CPU Mining

[digdugg67]

I've come to the conclusion that i'm probably not going to mine any coins.

I'm producing 4Mhash per second just using the bitcoin client.

I though it woud be cool to mine like 50 coins, i've no idea how long that would take but with the difficulting rising and me not hashing any faster. Yeah, i think i might finally get a block after about a century.

I guess I'll just keep my client running and churning when my computer is running (actully i've installed the bitcoin client on every computer i work with but all about the same hash rate.)

I guess i'll just be one of those nodes that do work for the network but make no coin. I can't compete with the mining pools nor the GPU miners but it's for the good of the whole.

Right now i'm happily running bitcoin client on 8 separate machines ;-)


can someone calculate how long it would actually be before i solve a block?  I'd like to be depressed Thanks in advance

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[LegitBit]

It's not that bad really, depending on luck you theoretically could produce a block at any time.. the odds are against you though.

It's just like the lottery.

I have several GPU's mining in pools, and one CPU chugging away solo, just in case it gets lucky.

[Jack of Diamonds]

Probably a few thousand years at the current difficulty level. Unless you have free electricity it's just a waste of time.

But as said above, you "might" get lucky just as some people win the lottery. Is it worth it for running your PC 24/7 for years? (In hopes of 50btc) I say no...

[Sukrim]

can someone calculate how long it would actually be before i solve a block?  I'd like to be depressed Thanks in advance

On one hand, the miner included in the old client is not the fastest one, you might mine ~ twice as fast with a dedicated CPU miner.

On the other hand, there is only a certain chance that you might find a block - no guarantee. It can only be calculated how long it takes until it is 50%/90%/99%.... likely to have found a block in that time frame, not how long it will take.

Since difficulty will increase most likely still a bit, my guess would be not within the lifetime of that PC you're using.

Maybe try pooled mining, this would at least give you a few Bitcents over time and with these 0% fee pools all you loose are transaction fees.

[digdugg67]

I was under the impression that the mining was 2 part.
one to solve a block and the other to support confirmations of transfers of coins from one person to another.
that is basically why i decided just to let 'em run. To support the validation of the transfers.  Am i wrong? or is this all about mining and finding coins.

[gentakin]

I guess i'll just be one of those nodes that do work for the network but make no coin. I can't compete with the mining pools nor the GPU miners but it's for the good of the whole.

AFAIK, you're not even helping the network by not finding any blocks. You'd only help the network by finding a block. If your client can be reached from outside (TCP on a certain port number that I don't remember), you're helping clients to get more connections, which is a good thing. However that's possible without mining, by just starting the client.

According to http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/old_calculator.php , you can expect to find a block every 7051 days on average at current difficulty. Good Luck! (you will probably have paid 1000s of $ for increased energy cost by that time)

[Sukrim]

I was under the impression that the mining was 2 part.
one to solve a block and the other to support confirmations of transfers of coins from one person to another.
that is basically why i decided just to let 'em run. To support the validation of the transfers.  Am i wrong? or is this all about mining and finding coins.

You get paid in 2 parts when solving a block: 1 part "out of thin air" (cut in half every ~2 years, currently 50 BTC) and the other part from transaction fees.

You help the network ONLY by solving blocks. If you mine for some time and not solve any block, you could have not mined at all, and the network would look the same.