Have you held in your hands some actual euros and dollars as a result of mining?

[CNMOH]

Yes, about $70 (although in my own currency)

Never made an investment, using hardware I already had. I've gambled away about $45 worth of BTC, sadly But I currently have about $18 worth, but I'm probably not going to sell right now. Hoping the price will go up.

[dreamer2008]

Thank you for the replies! Its great to hear that you can earn money like this.

Now its time for me to see if its not too late to mine, because it seems that is the case.

[mizike29]

Its not to late to mine, just depends on your profit margin which varies by user.  I have two 6990s, minus cost of electricity plus difficulty to mine, still equals profit per month.  It is easier now to just buy and sell bitcoins but again at what profit margin.  If the coins stay around 20 bux a coin, and you are mining each coin for 7 bux, then your profit is going to be much better then trying to buy at 15 and sell at 18 or something.

Yes I have bought, sold, mined coins, sold them on ebay, craigslist or forums and sold or accepted payment through paypal  or dwolla for cash in my bank.

[nakowa]

I am prepared to invest my time and plenty of money in buying a mining PC, and maybe buy some coins, but I want to make sure that there is a chance I might get the money back from my investment, and the best way to make sure is to ask if you personally held some dollars or euros in your hand after changing some BTC's obtained from mining.

I already asked a similar question in the newbie zone, and I got a yes answer, but I am still not totally convinced. I want to be sure that some people won something before placing my orders.

In fact, it's quite easy to sell BTC mined by yourself, since most who believe in Bitcoin think buying is better choice than mining.

You're about to invest your money ('real' currency), then you'd better think for a while about risks you'll take.

I'm currently running dozens of rigs (equipped with HD 6990) which were assembled last month, and I think my advices are useful to you:

1. Do not buy cheap hardwares to save money. If your hardware get damaged, what's you lose will not only be the price of your damaged hardware, but also that of opportunity (your mining rig is broken, so you have no BTC income before you repair your rig(s)...)
2. Do not calculate your possible 'profit' by peak performance of rig's GPU. A discount of 10% is almost certain.
3. Do not forget to think about accelerating difficulty. Your rigs might well mine only 0.5 BTC next month while they can mine 1 BTC right now.
4. Do not undermine the difficulty and troublesome of fulfilling the need of electricity ... 10 Rigs perhaps need a power of 12,000w!
5. Do not use Windows as mining platform. Windows is vulnerable and unstable.
6. Do not forecast BTC exchange rate too optimistically, remember, pessimism sometimes protects you.
7. Do not expect mining pools are stable, they are in fact unstable; so do not naively assume they are stable and do not calculate your future profit based on false fact.
8. Do not assume your wallets are safe... Once you have more than 10 BTC, you'll face entire different situation than you only have 0.01 BTC in your wallet.
9. Do not forget you're merely a human being, you need rest, sleep, you cannot be alert all the time, you'll make mistaks... which might well have a huge impact on your future income...
10. Do not sell BTC too soon or too late. This last advice is ambiguous but useful, since the decision depends on your faith on Bitcoin system.

Good luck.

You can contact me on gtalk: nakowa@21bitcoin.com

Nakowa [1CaqVVrkoPetMVQJivBs14JKqdX8w2rBHG

Thank you very much for the good advice.

And please excuse my stubbornness, but I have to ask, since this is the point of my thread. Have you held in your hand, or have in your bank account, dollars, euros, or whatever your original currency, earned from this massive mining? All I ask is a simple yes or no.

YES.

[nakowa]

nakowa, HD 6990 is not the best card for mining
too expensive.  a cheaper 5xxx series will get you more Mhash for your $ AND use less power and run cooler
so you seem far from an 'expert' to me with your naive advice to buy expensive gear.

I know 59xx is much more cost-effective, sadly, I didn't manage to buy more of it.

[compro01]

$140 CAD in my bank account from the sale of 5BTC when the price was up.

plus another ~38 sitting around waiting for either price to go up or i find something compelling to purchase with them.

[aeroSpike]

I built a rig with a 5870 and a 5850 6 weeks ago, cost me 850€ (including RAID 1 HD config and good quality power supply and motherboard). I have sold BTC for 650€ up to now which is in my bank account. Expect to have my investment back in about 2 weeks (regarding the current price and difficulty).
I am actually also working on the same rig, so it has been a good investment.

[scooter]

I think the best way to do this is to think of it like a hobby.

Bitcoin is a really interesting concept and it needs support from people like you.
You might make some money in the process, you might not.

If you see this as purely an investment. Well, there is a good chance you will be disappointed.

[error]

Thank you for the replies! Its great to hear that you can earn money like this.

Now its time for me to see if its not too late to mine, because it seems that is the case.

Yes, you can make money like this. However, right now you will make very little, or maybe even lose money, if you start mining today.

[dreamer2008]

Thank you again! Very helpful.

I decided that I would buy a good video card that I might use for gaming also, in case mining will prove not be so profitable in the future. I found a good promotion on a 6950 with a reduced price and a free game, Shogun 2 Total War, so I will most certainly buy it. And since most of the time I study on my laptop I can leave my PC to mine.

[triox]

No offense OP, but I have trouble understanding how are you willing to invest in bitcoin mining apparently without even knowing about online exchanges, dwolla etc.

Reminds me of when my wife tried to explain to her coworkers how we are taking additional income from online poker.
She passionately talked about how it's not really gambling but a game of skill and a duel of minds, where you need to exploit your opponents weaknesses to be rewarded, how we're playing several hours a day and having made so-and-so much money...

And after all that, her coworker said: "yeah, it all sounds neat and all, just too bad you can't take the virtual money that you won from inside the computer and actually buy something with it"...

[dreamer2008]

No offense OP, but I have trouble understanding how are you willing to invest in bitcoin mining apparently without even knowing about online exchanges, dwolla etc.

Reminds me of when my wife tried to explain to her coworkers how we are taking additional income from online poker.
She passionately talked about how it's not really gambling but a game of skill and a duel of minds, where you need to exploit your opponents weaknesses to be rewarded, how we're playing several hours a day and having made so-and-so much money...

And after all that, her coworker said: "yeah, it all sounds neat and all, just too bad you can't take the virtual money that you won from inside the computer and actually buy something with it"...

The point of my thread was to find out if there is truly a possibility to earn something, and this way decide if I should invest more time and money in Bitcoins. And I found out and I am grateful to all who answered.

What you mention are details that I must cover once I actually have some bitcoins and want to sell them, or when I will buy bitcoins, and this way I will find out for myself how everything related to bitcoins works. But I am new, all these details with the exchange were mysterious and caused a certain uncertainty for me, and I felt the need to make sure that its real and you can actually win, not from sites that say that you can anonymously, but from actual people that do actual trade with BTC. That's why I thought this was the best place to ask, and I was right.

This is a very new idea, and sounds amazing, but its also quite hard to believe that it really works. Therefore, like I said, I felt the need to make sure.

[mizike29]

The only way you will know for sure it to make a bitcoin, or buy a bitcoin, use MTGOX or TRADEHILL and Sell a bought or mined bitcoin and get the cash in your paypal or bank account, then you have your proof.  Right now is the time to BUY NOT MINE if you want to get into bitcoins because of low price on them, vs the difficulty of mining them even with a 6990, its better to buy some bitcoins for sale later or trade for goods and services later.