Bitcoin Forum

Does running an old miner that can't compete with the big guys at mining coins at least still help decentralize, secure, and support the bitcoin network?

Not really in any significant way at all; it just costs you money in electricity.

I know its a super small contribution, but it still adds to the network right?  I mean if 10,000 people ran one old miner, it would start to be significant right?

No.

Then again you have to define small. You have no idea how massive the network is at the moment compared to old miners. It's 3exahash, so you work it out for yourself.

Are you talking about pooled or solo mining? If you solo mine at least you'll add a node to the network  ;)

Only if you find Block(s).  If you don't find any blocks then it doesn't do anything for Bitcoin of the network.

u want to be like a robin hood? do not do unnesessary work, u just waste your mony for electricity with old miner.

I don't think , that it can help at any part for the bitcoin system . Because in the current time mining is not much profitable because to solve the complicated network of bulk transactions the hardware needed to be of higher version . Here using a very old miner ( whether you want to earn or help bitcoin network no matter ) you can't make any amount of usuable money in month .
Do if you want to help the bitcoin network you should go fot r the the bitcoin miner s5 .
Because this old version of mine still able to do something best then the rest of old are

This is what I was wondering.  So if I am not finding blocks with a miner I am not positively contributing to the network in anyway?


The reason I was asking is that a lot of people are complaining that most of the miners are concentrated into big pools or farms, making the network not as decentralized as it could be.  I see lots of old useless miners for sale for pretty cheap.  I was wondering if a lot of people decided they would run just one each, not to profit, but to help support the system and decentralize it more it that would actually do anything.

It appears the answer is no :(

Actually I was thinking like you. I thought one old miner still can do a part of the job and if to combine many old miners, S3 for example, they can compete. Now I'm puzzled. What about that usb miner, Avalon nano, with the hashrate approximately 2 GH/s? Is it absolutely worthless?

Rather than running old miners, I think the best way you could support the network would be to run a full Bitcoin Node. This will help transactions propagate faster across the network.

Of course you will need 80+GB of hard disk space for the block chain on the PC and an always-on PC and internet connection. You could also then use the BTC Core wallet if you chose to do so. That is what I do.

If I am incorrect that running a full node would help the network, someone please set me straight.  :)

Mine on!!

 It helps if you register your rig at miningrigrentals for example !
 Unity is strength !  ;)

It helps in a little way but not worth it in terms of your electricity bills.

This makes no sense at all.

And this we've explained multiple times is NOT the case at all.

Since this thread is slowly getting derailed by posters who are either repeating what's already been said, don't know what they're talking about and/or are just adding posts to increase their post count, I'm locking it.