I am relatively new to the whole bitcoin thing. Got set up with a graphics card a little over a month ago and decided to go with pooled mining because statistically it was much safer if I wanted to see any returns. Especially with the rate of difficulty increase, it was very possible that I would never find a block. Pooled mining has gone pretty well and I have made a handful of bitcoins. I suppose its just my luck that I do the pooled mining and then find two blocks for the pool and end up with only a handful of bitcoins. I know that had I done solo mining I may still not have found any blocks, its all probability and I am not searching for a unique block. I'd say I have no real regrets for joining a pool, but I still can't help but wish I never found any blocks at all. Makes me wonder "what could have been" had I gone solo. But I am sure that would have just ended badly. Anyone else find themselves thinking the same thing?

I was trying to use an online sha-256 calculator to verify blocks, but I have had no luck. I was just stringing together the "header" and applying the sha-256 algorithm twice. Then I noticed that I get different results to "hello" than is displayed on the wiki. It shows two rounds of the hash algorithm. I get a match for the first round, but not on the second. Any idea what is going on here? Thanks

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_specification

I am brand new to the bitcoin world. I have been trying slush pool mining on my laptop getting around 4.5 Mhash/s which is pretty bad, but its more for learning than anything.

I don't really want to invest in a full rig, but I would like to throw a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102932&Tpk=100282XTREME (I know its out of stock, may get it on amazon) into my desktop. Its a relatively cheap card, but looks like it will get 250 Mhash/s. My mobo looks to be able to accommodate it and my 525W PSU would work too.

I run Ubuntu linux 9.10. I tried to install poclbm, but it does not seem to be available for my version of Ubuntu. Otherwise, I would be playing around with mining on linux. In two days Ubuntu 11.04 will be out. Will there be a compatible version of the mining softwares available for Ubuntu 11.04 (I plan to upgrade)? I would like to get one of these cards soon. Any tips or advice would be appreciated. Just keep in mind I don't plan on spending hundreds at this point. Thanks!

So I am pretty new to bitcoin, but I am concerned with energy usage of the system.

I estimate that the bitcoin system is running on well over 400 kW in pure computation power. This figure only includes GPU/CPU power and not any other component. I saw a figure that shows that Slush's pool accounts for about 1/4 of the total blocks found and has about 208 Ghash/s capacity. If we assume that the entire network is using highly efficient GPUs we could expect around 2 Mhash/J, but I feel that this is generous. total power=(slush capacity)/[(slush fraction of total)*efficiency] = 208 Ghash/s / (0.25 * 2 Mhash/J) = 416 kW.

Thats quite a bit of power. The other concern is we can throw more and more power into solving the blocks, but we have fixed the rate at which blocks will be found to be constant. So we add more power, then difficulty increases. Is there any way that we can make this a more environmentally friendly idea?

My plan is to mine over winter and use the heat generated to heat my apartment. I was also thinking about adding in some solar panels. Doing those things would make me feel better about the mining, but I am still not 100% comfortable with the idea of being a part of the system which is energy intensive as a whole. I understand that this may not be a concern for many people, but I thought I would throw it out there and see what people are thinking. Thanks for your input.

Hey all,

I am new here. I read through the FAQs and some of the technical details but I still don't have a complete understanding of the system. I was wondering what would happen if I spend my bitcoins, but meanwhile elsewhere in the network another block chain becomes longer and is accepted as the official block chain. The way I understand the bitcoins to work is that I keep my secret keys on my computer and as soon as I spend them, the key changes to a new secret key for the next person. Is that assumption correct? Anyway, what would happen if I spend my coins but then another chain turns out to be longer? Am I just out of luck?

Thanks