Bitcoin Forum

When was the "Golden Age" of mining?

During the history of bitcoin, when was the best time to mine? I know that only 50 BTCs are released about every 10 minutes, but I'm asking when was the best time YOU could have been the person to "win" them?

Has it been linear and always getting progressively harder (more work for less coins, so the first few early miners lucked out), or did something like the switch to GPU mining while bitcoin was relatively unknown offer those early GPU miners the best chance at scoring?

I'm not sure if the $$$ value should be included, but go ahead and include it if you think it matters, but lately that value was been all over the place.

I'd love to know when the overall best time to mine bitcoins was regardless of their value. I understand a new "golden age" might be around the corner...

I'd have to say early June was the golden age. Difficulty was less than half of what it is now and prices were rocketing up to $30 per BTC.

Probably end of May 2011, right when the $ value of the BTC started to ramp up all stupid-like.  I know a lot of people will say 2009 or early 2010, but those periods, while you could mine hundreds of Bitcoins per day on a Core2Duo, weren't nearly as profitable as they are today even with the recent diminished exchange rate.

They were if you hoarded your coins IMO

I'm wondering, what makes you think a new golden age may be around the corner?

I'd say that your question is incorrect. Why was?

My bet is that 2009-2013 will be in history books as the "Golden Age" of mining.

Sometimes people do not see the forest behind the trees, don't they?

Hundreds of coins per day?

Even if that's only 10% true and you could make 50 coins per day I'm literally foaming with jealousy.

If anyone was clever enough just to keep all their coins, they could be millionaires by now :o

Yap. Unless you can foresee the future.  :-\

im sure there are many miners that hoarded there coins,
and are now millionaires

And those miners are getting a lot of sleepless nights worrying about their wallet.dat file.

Must be a nightmare if you have $100k+ in bitcoins and it is all dependant on you keeping one 256bit private key secure.
What is more you have no real "Police" or "Courts" to help protect you (as they do not understand bitcoins).

Also you have the dilemma of sell or not!

Luckily I only have 1.62 bitcoins that I bought just to try the whole thing out - so I really do not care if someone finds out my private key!

I don't see why, it's very easy to create a completely secure offline wallet.

I think I'd be perfectly happy knowing I had a $100k wallet.dat and would not be losing any sleep over it at all ;)

Personally, I'd split the coins out over a few dozen wallet.dat files and keep them all on different USB drives in various places to reduce the risk of failure, loss or theft!

If I had $500k in bitcoins (at today's exchange rate), I'd sell maybe half and keep the rest, and buy gold bullion & real estate with the $250k. Diversification is key!

Hard to tell, because in the beginning could easily be mine, but the hardware did not have a value as accessible as today. The price of BTC at the beginning was too cents.
If I could turn back time, would have mined since 2009, and sold 90% of the coins on June 8, 2011, when the price of BTC exceeded U$ 30.

 ;)

Imagine if you bought 10000 bitcoins between $0.02 and $0.10... Your <$1000 investement would be worth >$100'000 today :O

Right now.. you can easily mine over 9000 (literally) satoshi per minute on a single half-decent GPU!
People will surely look back at this as a golden age of mining.

Makes me sad now

the very first day

Yeah, I'd say it'll still be a golden age at least until we hit the second cut in generation value to 12.5 BT/Block. By that point, the difficulty will probably be so high, it would no longer be profitable at all to mine.
Then again, that's the point of the difficulty. We'll reach equilibrium at some point...

It's possible that if Bitcoins go through a bubble once the mining gets too hard, they might just flush the economy after a decade or so, and start over with new Bitcoins, kicking a silver age into gear. Then again I barely got through Econ, so I don't know if that is a viable options, or if vintage BitCoins would become collectible, or something.

EDIT: Of course, once we hit critical mass with mining, then a bunch of selling will go on, and things will happen. Either the First Bitcoin Depression, or a Golden Trading Age. Who knows.

Why would you be jealous?  Back then Bitcoins were going for less than a half a cent each.  It was nowhere near as profitable back then as it is now.  Even at a "diminished" exchange rate of $6 per Bitcoin, mining is still WAY more profitable now than it was back then.  Remember, when you talk about mining profitability you have to assume current exchange rates, not exchange rates in the future.

Whatever you're smoking, I'd like to have some, please.

No that's wrong...

YOU'RE WRONG! YOU ARE WRONG!! [/heh...]

But, there's nothing set in stone that says that Bitcoin will be around some 50 years from now, and they might be collectible by then. Someone will undoubtedly will try and spin it off the second the market takes a tumble, as they already have with IX, and we're back at square one. 

Those that made thousands of bitcoins early and cashed out already were part of the first Golden Age. Anyone that is able to hang on to a single bitcoin when it is someday worth bazillions will have been said to have been in the second Golden Age.

Then it will become the "Quest for free electricity", but of course we know the electricity isn't really free, lol.

Those that made thousands of bitcoins early and cahsed out already should go on suicide watch imo ;)

Really, I'm not sure that I have to assume anything to be quite honest.

I see what you're saying. Short-sighted miners who sold as soon as they mined really got a bum deal, and we're doing better today then they were, but that's not really the point.

If I do assume current exchange rates, and look back at people making 200BTC/day on 4 computers just using 65W core 2 duos before the GPU miners were available, then (provided they waited until now to sell their coins) they were making $1800 a day for an insignificant amount of electricity cost.

I know there's some people out there that saw the exchange rate creeping up and just kept the coins and still have them today, so you can see where the jealousy creeps in... It's much like the gold rush in America during the 1800s. Some dumb prospectors were selling at £1 and £2 an ounce, which seemed amazing at the time, but then a few years later prices skyrocketed to 10 times that, so those that hoarded their gold became super rich.

Of course, unlike gold, if anyone did try to sell $1M worth of coins all at once the exchange rate would crash, as there simply isn't the demand there right now, but if they did it slowly they could really rack up some serious $$$ and for what? Simply having the good sense / luck / foresight to start mining in 2009 instead of 2011 like me ::)

I think it's an incredible story and I hope someone takes the time to document all this properly, it will make an amazing movie.

I mine for future value, so I would much rather have 200 coins a day (worth pennies back then) than the 1 or 2 coins a week I'm mining now. If bitcoin works out, there are going to be a few people retiring as bitcoin millionaires. Plus it would have been a lot more exciting to be a part of this phenomenon 1 year ago, the only negative would be if your bitcoin stash got stolen.

I read a statistic that 90% of the coins are being hoarded, so maybe they are saving their bitcoins for their retirement.

I see myself investing serious capital through 2012. Just wish I had started earlier.

LOL, Yep, one day they will shoot a movie about it. I am ready to play myself.

If Bitcoin fails, then the Golden Age of Mining was in the past. Obvious I know.

If it's a long term success, the Golden Age of Mining is still to come. Why?

The encryption computations needed will continue to grow. While the direct coins generated will step down, the fees should replace them or more, as usage increases.

Just my 0.02 BTC worth.

Well golden age was when difficulty was 1, or maybe when gpu mining appeared.

Everyone should hoard their BTC hoping that they will be worth more in the future - that is the best way to make sure they won't be ;O)