How much luck is involved ?

[metallicaband]

Hello all,

I just heard about Bitcoin recently and wanted to get an idea about how it works. Lets say that you have a machine that's capable of outputting 800mhash/sec, based on a calculator I checked using a difficulty of 434882.7217497 (I'm assuming that's today's rate), it says that such machine can generate around 1.85 BTC per day.

Now my questions are:

1- Is this amount accurate?
2- If yes, Is this based on Solo or Pool effort?
3- How much luck is involved to get that amount on daily basis? For example is it possible that you spend days earning nothing or do you approximately get that amount or close to it (more or less) per day? I'm just talking about the current difficulty level, I know in the future it might be much harder.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Kain]

Hello all,

I just heard about Bitcoin recently and wanted to get an idea about how it works. Lets say that you have a machine that's capable of outputting 800mhash/sec, based on a calculator I checked using a difficulty of 434882.7217497 (I'm assuming that's today's rate), it says that such machine can generate around 1.85 BTC per day.

Now my questions are:

1- Is this amount accurate?
2- If yes, Is this based on Solo or Pool effort?
3- How much luck is involved to get that amount on daily basis? For example is it possible that you spend days earning nothing or do you approximately get that amount or close to it (more or less) per day? I'm just talking about the current difficulty level, I know in the future it might be much harder.

Any help would be appreciated.

That's how much you would earn on average.
Bitcoins come in blocks of 50, so the calculator is basically saying you'd find a block every 27 or so days.

That's based on a solo average.
There is some amount of luck involved.

[datguywhowanders]

I find that by mining in Slush's pool, I get VERY close to what that calculator says I should get on a daily basis. As with all things Bitcoin, it varies from day to day. However, I enjoy having the steady payouts on a daily basis, and I enjoy the wealth of information that Slush provides so I can see how my setup is performing at any point in time.

[metallicaband]

Thank you all for replying, more input about your experience with BTC would be great.

[Litt]

average is average, but luck is everything. I would hate to be that guy who never ever finds a block mining solo forever no matter what.

[metallicaband]

@Litt , but that isn't the case with pool mining, right?

Because from what I read so far it seems to generate pretty steady BTC, some amount of luck seem to be involved, but a lot less than solo mining.

If someone is running a 1.4 Ghashes/sec machine and is using pool mining, is it absurd to think he can generate 2.5-3 BTC/day during most days of the month?

[xenon481]

If someone is running a 1.4 Ghashes/sec machine and is using pool mining, is it absurd to think he can generate 2.5-3 BTC/day during most days of the month?

Only for the next 30 hours.

Difficulty is going to increase another 25-30% in about 30 hours.