6990s were sold out before bitcoin became a craze. They were a limited production line top end card. They're also a terrible $/hash buy for mining.
Exactly. These are gaming cards and probably a very, very small minority has been purchased for distributed computing. Not to mention they cost $700 to $800 for about 600-700mhash/s, you can get two radeon 5870's for $300-$400 bucks at the cheapest & achieve the same or better. Wha? I get 850 mhash/sec on stock voltage on my 6990. It's overclocked to 990 on both GPUs. I could probably hit 1050 easy. And the point of the 6990 should be to have an awesome gaming rig AND hash. But I don't think that's the case for a whole of people. Either you got very lucky or you're full of s**t. The average 6990 goes nowhere near 990Mhz let alone 1050. Not to mention when overclocked the average 5870 (not a super special golden overclocker) can do 420MHash/sec. They game pretty well too surprisingly (for the same money you will probably get even better fps, though lots more noise and heat). |
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yes but however i had no idea it was 90% harder in the next month.
Before this last difficulty increase of 20% of so, we had one that was 80% in one jump. And 60% before that. That was within the span of...two weeks? No. 25% increase hit after 11 days. 75% increase hit after about 8 days, 60% about 9 days. that's roughly a month. |
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this all kind of makes me giggle. I know when bionic put out gpu stuff for crunching numbers there was a slight increase in card sales.... But I can't imagine there has ever been a increase in sales like this. its completely insane how many vid cards have been purchased just because of bitcoins in the past few weeks... should of got stock in these manufacturers
A simple estimate of the bitcoin community puts miners in the roughly 10-20,000 range. New card sales are likely less but even assuming an optimistic estimate, we'll say 20,000. In the first 9 months after the 5xxx series was released, AMD sold 16million 5xxx chips. 20,000 / 16million = .1% Bitcoin is a drop in the bucket at the moment. I'm glad people are being optimistic about bitcoin, that's what it needs, but really let's keep things in perspective. |
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Sigh @ the above. Spreadsheets are awful and lies. Freakin is the closest to the mark though. The problem is that there is nothing static about bitcoin. The next difficulty increase will almost certainly be way way more than 35%. People are jumping into mining in droves as they see magical money fountains lying before them. The hashrate is likely to jump significantly, my guess would be > 50%.
Will the price of bitcoin jump as well? My guess is no, not for the next difficulty increase at any rate, as it has already jumped 100% in value. I can only guess, but I'd imagine something like $20 to be the max it will be at come next difficulty. People will see a huge difficulty jump and stop buying new rigs as they see their profits dropping, leading to a slowing of difficulty increases. Then maybe another yahoo article or google news article will come out about bitcoin spiking the price again, hard to say.
I'd look to 1.5months - 2months to repay your rig as an optimistic estimate. If you pay it off sooner something good happened, if you pay it off later consider that a risk of bitcoining, if you don't ever pay it off, well that's a risk of new opportunity.
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I just purchased 12 Sapphire 5830's from Newegg this morning, glad I made it before they sold out!
You may not be so glad in 10 days when you finally get your rigs running and difficulty doubles  |
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The reason why I'm concerned is because the entire Bitcoin economy is about to crash and the difficulty still goes up.
Look at how quickly all the prices shot up. At one point everyone is just going to sell and be done with it--then crash.
Right, that's a very reasoned argument. "Bitcoin is becoming successful so it's going to fail!" If you have a reason why "everyone is just going to sell and be done with it" that'd be enlightening. I wish I could multiquote... Above poster, that's some sweet sweet graphing going on. |
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This is like the 5th thread about this this morning. And no the network doesn't rely on 5830s to grow. There are roughly 16-20 million 58xx series cards in circulation. Neweggs stock of like 200 5830s isn't really the make or break for bitcoin.
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6990s were sold out before bitcoin became a craze. They were a limited production line top end card. They're also a terrible $/hash buy for mining.
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5830 is nowhere near as power hungry as a 5870. 5830s are $110 on newegg and in stock. A 450W power supply doesn't mean anything, you need to know the Brand, the Model or at least how many Amps it provides on the 12V rail.
A quality 450W powersupply can easily handle any system with an overclocked 5870 and room to spare. A crappy 450W might choke on anything. Let's not give out advice unless we know what we're talking about.
EDIT: wow the 5830s finally went out of stock. Shame. That was almost the last of the easily accessible 58xx cards. There are still a few left, but I'm guessing they'll be gone soon too.
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What evidence do you present that the monopolies formed under a free market are balanced by an invisible potential competitor? Internet Explorer is a terrible example, as it was sued under Anti-Trust laws and the evil government forced Microsoft to change its practices to create more "fair" competition. Please provide some kind of evidence for this claim. How exactly did the government intervene so that Internet Explorer was forced into more "fair" competition? Has Microsoft stopped bundling Internet Explorer with Windows? No, they haven't. Since you've failed to back up your claim, I can only assume you are referring to the European Commission's settlement with Microsoft whereby Microsoft agreed to present users with a browser selection screen. The problem with that theory though is that it only applies to EU countries and only happened with Windows 7, several years after Firefox had already been chipping away at Internet Explorer. Unless you provide some new information, your claims don't hold water. Firefox is exactly the evidence you required yet, unsurprisingly, it doesn't "count". That's not accurate unfortunately. That assumes that Nike will act ethically and that their only recourse to maintain their monopoly is the manipulation of their product's price and quality. If Nike has a monopoly then nothing prevents them from acting unethically and taking other steps to prevent competition such as using their size to demand exclusive contracts for raw materials necessary to produce shoes or overpaying for those materials thereby increasing the market's barrier to entry.
This is the same way with an ultra-powerful monopolistic pool. They can use their size and resources to prevent competition by dDosing for example.
The same argument applies to the raw materials monopolies. You are just welcoming competition by not selling to whoever bids the highest. Jesus, same bullshit with you guys every time. There is absolutely no support for your side so you just nitpick at little things to avoid confronting that fact. I specifically asked you to focus on one thing which you completely avoided twice. I failed to back up my claim? Because I specifically said I didn't want to focus on that. I don't see myself stating anywhere in that quote you provided of me saying that MS was forced to unbundle its software. Good job diverting. I almost wish I had studied psychology because I'm so fascinated by how people can be so skilled at avoiding any reality in persistently believing whatever they want. |
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I thought it was in the 4.X range -- now I look and it's 4.95 -- and TWELVE blocks/hour all the sudden, when for the longest time it's been in the 8 - 9.5 range.
Did some supercomputer come online to mine Bitcoins?
This is hardly surprising. A few days ago $/BTC was 9, then 10 then 12 then 14, 16 and right now it is 18. |
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116V? Uh, standard is 120V afaik, unless you live in some other country?
How many machines you can run depends on the machine itself, need more information. If your building only has 100amp service than adding more circuits won't help at all.
Anyway, I'm going to assume 120V despite your claims, and as such 120V*30A = 3600W / circuit. Assume a 4x5870 system + cpu = ~1000Watts from the wall, that's 3 systems per circuit. Most circuits are not 30A however, but if you can get that cool. Why 30A though if you are customizing it yourself?
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I've actually found Amazon Prime to be a good deal and have generally found most of the same items from Newegg available there. With Prime you pay ~$70 a year and automatically get 2 day shipping on anything you buy. Plus you can upgrade anything to overnight shipping for $3.99/Item.
I still always check Newegg first, but have been finding that often I'm finding the same item on both sites for right around the same place.
Amazon prime is amazing. Amazon in general is worth a tiny bit of premium for their fast shipping, and excellent customer service. Amazon often price matches newegg too (not always, but often), which is nice. You won't get the same as their big sales, but c'est la vie. Only 3.99 for overnight too, great. |
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You don't really need a comprehensive guide, here is about all you need to know:
Pools:
They're all more or less the same on a long timeline. Pick the one with the web interface you like the most.
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I both agree and disagree with lots of the sentiment above. I personally stopped mining on deepbit despite the ease of it, low variance, fast payout because I know of the dangers (more than just forking really) and would like to see bitcoin in general succeed. But I'm also a fan of personal responsibility. If bitcoin is made up of mostly people who don't care about any of the projects goals, or the project itself, and just want their magical money fountain computer to spit out gold dollars, well I can totally understand that.
And if bitcoin dies a horrible screaming death from people getting scammed and bitcoin losing all credibility in its fledgling period and we all cry salty tears at our lost opportunity because of it, that's fine, no one did that to us, we did it to ourselves. And if bitcoin runs on invincible in the face of laziness and apathy, and I make thousands of dollars off it, I'm not gonna complain about that either.
TL;DR.
I suggest you don't mine on deepbit. If you want to tho, that's cool.
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One thing will become readily apparent to anyone who does the kind of back-testing you recommend, and that is there may not be enough data to make reliable projections. But that does not take away from the value of learning how the mining/investing markets behave and how their different parts interact. Such analysis is entirely accessible to someone without a PhD in mathematics.
It works like this: You try to make the best decisions you can based on the information you have. You take action based on those decisions. You experience pain.
That pain is the best teacher, only if it motivates.
It has taught me to hedge.
[/quote]
I agree 100%. The only place where I disagree is the way in which one learns. I believe one learns from experience such as what you mentioned. I do not believe one learns from create simple static models into the future ignoring the related variables that we've seen affect things until we reached the state we are in today. That is all. The experience and pain give you a much better 'feeling' (if you dont have that phd) for where things are going.
For you, this feeling may have taught you hedging. For me it may be different. But neither of these feelings came from a spreadsheet, that's all.
@OPs question: I'd really like you to get one thing out of what I've been saying, aside from the fact that no one knows the future (which is key point #1). Static models make no sense. Obviously a 20% increase in price every 2016 blocks doesn't make sense, but neither does a 30% increase in difficulty.
The two are inexorably linked, often with one following the other (sometimes switching which leads). They are not always proportional. They are not independent entities either. For example a yahoo news article about bitcoins brought in an influx of new people to bitcoins (maybe even you) and thus bitcoin surged in price. This will happen in spurts that are impossible to predict (unless you own yahoo). 2 months from now all these new people may be fed up with how confusing bitcoin is and that it's not a free money machine and instead of a 20% increase we will see a 50% decrease in coin price. Equally possible. You need to model to predict that too.
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Uhm, what evidence do you have of this? I mean yes, I understand the theory, and have heard it about a billion times, but what *evidence* is there.
The person you quoted gave a couple of good examples of non-governmentally enforced monopolies. Standard Oil. US Steel. Neither of these were monopolies enforced by governmental action. Both caused terrible drains on everyone, especially the workers (I doubt the people lining the gates begging for a days wages would have said that everyone was happy) who were essentially forced into servitude by the situation. But this is getting offtopic, I'm still looking for evidence.
Barrier of entry to market is not as trivial as you make it sound. Yes it may sound "fair" that it's difficult to enter a profitable market for late comers, but it doesn't help your point that monopolies are balanced by potential rivals if the barrier to entry is so high that competition is almost impossible.
Look, if I have a business harvesting moon rocks and you complain that I'm charging too high of a price or that it creates a terrible drain on the workers then start your own company. If you can't find investors willing to risk their money then what right do you have to say that the prices are too high? All prices are too high since consumers would like to get everything for free but when dealing with economics we have to evaluate actions, not words. Let's take oil for example. It's rare and hard to acquire. Therefore, the prices they charge reflect this. If the price of oil is too high then people will switch to other sources of energy. If they are still buying it, it doesn't matter if they are grumbling about the price, clearly the price isn't too high, otherwise, it wouldn't be selling. The same applies to any other natural monopoly. Free market monopolies aren't "bad" as long as you get rid of the idea that you should be able to get everything for free. The prices will always approach what it's actually worth. As a potential counter example, look at microsoft. An inferior product at hugely inflated prices from a terribly inefficient company that is essentially a monopoly due to legacy support requirements and an almost impossibly high barrier to entry at market.
That's just opinion, nothing more. Perhaps the software itself is inferior but you can't consider it in a vacuum. You need to consider human capital, how many people understand it, use it, can program with it, what kind of support there is for it, etc. If Linux was so wonderful, it would have taken over by now. Counterexample, Mozilla Firefox. Internet Explorer had a monopoly but now it's losing market share daily. Firefox is king these days. None of your responses represent an answer to my one question asked of you. What evidence do you present that the monopolies formed under a free market are balanced by an invisible potential competitor? Internet Explorer is a terrible example, as it was sued under Anti-Trust laws and the evil government forced Microsoft to change its practices to create more "fair" competition. I had a feeling that by opening the conversation up with any side commentary that I wouldn't get an answer so I will not make further response. This is not to reject your points or brush them aside, but I do want an answer. There is ample evidence of monopolies acting unfairly when their monopolistic power grants them that ability (some has been given, so let's not argue over this part). Where is your evidence in the real world (not simply theory) of monopolistic companies held in abayance not by government or anti-trust law, but by the mechanics of the economic principles you espouse? I'm honestly curious. |
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I always find these threads amusing, especially from the 'free market' types. Unregulated markets naturally tend towards monopolies. In a free market, even with monopolies there is still the threat of competition. Let's say that NIKE has a monopoly in shoes. As long as everyone is getting what they want at a reasonable price, who cares? The reason why, even with a monopoly, NIKE isn't going to start charging $1,000 for a pair of low quality shoes is that they know it would entice competition. They want to keep their monopoly so they refrain from doing that because, at a reasonable price and reasonable quality, there's no incentive for competition. Hence, the mere fact that someone could enter the shoe market will prevent NIKE from getting uppity. Monopolies aren't bad unless they're enforced involuntarily which requires government action. Voluntary monopolies aren't a problem. Uhm, what evidence do you have of this? I mean yes, I understand the theory, and have heard it about a billion times, but what *evidence* is there. The person you quoted gave a couple of good examples of non-governmentally enforced monopolies. Standard Oil. US Steel. Neither of these were monopolies enforced by governmental action. Both caused terrible drains on everyone, especially the workers (I doubt the people lining the gates begging for a days wages would have said that everyone was happy) who were essentially forced into servitude by the situation. But this is getting offtopic, I'm still looking for evidence. Barrier of entry to market is not as trivial as you make it sound. Yes it may sound "fair" that it's difficult to enter a profitable market for late comers, but it doesn't help your point that monopolies are balanced by potential rivals if the barrier to entry is so high that competition is almost impossible. EDIT: As a potential counter example, look at microsoft. An inferior product at hugely inflated prices from a terribly inefficient company that is essentially a monopoly due to legacy support requirements and an almost impossibly high barrier to entry at market. |
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God why do people make spreadsheets and why do other people take this crap seriously? These projections are totally bogus, we already had a huge ass thread about an "analysis of mining profitability" not 2 days ago, with some super "legit" looking spreadsheet showing why it would be completely unprofitable to mine. The first very first step in the projection was 100% wrong. They projected a 60% difficulty increase for the next step (this one is about 25%) and a 10% increase in coin price (this one was about 120%).
No one knows the future. This is the key component to making every spreadsheet projection completely worthless.
I made a spreadsheet with some conservative values showing I could make ~100% profit return from mining hardware starting tomorrow, but I don't even want to post it as a counter argument because it's just going to feed into the idea that spreadsheets mean anything.
My point as well. Which is why you should hedge. But that does not mean that such spreadsheet projections are worthless. Because it serves to teach you how the different moving parts of a Bitcoin mining/investing venture interact, and what you should pay attention to. I don't particularly believe in hedging. I feel like you should make a reasoned seasoned analysis for yourself about where you think bitcoin has been and is going and make a bet about what kind of risk you are comfortable with vs projected reward. Hedging can fall out of that analysis (providing a middle path for risk/reward) but it isn't necessarily a superior option. Why I don't believe in spreadsheets even as a method of teaching is that it creates the illusion of some sound forward looking analysis. To me you can only look backwards at past performance and say "based on those factors and what is happening today, in the future it will probably..." Or else get a maths PhD and invent some crazy ass formula that you definitely won't fit on an excel spreadsheet to predict market trends. Heh. |
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