I've got an S5 with one good board and one that's dead, but... NO fan, I used it for another project because...  The temp sensor doesn't work on the good board, just shows '0'.  Still hashes fine, just haven't been running it because the software doesn't adjust the fan speed when the temp is "0" and I didn't want to risk it running hot.

The dead board *might* have good chips, might not.  I bought the S5 quite a while back as "half-hashing".  The power connections on the dead board had de-soldered so it never ran for me.

Can send pics.  PM or post if interested, ships from US.

"Vigilante" on a "holiday"?  haha...what?!?!  Did you even read my original post or were you too busy stepping on decent folk in order to climb onto your high horse?

No wonder people don't stand up for others or try to help each other any more...

Sheesh...

Inquiry withdrawn...

I think you might be worrying too much about cashing in on garbage while forgetting there's virtually nothing from the dev team regarding replay protection, not to mention all the other concerns surrounding BTG including a PRE-MINE.

The dev team is currently pre-mining the ever-loving-crap out of BTG (they say 1%) and quite likely dumping it and cashing in as they do so.

I do like the idea of using Equihash but BTG seems to be a poorly veiled attempt to get rich quick and the market price dump seems to agree.

Get ready for a flood of BTC forks and dumps.

They say to buy the rumor and sell the news so it's quite likely we're already seeing the pricing/market action from Segwit2x even though the actual event is still a month out.

As for BCG, I think it's a poorly disguised joke intended to make the devs rich and there's very little info released from the dev team to suggest otherwise.  They're pre-mining (up to) 1% right now under the guise of "testing" yet dodge any legit concerns regarding replay protection, wallet, etc.

So sure, people love free coins and the BTC and ALT markets seem rich with speculation on BCG but tough to say how much of the action is from BCG or Segwit.

Sadly, forking BTC is gonna be the next get-rich-quick version of ICOs and ITOs and become much more prevalent so who knows how the markets will react.

Yes it is gambling and no it is not gambling... it depends on your definition and the rules/entry into the activities.

To me, gambling means risking something of value in exchange for a possible payout of a higher value.  The "thing" you risk doesn't have to be btc or money... If you spend time on a new altcoin or website project, aren't you gambling that the time you spent (risked) will produce a higher payout in the future?  It is not casino gambling, but I think there are lots of ways to "gamble".

Back to the original post and technical definition... if the poker players are risking something of value in order to play, and there is something of value being offered as a reward for playing, then yes, it is gambling.  If it doesn't cost anything to play (players do not have to risk something of value), then they are only gambling with time, and to many, this is not gambling at all.

So, yes and no.  There are always multiple sides and viewpoints and the only way to decide if it is gambling or not is to define what gambling means to you.

Good Luck All!

As others have pointed out, there's no such thing as a "guaranteed" investment.  Any investment that claims to be guaranteed is either lying, clueless, or an outright scam.  That being said, some gambling sites are better to invest in than others but there are risks involved.

I agree with others that the biggest risk is finding an honest site with honest owners who aren't just going to disappear with your Bitcoins.  Another huge risk is hackers and the security of the site you invest in.  The returns/payouts don't matter if the site gets hacked and the house bankroll disappears.  Whales/High Rollers are a smaller concern, any big win isn't good for your investment for the short-term, but it should still work out long term as investing in gambling sites is a long term play on the house edge.

I started investing a little with the site in my signature and so far I am happy with it, even though most of my profit has been wiped out (short term).  The minimum is only 0.01btc and you can invest or divest (end your investment) at any time.  This comes in real handy if you notice a high roller starting to bet big, you can end your investment (and lower your risk) and wait for the high roller to finish playing then invest your money again.  Takes time to manage but works well if you want to invest in gambling sites and want to minimize risk at the same time.  Another thing I've noticed is that weekends seem to be a better time to invest... more people playing means the house edge/odds are more pronounced over a shorter period of time (your chances of making a profit short-term are increased but risk of losing also goes up).

Personally I like the idea of investing with gambling sites...but ONLY if you are investing for the long term (and if you're gonna gamble, might as well pick the side with a mathematical edge).

For short term investments, I've started playing with a couple btc lending platforms... I lend out btc for a small percentage return.  Sure there are risks with this too, but when you've got btc doing nothing, getting a small percentage every couple days is a whole lot better than nothing.

Haha, yeah It's like burning your money except the money is not destroyed, the house keeps it.  Oh, and it's a lot more fun to lose money gambling than it is to toss it into a fire (or so I assume).   
But you don't need a lot of money to have a "decent chance", that's part of why people (myself included) gamble... it's the allure of winning big with a small bet.  Will you win big with a small bet?  Probably not, but it's certainly possible, it's happened before and will happen again.  People do hit it big on the gambling sites.

So here's one more thing to remember... the house wins over the LONG TERM, the odds always average out in the house's favor.  So if you play for the short term it is possible to win big but if you keep playing, odds (and math) say that you will end up with less than you started.

As for the "entertainment expense", I agree with you and disagree at the same time.  Sure, lots of people use excuses to justify gambling losses, but if you're using excuses when losing, step back and stop for a while... there's likely a bigger issue.
For the casual weekend gambler, the cost/loss is just another "night out".  We'd spend the same amount of money going to dinner and a movie as going out gambling.  Sometimes we'll pick a movie, sometimes gambling.  Sure, we want to win but the main purpose here is getting out and doing something when you're bored.  So yeah, some people use excuses but some actually do gamble just because it's fun and different.

Futurebit640... yes, I agree, the house doesn't always win.  When people win big, it is the house that loses.  And yes, greed plays a factor here because most people who win big turn around and gamble MORE and lose their winnings... so even when the house loses, they still win because most people will keep playing and lose what they won.  It is very difficult to cash out and walk away with a big win, those who can do that are winners in more way than one.

There's really more than one question here.

If I was Warren Buffet, the answer is easy... no.  He doesn't like Bitcoin and is from a "buy and hold" generation when companies paid good dividends on quarterly profits and banks paid a healthy interest rate on savings.  Buy and hold has always been his claim to fame and Bitcoin now offers none of the "investment" features he's looking for.

If I was AS RICH AS Warren Buffet, the answer is still easy... no.  The only reason I see to buy that many Bitcoins is an attempt to take over the network, in which case you may end up with all the Bitcoins but try finding anyone else who wants them.

People with extra money will most likely seek gold, silver, commodities, and other "safe havens" long before considering Bitcoin.  Unfortunately I'll have to agree with them at least until Bitcoin has some semblance of a stable value and is more widely accepted.  Until then, buying Bitcoin is a huge gamble, not an investment or the protection of wealth that we'd like it to be.

Hope it changes but I still wouldn't kill the network/market even if I had the money to do so.

It is nice to see companies and others embracing Bitcoin and trying new things with it.  Even if the ideas don't work out, it is still good for Bitcoin as a whole.

I've used Bitcoin for several years but it would be very difficult for me to accept it as my salary (for reasons others have pointed out).

The biggest issue I see is price volatility.  Your salary would still have to be denoted in Euros or USD and NOT Bitcoin.  As an example, if you make $100 and get paid $100 worth of Bitcoin that is a lot more attractive than saying something  like "You'll make 0.15BTC, despite the price".

But perhaps that isn't the biggest issue.  I've lost bitcoins before due to hard drive failure, losing private key, scammers, etc.  The logic may be secure, but we still screw up and our Bitcoins disappear.  It's one thing to have a couple bucks disappear, it'd be an entirely different story to have a two week (or more) paycheck vaporize.  So another concern is holding onto the Bitcoin once they've been paid/earned.

And, of course, you can't buy (all) the stuff you NEED (yet) with Bitcoin, so using it as a primary source of income to purchase stuff you need but can't buy with the currency you are paid with just adds confusion and complexity and another bitcoin adoption hurdle.

Hopefully this will slowly change in the future but for now, if my salary was paid in Bitcoin, I would immediately convert it to something with stable value that can be used to pay bills, buy food, etc.

Until Bitcoin can be used to satisfy our everyday needs and bills, it'll be tough selling it as a salary replacement.  Just my 2 Satoshi opinion.

I agree with most everyone here but there are a couple good points this discussion brings to light.

For most of us, Bitcoin is priced in (not backed by) USD... just like oil and gold are priced in USD for much of the world (China and Russia are changing this).  But Bitcoin is used worldwide, and we're free to value it against whatever currency or commodity we'd like.  That's part of the beauty of it, Bitcoin is a means of barter and it only takes two people to decide "how much" and "of what".  When the dollar loses strength (aka, becomes less desirable), people will naturally want more USD for each BTC, or they may decide they don't want USD at all and start trading BTC for something else.

The flip side is that Bitcoin is not backed by anything physical, but it is backed by the support and efforts of a fantastic community and definitely has better fundamentals than any fiat currency.

It's kinda funny and I'm a bit surprised that the big run up in price happened several weeks ago -- and since then the price of Bitcoin has sort of floundered sideways.  I felt like there were quite a few people waiting to cash in at the halving but I guess you'd need a higher price for them to want to do that.

So it looks like Bitcoin isn't going "to da moon!" just yet, but I'm still going to hold a little and hopefully BTC can find some sort of real, stable price point/value in the near future.

The production of new coins is slowing down, the number of people using Bitcoin, merchants accepting Bitcoin, and overall transaction volume is increasing.  Should be good signs for the health and longevity of Bitcoin but the market (and miners/holders) will have to decide the actual price per coin.

It'll be interesting to follow the price over the coming weeks.

That reminds me of a quote I heard a while back that went something like...

"The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math."

I think the same could be said about dice/gambling sites, although not everyone who gambles is there only to make money (some gamble for fun and consider the losses an entertainment expense).

The thing I keep in mind when playing a game where the house has an edge (even 1-2%), is this:  You will ALWAYS lose in the long run, always.  If you are lucky and win in the short-term, take the money and run.  The longer you keep playing, the better the chances of giving it all back (and then some).

So play and have fun and remember: It's not how many chips you win or lose, it's how many chips you walk away with and how much fun you had doing it.

This is good news for the Bitcoin community and when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

Japan has had financial difficulties for decades and their monetary policy has made things worse.  I think it was a few months back they instigated "Negative Interest Rates", forcing people (and businesses) to pay to save money.  That made things even worse and the financial markets are drying up.

I think a lot of the interest we're seeing in Bitcoin from Japan comes from a citizenship that's fed up with nonsensical monetary policy.

Just my two Yen worth...

I think it's main purpose is for use as a currency and so far, that's the best use I've come up with.  The nice thing about using BTC as currency is that quite a few places offer a discount for using it.  It has many advantages in an online world.  I don't think it's a replacement currency though and wouldn't use it for all purchases all the time.

I'd love to treat BTC as an investment but the market is still relatively new and the price is highly volatile -- the "true value" is anybody's guess.  Major price fluctuations are the main reason I don't see it as a typical buy-and-hold investment, but there's a lot of fun with short-term trades.

Investment or currency, at least BTC is being used and the use seems to be growing which should make all of us happy.

I updated the prices and added a package deal for both NES consoles.  Post here or PM me if interested.

Very well said.  As with a lot of things, a trading bot is only as good as the developer behind it and the trader's ability to implement a profitable strategy.  You can have slick code and an active dev yet some will still lose money because they don't take the time to learn and understand what they're doing.  Conversely, someone with a few extra brain cells and a pound or two of effort can make a garbage trading bot work.

There is another good point you've touched on that's worth repeating and expanding... a bot doesn't think... it does what the developer/traders decide.

Besides what's already been mentioned, having a system that makes trades "without thinking" can be very beneficial if implemented properly.  In this case, "without thinking" is the same as saying "without emotion", which means the bot will execute trades that perhaps you or I may not due to emotions clouding our judgement.  It'll make the trades we wouldn't, or can't, and it'll only make the trades it is set to make.

There's good and bad on both sides.  Definitely an interesting discussion.

I did a test with an automated trading bot a while back and even with highly customizable options, I was never able to "dial it in" where it would trade profitably, consistently.  It'd make a little here and there then turn around and make 10 losing trades in a row for no apparent reason.  The cons definitely outweighed the pro of being lazy and overall my test ended in the red.

It's possible for a good trading bot to be profitable over time, but it isn't easy and most likely requires some degree of babysitting in order to ensure the code used continues to be profitable with more trades than not.

In my case it was obvious that some settings worked some of the time and some worked others... sometimes nothing worked.  The trick would be figuring out what works and when and then adjusting the trade options on the fly.

MHO - Don't use a bot, you'll do better learning the what and when and trading yourself.

I would like to join this signature campaign, can you please add me?

Name: Nitroshock
Post count: 52
Rank: Jr. Member
Bitcoin address: 1Ee8NfNSeG9Cby9zf9RdAdCK2VsNDyzttf

All three consoles are still available.  The previous deal fell through because I thought 'sold' meant 'sold' but the buyer took it to mean "let's negotiate the price down further".

A deal never happened so I still have all three consoles.

As a side note, I tried a new set of pins on NES #2  but I think it actually works better the way it is.  You don't have to seat the games "just right" to get them to play, just plug them in and they work.