Invest or mine?

[BitMofo]

Hi guys,

I'm fairly new to bitcoin but it has massively taken my interest...
I understand that the only plausible way to mine bitcoin now is through joining a pool.
If I wanted to invest in some bitcoin, would I be best off trying to get some through an exchange,
or spending a decent sum of money on a mining PC and joining a pool?
Given the current increasing difficulty levels, how long do you think it will be until it is too hard to mine any more, for the average PC in a pool?
What sort of budget should I set if I am to build a nice PC?

[1715242742]

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[1715242742]

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[1715242742]

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[1715242742]

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[Opsamk]

For short term gain, go into stock mode. If you have faith in the market and for massive longterm gain, mine.

[cyberPT]

i would buy some btcs because mining from start it will be hard to get the money from the equipment back

[Bloodys]

Starting to mine a bit if you already have the hardware and then using the earned BTCs for trading on the market until you get the hang of it is probably the best choice for everyone new to bitcoin, this way you can get the hang of how things work and may be better of than immediately going trading on the exchanges...

[BitMofo]

As I'm planning on building myself a nice new PC anyway, do you reckon a £400-500 budget ($650) would be sufficient for being a decent miner alongside a new PC?

[Opsamk]

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=23890188

This will give you ~800Mhashes/s. If you have enough money to spend on something like this, just remember that what you build is resaleable.

[BitcoinPorn]

I think investing in the market could help the market in the sense that there needs to be a steady flow of all parts, and I see the people throwing money in are only the people who have money in and know the value of the coin in the end.  Risk is higher than if mining, but less time and probably money as the initial investment over proper mining equipment may make investing worth it.

[goodlord666]

next to mining and investing, earning bitcoins will be the next big thing.
Get a JOB!

[apidya]

I'd do both. Mining when you're not playing games or watching a movie and buying low and selling high. You won't get rich quick, that prerogative is only reserved for the extremely lucky. But you won't be left poor either if you're sensible. It's up to you!

Cheers!

[BitMofo]

Cheers for the advice!
I'll get myself a fairly high range PC and just do both =]

[Cory]

Good choice! With the hardware, you're actually getting something in return for your investment. If the value of BTC crashes, you're not bankrupt, unlike with investing in the currency itself.

[compubinks]

I would recommend buying bitcoins at this time. Especially now due to the market being as low as it is.
Currently unless you have a machine with a large amount of processing power (multi CPUs and video cards setup) it would take you months of 24/7 processing before you would even come close to getting one block solved. This is due to the difficulty of bitcoins rising due to these huge miners and mining pools.

Compubinks

[BitMofo]

I would recommend buying bitcoins at this time. Especially now due to the market being as low as it is.
Currently unless you have a machine with a large amount of processing power (multi CPUs and video cards setup) it would take you months of 24/7 processing before you would even come close to getting one block solved. This is due to the difficulty of bitcoins rising due to these huge miners and mining pools.

Compubinks

I am in the process of buying some, but unfortunately it takes 3-5 days for bank to clear the payment into my account! Bitcoins are very hard to purchase at the moment... I can't wait to buy some! Being in the UK my options are pretty limited. If I were to buy from a US exchange I would have to pay $20 in international wire transfer fees alone. It would probably take just as long too. Any recommendations?
As for mining, if I were to join a mining pool, surely I would achieve more than that Compubinks?

[jdebunt]

definitely mining for now, while looking for a cheap way to get some BTC off the exchangers.....waiting for VirWox to reopen Linden Dollars to BTC trading

[Maasu]

I wouldn't invest in hardware to mine now, like most of us, you have missed the boat.

Investing might the way forward though, the coins are quite low at the moment, after a recent hacking scandal, I suspect they'll rise in the near future.

[compubinks]

I would recommend buying bitcoins at this time. Especially now due to the market being as low as it is.
Currently unless you have a machine with a large amount of processing power (multi CPUs and video cards setup) it would take you months of 24/7 processing before you would even come close to getting one block solved. This is due to the difficulty of bitcoins rising due to these huge miners and mining pools.

Compubinks

I am in the process of buying some, but unfortunately it takes 3-5 days for bank to clear the payment into my account! Bitcoins are very hard to purchase at the moment... I can't wait to buy some! Being in the UK my options are pretty limited. If I were to buy from a US exchange I would have to pay $20 in international wire transfer fees alone. It would probably take just as long too. Any recommendations?
As for mining, if I were to join a mining pool, surely I would achieve more than that Compubinks?

I don't have any recommendations for overseas conversion at this time. I am in the US myself. As for the the mining pool, when I was running client on the mining pool a couple of months ago I was only recieving around 0.00234 bitcoins per day. This was on a machine that was an older server with 2GB of Ram and dule Xeon processers running at 3GHz using CPU mining only. If you have the GPUs and the power I think you might be able to get 0.05 bitcoins a day as an estimate. I could be off either way though.

Compubinks

[Grouver (BtcBalance)]

I would recommend buying bitcoins at this time. Especially now due to the market being as low as it is.
Currently unless you have a machine with a large amount of processing power (multi CPUs and video cards setup) it would take you months of 24/7 processing before you would even come close to getting one block solved. This is due to the difficulty of bitcoins rising due to these huge miners and mining pools.

Compubinks

I am in the process of buying some, but unfortunately it takes 3-5 days for bank to clear the payment into my account! Bitcoins are very hard to purchase at the moment... I can't wait to buy some! Being in the UK my options are pretty limited. If I were to buy from a US exchange I would have to pay $20 in international wire transfer fees alone. It would probably take just as long too. Any recommendations?
As for mining, if I were to join a mining pool, surely I would achieve more than that Compubinks?

I don't have any recommendations for overseas conversion at this time. I am in the US myself. As for the the mining pool, when I was running client on the mining pool a couple of months ago I was only recieving around 0.00234 bitcoins per day. This was on a machine that was an older server with 2GB of Ram and dule Xeon processers running at 3GHz using CPU mining only. If you have the GPUs and the power I think you might be able to get 0.05 bitcoins a day as an estimate. I could be off either way though.

Compubinks

Then just don't post.

[compubinks]

I would recommend buying bitcoins at this time. Especially now due to the market being as low as it is.
Currently unless you have a machine with a large amount of processing power (multi CPUs and video cards setup) it would take you months of 24/7 processing before you would even come close to getting one block solved. This is due to the difficulty of bitcoins rising due to these huge miners and mining pools.

Compubinks

I am in the process of buying some, but unfortunately it takes 3-5 days for bank to clear the payment into my account! Bitcoins are very hard to purchase at the moment... I can't wait to buy some! Being in the UK my options are pretty limited. If I were to buy from a US exchange I would have to pay $20 in international wire transfer fees alone. It would probably take just as long too. Any recommendations?
As for mining, if I were to join a mining pool, surely I would achieve more than that Compubinks?

I don't have any recommendations for overseas conversion at this time. I am in the US myself. As for the the mining pool, when I was running client on the mining pool a couple of months ago I was only recieving around 0.00234 bitcoins per day. This was on a machine that was an older server with 2GB of Ram and dule Xeon processers running at 3GHz using CPU mining only. If you have the GPUs and the power I think you might be able to get 0.05 bitcoins a day as an estimate. I could be off either way though.

Compubinks

Then just don't post.

Ok will do, guess I will post elsewhere then.