New at mining - how to get started

[orcanice]

Hi everyone

i was wondering if its worth to start mining bitcoins.

if it is what kind of hardware should i get and what kind of mining software and pool should i use.
i have free electricity so that wont be a problem.





looking forward to some great replys

Best regards
OrcAniCe

[pacojones]

The barrier to entry for the mining market is significantly higher than it was 6 months ago - assuming your mining bitcoin and not an alt-coin - you need to consider the difficulty changes that are happening right now (which are historic).  If you bought hardware from BFL last year, you still wouldn't have it yet and the difficulty has climbed so fast and so far that most of their hardware is worthless.  KNC is shipping soon, megabigpower has good rig which should be shipping soon, etc.  Everybody is trying so hard to be the first that I think it makes more sense to wait until March to re-evaluate the market.  If you have a bunch of money now and you want to get into bitcoin, buy bitcoin!  Then, in 6 months, the money (let's say $1000) you invested now may be worth $2000 and then you can buy mining hardware. 

The market is changing so incredibly fast that anything you buy today and ships in 3 months will be worth less (not worthless) when you receive it so keep that in mind and do your research!

[orcanice]

Hi pacojones,


Thanks for your answer. i will start by doin some more research and then take a look again in a month or two.



more replys are welcome

[cp1]

If you really want to mine you should just start with one low cost block eruptor, just to see what's up.

[orcanice]

Hi cp1,

thanks for the reply im sitting and looking arround for an usb asic in europe. they are arround 27 EUR, and i dont really know the normal prices so i can compare it.



Best Regards
OrcAniCe

[pontiacg5]

The barrier to entry for the mining market is significantly higher than it was 6 months ago

Please explain. One could get into bitcoin mining by purchasing one block eruptor for less than $20 6 months ago?

Don't pay more than .2btc for a block eruptor. .15 to .13 btc seems the going rate now.

[Denna]

I´m new too but I think Bitcoin mining is a waste of energy start mining Lightcoins or other alt coins unless your energy is free.
Than you can trade them for Bitcoins if you want to.

[orcanice]

Hi pontiacg5 ,

Thanks for the reply so i should buy a bitcoin or 2 and invest it in miners?



Hi Denna,

the reason i ask is because i have free electricity

[pontiacg5]

No sense going through the trouble of buying bitcoins just to spend them, especially when you don't need BTC to buy block eruptors.

I would suggest you do a little more reading on mining and profitability first though. Don't take everything you see here to heart, it is the newbies section after all, and miners (like me!) generally don't want to convince more people to start.

I wouldn't waste a nickel buying LTC mining hardware though, unless you already have some bad-ass AMD graphics cards for unrelated gaming purposes. Most retired BTC miners are probably on LTC, and most want to ditch it for BTC (like Denna.) I don't see the LTC price staying what it is for much longer with a market like that.

[orcanice]

pontiacg5 thanks for the reply

im reading around the forums and the internet for some more information

[Denna]

pontiacg5 is right do some more resache on the net and calculate your invesment vs. your income and don´t forget
the skyrocketing difficulty is lowering your income over time.

I´f got a nice gaming setup and also cheap energy this is the only reason
I´m mining at all, it´s allways up to your circumstances what is profitable for you.

[HyperBeam]

Nope, mining isn't really worth it.

[mogrith]

If you are doing this to make money, don't bother.

If you want to spend less than a new video game to experiment with miners and mining pools, buy one or two USB 333MH/s units and go for it.

I'm having fun with it.

if you don't join a pool the difficulty of finding a block is so high and climbing you may never find one.

Joining a pool will pay you back a little at a time.

Check out http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/a/dc50e18f73

spending ~$24.00 for a erupter and get it running in OCT with no cost electricity etc you should (not will) make back $14 over the next 5 months after that you won't be fast enough to get enough shares to pay anything.