Bitcoin Forum

Hello, just found out about Bitcoin (surprise, surprise), and I am now wondering how I can start mining by my own or in pools. I have no idea what I am doing at the moment and would like to invest in these beauties.
I have a fairly decent laptop at my disposal, and free energy  8)

First off, mining is super risky.  Be prepared to risk money, and potentially never make ROI.

That out of the way, mining is my favourite way to get BTC.

If you want to buy your own hardware, look for Antminer S3's.  If you have more money, you can try for an Antminer S4.  S4's are more expensive, but are more power efficient so in the long run they will be better.

If you want to try cloud mining, you can check out www.gawminers.com (check the hash marketplace, they have better deals then buying from the site), or www.pbmining.com (potential ponzi, but they're cheap and have been good so far), www.newnoteminers.com (I think they're sold out right now), cex.io (good for trading gigahashes, the actual price is pretty expensive) or www.megamine.com (they look pretty good right now).

I repeat though, mining is risky.  Do your research, check difficulty calculators, assume a 10% each 2 weeks (at least, maybe even 15%), its better to be prepared for big jumps rather then surprised by them.

Personally, I'm buying more mining equipment, I'm buying some S3's second hand (buying my 5th tomorrow!) because I have some extra power supplies, and I'm also watching the hash market at GAWminers (through their ZenPool).

First... welcome to the world of crypto.

Second... your laptop is not the miner you're looking for.  Seriously, you have more chance to turn it into a paperweight than to mine BTC with it.  You're a couple years too late to the party.

As has been suggested in the reply by Xyver, if you truly want to get into mining, you're going to have to purchase dedicated hardware or venture into cloud mining contracts.  There are a number of choices in both, and there are numerous threads available for you to research before making a choice.  Spoiler alert: neither hardware, nor cloud is a very good idea currently.

Good luck, and again, welcome.

Does your laptop look like this?:

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/bitcoin-allied-asicminer.jpg

A laptop is never going to cut it. The picture above is a bitcoin mine. And those are not just PCs strung together. Those are running ASIC chips built specifically for bitcoin mining.

another " found out about bitcoin,...now i gotta mine some"

OP, asnwer yourself, if the cost of "mining" is as cheap as you thought, why would the price of btcs be at current level?


My advice, if you want btc, you either trade your service/goods for it or buy it.

I want a laptop that looks like that!

Or more specifically, I'd settle for 4u of that rackspace. Where'd you get the pic from? Any buildout details of that DC and/or units?

if you are thinking about mining bitcoin with your laptop
then forget about this
you will need mining hardware to mine bitcoin
mining bitcoin with PC or laptop was possible few year ago but not now

Ever notice we get these posters over and over then poof and they are gone.

It's because they all have this idea they're going to just leave their laptops/desktops on all the time and magically make money.  Then they hear the truth and realize there's no such thing as a free lunch, so they disappear :)