Bitcoin Forum

This is probably stating the obvious, but I felt it should be posted anyway..

If you're running a miner and only making a few cents profit or perhaps just breaking even and hoping for the price to go up, then please, STOP!
You should really be BUYING BTC instead.

If you stop mining at break even and start buying BTC instead:

+ you are raising the demand of BTC by eating up some of the sell orders
+ you are lowering the difficulty of mining


Other things to note:

+ you have effectively "zero variance", you can control how many coins you want every day.
+ you can put your bitcoin hardware to other uses (I pointed mine towards folding@Home)


Perhaps it's only me personally that thinks that all of these things are a good idea, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

With regard to network security, there are a lot of people that are still making profit with FPGAs and cheap/"free" electricity which will help to hold the network up, so I wouldn't worry about this.

Thoughts?

I agree with this. I am buying as much as I can for the next ride to $30 and beyond. Remember $100 by Christmas ? It can still happen folks.

It doesn't lower rate coins are produced.  Difficulty re-adjusts every 2 weeks to keep rate of coin generation relatively constant.

Lower difficulty = lower hashing rate = network more vulnerable to attack.

Profits aren't the only reason that people support the network with hashing power.  I don't feel it is your (or anyone elses) place to tell miners to stop because they are mining at break even (or even at a loss).

this

A couple of thoughts...

This will push the volatility to mining, which might cause some interesting and refreshing feedback in discussion groups. (God damn speculative miners!)

It might be great for the Bitcoin economy and give 2nd phase adopters a change to jump in and see what innovation they can come up with.

It would distribute the inflation across more people (the 2nd phase adopters) and strengthen the economy.

I bought a few at $27. If you'd like to split the difference I'll sell you half of those for $13.50 and we can ride to the top together. 8D (I'm with you, long on Bitcoin)

As someone already pointed out, the number of coins is near-constant, so you will have little, if any, effect on the rate of inflation.

You will eat some sell orders, however, the coins you would have mined will now go to someone else who will probably put them on the exchange, so you aren't affecting things as much as you think.

By lowering the difficulty of mining you are weakening the network.  Not by very much, but it does make it slightly easier to attack.

Yes, thank you. Helps strengthen my FX and precious holdings and few are the wiser

Please use the Search feature. This topic has been posted many many times in the past.  No need to repost an old topic again.

Yeah, a slight oversight on my part. I'll ammend my post.

I know it's not. And I know that it's not anyone elses either. It's against the whole idea of freedom which Bitcoin carries. I just felt that I should share my thoughts on the matter because it appears that not everyone realises these simple facts. Whether anyone adopts them or not is up to them.

Yes, but the price of Bitcoin falling will naturally push (some) miners off the system anyway, which is something bigger to be worried about than this albeit similar. I don't want to damage the network. I know there are plenty of people that will keep on mining regardless, profit or no profit, so that is why I am not worried about network security. Most serious miners have relatively cheap electricity anyway so won't bother with this.

Not necessarily correct. If I was a miner who was selling coins for a profit I would be putting them on the market anyway. If I was buying from the market, the coins I could have mined will go to someone else, yes, but there's no "probably" about them putting the coins straight on the exchange. If anything they would be hoarded for a while or used to pay for services. It is reducing the chances of them going on the exchange if anything and still eating up the sell orders, which is the main point here.

If you're going to clutter up the thread with pointless things like this atleast post links to the similar topics in question. I did a search and found nothing with regards to what I wanted to say, but if it has been posted in the past then the market has changed and it doesn't exactly hurt to re-iterate on these points which are probably buried in the forums by now which no-one will likely see again.

I agree, OP. I think, ultimately, buying bitcoins is much more beneficial to the currency than mining them at this point.

The arguments about mining to increase the security of bitcoin are technically true, but in practice, false. As for mining for "fun"? Aside from building the systems, I really don't understand what's fun about mining. Before I liquidated all my rigs, they were running totally independently for weeks/months at a time with no intervention from me whatsoever.

Care to explain?

What does this even mean?

For instance, someone who has a lot of BTC has an interest in mining to secure their own holdings.  People also participate in folding@home, and there is 0 immediate return.  For others, mining at a current loss is equivalent of 'shorting' the money you pay for electricity to mine in the first place.

There are many reasons to mine below the 'break even' point.

Folding@home? Are you joking?

ATI sucks with folding@Home

If you want to go distributed computing and you have ATI then crunch for projects like Milkyway@Home, Collatz or Moo! Wrapper, they run much better on ATI.

Folding is for nvidia and cpu. Not for ati. It's like mining bitcoins with a nvidia.

I didn't say anything about ATI vs Nvidia - I was speaking purely of the return.

This is probably stating the obvious, but I felt it should be posted anyway..

If you're running a small retail business and only making a liveable income or perhaps just breaking even and hoping for the economy to improve, STOP!
You should really be working for someone else instead.

If you stop being self employed and start working for a company:

+ you are raising the demand for consumer goods by purchasing what you used to sell
+ you are making it easier for other businesses to compete

Thoughts?

Yup but bitcoin mining=ati, so if you use mining hardware on folding, it's using ati on folding. A  bad idea  :D

Why?  If someone wants to support Folding then it doesn't really matter that they don't have the best "rig" for it.  Many people use AMD hardware (no more ATI) on Folding @Home.  They aren't ever going to be a top folder but they do it because they believe in the project and want to donate their computing power there (not to some other project).

I prefer efficiency.

There are a lot of projects where ATI (i still call it ati because yes) is better than nvidia, crunching on folding is a bit wasting energy. A nvidia is much better on it.

Also, i said that because a lot of people know Folding but how many people know Milkyway? Collatz? Moo! Wrapper? And that on them ATI is much better than nvidia?

Incorrect, irrelevant and boring.

How can you compare running a small retail business to mining for Bitcoin?  ???
Hah, they're completely different things..

But the logic works exactly the same. "Stop competing with me, you aren't making money so neither am I."

The problem is nobody has the upper hand anymore, you could easily make it harder for everyone else for free or even if it costs you something.
The time when profits are to be made again if someone could find a cost effective solution to mine with fpgas.

Well I for one am gonna continue mining or I will freeze my but of in here.

I could close up the ventilation but then I will probably get irradiated by the radon this building ... so with no electricity bill and the computer smelling less then the oven ... good luck to you trying to get a bigger piece of the mining pie for yourself anyway.

FYI I'm pointing my rig towards folding@home because I prefer donating to this cause than the others, regardless of efficency.

Not really. All I'm trying to do is raise awareness. There's a lot of newbie traders on this forum that don't know.

And hah, yeah that's true. I didn't think about the "free heat" aspect of mining..

Speculation belongs in the speculation thread.

FUD doesn't belong here at all.

The simple fact is it's pure capitalism - if you're making money, you'd be a fool to stop making money.  Even if it's just a few cents. Profit is always worthwhile as long as the effort required doesn't exceed it.

If you're not making money, cut your losses.  Fire it up again when you are.

The market adjusts accordingly. 

The only thing the 'newbie traders' on the forum need to know that they might not already know is you will be constantly discouraged by fools looking to vampire your share :P

Yeah okay, so how exactly is this speculation or FUD?

I stated simple facts and ideas. Never at any point did I say anything like "do this and bitcoins will be >$30 in no time!"..

It is very basic capitalism, yes. It makes more sense (for the people I'm referring these ideas to) to BUY than MINE, as you can see greater profits, or rather, fewer losses. So I am only re-iterating what you said basically.

"if you're not making money from mining, considering buying instead"

Are you spreading FUD too?

No, just feeding the trolls :P

Your points make sense for anyone who is considering mining - its far more profitable to buy and trade than to invest in new equipment right now.

There is no reason someone already mining should stop if they're profitable at all - there is also no reason they can't buy *and* mine.

I don't have to pay electricity bills and currently have 6 machines running (2x 5870 each). Therefore as long as someone is willing to buy BTC, I make money :) Not much per day, but it adds up :)

But SOMEONE is paying around $200 a month for your mining operation. Not all of us can (or will) steal that much electricity, especially without raising eyebrows/getting caught.

You must be in a college dorm or something. $200 a month is a lot, even for a business.