Is it too late to get in the game?

[5atthebeach]

I'm just learning about your world in the last few days. I stumbles across it while my son was looking at used gaming PC's and we came across one that was built for btc mining. So we researched what it is...

Geez I wish I had bought 100 jalapeños last year.

My son and I are considering getting in as a father son project.

My choices seem like:
1. Buy a PRE-order 60 single and wait...losing the best capture opportunity in the next couple months but spending only a few thou. I'm worried that by the time I get it, I'll get frustrated with the payback.

2. Buying In-hand 60 for 10k...but worried that I'll NEVER recover the 10k. Seems like a ridiculous gamble.

3. Buying a severely over-priced jalapeño in hand and call it cheap entertainment even if it never pays for itself.

4. Wait for a jalapeño from BFL and call it really cheap entertainment but mine almost nothing.

5. Invest in btc and let someone else mine, but that defeats the father son time thing.

Save my money, and buy some puzzles...lol, j/k really think this could be fun for us, cuz he's a gamer, and really into computers, and I love gambling, risk taking and investing.

Plz give me some basic advice...is it too late???

[superresistant]

Build a GPU miner for altcoins with legos or fun stuff like that.
Trade the altcoins for bitcoins.

[miffman]

getting to break even with mining is very difficult unless you get the miner for free 

but yeah. Mine because it's fun and exciting and you keep the network secure, don't try to get rich from it. just my 2 satoshis

[Garr255]

Well, one choice is to buy used Jalapenos and recieve them in a few days as opposed to ~1 year.

Full disclosure: I am selling one here

Additionally, you could invest in mining companies that already have hardware, so there's no setup hassle or worrying about maintaining the hardware yourself

[Akka]

Well, IMO the times where you can make some serious profit with mining at home are over. It is becoming a serious business. But thats only normal. Every marked becomes more competitive as it grows and that the Small Private Businesses die out is also normal when a marked grows.

Don't expect to make some serious money mining. But if you want to get in as a father son project where you can spend time with you son and build something together have fun and maybe puts out a little bit of money, I would say buy some usb miners.

You can setup a miner like this one:



At first, get it working some how.

Next project could be to get a dedicated Raspberry Pi running for it, so you don't need you PC running.

At next build a nice housing.

Improve cooling to make it more silent.

Always something to work on and have fun together and maybe even a little bit of profit.

[tharude]

I'm just learning about your world in the last few days. I stumbles across it while my son was looking at used gaming PC's and we came across one that was built for btc mining. So we researched what it is...

Geez I wish I had bought 100 jalapeños last year.

My son and I are considering getting in as a father son project.

My choices seem like:
1. Buy a PRE-order 60 single and wait...losing the best capture opportunity in the next couple months but spending only a few thou. I'm worried that by the time I get it, I'll get frustrated with the payback.

2. Buying In-hand 60 for 10k...but worried that I'll NEVER recover the 10k. Seems like a ridiculous gamble.

3. Buying a severely over-priced jalapeño in hand and call it cheap entertainment even if it never pays for itself.

4. Wait for a jalapeño from BFL and call it really cheap entertainment but mine almost nothing.

5. Invest in btc and let someone else mine, but that defeats the father son time thing.

Save my money, and buy some puzzles...lol, j/k really think this could be fun for us, cuz he's a gamer, and really into computers, and I love gambling, risk taking and investing.

Plz give me some basic advice...is it too late???

It is not too late yet, but if you are looking for fast profit, you've missed the train. Diverse your investment to minimize your potential loses if you have any. Invest 33% by buying BTC directly, 33% in ASIC miner (or other) stocks and 33% in ASIC's. Behave, think and act as investor on a high risk market. Consider that 1 BTC can reach value of 1 or more mils per unit after 5-10 years (after it is being widely adopted) Take a look at KnC Miner https://www.kncminer.com/ as they have better pricing for $/GH/s ratio and better chances to deliver in promised window than BFL. Also, the other way is to invest in GPU miners and mine some alts as LTC then trade them on some exchange for BTC or fiat.

[5atthebeach]

Well, IMO the times where you can make some serious profit with mining at home are over. It is becoming a serious business. But thats only normal. Every marked becomes more competitive as it grows and that the Small Private Businesses die out is also normal when a marked grows.

Don't expect to make some serious money mining. But if you want to get in as a father son project where you can spend time with you son and build something together have fun and maybe puts out a little bit of money, I would say buy some usb miners.

You can setup a miner like this one:

https://i.imgur.com/BJCe9a0.jpg

At first, get it working some how.

Next project could be to get a dedicated Raspberry Pi running for it, so you don't need you PC running.

At next build a nice housing.

Improve cooling to make it more silent.

Always something to work on and have fun together and maybe even a little bit of profit.

What would you pay for a jalapeño PRE-order?
This farm you have a pic of looks expensive, real-estate consuming, and less profitable?!?

[Akka]

What would you pay for a jalapeño PRE-order?
This farm you have a pic of looks expensive, real-estate consuming, and less profitable?!?

That are USB miners and not jalapenos.

One USB miner currently costs ~0.8 BTC. Once running they cost next to nothing for electricity. But they are not very providable. Running them is more of a play project than a serious operation.

[JonnySmithers]

How much would you say the usb can mine per month? Can I use it on an average laptop without hurting it? (i have DELL XPS L511Z, Processor @ 2.80GHz)

[MrHempstock]

My daughter and I have had some fun setting up her PC to mine for Slush's pool. 200MH/s isn't too bad for when she's not using it. And we cranked up the manual fan speed control to keep the temps down.
I just purchased 2 ASIC USB sticks and we will set them up on another PC, since I think we will want BFGminer for them. instead of GUIminer, which is running on her PC.

My 2 cents on your subject? The thing about ROI is by nature it's locked with the info or speculations made at the time of it's calculation. I personally hazard a guess that BTC will continue to rise and  fall, with high volatility, while all the while consistently gaining value in the long term. I also think since media coverage and more widespread acceptance seem to be what increases BTC value, the more time progresses and each of these criteria come to pass more frequently, the faster the value will rise.
So I will continue to acquire BTC in fun ways with my family (mining is funner than outright purchasing with USD for us) but based more on the fact that I believe in the success and future continuation of BTC.

Any decent ROI calc today is out the window when the value of BTC changes sufficiently. But SO much effort goes into them every day lol!

To sum it up - mining equipment will probably not net you a ROI, if calculated at this time. Unless you bought your jalepenos at MSRP and already had them in hand ;}

[Birdy]

What would you pay for a jalapeño PRE-order?
This farm you have a pic of looks expensive, real-estate consuming, and less profitable?!?

That are USB miners and not jalapenos.

One USB miner currently costs ~0.8 BTC. Once running they cost next to nothing for electricity. But they are not very providable. Running them is more of a play project than a serious operation.

I think they would be the best approach though as you are doing it for the fun.
BFL did leave a lot of customers disappointed: long waiting times and defect products.

If you want to take a risk for profit, just buy Bitcoins and hold them until they are worth enough (or crash and burn to zero ^^)

[Tolek]

I suggest you buy them used; a lot cheaper and faster shipping.

[GregoryNeal]

I just got in the game as well. Working on a site/service I will launch soon.

Nver to late I guess.

[5atthebeach]

Well, IMO the times where you can make some serious profit with mining at home are over. It is becoming a serious business. But thats only normal. Every marked becomes more competitive as it grows and that the Small Private Businesses die out is also normal when a marked grows.

Don't expect to make some serious money mining. But if you want to get in as a father son project where you can spend time with you son and build something together have fun and maybe puts out a little bit of money, I would say buy some usb miners.

You can setup a miner like this one:

https://i.imgur.com/BJCe9a0.jpg

At first, get it working some how.

Next project could be to get a dedicated Raspberry Pi running for it, so you don't need you PC running.

At next build a nice housing.

Improve cooling to make it more silent.

Always something to work on and have fun together and maybe even a little bit of profit.

What would you pay for a jalapeño PRE-order?
This farm you have a pic of looks expensive, real-estate consuming, and less profitable?!?

GPU miners and last as LTC...could you or someone plz elaborate as to what these are...and how to mine? Sorry, this noob isn't familiar.

[fildza]

Well, IMO the times where you can make some serious profit with mining at home are over. It is becoming a serious business. But thats only normal. Every marked becomes more competitive as it grows and that the Small Private Businesses die out is also normal when a marked grows.

Don't expect to make some serious money mining. But if you want to get in as a father son project where you can spend time with you son and build something together have fun and maybe puts out a little bit of money, I would say buy some usb miners.

You can setup a miner like this one:



At first, get it working some how.

Next project could be to get a dedicated Raspberry Pi running for it, so you don't need you PC running.

At next build a nice housing.

Improve cooling to make it more silent.

Always something to work on and have fun together and maybe even a little bit of profit.

Wow, really invest into it

[gdpone]

All I know is im kicking myself in the butt today after even having heard of BTC back in like '11 and I didnt jump on it then.  Dismissed it as a fools errand.  But now im getting into it too with those USB miners.  With all the math ive done, it pretty much comes down to the fact they wont net you a lot, if anything.  You would have to buy them cheaper than they are selling on ebay right now, run them off a Pi, and not count the extra costs of USB hubs + the Pi in order to see a profit.

However as a learning experience or whatever you want to call it, they are pretty cool.

[bolasoda]

I would do as some other people have suggested and mine alts. Then convert that into BTC and there you go. If done correctly, it could net profit and it would require time.

[Flying Hellfish]

GPU miners and last as LTC...could you or someone plz elaborate as to what these are...and how to mine? Sorry, this noob isn't familiar.

GPU miner is typically a build yourself rig Using AMD graphics cards (GPU's) as the source of computing power for mining.  Buy the components (mobo, HD, CPU, Ram, graphics cards, PSU, OS etc) mash them all together in a milk crate or open air custom frame/case download a miner program set up a pool account and start mining.  Unfortunately it really isn't economically sound right now to purchase and set up GPU rigs for BTC.  What a lot of people are doing is shifting their GPU rigs or building new ones to mine alt coins (which are usually similar to BTC in that they are digital currencies but also differ in some ways).  Litecoin (LTC) is the second largest coin and the largest alt coin currently (at least according to market cap).

LTC uses a different algorithm than BTC and at present time no known FPGA or ASIC miners exist for LTC (although there are reports FPGA's are being designed for LTC).

I built a GPU rig a few months ago and have been happily mining away LTC.  I have traded some of the mined LTC for BTC through an exchange and have kept some LTC as a bit of a bullish bet on the coin itself!

I wish my son was old enough to have helped me build my rig it would have been great father son time!  The bonus for your son is if you spend a few extra bucks on some of the components, having a PC with a few GPU's would make a pretty sick gaming rig!  You guys can game, learn/teach him how to build a computer from just the components, mine a digital currency and convert to BTC learning some trading practices along the way.  You won't make millions but the rig should pay for itself eventually!

[5atthebeach]

GPU miners and last as LTC...could you or someone plz elaborate as to what these are...and how to mine? Sorry, this noob isn't familiar.

GPU miner is typically a build yourself rig Using AMD graphics cards (GPU's) as the source of computing power for mining.  Buy the components (mobo, HD, CPU, Ram, graphics cards, PSU, OS etc) mash them all together in a milk crate or open air custom frame/case download a miner program set up a pool account and start mining.  Unfortunately it really isn't economically sound right now to purchase and set up GPU rigs for BTC.  What a lot of people are doing is shifting their GPU rigs or building new ones to mine alt coins (which are usually similar to BTC in that they are digital currencies but also differ in some ways).  Litecoin (LTC) is the second largest coin and the largest alt coin currently (at least according to market cap).

LTC uses a different algorithm than BTC and at present time no known FPGA or ASIC miners exist for LTC (although there are reports FPGA's are being designed for LTC).

I built a GPU rig a few months ago and have been happily mining away LTC.  I have traded some of the mined LTC for BTC through an exchange and have kept some LTC as a bit of a bullish bet on the coin itself!

I wish my son was old enough to have helped me build my rig it would have been great father son time!  The bonus for your son is if you spend a few extra bucks on some of the components, having a PC with a few GPU's would make a pretty sick gaming rig!  You guys can game, learn/teach him how to build a computer from just the components, mine a digital currency and convert to BTC learning some trading practices along the way.  You won't make millions but the rig should pay for itself eventually!

My son is looking for a computer right now for gaming...maybe we should consider this when buying a computer...what should I look for in a PC other than what he will be already looking for in a gaming PC?

[davepsilon]

I would be very pessimistic about the future value you can extract from any mining rig, even an ASIC one - you can't just linearly extrapolate.

Given that you want a father-son project I recommend building a computer with a GPU that can be used for gaming and mining with it when it is not gaming.  It won't make you rich, in fact it could end up costing you after power, but unlike an asic miner it has alternative utility.  Join a mining pool and you will start collecting a small pile of btc.