Returning to BTC after a few years...

[djyumene]

So, back when bitcoin was new-ish by suggestion from a friend.  I started faucets and and tried mining with my computer; which was alright, and by the time that I stopped I had about $20 in coin and I left it there for a few years or so until coming back recently and seeing how much bitcoin is now and then regretting not keeping up with the faucets and mining. My little $20 that I had is now worth almost $250 USD. 

So, since I am still broke and out of a job I am thinking to get back into earning BTC but I'm not sure exactly where to start.  I did put together a little site of some of the faucets I've used in the past (since I had some friends asking about it on my FB post I posted about seeing my coinbase wallet balance, but aside from that, I'm not sure where to go.

Is mining with the PC even a option anymore?  Are faucets even worth it?  What's the best way to get back into this with having literally no income to actually invest with?

Thank you! 

[mk4]

Is mining with the PC even a option anymore?
It can be, I'm pretty sure a good number of people are still making profit off mining. Just depends on a lot of factors: GPU, electricity cost, BTC price and difficulty, etc. Try using this to make calculations: https://www.coinwarz.com/calculators

Are faucets even worth it?
I'd personally rather work on minimum wage than do faucets all day.

What's the best way to get back into this with having literally no income to actually invest with?
Since you've been off for years like you said, read a lot. Then if you think you know enough, join a signature campaign here(You need at least Jr member to join one): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=615953.0

[Neptunator]

So, back when bitcoin was new-ish by suggestion from a friend.  I started faucets and and tried mining with my computer; which was alright, and by the time that I stopped I had about $20 in coin and I left it there for a few years or so until coming back recently and seeing how much bitcoin is now and then regretting not keeping up with the faucets and mining. My little $20 that I had is now worth almost $250 USD. 

So, since I am still broke and out of a job I am thinking to get back into earning BTC but I'm not sure exactly where to start.  I did put together a little site of some of the faucets I've used in the past (since I had some friends asking about it on my FB post I posted about seeing my coinbase wallet balance, but aside from that, I'm not sure where to go.

Is mining with the PC even a option anymore?  Are faucets even worth it?  What's the best way to get back into this with having literally no income to actually invest with?

Thank you! 

Previously, I started earn from faucets to make some ETH for gas. And in my opinion faucets are no longer significant for income. So tired 

[deadthings]

So, back when bitcoin was new-ish by suggestion from a friend.  I started faucets and and tried mining with my computer; which was alright, and by the time that I stopped I had about $20 in coin and I left it there for a few years or so until coming back recently and seeing how much bitcoin is now and then regretting not keeping up with the faucets and mining. My little $20 that I had is now worth almost $250 USD. 

So, since I am still broke and out of a job I am thinking to get back into earning BTC but I'm not sure exactly where to start.  I did put together a little site of some of the faucets I've used in the past (since I had some friends asking about it on my FB post I posted about seeing my coinbase wallet balance, but aside from that, I'm not sure where to go.

Is mining with the PC even a option anymore?  Are faucets even worth it?  What's the best way to get back into this with having literally no income to actually invest with?

Thank you! 

Everything depend on bills, how much do you pay for electricity and how good is your gpu, whats more faucets are not worth it imo nowadays.

[Dudeperfect]

Welcome back mate, even if you are returning to Bitcoins after a long time, fortunately, it's not too late. We are still in the beta phase but yes the situation has improved as compared to that of your time. However, I believe you are still in the category of early adopter even if you are resuming now.

Some major changes took place during the last few years and Bitcoin surged in terms of price, user-base and volume. Mining rewards are not the same and mining became more difficult. However, if you can do it in a professional capacity then it's fine but mining original Bitcoin on CPU with profitability is a dream now. Faucets are not worthy of spending time and internet unless there is a strong referral network below your profile. The best way is freelancing in my opinion but again there are not many sites as of now that pays in Bitcoin but I am sure the situation is changing day by day.

[A1exander]

So, back when bitcoin was new-ish by suggestion from a friend.  I started faucets and and tried mining with my computer; which was alright, and by the time that I stopped I had about $20 in coin and I left it there for a few years or so until coming back recently and seeing how much bitcoin is now and then regretting not keeping up with the faucets and mining. My little $20 that I had is now worth almost $250 USD.  

Yest, those were good times. I also mined bitcoin using an old computer and then a few servers I had access to.

Is mining with the PC even a option anymore?  Are faucets even worth it?  What's the best way to get back into this with having literally no income to actually invest with?

Mining bitcoin using a computer or even a server farm now is meaningless. ASICs are orders of magnitude faster and the difficulty increased accordingly. However, it is possible to mine some altcoins using GPUs or even CPUs (Monero, for example). Faucets are not worth it, you can get more from airdrops here. It may be better to participate in signature campaigns here.

[mocacinno]

Since it seems the OP got the advice that mining bitcoin with a GPU is still possible, i leave following link to one of my calculators:
https://www.mocacinno.com/nonspecialisedmininghardware.php

CPU/GPU mining bitcoin is dead, like A1exander said, you need a lateste gen ASIC and a good electricity rate to mine BTC.
The OP did receive the correct advice about altcoins tough: some altcoins can still be mined with a CPU or GPU, and if you play your cards right and have a little bit of luck, you can make some profit when exchaning them to BTC

About faucets: in my opinion, they're never worth it... In the very beginning, i was told, there were faucets where you'd get allmost a full bitcoin (never bothered to check this, so i don't know if it's real or not). If you had claimed 100 times from these faucets, and helt your BTC, it would now be worth $700.000... However, back then, it took 10.000 BTC to buy a $10 pizza, so the 100 BTC would have been worth 1 cent at the time.

Now, imagine that, instead of claiming 100 times, you worked a low wage job for an hour and made $7, exchanged this $7 for bitcoins... You would have gotten 7000 BTC instead.

My point is: no matter if the bitcoin price rises or falls, in my opinion it's always better to get a job and buy BTC with your earnings instead of wasting your time on faucets.

[Thekool1s]

What's the best way to get back into this with having literally no income to actually invest with?
Since you've been off for years like you said, read a lot. Then if you think you know enough, join a signature campaign here(You need at least Jr member to join one): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=615953.0

This is exactly what is wrong with the community right now, All they 'recommend' straight away is to join a signature campaign, which leads to more spam. There are much better things which can be done, Why not sell Physical products? Maybe even dropship stuff for BTC? If OP has some skills, why not sell them for BTC?

[Seansky]

Is mining with the PC even a option anymore? 

Mining on PC with GPU is still an option for some altcoins but mining bitcoin with PC is not profitable anymore. You will need to buy mining equipments(miners) if you want to continue bitcoin mining.

Are faucets even worth it?

Don't waste your time on faucets because they are not viable to use to gain btc anymore. It would be wiser to just find a job rather than doing captcha all day on faucets.

  What's the best way to get back into this with having literally no income to actually invest with?

The best way to get back into earning bitcoin without investing a cent is to offer your skills to others like how one does it in real life, you can also be a freelancer.

[dertre]

Mining on PC can be used for mining alt coins. Will you make profit depends on your electricity bill and the coin you mine (some coins rise in price 3000% in 2-3 months).
Like other people suggested the best way to make Bitcoins is to offer your skills (what are you good at).
Faucets are a waste of time.

[djyumene]

Thanks for the replies. 

As for mining on the PC, I did decide to try to mine some altcoins; recently I've been trying to mine the newer one called Electroneum and I've gotten better results doing this vs. trying to mine bitcoins these days; following advice. Electricity is something I really don't worry about since I don't have a bill. I still regret not keeping at it, but that's another story since I can't fret on it; past is the past. 

Yea it would be better off trying to get work - and don't get me wrong, I have been trying, but no luck, just a pile of rejection letters in the inbox every day (but it's a bit harder for me since I'm disabled and still fighting for disability so I can get back on my feet). That said, I have decided to give faucets a shot again, because in the end, it is 'technically' free money that I can claim in between applying for jobs and doing other things that I need to do. So I figure why not, but I've decided to just do it casually vs like I was before and going all out on it.

Thanks for the advice everyone