How many bought BTC when it had its (so far) all time high? Not enough obviously because the price came down again. Now everybody seems to wait for the halving expecting that the price of BTC  is going to skyrocket around this date.
So many are waiting to sell their BTC but who is going to buy? So instead of going up the price might come crashing down as I assume many will panic if the price won't go up and sell their BTC to limit their losses. Of course that is just speculation but with almost everyone planning to sell when the price is high (enough) and many more inclined to buy in when the price is low (enough) and almost no one to buy when the price is high, I don't see how the halving will help to increase the price.

My last transaction (I bought something worth 0.21 BTC) took quite some time to go through. Took more than 30 minutes to get a single confirmation even though the fee was right. If I buy something with VISA it takes only a few seconds.

It seems he hast lost his confidence in BTC, at least he says so. So if he just changed his BTC into cash, left without giving any reason and BTC collapse a bit later, he would be blamed even more for not telling anything.

@pompatore thanks for posting this.

Interesting reading and I'm not so sure if it's wise to ignore all of this. If he's right BTC might go down rather sooner than later.

I'm curious to see if it goes down even more as many people panic and sell their BTC in a hurry or if it goes up soon because others take this opportunity to buy more BTC relatively cheap.

USB implementation on the U3 seems to be a bit flaky anyway. That's quite obvious if you read this thread. I have two U3 connected to my GNU/Linux Box and that works without too much problems (they do zombie from time to time though). There was no need to install any additional drivers. Maybe that's an option for those who can't make it work under Windows.

Just an update on my undervolted and underclocked U3. One of them (I got two) seems to have died. If I can connect it at all it's shown as ZOMBIE (cgminer) and only hashes with 3-4 Gh/s. So even underclocking and undervolting doesn't seem to prevent this little bugger from dying eventually. Anyway, I knew before that this might happen so I got two as the price was quite low.

No Blocks solved, best share was 154M. So far no ROI, of course

PS: Ok, seems I was a bit too quick with my conclusion that one of the U3 died. After unpowering the USB2-Hub the "broken one" came back to life.

This was my statement actually but posted by someone else again. And yes, the U3 did eventually zombie after about 24 hours.

I got mine from www.usbminer.ch and I also paid with Bitcoins.

And regarding the issues so many owners of the U3 have, no worries my U3 isn't flawless either. My U3 did zombie after running it for about 24 hours. I had to replug the USB-cable to bring it back to life. No overheating issues so far but then I do underclock and undervolt it.

That's probably it. Took me some time to realize why there is so much "random noise" here but eventually I figured out that some peoply only post to increase their signature counter.

I fully agree with that. In fact that statement is true for many Bonus Systems. Giving a bonus for a certain behaviour is usually an invitation for the greedy ones to seek ways to maximize their profits. Malus Systems usually work better. You get punished for unwanted behaviour so you either follow the rules or you have to pay a fee. Regarding Bitcoins that could mean you have to pay a fee for a transaction if you don't run a node (with some minimum mining hashing capabilities). Something like that could still save Bitcoin in the long run.

After running it about 20 hours I have nothing to complain about the U3 so far. I will keep it underclocked because it seems to run quite stable that way. And it doesn't matter anyway 50 Gh/s or 67 Gh/s is way too little in any case these days.

Just got my U3. After compiling cgminer with icarus-enabled I have it running now at solo.ckpool.org just for fun. To be on the safe side (at least I hope so) I used the following options "--au3-freq 200" and "--au3-volt 725". So far the baseplate of the miner as well as the power brick is staying relatively cool. The miner is hashing with around 50 Gh/s which is quite ok for underclocking it.

Curious to see how long it takes before it zombies/melts/burns/explodes/solves a block or whatever ...

I intend to replace PayPal with Bitcoin in the not so far future. I already bought things with Bitcoins but usually buying with Bitcoins is not an offered option. I'm puzzled that so many seem to hold on their bitcoins hoping they will become billionaires in due time. Not so sure this is going to happen. A somewhat stable Bitcoin might be better for its future anyway.

Rightnow I'm using PayPal because more seller support it. But I'm really looking forward to use Bitcoin more often in the future.

I don't think Bitcoin will replace "real money". But I guess that banks will make use of a blockchain system for their own purpose not too far in the future. That could even make Bitcoin obsolete at some point.

I use ebay from time to time to buy stuff never sold anything over ebay though. So far I always used PayPal to pay the goods. I might use Bitcoins to buy things if ebay provides some kind of escrow service.

Thanks for the answer. Actually I read about the Antminer S3 in another thead. I just thought someone with his r-pi controlled batch of U2 might have stumbled over a block too even though the math doesn't leave much room for this to happen.

But even for an Antminer S3 the odds are so small these days. That's why I rather got an Antminer U3. At least I have some work to do to get an keep this little bugger running

Hi all,
I'm wondering what's the weakest hardware (lowest hashrate) that solved a block by solo mining recently (last 3-6 months). I used the search in this forum and also google search but couldn't find an answer to that question. I also checked the stats of the solo.ck.pool but there are probably a lot of solo miners who might not use a pool at all.

It seems quite a lot of people are playing the lottery with very littte hashing power and I'm just curious if any of them got lucky solving a block.

Roman
PS: I just ordered a U3 to play the lottery as well.