Bitcoin Forum

Hi; I'm wondering why much miner are mining on CPU or slow graphic cards and are getting less than 1 coin per month ....

Please tell me ...WHY ????

For me it looks like, would be much more easy to buy some coins ???

Maybi i'm missing something here ?

they are greedy??

Can't tell if srs or not.  Most likely these people are mining for the FUN of it.  For a lot of us mining for bitcoins, no matter what the difficulty is, draws a form of primal satisfaction similar to watching your HD defragment. :)

students with free electricity.

Will

Who are all these people you refer to exactly? I don't see many people claiming that they're happily hashing away with less than 100Mhash/sec.

If you have free electricity and an old machine you don't really care about, 100mhash > 0 also.

He has a point --

If your cost of mining is greater than what you get out of it, you're only brown-nosing your Electric Company.

Anyone mining with a negative return (CPU mining, etc.) has to either
A) really hate Bitcoin miners
B) really love his electric company

Or they expect bitcoins to worth so much more in the future.

I feel like so many people forget this. Yes it might be a gamble thinking this way but too many people think short term and not long term especially with gpu mining.

You're not getting it.

If you think BTC are going to be worth $50 next month, should you:

A) Spend $90 on electricity to get (4) bitcoins.
B) Spend $60 on Mt. Gox today and buy (4) bitcoins.

My point is --

Anyone choosing (A) must either love their electric company, or hate the idea of bitcoins going up in value.

Why else wouldn't they just BUY some bitcoins if they believe BTC will increase in value?

Paying MORE than Mt. Gox price in electricity is STUPID -- it's cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Matthew

You're not getting it.

If you just did the above and after another month BTC is worth $70, what should you have really done:

A) Spend $90 on electricity to get 4 bitcoins, and another $90 for the next month to get ~2 bitcoins which are worth in total $420
B) Spend $60 on Mt. Gox last month to get 4 bitcoins, and another $140 this month to get ~2 bitcoins which are worth in total $420

A good number of those people are people who started mining a long time ago, long before any of you came here trying to make a quick buck. If they've stuck with it for this long it's probably because they truly believe in the project and I would cheer if they ever got a block. Stop projecting your hate towards them just because they are making it more difficult for you to make a quick buck. Long term adoption > short term greed.

I have sigs and avatars disabled on these forums but I bet the people crying about cpu miners have a tradehill referall code in them.

P.S: It could also be a bunch of botnet miners in which case you can cry all you want, it wouldn't do much good.

No, he just has the obligatory donate for no reason to this random strings wallet address in his signature.

You're still not getting it. We're not talking about "To invest in equipment, or buy BTC outright". We're talking about CPU mining, which means you already have the machine.

You always have to make the decision about mining at a loss, or buying MORE BITCOINS with the same electricity money. Either way you have the same BTC -- a mined BTC isn't worth any less than a bought BTC. They can both appreciate to $70 (a.k.a. "TO DA MOON" on goldbug forums)

The question is: do you run your CPU at 100% for a week to make 0.0826 BTC/week, or just buy the BTC on Mt. Gox.

You're saying "what if next month a bitcoin is worth more?"

It doesn't matter. You simply start mining then, as soon as mining gets you MORE BTC PER DOLLAR SPENT than buying them outright. Of course you want to mine when mining is "profitable".

When it's not "profitable" you're literally throwing money away.

Can somebody help me explain it to this guy?

I just saw another glaring error in his post.

He is talking about BTC going to $70, but doesn't factor in the MASSIVE difficulty increase that would come about if that happened. Everyone and their grandma would be buying every 68XX card they could, along with new rigs, to capitalize on the new bonanza.

No and no. I run my GPU at 100%. It's less than 100Mh/s at the moment. I prefer mining since it's easier to buy BTC in my own home at about $4, with monthly credit from my energy supplier instead of paying taxes and fees from upfront money to buy BTC directly on an exchange at $17. Problem?

Yes, I'm mining when it's profitable. As in NOW. What's there to explain? That you think 100 is the magical number that separates the profitable and unprofitable mining setups irregardless of hardware design, hardware costs, Mhash/kWh, electricity costs? Just 100. Just like that.

I think you need to calm down, take a chill pill and understand that not everyone is like you, and not everyone is the same size. For example I will stop mining with an under 100 Mh/s setup when the difficulty reaches 10M. Problem?

And the error of BTC going from $15 to $50 in YOUR POST is NOT a glaring error? Permit me to LOL.

Some people are really angry around these forums. And usually never think they could be wrong.

I don't believe we're even on the same page, so apparently we can't continue this conversation.

I never said there was a magic number of 100 MH/s -- though that IS the original topic of this thread.

My posts (above) were *strictly* and exclusively talking about CPU mining at a loss (which, BTW, is *not* profitable at the current difficulty level, with any known CPU on the market)

If you're mining at 50, 100, or 500 MH/s and you want to mine when it's profitable, then you're sane and there's no problem.

I'm not angry about anything. I haven't raised my voice once in this discussion. If you think I've gotten bent out of shape in the least (emotional/angry, etc.) it shows how little one's emotions --or lack thereof -- truly convey on a message board.

Matthew

I would like to point out that if you start and stop like this when its profitable your missing the potential coins in between. For example say you stop now because its unprofitable and in 2 or 3 months time the price of a bit coin skyrockets to lets say 500 dollars a bitcoin(Not saying this will or won't happen). As people start to notice the rise more and more machine will be put out raising the difficulty. By the time you decide its profitable again the difficulty is raised so high it gives you a narrow window to make anything. If however you mine constantly for the two months its not profitable at the beginning but when you sell the bitcoins you saved it will be at worth it. This is a gamble but could potentially be worth it.

This

Also I don't pay anything extra for electricity and my computer is on all day anyway so why not have it fire up mining when the system is idle?
I even mine on an old pci card also that I found in my old stuff, it manages like 2mh :)

Sorry bro, with my fusion reactor giving me near-free energy (http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/36/Rossi-Patent-Application-WO-2009-125444.pdf) it's kinda hard not to mine... it's free money.

Some people have a sunk cost in energy and therefore will maximize their use....

• College students
• IT people
• Photo-voltaic panels installed
• fusion

Most modern chips use less power when they're idling than when they're running under load...  so you're paying more for power to mine even if you normally left your computer on 24/7.

Oh, I see... let me check the data on my E7300...
- not using my CPU on my miner: 0 BTC/day, 0$ in energy/day
- using my CPU on my miner: 0.004 BTC/day, $0.073 in energy/day

So if i mine now and sell my btc at $17, I get $0.068 while I pay $0.073. But hey, someone told me on the forums that next month the bitcoin can get to $50. I think it was YOU. Well in that case, the bitcents I mined at a loss, suddenly give me a back profit of say $0.13/day.

Should I mine on my CPU or not?

What you're basically saying: "Who cares if I lose a few dollars, if I make 50 dollars through a massive BTC price increase the next month."

I say: "Why lose those few dollars? -- save your few dollars, so that you make *53 dollars* instead of 50 when the Price Increase happens. Why lose some money on purpose, hoping to offset it with big profits later?"

That's bad business sense.

1. I never said BTC would be $50 next month. Anything is possible, but I don't think $50 BTC next month is likely at all.
2. I don't think it's smart to CPU mine if you're losing *anything* compared to buying outright. That's true for any given day.
3. You are advised to re-calculate from time to time if anything has changed. If difficulty decreases and/or the price of BTC rises enough (so that CPU mining becomes profitable again) then by all means CPU mine to your hearts' content.

I used to CPU mine myself, up till recently when it crossed the red line into negative territory.