Getting concerned

[marks1976]

The more I look through the forums I see people with negative comments and bad wishes.  When I first started looking into this earlier I was so excited about it and seen this as a great thing.  These people have me concerned.  I have seen all kinds of scams and pyramids and the more I read the more I see a resemblance.  Please help me to see the light again.  I have great ideas for this to work.

[myrkul]

Not to fear. Haters gonna hate.
Trolls gonna troll.
And yes, there are some scams. Just be careful, you'll be fine.

[wumpus]

This community can be really harsh, and yes you have to think for yourself here. For some people, that's the first time

[tc2606]

can people do "chargebacks" or anything like that with bitcoins, like in paypal? i was just introduced to bitcoins today, so i'm really new

[myrkul]

That's one of the best - and worst - features of bitcoin. Once it's gone, it's gone.

There are escrow services, though.

[skottiejay]

Yeah, I was really hoping when I first read about "bitcoins" that I would be able to earn something worthwhile but the more and more I'm getting into this, the more I'm realizing how long it's going to take for me to turn any kind of "profit".

Don't get me wrong I'm still going to do it, but the excitement is wearing off and I've only been doing this a day, not to mention my "rig" isn't primed for this kind of thing at all.

Just my 2 bit-cents, I'm not putting a "huge" amount of stock and time into bit mining.

[myrkul]

The time for personal mining is long past. It's now time for services and products, if you want Bitcoins.

[skottiejay]

The time for personal mining is long past. It's now time for services and products, if you want Bitcoins.

So if I have an app, or a good or something someone might want I could trade for bitcoins? This is the wave now? I feel like I hit this in a really bad time, I just learned about bitmining the day before yesterday. The timing feels off now (granted 17 bucks (i think) for 1 bitcoin is pretty sweet) if only i'd started sooner. (And when I had a better rig)

To me it just seems the incentive to do this wore off pretty quick.

[Etlase2]

The more I look through the forums I see people with negative comments and bad wishes.  When I first started looking into this earlier I was so excited about it and seen this as a great thing.  These people have me concerned.  I have seen all kinds of scams and pyramids and the more I read the more I see a resemblance.  Please help me to see the light again.  I have great ideas for this to work.

I did some calculations while the network hash was 10.62Thash/s according to bitcoincharts.com. Please note this is now showing as 11.86 in less than a week.

Assumptions: 200Mh/s for an average GPU; 200W of electricity for an average GPU, 100W for a CPU; $0.15/kWh

55,700 miners based on those numbers.
An average miner makes 8 cents an hour at a $15/1BTC exchange rate.
11.14MW to make 300 BTC (1 hour's worth); $1,670 in electricity, or $5.57 per 1 BTC.
First 1.6 million BTC were mined at a difficulty of 1, which requires about 7Mhash/s. This means there were no more than 5-10 people mining (perhaps less) for the first 32,000 blocks.
These people used CPU mining which uses less electricity.

100W*10 people = 1 kWh to create 300 BTC, or $0.0005 per BTC. Going just by the cost of electricity, the cost to make these 1.6 million BTC is 1/11,140th what it would take today.

Between that original 1.6 million and today’s amount of BitCoins [approx. 6.6 million], it is hard to even guess how much electricity cost was used to make a BitCoin on average. But as the next million and a half BTC and more were still mined relatively easily, please allow me make a gross guestimate of a $2/BTC average electricity cost after the first 1.6 million coins. Using this number, we can get an average value per BTC. ((1.6M*0.0005)+(5M*2))/6.6M = $1.52. Today’s rate of $5.57 minus the average rate of $1.52 equals a $4.05 difference in cost to produce. That means for every BTC mined today, $4.05 or 73% of its electric value is equalized across every coin made before it. But as time passes and if the network grows, BitCoins become more scarce and require more work to mine, so those getting in at $5.57 are still, apparently, getting a deal.

A coin that is mined at a cost of $5.57 can be turned around and sold for $17, a 305% return. An original 1.6 million coin can be sold for a 3,400,000% return. Assuming continued network growth and controlled scarcity (less bitcoins given out to more people as time passes; no large sell-offs), these returns will continue to grow. But assuming there are no large sell offs is a huge assumption since it has already happened with 25k coins, and it caused a 65% drop in the value on mtgox.

[myrkul]

You can still get a trickle by joining a pool, but Yeah, unless you're running some serious hardware, don't expect to be printing up money.

Best way is to treat it like any other money, at this point.

[xurious]

First 1.6 million BTC were mined at a difficulty of 1, which requires about 7Mhash/s.

At first, the code was not nearly as optimized as it is now.

This means there were no more than 5-10 people mining (perhaps less) for the first 32,000 blocks.

I don't have the exact proof, but I highly doubt this.

These people used CPU mining which uses less electricity.

Cpu mining may use less electricity, but it's efficiency is TERRIBLE. As in... My 5870 gets 400mh/s for the (way highside)300 watts it uses. That's 1.33h/w.
My core 2 quad at overclocked to 3.2 must be using something around ~100watts and it gets about 12mh/s. That's 0.12mh/s.

It's not about how much you use, but about the efficiency.

My numbers are somewhat fuzzy, too lazy to look up hard data, but you get my point.

[Etlase2]

First 1.6 million BTC were mined at a difficulty of 1, which requires about 7Mhash/s.

At first, the code was not nearly as optimized as it is now.

I wasn't 100% clear, but I meant it takes about 7Mhash/s to get a block every 10 minutes, which was basically what happened. See the block chain.

I don't have the exact proof, but I highly doubt this.

Highly doubt what? The proof is in the pudding. Processing power has not dramatically changed in the last couple of years. My triple core 3.1GHz hashes about 1.5MH/s and it is almost a year old.

Cpu mining may use less electricity, but it's efficiency is TERRIBLE. As in... My 5870 gets 400mh/s for the (way highside)300 watts it uses. That's 1.33h/w.
My core 2 quad at overclocked to 3.2 must be using something around ~100watts and it gets about 12mh/s. That's 0.12mh/s.

It's not about how much you use, but about the efficiency.

My numbers are somewhat fuzzy, too lazy to look up hard data, but you get my point.

Yeah 12mh/s equaling 0.12mh/s is definitely a bit fuzzy.

[RodeoX]

Conceder that all the problems you listed are true of the cash in your pocket. And consider that BTC was never ment to get someone rich, it's an alternate currency for buying and selling on the Internet. That's all.

[V4Vendettas]

The more I look through the forums I see people with negative comments and bad wishes.  When I first started looking into this earlier I was so excited about it and seen this as a great thing.  These people have me concerned.  I have seen all kinds of scams and pyramids and the more I read the more I see a resemblance.  Please help me to see the light again.  I have great ideas for this to work.

Should go play eve-online as some basic training and as they would say HTFU.

This is meant in a friendly way bud please don’t take it any other way.