Bitcoin Forum

Hey guys,

I'm fairly interested in getting into bitcoins and was wondering if it was worth getting a few usb block erupters (the ~340Mh/s kind) as I have an NVIDIA gpu so I would get nowhere near enough hashes to mine them using that.  :-\
Would I be better off just mining alt coins and eventually trading them for bitcoins?

What's your opinions?
Thanks

You would have to mine altcoins and short them.  It's not worth the hassle if you ask me; you'd be better off working as you normally would and trading that cash for BTC directly.

hi mike,

thats seems a very common question throughout this section and there are about 300 different views on that topic.
if you spend a little time around here and read through some threads you'll quickliy get a good overview of them.
but while i agree with brendons view his answer might well sum up the current situation.

cheers, pm

I think you got he and I mixed up :P

ohoh, severe name confusion happening here ...  :o

Well Brendan, I think what's been said before about it perhaps being more advantageous just to work, earn money normally to buy and hold BTC which will hopefully appreciate over time, is perhaps the more considered orthodox view. The reason for people having this view is that smaller scale mining just doesn't offer any return on investment so they suggest that, say, rather than spending $100 on mining equipment that might never give you that $100 or any profit back, you buy $100 worth of bitcoins which has a reasonable chance of appreciating in value.

That view only takes into consideration your possible return on investment, it doesn't take into account the possibility that you might just actually want your own physical bitcoin mining rig. I, for one, love my rig and even though it's not very productive and it might never make a profit, it has taught me many things about mining and it forces you to consider aspects like which miner you'll be using, what mining pool you'll use, which wallet you'll set up to receive the fractions of coins that you get from the pool and how to send and receive coins as you use the bitcoin network to make small transactions. It gives you a sense of what it means when people talk about increasing mining difficulty and it also provides a sense on just what sort of equipment or energy is required to mine more bitcoins and that in turn helps you form a view on what a bitcoin is actually worth, which is especially helpful if you decide to trade bitcoins. Invariable you'll eventually be looking at some alternative coins (altcoins, alts) which you might get if your pool offers merged mining, or if you decide to choose to mine them later as some can sometimes be more profitably mined by the smaller scale rigs, so you'll need to use an exchange like Btc-e or Vicurex to either receive them directly into your exchange account, or trade them for bitcoins if you don't need the altcoins for any other purpose.

So although most people would say, "Hell no!" when you ask about buying a few Block Erupters, I say, "Go for it!" as even a couple of BE's will get you into the mining groove and teach you a lot and there's no end of joy tweaking your rig, adding more BE's, changing your pool, burning out power supplies, wondering which usb hubs to use, moaning about how little you actually get from mining and a million other things that you didn't count on, like now noticing how much your internet connection actually drops out and leaves your miners leaning on their shovels laughing at you rather than digging for coins while you sleep. With all that said and done, it's still a beautiful thing when a fraction of a coin appears in your wallet and you grin to yourself thinking, "I mined that". Sure your rig might not actually make back what it cost you, but if you don't think about it in investment terms, it doesn't matter. If you go out for a few drinks with friends and manage to spend $100 on beers and some food, you don't frown at the end of the night wondering where the ROI is or whether what you did was the 'right thing'. You went out, you had beers with friends, the $100 is gone and the sun will rise tomorrow.

The other thing to consider, which I'd suggest you do after getting your hands dirty and building a small physical rig, is to consider cloud mining. There are a number of options out there to build a virtual rig in the cloud, so do some research and see what is available, new facilities are coming online all the time, so the more research you do, the better informed you'll be and the more able you'll be able to make the right decision for you. Plenty of people have opinions, but the only one that really counts here is yours. Do your thing, know why you're doing it, be happy you're doing it and know that you can always change what you do later on. I have a physical rig and I mine in the cloud. I've got some new bitcoin mining hardware arriving soon but the chances are that it will be the last hardware I buy, cloud mining is just very easy and very flexible now, not like in times gone by when you had to mess around with contracts. There's a referral link to the CEX here (https://cex.io/r/1/OleOle/0/) or in my signature below, check it out so that you can see how easy it is to buy GH/s or even small parts of a gigahash, maybe you'll consider it after building a little rig, it's completely up to you.

So while the rest of this forum might tell you not to bother buying any BE's, I say hunt them down for cheap on Ebay, buy a few and get started, set up your mining software, your wallet, find a mining pool, link them all together and 'hey presto' you're now a miner. What do you have to lose? A few beers? There's plenty of time for beers :D

Good luck with it all.


:)

Hi, I also got interested in bitcoins and altcoins only about 2.5 weeks ago, 12th October actually.  I started mining PPC but found that it was not feasible without Asic's so switched to ANC (scrypt using graphics cards).  I chose ANC because of the network hashing rate was reasonably low, so that even with my meager hardware, I still have a small percentage.  I did this for about two weeks until the network hash rate quadrupled.  I did manage to convert my ANC yesterday and now am the proud owner of 0.056 BTC.  It was fun to do, but I think I used a lot more money to get this, i.e. electricity here in Australia is about 0.25 per kWh.

Anyway, it seems that buying and selling altcoins would make more money, from the comments on other forums.

-John

I have just started mining with a BFL 7 GH Jalapeno, using EasyMiner, with an account on Eclipse MC. 

Is it better to use DGM or PPS?

And, would it be better to not use an Eclipse account and just allow EasyMiner to let me mine anonymously?

Thanks,
Z

Thanks for the replies guys!


This pretty much convinced me to get a block erupted just for the sake of it and give it a go! I picked one up on ebay for about $25AUD.
Since I now have one, does anyone recommend a pool to mine in? I know I won't be making any profits, I'm really just doing this for fun at the moment.

Thanks again.

Good on ya mate for giving it a go. Most of the better known pools are solid enough and all of them have people who prefer the pool that they use for whatever reasons. I use BTC Guild as it's the largest pool and the larger pools find more blocks simply as they have more number crunching power inside the pool. Sometimes with smaller pools they don't find a block for days and that means you don't get any payout for days, whereas the larger pools find block regularly and even if all you're getting is a few fractions of a coin, it's still nice to see them build up and you know that things are working properly, your little BE's are doing their share and you're being rewarded for it. That is, after all, the idea of being in a pool.

Some of these links will give you more info:

https://blockchain.info/pools (pie chart of bitcoin pools)
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools (not sure how up to date this info is but it helps evaluate aspects of different pools)
http://bitcoinchain.com/pools#start=1358341260&end=1383483540 (handy links to the home pages of different pools)

If you go with BTC Guild, they have a straightforward support page for Block Erupters which will get you up and running in no time:

https://www.btcguild.com/index.php?page=support&section=blockerupter

On that support page it will direct you to download BFGMiner, the drivers to connect your BE's and once you're set up and mining, then you've got time to look for wallets while your BE's chip away at the blocks. Just as there's plenty of mining pools to choose from, wallets are a whole other universe too and there's pro's and con's for each. I use Electrum as it's straightforward, quick to set up and hassle-free:

http://electrum.org/

You could always start with this set up and then explore other options over time. It's entirely up to you which miner you use, which pool your use and which wallet you use and that's part of the fun working out how much functionality, complexity or ease of use that suits you. If you follow the steps on that BTC Guild support page then download Electrum, you'll be mining and fully up and running easily within 15-20 mins. Then, start exploring this forum for different pools, miners, wallets, etc.

Anyway Brendan, glad I was able to help, dive in and have fun ;)

Cheers!

:)