You will see marginal differences depending on the manufacturer, unless the GPU is a reference card.  Reference cards have the AMD logo right above the PCI-E interface, which is located at the bottom of the card.

Emily,

While I can definitely see where you are coming from, I think miners have a bit different perspective.  BTC can not survive without miners since they are responsible for processing transactions.  If the reward becomes too small, miners will leave and the overall health of the BTC will suffer.  So, many are hoping that, with reduced mining efficiency, comes greater rewards, primarily through BTC appreciation.

How would you monitor this and ensure you get your cut?  Maybe I don't understand the logistics of the process, but if a customer is using your hardware to mine and moving the coins into his personal wallet, how can you be sure he will pay you? 

Eligius is a good pool, but it only pays out when you have generated 1 BTC in rewards.  I would suggest that you look at BTCGuild, where you can withdraw your balance 2x per day, regardless of your accrued amount.  Don't get me wrong, Eligius is great for free mining, but BTCGuild may better suit you.


Oh, and I don't mine, so my advice is not biased toward anyone.

You might have better luck advertising your idea on more programming-focused sites.  I'm sure this forum has its fair share of programmers, but I would advise that you ascertain which language(s) the open-source application is written in and then seek out forums dedicated to that language.  The focal point of the development should be the server and game -- the bitcoin addition will be peripheral.

Wait, why cant the OP just buy some coins to start himself off?

Since this thread is dead, I'll jump in.  At least the numbers are on my side =)

But, here's what I'll do for some BTC: once I get enough posts to post links, I will fill this thread with hilarious pictures.

Keep in mind that as difficulty increases, miners will leave.  And since difficulty is based on processing power, when miners leave, the difficulty lowers.  Now, I don't think the quitters will reduce the difficulty curve, but they will slow it down considerably in the future, imo.

Personally, I wouldn't trust anyone with my wallet other than myself.  I'm not saying that there isn't a market for a secure wallet service, but I certainly wouldn't use it.  Now, the less tech-savvy bitcoin users may be drawn to something like that because they won't have the patience or aptitude to implement their own security measures.

However, if bitcoin is ever to "make it big", a standardized, secure solution to wallet management MUST be implemented.  So, you would need to keep in mind that your business could become obsolete very quickly if this happened.

Hi,

My name is Chris, and I'm a part-time bitcoin day-trader and full-time technophile.  I found out about Bitcoin a few months ago and have been trading ever since.  So, yes, long-time lurker (by BTC standards). 

Personally, I'm a fairly accomplished businessman, so I see Bitcoin as a way to extend my investing experience.  The money that I may or may not make from it are far less important than the experience of watching an embryonic idea come to (hopefully) large-scale fruition.

a hater is nothing more than an outspoken skeptic, and new technologies/ideas will always have their fair share of skeptics, and even more so when that new thing operates outside of the familiar realm (such as Bitcoin, an unregulated, decentralized commodity acting as a currency)