Well you wouldn't do it by hand (like tossing a coin 256 times), though this would work and give you a valid private key.

You use bitaddress.org or vanitygen, which generates the random private key, does all the conversions and also (the step rumbitla left out), creates the address from the private key using some tricksy math.

Or if you did do all that coin tossing, just plug the hex value (64 hex characters) into the wallet details tab of bitaddress.org to do the conversions for you.

No that looks fair. Of course its all sunk cost, so you could continue mining in the hope that the BTC->USD rate improves (or alternatively buying  BTC on an exchange may be cheaper).

I'm not sure I agree with the 0.61 profitability decline per year on that site. Wildly overptimistic. Have you tried http://www.coinish.com/calc/ ?

Yeah, but there are guys posting on the fpgaminer thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9047.0 who are using the big Xilinx Kintex-7 chips , I just wondered if they had had any insight to the feasability of scrypt with only this much onboard ram.

BitShaft 

Question for the FPGA experts. Is this really enough memory for scrypt mining. Its on-die and wide bandwidth, so beats external memory, but what performance could be expected? I understand scrypt uses a 100kB lookup table, so does 24.8Mb (3MByte) equate to ~30   threads, or not? How will it compare with GPU?

But its been hinted that KNCMiner are doing a 28nM Structured ASIC, ie a HardCopy(tm) of an Altera FPGA design. That's much cheaper in up-front cost (the mask set is just the metalization/vias so much cheaper), but the per-unit cost is higher. It won't perform anything like a full custom ASIC.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=228068.msg2433194#msg2433194 (and subsequent posts).

So it went for 405 GBP + 25 GBP shipping. That's 669 USD.

So plug that into http://www.coinish.com/calc with 800MHash/sec and 40 watts, punch the expert button ...
The result for 12 months mining is ...


Estimated Mining Results
Initial Coins per Day:        0.02578116
Initial Income per Day:       2.69  USD
Reduction per Week:           9.51 %
Break-even:                   262.4 Days
... considering reduction     never  Days
Income/planned time:          262.15 USD
... considering reduction:    -474.26 USD
Remember: "Prediction is difficult, especially about the future"


Hmm, so did he get a good deal, or not? 

What did you get, Block Erupter?

And yes, SELL, on ebay, for as much as you can get for it (you may even make a profit). Why? ...

Go to http://www.coinish.com/calc/ choose expert mode, plug in your hashrate and how much you paid for your rig. Look at the "break even considering reduction" result. Still want to keep it?

And you can plug the address into blockexplorer (or blockinfo.org) to check the transaction history and balance ...

http://blockexplorer.com/address/1KxKa6tGYJNUgHLQbDiT9PXAJcYhm7PC76

You can save bitaddress.org to a file (or just download it from github), so your offline computer does not even need to be temporarily connected to the internet. Also a LiveCD linux boot disk is recommended so you do not leave any trace. Alternatively a VM like VirtualBox or VMWare can be used on your normal computer (though with a slightly greater risk of malware sniffing your keys).

Another useful toy is vanitygen, which does exactly the same job but lets you select the firstbits (see my sig for example). You can plug the generated private key address into the wallet details tab of bitaddress to get the full details of the key pair (eg public key address for signing).

Paper wallets are a bit trickier to use for spending as you need to import the private key into a wallet, one of the online ones is probably easiest to use. But be sure to send the entire balance to a new paper wallet after your transaction as your private key has now been exposed to the wallet provider (or a keylogger if you tediously typed it in) and will be at risk of theft. There is also the matter of "change" as some wallets (eg bitcoin_qt) send this to a NEW address within the wallet, not back to your original paper wallet. So if you don't know for sure how it works you may even lose all your bitcoin if you lose access to that wallet. I recommend you get familiar with the entire process first (using small amounts of coin that you can afford to lose) before committing your life savings 

Well, the Jallie needs power (about 30W), so its going to be plugged into the mains (unless you've got some weird Solar fetish, but that was another discussion I had recently). So what's difficult about using a mains splitter (power strip, or whatever its called in MidAlanticEnglish) and using a conventional phone charger? Unless the Android has just got the one socket that doubles for both charging and USB? In which case, perhaps a bit of "making" is in order. Build a Y cable to split power off USB data. Just speculating here, Love to hear any suggestions.

Not quite what I had in mind. More that these people are trying to avoid traceability when buying off SR  (assuming you can get over the problem of physical delivery, and for some products that is easier than others).

Umm, should I point out this is curiosity on my part? I don't want to become liable under some obscure incitement laws here.

Guys, please excuse me if I ask a question, but you seem to be very knowlegible on this.

Is bitcoin mining anonymous?

Let's suppose you're anonymous to the pool (just a random login, no contact details, just a bitcoin address for payout). Lets suppose the pool does not log your IP address. Then anything you mine is basically untraceable? This is my assertion.

Ignore any NSA sniffing of IP packets etc. Even if they do it, there is no way this could be admitted in public, eg in a court case (short of terrorism),

The reason I ask is because I'm trying to understand why people are mining with kit that will never give a ROI (ASICs the case in point). Not just random punters looking for a magic money tree, but experienced bitcoiners. Is this simply bitcoin laundering? But the opposite way to the normal use of the term. You want to turn legitimate, traceable funds eg USD into untraceable bitcoin.

(Sorry to sidetrack this discussion).

Not an expert here (certainly not BFL affiliated), but  USB is NOT symmetric. One end is host, the other is client. Since the Jallie is plugging into a PC, its a client so, NO it won't back-power the Android. This is deliberate and all sorts of protection circuitry is built into USB to prevent back-powering, or should be anyway, you can't be sure with BFL [EndTrolling]

This is just about a one stop shop for info on mining on a pi https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=220905.0

The Block Eruptor is expensive (don't expect to make a profit), but its about the only way to get mining on a pi right now. BFL Jallies have long delivery times (and a huge litany of past problems). You can still pick up FPGA's (see the Lancelot thread in Custom Hardware), but again the ROI is just not there.

CPU mining gets you 200kHash/sec or 30kHash/sec with scrypt, both of which are virtually worthless at that rate. But you can run vanitygen (see sig)  

But the pi's a nice toy (typing this on one as I speak), browser is a bit slow, but I can keep bitcointalk up on my TV in glorious 1368 x 768 resolution (wireless keyboard and mouse) while using my laptop for more serious stuff. Multitasking, its not just for the girls  

Yeah, I didn't want to dis your efforts, you're performing a great service, and if Block Erupters are what people really want, then who am I to dissuade them? But this is the newbie board, so I like to educate them a bit about ROI, difficulty etc. Its probably because I'm a newbie here myself, just a week old, I've been a bit prolific on my posting 

Anyway good luck, you should have no problem getting plenty of orders, in spite of my efforts to give newbies pause for thought 

Rejects should mostly be stales. This just means that you submitted a share, but it was invalid because a block had recently been solved and your work was out of date. Its most common on the getwork protocol, so you are better off using a stratum server (check your connection details). Dupe means duplicate and Other is just what it says.  You can't "get to them" because they are worthless! As long as your accepted shares are in the high 90% range there is nothing much to worry about. Just get your login hours up (browse the threads) and a couple more posts and you can ask for help on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49417.0 (go do some reading there now, it will help clock up your login time).

But they are a bit on the expensive side. OK if you've done the math and are happy with the results, but I do caution that they are not a magic money tree. Caclulate here http://www.coinish.com/calc/ (expert mode shows estimated payback including difficulty increase).

(Niggle: Quartus II not Quintus II)

So they have gone down the "Structured ASIC" route. It won't give the performance of a full custom (more expensive per chip), but mask costs will be much cheaper since its just the metallization/vias (hence its cheap enough to be relaistic at 28nm process). Honestly I'm surprised no one else went this route. Still its a tradeoff between up-front cost and per-unit cost.

Ask to be whitelisted (see the README). If you say its to participate in a block group buy at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=76.0 then you'll probably get OK'd.

Oh, PS. You do know these are a very bad deal don't you (popular though nonetheless). Are you expecting to make a profit or just laundering bitcoin?

You can also log into btcguild.com. The Dashboard shows the stats for your workers at the bottom (last share is time since the last share was accepted). Oodles of other stuff to look at too. I just wish I had some more MHash displayed on my account