weeks or unknown delivery date. A day after purchasing from said website i performed a quick search check the delivery date was the same and the graphics cards are no longer listed. However it does show up it my current order and the delivery date is still the 30th. Will it turn up on the 30th or soon after. I hope so but i am a realist and i believe there will be delays.
I seem to have got in a tad too late on purchasing my hardware as there is a real shortage of AMD graphics cards at the moment. I am just hoping they do arrive on the 30th.
Am i too late to the mining party? Only time will tell. I think my system will break even after the recent difficulty increases even if i change to alt coins however it will be interesting to see how long it will take.
Has anyone else had many difficulties sourcing parts? Problems with suppliers? Is this also a big problem in the states or are we lacking good services here in Europe.
Hope my first post didn't bore you - Looking forward to becoming part of the steemit community.