NEWB Alert with a Lot of Questions

[Kimbrough]

Let me start off first by saying "hello!" from Chattanooga, TN. Glad I found this forum and it has been a wealth of info.
I bought an Antminer S5 and can't wait to get started mining. This is more of an educational hobby for me and my son and believe me I have no expectations of making my fortune this way. Only wish I'd started a few years ago! The miner will work in a cool basement.
Anywho, on to my questions:
I have an old MacBook Pro collecting dust in the basement. Can I use it as a wireless access point for the miner and just let them both run?
     -running a long cable to the basement is not an option.

I went ahead and bought a usb "wallet." I thought I'd attach it to the MacBook. Is this the correct configuration?

Being in Chattanooga, I have fast internet service. SpeedTest measures my wireless connection at 90Mb/s download and 75Mb/s upload. Does this help me in any way?

Thanks for any advice you can give!

[VirosaGITS]

Let me start off first by saying "hello!" from Chattanooga, TN. Glad I found this forum and it has been a wealth of info.
I bought an Antminer S5 and can't wait to get started mining. This is more of an educational hobby for me and my son and believe me I have no expectations of making my fortune this way. Only wish I'd started a few years ago! The miner will work in a cool basement.
Anywho, on to my questions:
I have an old MacBook Pro collecting dust in the basement. Can I use it as a wireless access point for the miner and just let them both run?
     -running a long cable to the basement is not an option.

I went ahead and bought a usb "wallet." I thought I'd attach it to the MacBook. Is this the correct configuration?

Being in Chattanooga, I have fast internet service. SpeedTest measures my wireless connection at 90Mb/s download and 75Mb/s upload. Does this help me in any way?

Thanks for any advice you can give!

I have a friend running such a bad setup, it works, but its not reliable, the laptop need to be on 24/7, etc. And having fast internet change nothing. But low ping is better.

[notlist3d]

I went ahead and bought a usb "wallet." I thought I'd attach it to the MacBook. Is this the correct configuration?

On this I'm guessing you mean hardware wallet.  Which one did you buy? If you can tell us that we can help a lot more on configuration.

Also on your other thing I would get a wireless access point that does all the work without having to use a laptop.   Just best option over time I think vs running laptop 24x7.

[DebitMe]

I have to agree that the laptop may not be the best idea to use as a gateway to the internet.  It just puts in place one more thing that can fail and leave your operation not mining for hours.  Get a wireless access point that will connect to your wireless router and you can plug an Ethernet cord into.

Also, your internet speed doesn't really have an effect on your mining speed.  Bitcoin mining takes very very little bandwidth, so although having a great download speed doesn't hurt, it doesn't really help either.

Good luck teaching your son and having some fun.

[azguard]

bad decision is to use laptop for mining
if you dont have any other option try to mine some altcoin instead of bitcoin

[Kimbrough]

Thanks for all the replies! A WiFi AP is on the list.

I ordered a Ledger Wallet Nano. I plan on joining a pool so how does the Bitcoin get from the pool to the usb wallet?

[DebitMe]

Thanks for all the replies! A WiFi AP is on the list.

I ordered a Ledger Wallet Nano. I plan on joining a pool so how does the Bitcoin get from the pool to the usb wallet?

Your Nano will have a bitcoin address that you will copy and paste as your payout address on the pool.  Then you can set a minimum threshold to get paid out and everyday or every other day you can get payouts to your Nano.

[RichBC]

Thanks for all the replies! A WiFi AP is on the list.

I ordered a Ledger Wallet Nano. I plan on joining a pool so how does the Bitcoin get from the pool to the usb wallet?

I would not use the Ledger Wallet for your mining transactions, you will find after a while that it get's very slow, this from their help.

It is not recommended to receive small payments (also called dust payments) on the Ledger Wallet. This kind of incoming payments are typical of mining pools or faucets.

Set the payment threshold at a higher level (for instance 0.05 BTC), or use an temporary wallet which you'll empty every 0.05 BTC.

The reason is that the chip must sign all inputs when you want to make an outgoing transaction. Imagine that you have received 1,000 payments of 0.001 BTC. If you want to make a payment of 1 BTC then the chip will have to construct a transaction of 1,000 inputs and sign 1,000 times. Not only it will take a few hours, but you have risks that it will not manage to do it (the chip may get too hot and fault some computation etc).

I used one initially but then opened a Coinbase account as another problem with the Ledger Wallet is that you cannot Sign a Message. By all means use it for long term storage, but I would sign up to another account for mining.


Rich

[notlist3d]

Thanks for all the replies! A WiFi AP is on the list.

I ordered a Ledger Wallet Nano. I plan on joining a pool so how does the Bitcoin get from the pool to the usb wallet?

Your Nano will have a bitcoin address that you will copy and paste as your payout address on the pool.  Then you can set a minimum threshold to get paid out and everyday or every other day you can get payouts to your Nano.

I HIGHLY suggest getting starter accessory with the offline OS.  It makes it a lot more secure on setup on setup with it being a 100 percent offline OS and makes it much more secure.

Here is a hands on using it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1305888.0

[Kimbrough]

So I read this article today in WIRED:
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/the-schism-over-bitcoin-is-how-bitcoin-is-supposed-to-work/
It makes me think I should NOT be mining. Is it just a fool's errand? What can one lone S5 miner really do? Do I stand any chance at any kind of bitcoin?

[gt_addict]

I've got two s3's and an s4 on the way but I have resigned myself to the fact I will never make any money doing mining. I won't make a profit within a year or more. The price of the miners plus electricity cost means I have to make £40 a month just to cover the electricity. After 12 days I've made £20 which isn't a lot really when you factor in the cost of the miners as well. The only hope I have is that when I come to sell the miners I make some of tee money back. I am treating this as a hobby and if you joining the Bitcoin mining this late then that's how you need to see it.