Is there any hope for a random guy with a normal computer?

[Glubble]

I got interested in bitcoin as a way to earn a little disposable income on the side and because I think it's a great and exciting idea that deserves more love. But after reading through the wiki and few posts on this site I feel like I've arrived too late and that I'm already out of the game. I've heard about the pools but even then the estimated profit of a few bucks per month probably translates into a loss if you substract the electricity costs.

So is it actually possible to get anything out of bitcoin if you're stuck with relatively low end hardware?

On an unrelated note, wouldn't it be possible for a corporation with enough computing power to completely take over the market and get all the blocks all the time?

Thanks for your help 

[thirdlight]

So is it actually possible to get anything out of bitcoin if you're stuck with relatively low end hardware?

Bitcoin has a lot more to offer than just mining.  "with relatively low end hardware" you are only going to mine at a loss, so if you're *only* after money, mining probably isn't the route for you.

On an unrelated note, wouldn't it be possible for a corporation with enough computing power to completely take over the market and get all the blocks all the time?

Short answer: Yes, it's possible. However the bitcoin network dwarfs any current "supercomputer", and it would take quite an effort, and a lot of money to take over completely. Remember - if an entity was to match the current capacity, they would still only have half the network. If they doubled it, they would still only have 80%, and so on, tending to 100%.

Would bitcoin be used in its current form if one entity had exceeded 50% of the hashpower? Probably not. So the taking over entity would be spending more & more, getting closer & closer to total domination of something worth less & less. You would need a very compelling reason to set out on this path!

[cornflop]

Its soon to be surpassed by other means of tech that will blow both GPU and CPU mining out of the water.

You could always look into litecoins 

[pistolslapper]

I understand CPU's are much slower than GPU''s but surely its really just a lottery. Am i right in saying you could start solo cpu mining and solve a block within 10 mins?

[Endgame]

You've definitely missed the 'free money' boat, but then so did most people here. There is still plenty of money to be made mining, but not off low end hardware. Bitcoin mining is shifting away from GPUs to custom chip ASIC technology. GPUs are shifting over to the alt coins, primarily litecoin. If you want to take up mining now, your best bet would be to either buy up one of the new ASIC miners, or to buy up a bunch of cheap GPU's from people selling their gear, and mine one of the alt coins.

[b!z]

You /could/ solve a block in 10 minutes, but the chances are very small.

You might become 100 years old and die before you successfully solo mine a block.

[KWH]

Bitcoins: Buy low, wait, sell high.

[BurtW]

Probability of getting 25 BTC by solo mining on a CPU = almost 0
Probability of figuring out how to purchase 25 BTC = almost 1

Probability of making any profit by solo mining on a CPU in the next year = almost 0

Probability of making a profit on your 25 BTC purchase in the next year = pretty good.

[DanielleEber]

I got interested in bitcoin as a way to earn a little disposable income on the side

I think you misunderstand what the Bitcoin network actually is.  It is a globally distributed account book keeping track of what balance each account number has.  Transactions are just requests to move a balance from one account to another.  "Mining" is just securing a set of transactions (a block) with cryptography so it is easy to prove the transaction history has not been tampered with.  Keeping the account books is a useful function.  Every bank and stock brokerage has to do it, so they know which accounts have what balance.  The Bitcoin network rewards people who do this useful function with a fresh balance that didn't come from another account.

But keeping the account books is not the only way to earn income, and in fact because it is so easy (it's automated, and requires no work on your part once you launch the software) it is very competitive.  In the long run you are better off doing something else which is not so easy, and therefore does not have every Tom, Dick, and Harry using their gaming rig GPU to do it.  Yes, doing something hard is actual work that takes actual effort, that is what "earning income" is.  Turning on mining software is about as hard as turning on a water faucet.  It's not actually work for you, and you can't expect to make free money doing it.

[Glubble]

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I'm amazed that BTC is already so passé that replacements are emerging. I guess I will venture into bitcoin purchase and speculation instead of mining, like KWH helpfully summarized.

Thirdlight, when you said that bitcoin has a lot more to offer, do you mean the intellectual satisfaction of participating in a movement or something else altogether?

DanielleEber : working for money??? That's an interesting concept 

[Gabi]

Bitcoin is not a get rich quick scheme

[Anon136]

On an unrelated note, wouldn't it be possible for a corporation with enough computing power to completely take over the market and get all the blocks all the time?

yes its called a 51% attack. Fortunately it isnt in the interest of any free market institutions to attempt to do such a thing since it would cause a run and so the bitcoins they were able to generate with that control would have no value. Of course the worry is that a government or large corporation might attempt to do it for the sake of destroying bitcoin as a competitor. Fortunately the cost to do this is roughly proportionate to the general level of interest in bitcoin. So when it was cheap and easy to destroy bitcoin governments didnt bother since almost no one used them and as soon as they became more widely used the cost to destroy bitcoin became proportionately more expensive, this trend should continue at infinitum and with a little luck protect bitcoin into adult hood when it should eventually becomes totally un assailable.

[cornflop]

Bitcoin is not a get rich quick scheme

Debatable

[Gabi]

It's like saying "gold is a get rich quick scheme"

[knight22]

bitcoin is not a get rich quick scheme but it has an enormous long term potential.

[mccorvic]

Your best bet to get BTC is to either buy them or offer a good/service for BTC. 

No, BTC isn't a get-rich-quick scheme nor is it about printing free money. Litecoin and all the other alt coins ARE just schemes full of people emo-sad that they aren't rich yet and are hoping to build that get rich scheme and once they do make another alt coin rinse repeat. Alt coins are NOT about creating a new economy the way BTC is.

[Kazimir]

I'm amazed that BTC is already so passé that replacements are emerging.

What...?

BTC is most definitely not passé. Au contraire! It's one of the most upcoming technological developments we're about to see. Stuff's gonna change bigtime

Thirdlight, when you said that bitcoin has a lot more to offer, do you mean the intellectual satisfaction of participating in a movement or something else altogether?

Well, freeing the world of banks and their unbridled greed and control, for instance.

[SlickTheNick]

Plenty of other ways to make money off bitcoins. Buy some and play the currency trade game. Sell off some of your stuff you have laying around in bitcoin, or offer some sort of service for btc. Start up a bitcoin related website, which could be pretty much anything imaginable. Use an existing site/service to earn coins

[Atruk]

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I'm amazed that BTC is already so passé that replacements are emerging.

It's still the dominant cryptocurrency by orders of magnitude. A lot of the alt-coins have collapsed rather quickly (see solidcoin), but litecoin has persisted even if it still trades for a small fraction of what BTC does.

[odolvlobo]

So is it actually possible to get anything out of bitcoin if you're stuck with relatively low end hardware?

Yes. Buy an ASIC and hook it up to the USB port of your relatively low end hardware.

If you don't want to wait for an ASIC, you can buy an FPGA right now and hook it up to your relatively low end hardware.

If you don't want to buy anything, then your GPU should be able to mine a small amount of bitcoin for the next couple months -- hopefully enough to pay the electricity cost.