Helium is not the average cryptocurrency which uses a PoW or PoS consensus, but instead Proof of Coverage. The miner is actually a hotspot that provides network bandwidth within a ten or twenty mile radius. The Helium block explorer shaves these circles of influence into tidy hexagons to see if having too many neighbors with Helium Miners will reduce your profitability. The average miner can expect to earn between $10 and $30 dollars a month. That’s a huge variance for an ROI calculation. Let’s say most people will underperform and get about $20/m. If you are paying the aftermarket price of $840 you are looking at three and a half years of having the hotspot up just to break even on it if the price of Helium stays stable. Obviously cryptocurrency is highly speculative which is why banks don’t provide loans for mining devices, so the real risk is it going down and then your ROI stretches to 4-5 years. Now if you managed to mine 10,000 HNT in that time period (mathematically impossible) you could stake your HNT as a validator and compound your earnings that way.
Is a Bobcat Miner 300 worth it?
Let’s be realistic and say we want the most profitable approach so we order the best value Helium miner direct from the manufacturer. It’s only $429, however they have a shipping window of 20-28 weeks (also known as 5-7 months).
They just finished shipping for 6/22/21 for reference. Let’s assume worst case scenario so 7 months and a subpar rate of $15-20/m. Your ROI is about 3 years out after that it’s all profit. The electricity cost is so small it’s negligible. Some of my best dividend stocks have an ROI of 10 years, but then again it’s not a “mini cell tower” (their words not mine) less than 20 feet from my bedroom.
Response from the Helium Community:
