I've been pointing my CPU at your LTC pool for a while now, using mining_proxy and minerd. It works slow but gets shares.

I finally installed a Radeon 6570, and use cgminer. When I point it at ANY of your pools, using default settings from your Help section, I get very few shares. I have tried it on BTC and TRC, as well as on LTC (using scrypt, of course). In other BTC pools I have tried I get shares (about 80-85 Mh/s) but in your pools I get very few, if any. (I was connected to TRC pool for ten minutes leading up to the time of this point, and got two shares only.) Has your pool been rejecting connections, or should I be doing something special?

I think I have a smaller wallet than most users, since I'm new to the bitcoin scene. Can you tell us what the Minimum bet is?

Here is the Selgin paper the author refers to:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2000118

First, he is clearly a gold bug. There have been gold bugs that have come to see the value of bitcoins, but most not so much. Comparing the prices of gold and bitcoin through the Cyprus panic gives some understanding of why the gold bugs feel threatened by bitcoin. Historically, that type of financial panic has been very good for gold. This time, gold barely budged, and people moved their assets into bitcoins instead. In fact, gold recently dropped below its 200-week moving average.

Second, this quote:


The writer's understanding of Milton Friedman, alas, is not very good. I have a degree in economics, and I tutor college-level economics and finance. In my sessions, on a regular basis, I help students understand this formula:

MV = PT

That formula was created by Irving Fisher, but most of the work expounding on and popularizing the formula was done by Milton Friedman. Monetary base * velocity of money = Price level * transactions.

Actually, the success or fail of alternate currencies, such as bitcoin, relies intrinsically on how they fulfill the demands of this monetary truism. The monetary base of bitcoins is expanding at a fixed rate until 2140, and then it will remain constant at 21 million bitcoins. Velocity is a tricky issue, and I have seen a lot of discussion about hoarders: are they good or bad? The answer relies a lot on the other side of the equation. Price level is the value of goods you can receive for bitcoins, or as popularly measured, the amount of dollars you can receive for bitcoins. (Technically it would be the amount of Bitcoins you can receive per dollar, for the formula to balance properly.) Transactions are trade taking place in bitcoin. This is why people care so much about whether there is transaction demand or speculation demand. The formula doesn't care: speculation buying is part of T, but long-term stability requires stable transaction demand.

A full exposition could obviously be made, digging into the mechanics of each element and how they pertain to bitcoins, but I choose not to at this time. Suffice it to say, I think bitcoins stands up well in its design and could eventually become more stable than any fiat currency, but that time is far in the future and relies on the stabilization of velocity and transactions.

It sounds like your best bet is to do the right thing and pay off your "debt." It's unfortunate, but it happens. Maybe you will get lucky and the exchange rates will move in your favor while you are trying to mine them and you can just pay it off early.

Any particular reason you don't close your BTC-e account and just trade elsewhere? Since they are clearly at fault, I don't see any ethical reason not to walk away from it.

Now that the praxeology argument is settled, can I point the discussion of this article in a little different direction?


When I read this part, my first thought was, what about dollars? They have no exchange value based on some other use. That question was subsequently answered:


That, however, raises a new question. What about Euros? They never had anything other than exchange value. I suppose it could be argued that at the commencement of the Euro experiment, citizens were allowed to trade in their old currencies for the new currency, at some exchange rate. To my mind, however, that is not empirically different than people getting their first bitcoins by exchanging other currencies for bitcoins, at some exchange rate.

Any thoughts on this?

My favorite sentence, by far, was on page 3.
What qualifies an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science to write an informed article about banking and finance? I acknowledge that there are many informed autodidacts, and the topics are approachable with some effort, but... this was just nonsense!

I'm not really impressed with the current exchange rate, but I do understand things are in flux now and there are very valid business reasons for a more "conservative" exchange rate.

If you read their information, you will see that points are roughly equivalent to .01 USD, and will be converted to BTC at the time you request payment. Looking at what the tasks are, it is far from reasonable for anyone from an advanced country to spend their time performing these tasks for only a few cents each.

As for whether the site is safe... If you are concerned, make sure you don't have any BTC wallets on the computer you are using, and scan your computer for malware before and after your work session.

Good luck!

I just submit an address to join the Newbie Lotto?

1YFRUfJ12XgmiLDP6far5SNeKquNNsoBH

I have seen the suggested RAM amount for LTC frequently cited as 1.5 GB RAM for each memory card in the 7xxx series. It sounds like you may need another 2 GB RAM to optimize your performance.

I have given a great deal of consideration to the same decision you made. Should I order a box from BFL? The greatest difficulty I have is there are too many assumptions. Will they or will they not actually deliver? How much will their boxes impact the overall difficulty of the network. Will their boxes be useful for alt-coins that are also based on SHA256, or just for bitcoins?
IMHO, there are far too many assumptions to be made, and ordering a box is too big a risk for my current budget. Your circumstances and risk tolerance may be higher than mine, but bear in mind that the risks are non-minimal.

I recently got into all this too, but I agree with your conclusions. Anyone with a lower hash-rate is better off doing altcoins (like LTC). As for payment, PPS seems to more fairly treat someone doing low hash-rates not 24/7.