Mining means using electricity today and buying hardware yesterday, which will be paid tomorrow to get coins today. If you're trying to "invest" (probably a bad idea) and anticipate a rise then mine. Otherwise its less risky to buy.
If you're interested in it as a transfer technology (A very wise idea, especially for small-ish international xfers) then just buy/transfer/sell, mining is ridiculous.
For a long time coins were being mined and sold at about the cost of electricity for the most efficient miner. It would be interesting today to see what the premium looks like, probably a pretty scary number. Back when the difficulty factor was a large two digit number I mined a hundred or so BTC in software (not GPU). It's a bit harder now.
If you're interested in it as a transfer technology (A very wise idea, especially for small-ish international xfers) then just buy/transfer/sell, mining is ridiculous.
For a long time coins were being mined and sold at about the cost of electricity for the most efficient miner. It would be interesting today to see what the premium looks like, probably a pretty scary number. Back when the difficulty factor was a large two digit number I mined a hundred or so BTC in software (not GPU). It's a bit harder now.