Ok, here's the opened Bitbill (click for full size):



The plastic lamination is pretty thick, not just a thin film. Underneath that is the private key barcode with the hologram sticker stuck to it. Peeling off the hologram left half of it on the barcode which required some rubbing alcohol to remove.

Shouldn't 0 be gray or black? I don't see why is it red, as it is neither good or bad.

Your spreadsheet is very depressing.  It's so easy to forget how fast an exponential growth moves, I guess that's how we got a debt based currency.  In 6 months my 6 Giga hashes will get me 0.08 bitcoins per day!?

What makes no sense is bitcoins need to be $1000 in 6 months for me to continue mining.

How much traffic does the domain receive? Why wouldn't you just let the domain expire if you are not interested in developing the site?

This happens in every single "should I buy mining hardware" thread:

The question starts as: Is it profitable to buy mining hardware now and pay it off over the next few months?
And the want-to-believe crowd jumps and and says: The hardware I started mining with months ago [i.e. when difficulty was much lower] is still profitable to operate.

These are two entirely different questions.


Difficulty is set to go up by 63%+ at the next jump. Bigger than the last jump, and bigger again than the jump before. Around each jump, the mining optimists come in and declare that difficulty is going to stabilize or even fall soon. And it doesn't.

And SgtSpike: Read my post more carefully. I said I don't believe that the exchange rate will continue to go up. I just pointed out that if you believe mining will be profitable in the long term then you must also believe exchange rates will continue to go up in the long term. If you believe that, then mining isn't your best option.

This is the way I am trying to answer this question for myself:

Todays network hash rate is estimated at about 3.5 Thashs/s.  So if I build a hot 3.5 Ghashs/s system that would be exacly 0.1% of the network.  Since the entire system produces about $50,000 per day at the current price of $7 per BTC my share should average out to about $50 per day.

Assuming that the average rate of growth in the value of the BTC matches the average rate of growth of the network then I will continue to average about $50 per day until 2013.

$50 per day is about $18,000 per year.  Can I build a 3.5 Ghash/s system for less than $18,000?  Yes.  If the above assumption holds is it worth doing?  Yes.  Will the above growth rate assumption hold.  That is the real question here.

Don't give Sawzall any credit for it though, it's an old copy/paste.

If you want more crap like that, read:
http://governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=1

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. Then, I brushed my teeth with that water, filtered to standards set by the EPA and my state.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank and printed by the Federal Bureau of Engraving and Printing. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

I park my car on the street, paved and maintained by the Department of Transportation, and put quarters issued by the United States Mint into the parking meter.

Then, after spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, I drive back to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and the fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log onto the Internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on the Bitcoin forums about how the Federal Reserve Bank is going to destroy us all because the government can't do anything right.