Bitcoin Forum

Would it be profitable for a company to embed forced gpu-based Bitcoin miners into PC motherboards/whole PCs and sell them to computer manufacturers and/or consumers very cheaply or even for free?

In the dot com boom I received one of those computers that was free (really!) with ads running mandatory according to the terms of service.  The company lost money and in the end turned over the machines to the people (me) who received them. 

You could do the same with bitcoin, but right with the price of coin it would not make business sense.  The payback would be too long, along with many risks such as the machines being modified or not being powered on.

Haha nice idea. For people that need a computer but do not have any money. They will eventually pay more in electricity than the price of the computer but that's not our problem.

The only drawback would be that you will end up paying computers to geeks that will hack the thing and mine for themselves with free hardware.

Nothing is free.  The only people who would sign up are dupes who don't understand they are going to be paying more than they would have with a traditional purchase via the electricity bill.  What would you do if someone hacked the hardware to eliminate the miner?

Closed-source GPU drivers and mining software ought to slow things down. Updates can make hackings very inequitable as well.

So this is a custom GPU?

The technical requirements don't justify the cost, you'd need to force an os (linux on a ROM device) written specifically to do this, and do so in such a way that's not editable. you would also need to use a board with the gpu soldered directly to it, or use an APU soldered directly to the motherboard either one is an expensive propisition.

So to manage this we have propitairy hardware, propritariy software, and we're offering what to the userbase? a pc that's only got 300-500 dollars worth of processing power crippled by the fact the gpu is always loaded and will run up their power bill, assuming they don't turn it off when they're not using it. even if this contained the eqivelent of a 5970 if they use it only 2 hours a day and it's off otherwise you're looking at a return of .045 coins/day . there are better ways to make coins offer a decent service in exhcnage for them and you'll make a fair ammount eventually

You will need a lot more than that.  Rip out the GPU, and wipe the hard drive.  You would need significant hardware locks, custom MB firmware, and remote authorization.  Essentially a lock down project along the lines of PS3.  Remember the PS3 has been hacked and a) it is much harder being custom hardware, b) the payoff is much lower, c) they have something to lose because they paid money for it.

I don't see a hardware solution.  You likely would need a non-hardware solution.  Verify identities, run credit check, only give to people who are credit worthy.  Have users sign a contract, and authorize a credit card.  They need to generate x MH per month or pay a monthly fee.  Have a good collections department and be ready to slam users with $2,000 early termination fee and willingess to pawn them off on collection agencies to recover a fraction of the cost.

Make it run in the background as a hidden process, so no one can figure it out.

Then funnel the profits into your wallet over the internet, like you did with your website.

I think even if it is technically feasible and commercially profitable, you will need to put in very clearly inside your TOS.

Considering the lengthy time to break even on most GPUs by themselves, it's pretty unlikely your average machine would even make it to break even point before someone destroys it, hacks it, or stops using it.

You're probably better off running one of those rent-to-own scams they advertise on late night TV, the one where people with bad credit pay almost $3k for a $300 eMachines desktop with a cheap printer and a fuckton of shareware thrown in.

heh

I thought about making free heaters.  just plug them in and they give you heat....  oh yah, and it needs to be pluged into a internet connection :)

Or just get a job at Aaron's or something if you're comfortable scamming the poor in this way.

Yeah but scamming the poor for ~minimum wage doesn't have the same allure, does it? :)

The only difference between someone doing this and someone financing a pc from future shop or best buy is that the payments will never end via your approach.

This idea is the product of get-rich-quick scheming and like most of those schemes, it's ridiculous and lazy.

Seconded on the heater idea. Instead of giving these away as PCs, set them up as dedicated miners running some very basic linux, with about four cards inside, and make the case to look and work like a heating unit. Make it very automated so all they have to do is turn it off and on with a simple switch after initial wifi setup. Give them away for free, or sell them at a huge discount, and let people register them with your service, where they can receive a percentage of the mined profits. You can even set it up as a tiered account, where those who got it for free get 15% mining profit, and those who paid almost full price get 90% profit. Make sure they always get at least some portion of the profit to make sure they don't just repurpose them and have an incentive to keep mining. Most importantly, make these HEATERS, not computers, even if that means disabling most of the ports on the motherboard and gluing the cards in place. You can then sell them to North Americans, Greenlanders, Scandinavians, and anyone else who need to use heaters most of the year, and would have to pay for electricity to do it anyway.

So the target consumer is one who has internet access and electricity but lacks ability to otherwise acquire a space heater. (http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1AVSW_enUS377US378&gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=walmart+space+heater#q=space+heater&hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1C1AVSW_enUS377US378&tbs=p_ord:p&tbm=shop&sa=X&ei=F-2sTqKAGcyGhQf-ht28Dw&ved=0CAoQuw0oAQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=a80cfa6e513ee79&biw=1920&bih=965)

And who lives somewhere which lacks consumer protection laws.

No, one who has internet access, electricity, and a space heater, but would like to reduce the cost of running their space heater or get a space heater much cheaper than it's cost.

That would be a very very costly heater with 4 GPUs! :)

If you don't have to pay for electricity, a 4 GPU heater can still bring in $50 to $100 a month at current prices. People who need a heater will be using that electricity either way. Question is how long are you willing to wait for your heater to pay itself off, if there are enough cold months ahead to do it in, and whether Bitcoin will maintain it's level and not drop further.

Estimate 1 BTC a day for 4 GPU using 5850 might be possible and the prices of 5850 are quite cheap nowadays.

So ~$33/month at current prices?

*~*~*~*~ Atlas's Plan to Exploit the Impoverished Thread for 10/29 ~*~*~*~*

How would they be exploited if using it for heating?

A GPU is a perfect resistance heating device.  100% of energy "used" is converted to heat.

The usefulness of this aside it is impossible for anyone using such a device to be exploited.

At worst case scenario the consumer would be ahead by the difference is price of subsidized GPU heater vs "conventional heater".  At best they would get a monthly rebate on the amount of "heat" they used further lowering cost.

You are giving them a computing device that is partially crippled and expensive to run, at very little benefit to the receiver of the computer.

This is not how physics works, and watt for watt computers are pretty shitty heaters.

It might work if you cut them a check from Bitcoin "profits" to subsidize their bill, but then that would cut into profits so manufacturers wouldn't want to build and distribute the computers in the first place.

$3.5 * 30 = $105. Math FAIL

That is exactly how physics works.  Law of conservation of energy?  The GPU is doing no other work (in physics sense) thus 100 kWh of electricity -> 100 kWh of heat.

A GPU is a 100% efficient converter to electricity into heat just as any other resistance load is (electric oven, stove-top, space heater, electric blanket, soldering iron, etc).

So the consumer can never "lose".
Either
a) they are given a subsidized/free heater and same electrical costs.
b) they are sold a GPU heater for similar costs to conventional heat and given a "rebate" on electrical usage.
c) they simply don't buy the GPU heater because it isn't cheaper.

GPU produce more "value" than a resistance heater per unit of energy
Resistance heater per 1 kWh of electricity = 1 kWh heat + nothing.
GPU heater per 1 kWh of electricity = 1 kWh heat + x bitcoins.

That value could be shared equitably or all the excess value taken by the manufacturer but either way it can't be WORSE than using a conventional space heater.

Yeah, what the fuck was I thinking.

OK, let's call it $33/month at tomorrow's prices. Tee hee.

That I'll take.

A space heater costs $12.  The GPU isn't cheaper.

I use a 2000 watt heater in winter.  It has 1250 watt and 750 watt settings, but you're not realistically going to be running it at anything other than full power when the weather's really cold.

What would be involved in building a "heater" that's really a dedicated miner which is capable of putting out 2000 watts and what would it cost to build and supply?  How would you incorporate a thermostat (people tend to turn heaters without thermostats on and off a lot, which you don't want if you want it to be mining as often as possible)?

I think a 2000 watt heater would cost close to $1,200 in hardware alone, and would be kind of noisy due to the fans. Regarding thermostats, it would be fairly easy to assign keyboard keys to turn separate miner GPUs on and off, and wire those keys to external case mounted switches. A software option with an actual thermostat would be harder, but still doable. I think the main problem is the initial cost. A 2000 watt rig would be able to pump out about 1.5BTC a day, or $150 a month ±price fluctuation ±difficulty changes. That's way too risky of a return on initial $1,200 investment, especially if you sell it for $20 to start and share mining profits.

Or just write a kick ass computer program that people want to have running 24/7 that will mine Bitcoins when not in use.

+1

You could even do that webbased ....  instead of advertising just have it do javascript mining.   Just make sure everything is disclosed properly in the TOS ..  I think people might accept it if the application was good enough.

put it this way,  instead of seeing Google Adsense all over the freaking internet and full page banner ads all over the place,  if it just mined in the background it might be less intrusive,   as long as it's not completely crashing people's machines and using 101% of their resources.. if capped at 40% or so it might make sense.

That's still essentially stealing their electricity money, and even making them pay more for the electricity than you get back in bitcoin.

Most CPU sold in the future will have graphic core built in (APU).   AMD APU already have decent performance per watt and Intel likely do to if they ever would release OpenCL drivers.  In AMD case OpenCL support is now in the standard driver so it would be possible for mainstream users to have decent hashing performance without even doing anything other than owning a mainstream computer.

It could be used malicously but it also could be used as an alternative to advertising.

Imagine a game like farmville where you get extra "Coins" hourly based on your hashing rate.  Imagine a service like hulu which allows you to opt in to reduced or no commercials based on your hashing power.  For user's who's computer aren't powerful enough for free realtime commercial free viewing they it could allow them to bank credits by hashing when they pause or offering to let them hash for 30 minutes after end of the movie (to have credits for next movie).


Slightly different concept would be subscription based services (think online games like WOW, backup services, antivirus, etc).  You can either pay the monthly fee OR you let the system hash when you aren't using the computer for either reduced cost or free service. 

Maybe,  at today's prices .. but that's why I noted to disclaim that in the TOS and specifically state what is happening,  that way people can decide if the app is worth it.

Look if the app is literally something highly in demand,  let's say it's a program is something similar to Siri for the iphone but 1000x more intelligent...  to the point where you can't tell if it's a human or a computer... then many people might just feel it's worth it... during her "downtime" she'll mine....  when she's awake again IE: doing tasks such as populating emails for you or filling out spreadsheets .. she's not mining.

If presented with that option would you take it?   Even if you don't I suspect that others would.

Someone indistinguishable from a human, whom you can talk to, for money... Why does the number 1-900 come to mind?

LOL!!!