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So, I guess that the rules say that I have to post something here so that I can post elsewhere. In my case I want to buy some hardware so I need to be able to post in that thread. So here's an OB-post.
As of last Friday, I'm totally new to bitcoin and mining. Right now I have one machine with a nVidia GPU mining away - a complete waste of time, I know, but I learned from it - and I have another machine mining away on one ASICMiner USB key that I got off Amazon for 0.35BTC - overpriced, but another educational experience nonetheless. I've learned a lot, getting all the bits and pieces of this together:
* Getting a wallet going with bitcoin-qt and getting the whole blockchain downloaded - pretty painful.
* Getting first bfgminer going and then cgminer 3.1.1 after learning that that's the only thing that can drive the ASICMiner USB.
* Getting going with an nVidia GPU, Fedora 17 on one machine and Fedora 19 on another that I loaded from scratch for this project.
* Learning the bfgminer and cgminer APIs and how to drive them out of bash scripts so that I can monitor and control my miners
* Learning about exchanges and how to get verified and setup on a couple of those so that I can buy some more ASIC mining hardware, maybe.
* Learning just how flaky, wild-westian and immature the bitcoin ecosystem is.
It's been a pretty fun few days figuring this all out. Right now I'm looking at this as a learning experience. I'll have to wait and see if this can actually be financially self-sustaining. I have my doubts, watching the mining power out there climb exponentially. Do they drive the little guy like me right out of the competition or will there still be enough of a chance to play to keep it interesting? It'll be interesting to explore the possibilities.
What happens to all those TH/s mining farms when the blockchain is fully populated, and bitcoin has moved to the fee collection business model? Do they stay in place, vacuuming up all the fees, or do they become too expensive to maintain, returning the marketplace back to the little guys who's got a few GH/s running under the desk?
r00drf00d
I love my food rude
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