Mining on different platforms?

[Atchoppe]

Hi there,

I was reading a bit about BTC. Obviously I missed the 2008 revolution and never heard about them until 2012. Let's say I don't have too much culture about Chaumian-style currencies. On the other hand, I am slowly understanding that, to get them, one can either buy them from a broker, or generate them using a "mining" process. Many of the posts I read here concentrate on specialized hardware, being it high performance GPUs, specialized FPGAa, but I have read relatively few posts for common, laypeople's hardware, even if I realize the fastest the hardware, the most Bitcoins mined.

Here, I currently have three computers. One MacBook, 2007 era (Core2Duo + nVidia 9400M, shared RAM, running OS X Lion), one MacBook Pro, 2012 era (i7 2.8GHz, dual core version + Intel 3000 GPU, OS X Snow Leopard), one LG R510, 2009 era (Core2Duo + Intel integrated GPU, Ubuntu 12.04). The MacBook Pro is used as a daily driver and I move it often, and I understand mining, much like SETI I had a few years ago when I had a working desktop machine, needs to run 24/7 to be efficient. So that leaves me with potentially 2 machines. One of them is holding my videosurveillance tasks and Bitcoin wallet (currently empty), the other is used for various tasks, among them trying to get osmocom to work and run Kali when I find something interesting to do with it, or generally use some Linux-only tool that requires a hardware computer for proper function (I do have many more virtual machines on my daily driver MBP). None of these have powerful GPUs, and I dislike my machines making noise, especially at night.

Even if I haven't looked much to find Bitcoins-accepting merchants, it is better to plan ahead to get a few. Much like in the physical world, it is always more risky to mine by oneself than to split the load with other people, and conversely, the return is lower but more constant with team mining, and would be even higher with dedicated hardware. Of course, I am not ready to make a $3k investment for specialized hardware, especially not knowing the typical return.

So, some newbie question here:

• Would the mining process be compatible with the heavy one that is videosurveillance so as to leave priority to video recording and remote safeguarding?
• How many BTC a week, on average, could I expect from these machines? And by joining a team?
• Does it load the CPU 100% during mining? This is especially important on laptops, since it means quite a lot of noise. I can't put my machines very far from bed anyway.
• Can a mining client be loaded on a shared hosting? And a virtual dedicated server? If so, what the expected efficiency would be? I was thinking OVH since they are the biggest hosting company, but the recent reports about widescale spying on French datacenters makes me worried
• Mining from a datacenter, doesn't it defeat the anonymity since they know your name, place and financial coordinates?
• What are the main mining teams?
• How much does it cost to take part in one? Hard money or BTC?
• How easy is it to "download" coins mined during the day back to another computer, the one running the wallet?

Depending on the answer, aside from the BTC client, I am not too sure where to start but believe that mining would be the right start.

[Isokivi]

I'll keep it short and sweet: You'd burn more in electricity than the mined bitcoins would be worth and unless you are paying for the electricity bill then you would be stealing in my opinnion.

[c789]

Would the mining process be compatible with the heavy one that is videosurveillance so as to leave priority to video recording and remote safeguarding? It depends on what is doing the mining, what the intensity of the mining is, etc. If your laptop is used with a powered USB hub and Erupters, then the load on your laptop will be very small. I've done this with cgminer and it hardly nudged the system resources. Same situation with BFL or Avalon ASICs on a laptop.

How many BTC a week, on average, could I expect from these machines? And by joining a team? http://tpbitcalc.appspot.com/  In almost any case, you'll need to join a pool since the difficulty is climbing exponentially, and that means the chances of you finding a block on your own are decreasing exponentially

Does it load the CPU 100% during mining? This is especially important on laptops, since it means quite a lot of noise. I can't put my machines very far from bed anyway.Laptops were not made to handle the load and heat from mining, so this really shouldn't be done. But like above, if you're using Erupters on a hub on a laptop, that's fine since the Erupters are doing the work (most people point a fan at the Erupters since they will get very hot without one)

Can a mining client be loaded on a shared hosting? And a virtual dedicated server? If so, what the expected efficiency would be? I was thinking OVH since they are the biggest hosting company, but the recent reports about widescale spying on French datacenters makes me worriedYou could, but your host will probably fine you with extra fees. Mining is very intensive. And yes, BTC have been stolen this way. If you must host a wallet online, set it up to send BTC to your home wallet after it gets to a certain amount

Mining from a datacenter, doesn't it defeat the anonymity since they know your name, place and financial coordinates? I don't have enough knowledge to answer this, but I would think that if they know who you are, then you're traceable to some extent. Plus, BTC is not anonymous. It's pseudo-anonymous.

What are the main mining teams?http://blockchain.info/pools   https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools

How much does it cost to take part in one? Hard money or BTC? They deduct a percentage of the BTC you earn (usually between 1% and 5%)

How easy is it to "download" coins mined during the day back to another computer, the one running the wallet? Easy. Just go to your pool site and "request funds" or setup an automatic payout once a certain amount has been mined.

[Atchoppe]

Well, thanks for that more detailed answer than the first one. I could almost interpret contempt in the former.

For a layperson, Erupters are just a specialized, USB-powered tools holding the processing power for mining, that a computer can periodically poll to bring back new BTC? Are there more specialized, low-costs hardware devices doing the same job? Is a fan strictly necessary, or can these devices get hot without failing? Efficiency of miners is measured in Million Hashes / second? If so, currently how many billions hashes can reward the miner with one BTC? Do these miners need to stay connected at all times to the computer, or can they be polled through wifi or Bluetooth? Reason is at 2.5W, these will surely take a toll on USB hub's power.

The reason for wanting to use software miners is of course, zero bucks entry fee. Going with specialized hardware from the start is a good way for people who have a good chunk of disposable income, since the Avalon will set you back $1300. Erupters are less expensive but most references I could find on eBay are blocked here for some reason. I am trying to figure out the ROI time here, and reading this post seems to point it is nowadays impossible to start low-cost. Isn't it?

I understand laptops are not made to be loaded that much, but if I remember from SETI, the user had the option to cap CPU%. Is such an option present in software miners? (I was going to write "minters", and apparently this would have been correct as well). In theory, such an option being set would allow for shared hosting mining without the extra fees.

Here, I am separating the wallet (locally stored) from the mining, hum, "gear", hosted elsewhere. If my comprehension is correct, then periodic polling of the remote gear will probably not leave a significant amount of BTC to be stolen should an attack occur.

[DeathAndTaxes]

The first response was more accurate the second one didn't look at the lack of hashing power of your gear and left you with false hope.

CPU mining is dead.  It will take you about $20,000 in electricity and probably a couple decades to mine 1 BTC on a laptop.  There is absolutely no reason to do this unless you like wasting lots of money on electricity and possibly destroying your laptops.

You don't need to poll anything to "bring back" BTC.  In pool mining you give the pool an address and they pay your share of the rewards there.  It can be a wallet anywhere in the world.  There is no need for it to be on the same computer that is doing the mining.  You deliver hashing power to the pool, the pool gives you your fair share of any block rewards found.

Yes miners run all the time.  If you run them half the time they will generate half as much and given the cost of hardware and the fact that they generate less revenue over time that wouldn't make any sense.  All mining hardware is designed for 24/7/365 operation.  You turn it on, and (hopefully) never turn it off until it is obsolete.  To solve a block requires on average (difficulty)*(2^32) hashes. So 65 million * 2^32 = 279,172,874,240,000 hashes per block (that is 25 BTC).

Simple version

You'd burn more in electricity than the mined bitcoins would be worth and unless you are paying for the electricity bill then you would be stealing in my opinnion.

[c789]

For a layperson, Erupters are just a specialized, USB-powered tools holding the processing power for mining, that a computer can periodically poll to bring back new BTC? Yes, more or less.Are there more specialized, low-costs hardware devices doing the same job? Look into ASIC hardware, like Butterfly Labs, Avalon, and others. Just be aware that there is a loonnng wait time for these and the ship date is uncertain (and therefore somewhat risky).Is a fan strictly necessary, or can these devices get hot without failing?I've never been so bold to operate one without a fan, but generally speaking, excess heat will either kill or dramatically shorten the lifespan of the hardware. Without a fan, erupters can get too hot to hold. Efficiency of miners is measured in Million Hashes / second? If so, currently how many billions hashes can reward the miner with one BTC? Do these miners need to stay connected at all times to the computer, or can they be polled through wifi or Bluetooth? Reason is at 2.5W, these will surely take a toll on USB hub's power.Miners must be connected to the computer, but it can be (and usually is) a different computer from where your wallet is. Yes, your USB hub will need to be able to deliver 0.5 Amps per Erupter, so make sure your powered hub is made to be able to do this.

The reason for wanting to use software miners is of course, zero bucks entry fee. Going with specialized hardware from the start is a good way for people who have a good chunk of disposable income, since the Avalon will set you back $1300. Erupters are less expensive but most references I could find on eBay are blocked here for some reason. I am trying to figure out the ROI time here, and reading this post seems to point it is nowadays impossible to start low-cost. Isn't it? More or less. You will need a LOT of GH/s to make it worthwhile (but if the value of BTC skyrockets - and I think it will due to the difficulty levels - then you'll be in a better spot). See the bitcoin calculator link in my last post.

I understand laptops are not made to be loaded that much, but if I remember from SETI, the user had the option to cap CPU%. Is such an option present in software miners? (I was going to write "minters", and apparently this would have been correct as well). In theory, such an option being set would allow for shared hosting mining without the extra fees.You can use cpuminer and set the "threads" setting. For people who are desperate to mine with their laptop CPU, they could set the threads to half of their CPU cores. Even then, this is not advisable, but it can be done. CPU mining is profitable only for some alt-coins (http://www.coinchoose.com/index.php), not Bitcoin. A cpuminer setup with a 4-core processor could be something like:

Code:

./minerd --threads=2 --url=http://yourpool:port/ --userpass=user.worker:password

Here, I am separating the wallet (locally stored) from the mining, hum, "gear", hosted elsewhere. If my comprehension is correct, then periodic polling of the remote gear will probably not leave a significant amount of BTC to be stolen should an attack occur.Sounds good!

[Atchoppe]

Well I may well be a newbie but I don't get satisfied from an answer with no explanation. Now you're telling me that is is impossible to get started, even in a team, with no hardware. The Butterfly Miner 5GH/s, at $274 + S&H is definitely NOT cheap, and I believe the Erupter, at less than $50 and about 300MH/s, is currently good for nothing. Plus, even more so than other computer-related device, there is no single chance to be able to resell it as it becomes obsolete for someone. So one may well spend $2K on a device that will be worth nothing in a very short while. One page on BT's official page stated: "don't invest money in Bitcoin that you can't afford to lose". Well, I definitely can't afford to lose $2k+, and the calculator seems to point that it is currently impossible to start with a low-price machine such as the Erupter, and one must rather go to much more expensive models. And, as you point, many of them are in backorder with an uncertain delivery date.

If it's not too personal to ask, do you guys have another, well-paid job that you do full time, or it BTC your only short tem investment vehicle and you keep on playing while you win?

In a sense it is funny to notice that even high power CPUs are worth nothing when it comes to cryptographic operations.

I figured out the miner to be connected to the wallet in a packet fashion, but I now read each machine has a wallet, and that they can be connected with a "stream". If BTC are streamed back to the remote wallet, risk of theft shouldn't be a major issue, can it? Much like a physical wallet, sometimes you leave it at home, and you know it's safe, even if you don't keep an eye on it.

Are you sure of your calculation? It makes more than 10 000 days to solve a single block using an Erupter!

Given the extreme difficulty in mining I can read here, would it be more profitable, in fact, to mine for lower denomination currencies? Can the miners be configured for other currencies?

[John1357]

CPU mining is dead.
GPU mining is dead.
Mining difficulty rising so extremely fast that todays asic will be dead tomorrow.

[Atchoppe]

That's what I read, actually. Should the poor be reduced to simple, high-ticket purchase of BTC through traders, or just mine for lower denominations?

[vaxes]

Hi all, here is my first post

For me, the current BTC mining situation and future predictions looks more like this:
 
CPU mining is definitely dead,
GPU mining too,
FPGA mining is almost dying with the new difficulty: 65,750,060 !
ASIC is the only mining technology left with some ROI potential, but it is very time sensitive! The sooner the better! Because as soon as more people get their super hashing monsters deliverd, the difficulty will skyrocket!

Next mining technology ??!! Maybe few more efficient ASICs generations that are thinner than 28nm, otherwise, we have to wait for quantum computing!
Anyway, in few years, the difficulty would reach such extreme levels, that makes mining almost impossible for private persons, and the majority of miners will sit in huge mining farms that belong either to a couple of very wealthy individuals, banks, or governments, who knows!

Best bet for small power miners is on LTC, FTC, NMC and other established smaller cryptocurrencies.

I will still keep my order for an ASIC miner though and hope for the best!
 

[Atchoppe]

Another silly question here, how difficult would it be to convert LTC to BTC ? Very few merchants accept BTC already, let alone the smaller currencies.

From what I can read here, some from more experienced people than me, mining is already out of reach of common people, even joining a mining team. And ASIC-based miners can't be bought and delivered in a reasonable timeframe.