About the hard disk space

[rado84]

Hi, everyone.
A friend of mine told me I could use my CPU to process bitcoin transactions (to "blockchain" - his words) in order to make some additional money while my home computer is running. After a few days of searching I finally found the https://bitcoin.org/en/download page where to download a blockchaining software. And here comes my question: is that requirement for 100GB real? I mean do I really need 100GB free space on my hard drive in order to run the blockchaining software or is it just a tentative figure for the size it might reach some day in the distant future?

[jackg]

Hi, everyone.
A friend of mine told me I could use my CPU to process bitcoin transactions (to "blockchain" - his words) in order to make some additional money while my home computer is running. After a few days of searching I finally found the https://bitcoin.org/en/download page where to download a blockchaining software. And here comes my question: is that requirement for 100GB real? I mean do I really need 100GB free space on my hard drive in order to run the blockchaining software or is it just a tentative figure for the size it might reach some day in the distant future?

No, the size of 100GB is real (It's about 107 GB now I think in it's entierety). If you chang the amount of blockcain that's stored on your computer you can get it down to 2GB. It also takes a few days to syncronise anyway.

Typically speaking, cpu mining is unprofitable and you will never find a block using it unless you have several PetaHertz at least that you can use for mining... There is a lot of competativeness with mining and there are many devices alreayd runing with high power that mine (if you search bitcoin asic or go to a website like bitmaintech.com you'll find that there's hardware specialised for bitcoin mining). If this hardware is used, even this may not be profitable depending on electricity fees.


If you want to start mining, you could look at this site: www.hashnest.com/hash_currencies .
They're a cloud mining service (the most trusted as they're owned by bitmaintech.com)

[European Central Bank]

yes it's that big and getting bigger every ten minutes.

and there is no financial reward or incentive to host it either so your friend is talking out of his behind. people run it to support the network on a benevolent basis or they have their own need to run a full node.

if your friend is talking about mining, you'd need to move to china and invest a few million dollars in hardware to make a profit out of it. you're 5-7 years too late to use home machinery.

[-ck]

Hi, everyone.
A friend of mine told me I could use my CPU to process bitcoin transactions (to "blockchain" - his words) in order to make some additional money while my home computer is running. After a few days of searching I finally found the https://bitcoin.org/en/download page where to download a blockchaining software. And here comes my question: is that requirement for 100GB real? I mean do I really need 100GB free space on my hard drive in order to run the blockchaining software or is it just a tentative figure for the size it might reach some day in the distant future?

You can run the bitcoin core software in "pruned" mode which will take up no more than 2GB and it will still propagate transactions. If you are confusing terminology and thinking about "mining" and not "processing transactions" which is designed to make you money from bitcoin block generation, then no - you cannot meaningfully use an ordinary CPU to do bitcoin mining; it is all done with specialised hardware these days called ASICs.

[rado84]

If you are confusing terminology and thinking about "mining" and not "processing transactions"

I know the difference between mining and processing. And my friend meant exactly processing - without actually mining bitcoins. My home PC video card isn't that powerful to do mining and I don't wanna ruin it by putting it to mine.

So, if there's no way to make any money by processing transactions, I have to look for other ways. I suppose I could ask a... sponsor, so to speak, to give me money to build a basic computer for mining which to join to a pool of miners. Since mining is done mostly by the video card, would that exemplary build be good for mining: GTX 1080, core i3, 750W PSU, 8GB RAM? If it can mine even 1 bitcoin per month, that would be ok for me, so that I can earn money to make more mining computers.

[jackg]

If you are confusing terminology and thinking about "mining" and not "processing transactions"

I know the difference between mining and processing. And my friend meant exactly processing - without actually mining bitcoins. My home PC video card isn't that powerful to do mining and I don't wanna ruin it by putting it to mine.

So, if there's no way to make any money by processing transactions, I have to look for other ways. I suppose I could ask a... sponsor, so to speak, to give me money to build a basic computer for mining which to join to a pool of miners. Since mining is done mostly by the video card, would that exemplary build be good for mining: GTX 1080, core i3, 750W PSU, 8GB RAM? If it can mine even 1 bitcoin per month, that would be ok for me, so that I can earn money to make more mining computers.

Graphics cards are great for mining altcoins. Maybe look in thealtcoin section of this forum and ask which coin would be best for you to mine.
Alternitively, there are sites like nicehash.com which will pay you to rent their power. Here's their thread with the software on it you may wish to use for mining: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1274983.0;topicseen
You'll probably be able to get a few millibtc to start with but if you earn enough you can then move on to other things and you can mine with both your cpu and gpu at the same time).

[ranochigo]

If you are confusing terminology and thinking about "mining" and not "processing transactions"

I know the difference between mining and processing. And my friend meant exactly processing - without actually mining bitcoins. My home PC video card isn't that powerful to do mining and I don't wanna ruin it by putting it to mine.

So, if there's no way to make any money by processing transactions, I have to look for other ways. I suppose I could ask a... sponsor, so to speak, to give me money to build a basic computer for mining which to join to a pool of miners. Since mining is done mostly by the video card, would that exemplary build be good for mining: GTX 1080, core i3, 750W PSU, 8GB RAM? If it can mine even 1 bitcoin per month, that would be ok for me, so that I can earn money to make more mining computers.

Definitely NOT. All of the miner who are looking for profit are using ASICs and they are chips specifically designed for mining Bitcoins and nothing else. If you are not using it, you will never make any profits.

There are several alt coins using POS that will allow you to earn by running a node. The incentive is too low so I really wouldn't recommend it.

[leowonderful]

If you are confusing terminology and thinking about "mining" and not "processing transactions"

I know the difference between mining and processing. And my friend meant exactly processing - without actually mining bitcoins. My home PC video card isn't that powerful to do mining and I don't wanna ruin it by putting it to mine.

So, if there's no way to make any money by processing transactions, I have to look for other ways. I suppose I could ask a... sponsor, so to speak, to give me money to build a basic computer for mining which to join to a pool of miners. Since mining is done mostly by the video card, would that exemplary build be good for mining: GTX 1080, core i3, 750W PSU, 8GB RAM? If it can mine even 1 bitcoin per month, that would be ok for me, so that I can earn money to make more mining computers.

Definitely NOT. All of the miner who are looking for profit are using ASICs and they are chips specifically designed for mining Bitcoins and nothing else. If you are not using it, you will never make any profits.

There are several alt coins using POS that will allow you to earn by running a node. The incentive is too low so I really wouldn't recommend it.

Depends what you run a node on and how much your power is. If you run a node with solar power( bad idea as initially costs per kw will be very high) and run it on a weak build you might get a little bit out of it.

You might be able to mine a storage plotting coin that might make you a few cents but that's about it. Everything else pretty much can only be done with GPUs or ASICs, one of the two.

[rado84]

Definitely NOT. All of the miner who are looking for profit are using ASICs and they are chips specifically designed for mining Bitcoins and nothing else. If you are not using it, you will never make any profits.

OK, then do you think $500-550 would be enough to build ASIC computer for mining?

[achow101]

I know the difference between mining and processing. And my friend meant exactly processing - without actually mining bitcoins.

What do you mean by "processing"? Do you mean checking the validity of transactions and then relaying them? If so, that is called operating a full node. Full node operators are not paid for operating a full node. The only people who receive any payments from doing any sort of processing with Bitcoin are the miners.

OK, then do you think $500-550 would be enough to build ASIC computer for mining?

That is not how ASICs work. You don't build an ASIC computer. ASICs are highly specialized machines. They usually cost somewhere in the range of thousands of dollars. Furthermore Bitcoin mining equipment in general consumes a lot of electricity. Unless you have very cheap electricity, mining will not be profitable.


If your post was just deleted, it was because it repeated something that was already said and added no new useful or on topic information to the thread.

[calkob]

Hi, everyone.
A friend of mine told me I could use my CPU to process bitcoin transactions (to "blockchain" - his words) in order to make some additional money while my home computer is running. After a few days of searching I finally found the https://bitcoin.org/en/download page where to download a blockchaining software. And here comes my question: is that requirement for 100GB real? I mean do I really need 100GB free space on my hard drive in order to run the blockchaining software or is it just a tentative figure for the size it might reach some day in the distant future?

You dont earn anything for running a full node these days, its entirely voluntary unfortunately.  And yes you need around 112GB currently, but if you have a modern computer that is nothing, most of them come with 2-3 TB these days and in a year or two that will probably double.  .  If you own bitcoin then helping to secure bitcoin is a given in my opinion.