Bitcoin Forum

Hi Everyone!

I'm new to Bitcoin and mining but not new to the tech world. I've been really psyched about the whole thing since I started really reading about it. Now I'm interested in getting involved. Everyone wants to make money in this and I'm no different. I would love to make money, but its not the main reason I want to get in. I want to get in because I believe in it and want to support it. However, I'm not rich. I can't afford to drop tens of thousands of dollars and never see that money come back just to support something I believe in. I have a family to feed yada yada. Anyway, all I really want to know is if I do drop 12 grand on getting two of these Prospero X-3 machines from Black Arrow to be received some time in March or April, I would guess, what are the chances of me making my money back? If I can make my money back, forking $200 or so in electricity here or there on months that I want to be involved wouldn't be too bad. I think Cryptocurrency is the future and I would like to be a part of it...but I don't want to break my bank!

Also, I have read a lot on pool and solo mining and as far as I can tell, one is a fixed income based on your participation (hashrate vs pool hashrate) and the other is a complete gamble. I understand how solo mining can be like playing the lottery, but it seems to me the odds are a lot better than the lottery.

Thanks for your replies.

It is hard to predict so far in advance, but my optimistic estimate is that your profit will be up to 1.65 BTC.

Play with the numbers here: http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/a/f175d780be

Awesome. Thanks for your reply. That's a really neat tool. I'll play around with it to see what kind of numbers come up.

it seems to be the batch 1 are always the winners, batch 2 and onwards always the losers.

batch 2 according to calculators your return will barely cover the cost in 6 months, pretty shitty.

You should avoid classic 'pool' mining then and look at p2pool.in (http://p2pool.in/) by forrestv, you can find out more on the wiki (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool), here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=18313.0) and here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=153232.0).

Another option worth investigating is Luke-Jr's pool - Eligius (http://eligius.st/~gateway/).

Run a full bitcoin node (bitcoin-qt or bitcoind) with port 8333 forwarded/UPNP'd as this is the way to support the network.

Just hashing away at a classic pool won't help the network. See this topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=411099.0) for an explanation.

only way i mess with mining is by speculating on which altcoins to mine.....

Solo and pool mining are attempting to achieve the same thing. With pool mining the job is broken down and the work shared between many hashers, unlike Solo mining, where its just you, on your own doing the work.

'Many hands make light work', but the reward of that work is shared between all the participants, so you only get a small share. The advantage is that the small shares come more often. The BIG 25 coin rewards generated by solo mining come less often, a lot less often, but the reward is HUGE.

The thinking is that its better to have a smaller, but more regular income than wait months/years/10/100 years for a BIG reward.

But statistically you should get the same payout over a long enough time span....  

you may make back your money, assuming they ship on time and also assuming KNC does not ship early Q2. I would think that you could easily make back your $ investment, but probably not the number of btc that same money could buy you know. for example i bought a KNC 100 gh/s rig and after months of running its given me 5 btc and it may kick out 2-3 more before its "useless" if i had bought its cost in bitcoins that day i would have 25 bitcoin.  who knows how long i could have held those coins though given its price rise since then. If the bitcoin price had not gone up Id have lost over 50% but i would have a interesting asic toy..

Thanks for your replies. I think I'll mine in a pool (probably Eligius) until I recover my costs, which according to that calculator would be a couple of months if shipping isn't delayed. After that, I don't see why I shouldn't test my luck mining solo. Mining in a pool would produce very little according to the calculator by that point.

i'm mining until i can reach that elusive 0.01 btc (at 666 mh/s) in slush's pool
then trying my luck running solo (with my brand spankin new Red Fury)

so i don't see why that wouldn't work for u