As of now, the answer to how much can you make mining Bitcoin is pretty simple, not a lot. Individual miners are not likely to see a return on their investment anytime soon, and will most likely never see one if they don’t have access to cheap, reliable electricity and an efficient mining rig.

However, those who are willing to invest in the right hardware and locate themselves in areas with low energy costs can still make a profit by mining Bitcoin.

The current situation with Bitcoin mining is often compared to the California Gold Rush. In the early days of the Gold Rush, anyone with a pickaxe and a pan could find gold nuggets in riverbeds and make a decent profit.

However, as more and more people arrived in California and started mining for gold, the easy-to-find nuggets started to disappear. The same is true for Bitcoin; as more and more people get into mining, the difficulty of finding new blocks increases, and individual miners are often forced to join forces in “pools” in order to have a chance of seeing any return on their investment.

The current reward for successfully finding a block is 12.5 BTC, which at today’s prices is just over $100,000.

That may sound like a lot, but when you take into account the cost of electricity needed to run a powerful mining rig, as well as the wear-and-tear on the hardware itself, most individual miners are operating at a loss. In order for mining to be profitable, BTC needs to be worth more than $100,000 – which it has been in the past, but isn’t currently.

So, while it is possible to make money mining Bitcoin, it is not currently very profitable. Those who are willing to invest in expensive hardware and locate themselves in areas with low energy costs may be able to turn a profit, but for most people it simply isn’t worth the time and effort required.