I've been mining for quite some time now, couple years actually. Yes there
WAS money to be made, but not so much now. Ever since Bitcoin took a hit last month, all the other currencies have dropped as well. You used to be able to even CPU mine and make some money, now you're just wasting electricity if you try.
As an example, here is my Dell T610 server mining BEFORE the bitcoin tank:
And, I fired it up a bit a go and let it run for a while, this is what it is pulling in now:
Nothing to be made on doing this, just LOOK AT THAT WATT USAGE!!
The GTX 1060 in my Media Center PC used to do pretty decent as well, but even that has shown a reduction:
Mining IS still profitable on my 1080 Ti's, but I'm just glad I didn't pay what they go for now.
I'd MAYBE recommend someone get into it to make a few spare bucks here and there, if you have a good GPU to do it, but I wouldn't honestly recommend someone invest money into high end GPU's.
I have 5 rigs of various configurations... so how much do I make off of them? Generally, I make enough to pay my light bill, gas bill, and most of my cable bill. But then, these cards DO get used to a certain extent in 3 out of 5 of the PC's. Only 2 are dedicated miners (now just one since I took my T610 offline because it wasn't profitable). Don't know that I'll be able to say that now with BTC and other crypto value dropping.
I'd love to do a 6 GPU rig and put it in my garage, but right now would not be a good time to do that. Prices are too high on the cards, and profitability is too low.
I think if someone wants to get into crypto, they should really forget about mining and focus on POW or "proof of work" type coins and just trade on the markets. There is a better chance of profit if you're savvy. An example of a POW coin would be something like "potcoin". I have 1250 potcoin in my crypto wallet, bought them at .09 cents and will hold. I'll probably hold till the end of the year, if it doesn't move much, I'll dump em. I don't expect high yield return, but rather moderate. Considering what I bought them at, thus far I am in the black.