First time miner with some questions

[mitman]

I'm a first time miner who is thinking about getting started with mining bitcoins. I did research but there is an overwhelming amount of info out there and a lot of it is contradictory. I have never done GPU mining as my computer does not have the proper hardware.

My budget is $500 so building a rig is not really am option and I have been looking into getting an ASIC miner, specifically the eruptor USB at 300 mh/s as it seems to be reliable and they are shipping.

My questions are:

1. Does it make sense to invest in an ASIC miner right now? Will I be able to make up the money in a reasonable amount of time and start turning a profit soon? I am mot looking to make a ton of money from this but more so to learn. However i do not want to lose money in the process. Excluding energy costs as they are free since I am at college.

2. Is the Eruptor USB a good choice for a miner and is it reliable or is there a better option that fits my budget?

3. For ASIC mining, are there any hardware requirements for the host computer, in terms of CPU/GPU or anything else?

Thank you for all your help.

[1714852461]

1714852461

[1714852461]

1714852461

[J35st3r]

Some recent discussion in this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=225821
But in answer to your questions.

1. Probably not, but do your own math on the ROI (see links above)
2. Ditto, unless the price drops.
3. Just a USB port. Pretty much any mainstream computer with an always-on internet connection will be fine. Some (eg Avalon) are completely stand alone, just plugs into your ethernet router / wifi but way out of your budget (and not because of the standalone, that's the cheapest part of the device, it literally uses a $20 router as the host cpu).

[lassdas]

1. Does it make sense to invest in an ASIC miner right now? Will I be able to make up the money in a reasonable amount of time and start turning a profit soon? I am mot looking to make a ton of money from this but more so to learn. However i do not want to lose money in the process. Excluding energy costs as they are free since I am at college.

Yes, it does make sense to invest in an ASIC miner right now,
but it doesn't make sense to invest in a Eruptor USB ASIC miner.
You might be able to make up the investment in some ASIC miners, but not the Eruptor USB, being the most expensive ASIC miner on the market.

2. Is the Eruptor USB a good choice for a miner and is it reliable or is there a better option that fits my budget?

No, it's the badest choice one could make,
it's more or less a guarantee for loss.
You pay (at least) 1.99BTC for the device, but you'll probably never make any more than 1.5BTC from mining with those devices,
ROI? never. Profit? dream of it.

3. For ASIC mining, are there any hardware requirements for the host computer, in terms of CPU/GPU or anything else?

As J35st3r said, usually you just need an USB Port (except for the Eruptor 10GH/s Blades, those use ethernet port), works fine even on a RaspberryPi, or router.

[mitman]

1. Does it make sense to invest in an ASIC miner right now? Will I be able to make up the money in a reasonable amount of time and start turning a profit soon? I am mot looking to make a ton of money from this but more so to learn. However i do not want to lose money in the process. Excluding energy costs as they are free since I am at college.

Yes, it does make sense to invest in an ASIC miner right now,
but it doesn't make sense to invest in a Eruptor USB ASIC miner.
You might be able to make up the investment in some ASIC miners, but not the Eruptor USB, being the most expensive ASIC miner on the market.

2. Is the Eruptor USB a good choice for a miner and is it reliable or is there a better option that fits my budget?

No, it's the badest choice one could make,
it's more or less a guarantee for loss.
You pay (at least) 1.99BTC for the device, but you'll probably never make any more than 1.5BTC from mining with those devices,
ROI? never. Profit? dream of it.

3. For ASIC mining, are there any hardware requirements for the host computer, in terms of CPU/GPU or anything else?

As J35st3r said, usually you just need an USB Port (except for the Eruptor 10GH/s Blades, those use ethernet port), works fine even on a RaspberryPi, or router.

Ok, thanks that helps. I'm reading in a lot of places that the Eruptor USB is not the best option for ROI or a profit. Do you know of another miner (aside from GPU mining) that would fit within my budget and have immediate shipping. I know of the BFL miners and the whole controversy surrounding those so I'm not sure if I'm ready to invest in those but what about the Avalon chips or something else?

[lassdas]

No, I'm sorry,
there currently aren't a lot ASICs one can get, and none that I know of that fit into your budget.

The only other miner with immediate shipping available is the Eruptor Blade, which is also quite expensive, but not as expensive as the USB-one, so there's at least a small chance to get the investment back (but no real chance for big profits).
But even that one doesn't fit your budget, it's 50BTC/device.

Probably your best choice to invest into some group-mining-projects on bitfunder or similar services (I don't use those myself, so I can't really tell anything about that).

[Artofficial]

Can't those same Miners used for another alt coin?
Or create one just for those

Can those Mine say.......ByteCoin?

[J35st3r]

Can't those same Miners used for another alt coin?
Or create one just for those

Can those Mine say.......ByteCoin?

Wow, thank you, I learned something researching this!

Yes they can mine alternate coin, but only if it uses the same SHA256 algorhitm as BTC. So LTC, no, bytecoin yes.

And that is a busy thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=164569.0

But here's what I learned. Any ALT coin using SHA256 is at risk of the 51% attack (or some similar brute force attack) due to the power of the larger  ASIC's over any initial nethash. So do you trust your ALT coin now? I shall read more on this, thanks.

[CKJ411]

At the current price, not at all. Unfortunately the frenzy for the Eruptors has caused their price to be ridiculous. So the return just isn't there. On the other hand, if you can get your hands on one of Avalon's units or a fabled BFL unit the return is there. The Eruptors really only make sense if you are buying in large quantity. If it costs you more than $250 each there's no way you'll ever get the money back unless BTC makes a huge jump in the currency market. They really looked like they were going to become the mining unit of those without the funds for larger rigs, but so far the prices are too high to make it happen.

[J35st3r]

Yes, that's what I've been banging on about ever since I registered (is it only 3 days now?).

Were in a bubble, Profits are there to be made, but not for the sheep (no offence but ...) DO THE MATH

This is a market, in the Well Street sense.

 It's not for the faint hearted.

 Learn to recognise the bubble. When to buy in, when to cash out.

Unfortunately I'm not bright enough to play this gane for a win. But others are, Or maybe its just Lady Luck.

I think its bed time, that polemic is starting to kick in again

[xetsu]

The way  I look at it, GPU mining is borderline dead unless you really know what you are doing and/or have discounted electricity or utilies included in your rent or something similar. Everday more and more ASics are introduced into the network, making GPU's less and less viable as time goes by. Personally I would save up and invest on the best asic miner u can buy if you are serious about mining.

[mitman]

At the current price, not at all. Unfortunately the frenzy for the Eruptors has caused their price to be ridiculous. So the return just isn't there. On the other hand, if you can get your hands on one of Avalon's units or a fabled BFL unit the return is there. The Eruptors really only make sense if you are buying in large quantity. If it costs you more than $250 each there's no way you'll ever get the money back unless BTC makes a huge jump in the currency market. They really looked like they were going to become the mining unit of those without the funds for larger rigs, but so far the prices are too high to make it happen.

So it looks like the Avalon units are around $300 for 4.5 gh/s of hash power. Is this something that you think is feasible in terms of money and hash power?

[J35st3r]

So it looks like the Avalon units are around $300 for 4.5 gh/s of hash power. Is this something that you think is feasible in terms of money and hash power?

Assuming you mean the group buys of Avalon chips, plus board assembly (Klondike et al), yes, possibly. But you're late to the party so will be well down the queue for delivery, which will hit your ROI hard.

I posted this elsewhere, but its relevant here ...

This seems like a useful overview https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=209750.0

And the calculator http://coinish.com/calc will help you do the math. Use expert mode, and your crystal ball to predict the likely difficulty rise, these threads may help https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=81.0

Good Luck. Its all beyond my ken so I'm staying out for now.

[CKJ411]

At the current price, not at all. Unfortunately the frenzy for the Eruptors has caused their price to be ridiculous. So the return just isn't there. On the other hand, if you can get your hands on one of Avalon's units or a fabled BFL unit the return is there. The Eruptors really only make sense if you are buying in large quantity. If it costs you more than $250 each there's no way you'll ever get the money back unless BTC makes a huge jump in the currency market. They really looked like they were going to become the mining unit of those without the funds for larger rigs, but so far the prices are too high to make it happen.

So it looks like the Avalon units are around $300 for 4.5 gh/s of hash power. Is this something that you think is feasible in terms of money and hash power?

Totally feasible, but the problem is availability. At this point, it's very risky to think you can get one on hand fast enough to make the return before difficulty jumps up. Those that bought them when they were running like $1500 are getting massive returns and if you could find one for such a price you would as well. The issue is that currently they are running more like $10k for a preorder and i see them going for $20-30k on eBay. At that price it's pretty risky even if you can get the thing in your hands and operating right now.

The main decider will be if the bottom drops out. If Avalon or by some stroke of the gods BFL actually starts getting their product out the door at a reasonable rate with stock on hand, the return is likely to drop out very quickly. Consider that there are barely any ASICs in play right now and the last difficulty jump was essentially one of the highest ever.

[Eva Braun]

Goodluck with your mining!

[Eva Braun]

If you have any questiosn pm me

[Kaepora]

At the current price, not at all. Unfortunately the frenzy for the Eruptors has caused their price to be ridiculous. So the return just isn't there. On the other hand, if you can get your hands on one of Avalon's units or a fabled BFL unit the return is there. The Eruptors really only make sense if you are buying in large quantity. If it costs you more than $250 each there's no way you'll ever get the money back unless BTC makes a huge jump in the currency market. They really looked like they were going to become the mining unit of those without the funds for larger rigs, but so far the prices are too high to make it happen.

So it looks like the Avalon units are around $300 for 4.5 gh/s of hash power. Is this something that you think is feasible in terms of money and hash power?

ASICS will be giant useless paperweights if Bitcoin ever crashes. I would never wager so much money on something so volatile honestly. I am talking about the more expensive ones though, at $300 its worth a shot at first but eventually even that will not be enough to make much.