g-unit1111 :
Karadjgne :
I don't think equipment depreciation plays a role, especially after you break even. Even selling everything at huge discounts on eBay, it'd still be profit, just not as much. And a 1yr old pc, even if stripped of all the mining gpus and just running a single card will still be respectable, if op actually bought good stuff. If he buys a bunch of junk, then he's not going to be selling it anyways.
If you're trying to keep a business and maintain a profit, it does. But for just every day consumer use it's not something you really need to worry about.
In this context, depreciation isn't an additional cost. You're paying the $10,000 for the system up-front - that is the cost. Depreciation is just how your mining company amortizes that cost for accounting purposes. i.e. If you plan to use this equipment for 5 years, the cost of the system isn't all applied to the first year, while the remaining 4 years you get the benefit of having the equipment but no costs. By depreciating it $2k/yr, your accounting books say each of the 5 years you pay $2k in costs, compared to whatever benefit the equipment brings you. (It can also matter for tax purposes - whether you can deduct the cost as a business expense all in the first year, or a little bit every year that the equipment is in use.
Since you've already accounted for the full purchase price, Karadjgne is correct. When you're done using it,
anything you can get for it by selling it is a net gain.
Or put another way, the
proper cost for this system is the sum of its depreciation over the years it's used. Or in other words, (purchase price) - (selling price). Since everyone is going with the $10k purchase price as its cost, that's the worst possible case (selling price of zero). And proper depreciation can only be a positive, not a negative compared to that worst-case scenario.