A bit skeptical but interested

[OnLashoc]

Hello,

New to mining, I've lurked these forums the past week and read and read and read some more everything to tips, tricks, suggested, getting hacked, hardware comparisons, the history of bitcoins, blazzeh blah.

After doing so coming into it with little (just an average gaming rig no upgrades made to my 2 year old machine) I have been mining for 5 days now 24 hours a day (not used to leaving my machine on when not in use) and have only made .005 on BTCGuild.com using CGIMiner. I see all these awesome speeds, I looked at all the teams (their member count, speed, and shares) picked the best one (low member count / high speed / decent share amount) and just don't think it's profitable unless you do some bargain hunting which includes a lot of research and some capital.

After doing this for 5 days I've come to the conclusion...

You gotta have money to make money, or get extremely lucky!

It's a very interesting concept from start to finish the whole bitcoin thing, and I've read enough just to keep me going a little bit further before giving up, but not enough to make me go "WoW I need to dedicate some money towards this now before it's too late!". I think I will buy a mid range card to give me somewhere in the 200-400 MH range (looking at the charts it looks like the radeon 6670 - 6770 area will do it and see how it goes from there.

Anyone else put $100 or so down on a card to start feel it was a good investment?


Onnie

[CecilNiosaki]

With ASICs in the mining pool for BTC, I wouldn't suggest buying a card at this point to mine BTC. An alt currency maybe, though.

[OnLashoc]

Thanks, so are you saying the ASICS are making it harder for everyone else? It just seems like to me you'd WANT ASICS in the pool to increase bit finding speeds better for everyone.

[Akka]

You a (very) likely better of just buying some bitcoins.

As Bitcoin matures mining becomes more specialized.

There are dedicated mining devices you can order, but it's by far more riskier than just to buy some coins.

[OnLashoc]

I think you may be right, but seeing now that I am invested (my time) in mining for the past week I think I kinda HAVE to keep going till I reach the minimum withdraw amount to cover said mined period.

Thanks for the feedback

[mcrimson]

Dude definitely look into mining an alt coin! There are dozens. you can go to the coinchoose website to see what is most profitable. I just got all my mining rig equipment shipped in so I'm about to build mine and start! Unfortunately I have absolutely no computer experience at all really, but it's so interesting I thought what better way to learn than to just do it? Best of Luck, Cheers

[TheGovernedSelf]

Alt-coins are a waste of time and money. They're essentially pump-and-dump schemes being masqueraded as "currencies".

[mcrimson]

Alt-coins are a waste of time and money. They're essentially pump-and-dump schemes being masqueraded as "currencies".

Agree to disagree man. Okay well I don't even really disagree, many are pump-and-dump but if ur a miner u can benefit off of them a bunch. It's the buyers (I've been one of them) that kind of get screwed. Is it exactly ethical to mine a pump and dump coin? Idk...but who cares, it can definitely be profitable, especially since bitcoins and litecoins are near impossible to mine without unbelievable equipment.

Btw I'm just setting up my rig and mining some alt coins to familiarize myself with the whole thing, and to teach myself some computer skills.  Also I'm awaiting the launch of Netcoin which I think will be the next real legitimate coin of the future

[DannyHamilton]

Thanks, so are you saying the ASICS are making it harder for everyone else?

Yes.

It just seems like to me you'd WANT ASICS in the pool to increase bit finding speeds better for everyone.

What others in the pool are doing has very little to do with how much you'll earn.  Sure, they'll help the pool get blocks more often, but they'll get a larger share of that block.  So instead of the pool getting 1 block per day, and you getting 1/25,000th of that block (0.001 BTC), perhaps the pool will get 3 blocks per day, but since the ASIC miners are getting a larger percentage of the reward, you'll just get 1/75,000th of those 3 blocks (still 0.001 BTC).

EDIT: Fixed the math error in my example.

[TheGovernedSelf]

I would buy 1 btc instead.

[masyveonk]

Its not profitable to run GPU cards for mining Bitcoins, unless you have very cheap electricity. And it seems the difficulty is (and will be) increasing by +10% every two weeks so not worth buying GPU today imho

[bitcoinchecker]

If you want to earn some bitcoin, you would be better off selling my T-shirts......

http://thevillageidiotme.ipage.com/shop.html

If you want to know more, e-mail me using the contact on my website (<<< click on the globe to the left and follow the links)

[asically]

.....you'll just get 1/3000th of those 3 blocks (still 0.001 BTC).

So how does the difficulty rate lower the "still 0.001 BTC"?

[DannyHamilton]

.....you'll just get 1/3000th of those 3 blocks (still 0.001 BTC).

So how does the difficulty rate lower the "still 0.001 BTC"?

Bah, I have no idea how I made such a silly math error.  Thanks for pointing it out.  Fixed it now.

[DannyHamilton]

.....you'll just get 1/3000th of those 3 blocks (still 0.001 BTC).

So how does the difficulty rate lower the "still 0.001 BTC"?

Note the example was talking about choosing one pool over another while the difficulty remains the same.  An increase in difficulty results when the entire bitcoin network has an increase in hashpower.

In a situation with an increasing total network hash power, if your hash power remains the same your potential rewards decrease.

If the pool you are in is the one supplying the increase in hash power, then your pool will be more likely to solve blocks, but have to pay a higher percentage of the reward to those supplying the increase (leaving less for you).

If some other pool is supplying the increase in hash power, then your pool will be less likely to solve blocks, meaning that while your percentage of the pool's rewards stays the same, your pool has less rewards available to share.

Most likely as total network hash power increases, both of those conditions are happening, so your pool is getting a smaller share of the rewards (due to the addition of solo miners and new pools), and you are getting a smaller share of your pools rewards.

[hortonelectric]

Luck has a lot to do with success, but you also have to work at it constantly. You wouldn't want to be caught flat-footed when your benefactor arrives, would you?

[FinShaggy]

Mine Devcoin.

It's easy to mine, fast to mine, and is merge mined with Bitcoin, so you are basically mining bitcoin also.

[trekin7]

It's true that mining isn't really going to pay off unless you have super cheap or free electricity. If you do have cheap/free electricity though mining with GPU's is totally profitable.

That being said, if you only have about $100 to invest then I'd say it's worth it to buy some coin and hang on to it!

[OnLashoc]

Thank you for the feedback!

I think I will stop mining as soon as I hit minimum and withdraw my funds, and consider the options laid out before me.

I don't think I can buy a single bitcoin with $100 (I wish lol).

[FinShaggy]

Earn FREE Devcoins, which can be exchanged for Bitcoins by writing on http://Devtome.com