Would it be worth it to start to mine?

[IwntTooMine]

So I have a lot of questions and I hope that someone will be able to help me. I am wondering if it would be worth it to start mining now. I have never mined before and when I want to buy bitcoins I always have to do it a sketchy way. I am wondering what setup I should get. I have it to be about 3 Ghash/s (maybe more?) if possible.

I have looked it up before and it seems that people that are currently bitcoin mineing are steering away noobs from trying it. I am just wondering why? I know they mention electricity bills a lot like if you would even be profiting from mining after you pay the electric bill. But my solution was setting it up at my school. I am in computer networking and if I decide to do this my teacher would probably let me set it up in the back room or something. Now would this be a good idea or something I should not even consider.

Also once I am done using bitcoins I need and I want to sell them where am I supposed to do so? I know on ebay you can but its against there policy and there are a lot of scammers. I also hate Paypal so I would never accept Paypal as payment first off becaus I don't use it and second there are to many scammers. So I am just wondering what your guys opinion on this is and what should I do.

[IwntTooMine]

Now I just saw a 72 GH/s for about $1200 I think it was. Now I used a calculator for Mhash/s to btc and $$ and unless I did something wrong like adding a extra 0 by mistake that would be making over $250 worth of bitcoins a day. I can easily profit off that in as little as a few weeks. I must be missing something here.

[dust]

Now I just saw a 72 GH/s for about $1200 I think it was. Now I used a calculator for Mhash/s to btc and $$ and unless I did something wrong like adding a extra 0 by mistake that would be making over $250 worth of bitcoins a day. I can easily profit off that in a little as a few weeks. I must be missing something here.

The block reward is dropping to 25 today.  The difficulty will skyrocket 10-20x shortly after ASICs are shipped.

[IwntTooMine]

The block reward is dropping to 25 so that means you do the same work as regular that you would usually get 50 and now you will only get 25 for doing the same work?

[Litecoin Gold Trust]

I think that you should try mining with what you have before sinking a lot of money into it. If you have a PC with a decent ATI graphics card or you can borrow one, start mining on that. Don't worry about making money right away. It will be fun and interesting, and you will end up with a small amount of BTC.

[kwoody]

The block reward is dropping to 25 so that means you do the same work as regular that you would usually get 50 and now you will only get 25 for doing the same work?

Yes, the same work will soon be worth half as much. At Bitcoin's current value, you will lose money mining with a GPU unless you live very close to a power station and have cheap/free electricity. However, don't let that discourage you. If you want to try mining, by all means, go for it, but don't invest a bunch of money into GPU-based mining equipment at this stage in the game. That 72GH/s device you were looking at has been delayed for production until January 2013 at the earliest, so it's possible that you can make some coins before then. Once ASIC devices hit the market, combined with block reward halving, mining with anything but an ASIC will make very little sense unless BTC value goes up.

[IwntTooMine]

I use a laptop as a main computer And the desktop we have has a cheap $60 graphics card. It won't mine anything. I am just wondering what I am missing here. With the calculations I am doing with 72GH/s that would be 83k worth if bitcoins a year. I know it must be wrong. I just don't know if I should even start trying to mine if I won't make anything. Also if the block thing is going down to 25 instead of 50 wouldn't that make bitcoins worth more?

[Litecoin Gold Trust]

I use a laptop as a main computer And the desktop we have has a cheap $60 graphics card. It won't mine anything. I am just wondering what I am missing here. With the calculations I am doing with 72GH/s that would be 83k worth if bitcoins a year. I know it must be wrong. I just don't know if I should even start trying to mine if I won't make anything. Also if the block thing is going down to 25 instead of 50 wouldn't that make bitcoins worth more?

I'm assuming that when you say 72 GH/s for $1200, you are talking about buying the new ASIC hardware. Right?

Here is the problem. They don't exist yet, and when they are finally shipped, everyone will get one and the difficulty will go up by a factor of 20 (more or less). Your estimate of 83k worth of bitcoins will drop by a factor of 20 to 4.2k. And don't forget that the block reward is being cut in half, so your 4.2k per year is really 2.1k per year. So it looks like you might be able to make a profit, but it won't be anything like 83k a year.

Anyway, even if you order one now, you won't get it until next year. You might as well just mine with what you have now and order one next year.

Finally, the halving of the reward will have no significant direct effect on the value of BTC. There is a lot of guessing about what will happen when the reward halves, but nobody really knows, and nothing happening is just as likely an outcome as anything else.

Also, why is it so important to make money mining bitcoins? Why not just do it for fun or as a learning experience? Why do you want to make it your job?

[K. Darien Freeheart]

Unless you're prepared to invest a few thousand dollars (or your native currency) in mining hardware, purchasing is a better bet.

[IwntTooMine]

@LiteCoin Gold Trust

Thank you for your input. And no I don't want to make it my job but I just want to make sure that if I did start and invested over 1k I would want to be sure that I wouldn't go negative. It's not all about the money but I would like to make a little bit.

[bitcoinvideos]

Well my take on it after lurking and mining for about 3 weeks on a 6850 and 5640 that I had that I am investing the future of the currency.  If you take that viewpoint and enjoy what you are doing it for then I think you will see long term gains.  Currency appreciation is what I am looking for in the long run.  Why don't you just fire it up and see what happens?

[sneakgeekz]

I received a bfl fpga a few weeks ago to get me started before the arrival of some asics i ordered. Im not in as much for the profit, It's more of a small hedge against my depreciating dollars. Its one of my small ways to participate in the resistance and take back my power from the banksters.

[new overcomer]

I read a lot of speculation here.

Basically it's like this .... your hardware uses X amount of power in an attempt to generate Y bitcoins.  If your power consumption (or bill) is greater than the amount of bitcoins you generate its a waste of your time and resources.  CURRENTLY the margins are very tight on GPU mining.  The ASIC hardware is very speculative since there is none to be proven in existence.  This will take us down a different path where people can speculate one way or the other about the future and/or existence.  Go the route where the numbers make sense and don't leave you guessing.

DON'T SPEND MONEY YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE!

[cianuro]

Would be it a little on the conspiracy theory side of things to suggest that the ASIC "developers" were simply seeding propaganda to keep the difficulty/competition down while waiting for block halving day?

[nobbynobbynoob]

Would be it a little on the conspiracy theory side of things to suggest that the ASIC "developers" were simply seeding propaganda to keep the difficulty/competition down while waiting for block halving day?

Yes.

But we don't mind a conspiracy theory or thousand at Bitcointalk!

[mjc]

If I a were you I would, oh wait I'm m and I am.  :-)  Buy only ASIC.  Don't get suckered and buy someones ole GPU Rig.

[phunam]

DON'T SPEND MONEY YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE!

Bingo!   http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f347/Naja002/Smilies/thumbsup.gifhttp://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f347/Naja002/Smilies/thumbsup.gif

[bowen151]

Bet it all!!! lol 

You have to spend money to make money . But dont spend outside your means!

Obviously you need to research more and figure out that this isnt a "get rich quick" scheme. Maybe if you were an early adopter you'd have your own mint. Not now, no way muchaho.

[htc]

Yeah - I sold my house and moved my family to Alaska. Bought a dozer, loader, washer, etc (over $150K). Signed a lease. Only to find I needed a powerful computer.

Hell, I didn't even have internet where we were.

No more mining for me. 

[Focksbot]

Right now I've earned enough money to buy myself a donut and some coffee after mining for oh, 48 hours straight.
When the ASICs come in I should expect to be earning a buck a year on my PC. Damned lunchboxes.
If I bought a Jalapeno or other one of those, combined with everyone else buying one, I wouldn't be surprised if I wind up at the same profit rate as I am now. Not really interested in investing in an box  unless I see a promising gain of at least $120 per month.