Mining different cryptocurrencies like Ethereum has it's advantages and disadvantages. But what if you had someone doing the hard work for you like keeping the hardware functioning and so on. This is what Genesis Mining does. I got very interested in what this concept could bring to the table and I did a bit of research. But can mining in this way be profitable?
First of all you can buy different contracts which has a range of two years. You then pay different prices when choosing different hash speeds. If you have a higher hash speed you will mine faster and get more coins, but it till cost you more.
To be able to see what you may earn they use an Ethereum calculator. Making the simple math will conclude that you will earn money with this contract. Or will you?
The thing is that first of all Ethereum will soon change their protocol from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake with what they call Casper. With PoW you use mining but when you use PoS this is almost never the case. Instead the miners in PoS get the most of the fee for the transactions in their block. Casper will be announced later this year. Then this two year period of a mining contract seems extremely risky.
The other thing is the price and the people which mines. If there are more people mining it gets harder for you to make a profit due to others hash speed is faster. When the Ethereum price has gone up as much as it has been, the coin is more interesting than every for people who want to make a profit.
In conclusion, mining can be profitable but with the huge changes in Ethereum's protocol and the fast bullish trend for the coin this seems far fetched. Actually, it will most likely be much more profitable if you just buy the coin and hold it, less effort and less risk in the regard of if mining is even profitable with Ethereum.