[Announcement] Block Erupter USB

[rethaw]

Modular Python Bitcoin Miner using an icarus worker works well on mac.

[1713487729]

1713487729

[1713487729]

1713487729

[1713487729]

1713487729

[Anonymailer]

MacMiner works well on a Mac

[erk]

What a waste of time and ressources. I will never understand "the mac way".

macs are for people who like using computers but dislike having to tinker with computer hardware.

similarly, usb erupters are for people who like bitcoin but don't have a spare room in their home for big aluminum frames full of GPUs and huge noisy fans and PSUs.

not surprisingly, some mac owners have ordered usb erupters. 

The last couple of series of Macs have either had nVidia or Intel GPUs, both are useless for mining, so something like the erupters are a reasonable option. Same goes for PC and laptop users that don't have ATI video cards, Mac owners are in exactly the same boat.

[joae1975]

MacMiner works well on a Mac

So does GUIminer

[Rant2112]

I have my Erupter working Mac OS X -> VMWare Fusion -> XUbuntu

cgminer 3.1.1 with -S

I can't get cgminer 3.2 to work.  /dev/ttyUSB0 gets disconnected as soon as cgminer 3.2 starts up and cgminer doesn't see anything to mine with.

I jumped through a bunch of hoops trying to get 3.2 working but in the end, with 3.1.1, the only thing I needed was -

adding myself to the dialout group.

[markyminer]

( Had three ports that would not accept any Erupter USB that was plugged into it, but worked fine in any other slot. *shrugs* )

OMG .Fools and their money!  When this was announced difficultly was under 10m and network hashrate under 80t/h.  Now you've got them it's 12m (+20%) and network hashrate is 100t/h+ . In under 3 days difficulty will hit 14.4m.  So thats a 44% increase in diffuclty in 5 weeks, around the 30% + a month I predicted.

5 weeks ago each of these would have made you $1.84 a day for the first week. Now you are only making $1.51 a day and this will drop to $1.27 a day in under 3 days when difficulty hits 14.4m.

So lets forecast from there shall we! Starting @ 0.0104 BTC and $1.27 profit a day for the first 10 days. 1 month profit $38.  3 month profit $90. 1 year profit $155!

May I remind you that BTC has gone up only $10 in the last month. And you have paid $220 for each of these last month plus the 1/9th cost of the powered USB hubs and fans plus the cost of all the shipping and customs charges of the USB miners and hubs and fans.

And looking further ahead after 2 whole years of mining with $0.01 per day powercosts for each USB you will have only made $158. Yep, @ 30% increase a month you will make a whole $3 in the second year. Buy the end of year three these will not earn enough BTC to cover their power use!

You lot will have to pray (and hard) that BTC difficulty slows it's current 30% a month increase or that $/BTC steadily rises to over $250 in the next few years or you will never make a ROI.

To big a gamble to stake way over $12k on. Good luck though, I admire your balls, and I thought I was risky putting $900 into 3 x BFL 5 g/h miners (15G/H) to arrive this side of Xmas.

M

[Xian01]

To big a gamble to stake way over $12k on. Good luck though, I admire your balls, and I thought I was risky putting $900 into 3 x BFL 5 g/h miners (15G/H) to arrive this side of Xmas.

 I've calculated I will make back the BTC  spent on this outlay within the next 120 days, even accounting for difficulty increases (And to be clear, am reinvesting previously mined BTC accrued over the last couple years)

 Am OK with that.

[alibert]

I think he is fine.

[Rampion]

To big a gamble to stake way over $12k on. Good luck though, I admire your balls, and I thought I was risky putting $900 into 3 x BFL 5 g/h miners (15G/H) to arrive this side of Xmas.

 I've calculated I will make back the BTC  spent on this outlay within the next 120 days, even accounting for difficulty increases (And to be clear, am reinvesting previously mined BTC accrued over the last couple years)

 Am OK with that.

I've tried to run the numbers but the very best case scenario I've calculated for your setup is break even in aprox. 200 days, and that with a ridiculously optimistic 0.5 yearly profitability decline (which means that in the next 12 months difficulty would only double, and we know that won't happen).

Could you share your numbers, Xian? I'm very curious about them.

[Xian01]

Could you share your numbers, Xian? I'm very curious about them.

Admittedly, I suck at math, so it's quite possible I'm off my a couple weeks with my ROI estimates.

The 120 day figure is based on my current extrapolations, considering that my existing, paid-for operation, already brings in x BTC per pay, I'm going to be getting x + ~1 BTC more per day for the next little while just with these additional ASICs.

I hope you can appreciate me being intentionally vague.

[joae1975]

Don't worry guys, when the global currently crisis occurs, bitcoin will skyrocket, as will gold/silver.

[person]

Could you share your numbers, Xian? I'm very curious about them.

Admittedly, I suck at math, so it's quite possible I'm off my a couple weeks with my ROI estimates.

The 120 day figure is based on my current extrapolations, considering that my existing, paid-for operation, already brings in x BTC per pay, I'm going to be getting x + ~1 BTC more per day for the next little while just with these additional ASICs.

I hope you can appreciate me being intentionally vague.

Maybe you are not THAT off in your ROI estimates if the ebay post announcing this setup (using your picture) keeps going higher ( and IF it's your post anyways )

[Xian01]

Maybe you are not THAT off in your ROI estimates if the ebay post announcing this setup (using your picture) keeps going higher ( and IF it's your post anyways )

I don't keep up with eBay listings. A user approached me about using my images. Said sure why not.

[GuiltySpark343]

I ran some numbers assuming difficulty increases by 10% every 2 weeks, which roughly translates into profit declines by 10% every 2 weeks.

Given these parameters (and not counting USB hub, fans, electricity), if you bought a USB Erupter for 1.99 BTC and started mining right at the start of the last difficulty increase, in about 1 year of constant mining that miner would have made 1.807 BTC (ie. you would still be behind by 0.183 BTC).

End of week #   Daily BTC   2 week total   Running Total
2   0.0138   0.1932   0.1932
4   0.0124   0.1739   0.3671
6   0.0112   0.1565   0.5236
8   0.0101   0.1408   0.6644
10   0.0091   0.1268   0.7912
12   0.0081   0.1141   0.9053
14   0.0073   0.1027   1.0079
16   0.0066   0.0924   1.1003
18   0.0059   0.0832   1.1835
20   0.0053   0.0748   1.2584
22   0.0048   0.0674   1.3257
24   0.0043   0.0606   1.3863
26   0.0039   0.0546   1.4409
28   0.0035   0.0491   1.4900
30   0.0032   0.0442   1.5342
32   0.0028   0.0398   1.5740
34   0.0026   0.0358   1.6098
36   0.0023   0.0322   1.6420
38   0.0021   0.0290   1.6710
40   0.0019   0.0261   1.6971
42   0.0017   0.0235   1.7206
44   0.0015   0.0211   1.7417
46   0.0014   0.0190   1.7608
48   0.0012   0.0171   1.7779
50   0.0011   0.0154   1.7933
52   0.0010   0.0139   1.8072

[muyuu]

I ran some numbers assuming difficulty increases by 10% every 2 weeks, which roughly translates into profit declines by 10% every 2 weeks.

Given these parameters (and not counting USB hub, fans, electricity), if you bought a USB Erupter for 1.99 BTC and started mining right at the start of the last difficulty increase, in about 1 year of constant mining that miner would have made 1.807 BTC (ie. you would still be behind by 0.183 BTC).

Amortisation in even 2 years is still good enough. You could have continued the loop to see when did it hit break-even if ever.

[Gamah]

So lets forecast from there shall we! Starting @ 0.0104 BTC and $1.27 profit a day for the first 10 days. 1 month profit $38.  3 month profit $90. 1 year profit $155!

M

And $155 * 45 devices = $6975 presuming the price of bitcion doesn't go up.. (why wouldn't it?) what if it rises to ~250/coin stabily? then his profit margin is that much higher.

Or we can even use some psuedo-math and presume that it will generate about 79 cents/hour 24/7/365 at the current price and assuming your difficulty increases.

Takes money to make money.

[joae1975]

I ran some numbers assuming difficulty increases by 10% every 2 weeks, which roughly translates into profit declines by 10% every 2 weeks.

Given these parameters (and not counting USB hub, fans, electricity), if you bought a USB Erupter for 1.99 BTC and started mining right at the start of the last difficulty increase, in about 1 year of constant mining that miner would have made 1.807 BTC (ie. you would still be behind by 0.183 BTC).

Amortisation in even 2 years is still good enough. You could have continued the loop to see when did it hit break-even if ever.

Question, did the ROI predictions come true when BTC went from CPU to GPU?  Were those questions asked back then?  I feel many ASICs sold will never be put to use, many will be constantly sold over and over again.

[klondike_bar]

I ran some numbers assuming difficulty increases by 10% every 2 weeks, which roughly translates into profit declines by 10% every 2 weeks.

Given these parameters (and not counting USB hub, fans, electricity), if you bought a USB Erupter for 1.99 BTC and started mining right at the start of the last difficulty increase, in about 1 year of constant mining that miner would have made 1.807 BTC (ie. you would still be behind by 0.183 BTC).

Amortisation in even 2 years is still good enough. You could have continued the loop to see when did it hit break-even if ever.

the problem is that if it pays off in 1year, during the next entire year it may only pay an additional ~0.6BTC. The next year you would probably make next to nothing.

further, the actual hardware cost of these is much less than 2btc. 1BTC is a more fair price to invest at IMO

[seleme]

Thanks, friedcat !

That's fucking gorgeous.

That's what we all should have in our rooms if AM decided to not rape people with price but to give something to the network too.

[Cranky4u]

For those living under a rock...are erupters still available?