Does mining require a professional

[BitcoinAddicts]

I am thinking of buying an ASIC and start mining BTC. I just have 1 question to miners. Is it difficult to mine? I mean should I be a PC professional or have a computer science background to mine? Few people told me that I shouldn't mine because it is not something easy, and if i don't know what I'm doing, it might cause me trouble in terms of ROI.

I work at a bank from 8 to 6 everyday, so I won't have time to sit on the PC, but in order to make money, I should keep my PC running at least 20 hours a day. Is mining just plugging the hardware and letting the PC run alone to mine BTC?

I appreciate your help with this matter.

Thank you

It comes with instruction but, it won't be super easy even with instruction but as long as you are not like my father that asking me how to install skype. You should be fine....

Depends what u use, CPU or GPU.

IF CPU then there is no problem. With GPU there is problem to find stable clocks, but when u find it you have no trouble anymore

Shouldn't be hard to find stable clock right? Just keep trying different clock speed until you get the best one...

[hamiltino]

Buy bitcoins, mine litecoins.

[chaosknight]

Buy bitcoins, mine litecoins.

Why? I think its better to just buy both...

[Undefeatable]

It really depends on what you are buying, USB erupter should be really easy and things like GPU you need some skills...

[Authentic]

The short answer is: mining is easy, achieving a nice ROI with mining... isn't.

[rampalija]

proffesional or not, you will learn over time

[Corenin]

The short answer is: mining is easy, achieving a nice ROI with mining... isn't.

Yes, agree. break-even is now the hardest thing to do....

[Thenen]

I am thinking of buying an ASIC and start mining BTC. I just have 1 question to miners. Is it difficult to mine? I mean should I be a PC professional or have a computer science background to mine? Few people told me that I shouldn't mine because it is not something easy, and if i don't know what I'm doing, it might cause me trouble in terms of ROI.

I work at a bank from 8 to 6 everyday, so I won't have time to sit on the PC, but in order to make money, I should keep my PC running at least 20 hours a day. Is mining just plugging the hardware and letting the PC run alone to mine BTC?

I appreciate your help with this matter.

Thank you

Depends on which ASIC you are buying, most ASIC comes with instruction so it should be easy. What you should be worrying the most is making profit from it....

[dree12]

If you used something outdated like bitcoinx.com/profit, then stop, goto a place like mining.thegenesisblock.com and see where you stand for at least the next 90 days.  ignore anything beyond that as there is no way to have the system double upon double upon double every month like their calculator is expecting. 

This has been said every month for over the past year. Difficulty will surprise you.

[chaosknight]

keep in mind...everyone in here has a common interest to deter you away from mining.  You are literally taking away from the pie by entering into the bitcoin game.  This is the way it works with all hardware and cryptocurrency mining.  As far as time to get it up and running, these guys are right.  Its an upfront investment of maybe 5 hours tops if you are using an asic (a little longer if you were stupid and went the gpu route (gpu requires you to test settings and find an ideal middleground setting that won't crash the pc) not stupid totally if you decided to mine alt-coins, but absolutely dumb if you thought you would buy gpus to mine for btc)

I think we've all found out the hard way here, that by attacking the same pie....no matter how much money you throw onto an asic - you're likely to lose btc if you plan to only mine btc with it.  I spent an hour getting my knc miner configured and only because I did a lot of checking here and there I could have just simply entered in my pool credentials (join a pool like btcguild or eligus)  and it began hashing away.  Make sure you have a wallet on your phone or on a secure pc and point your account on the pool to the wallet. 

If you used something outdated like bitcoinx.com/profit, then stop, goto a place like mining.thegenesisblock.com and see where you stand for at least the next 90 days.  ignore anything beyond that as there is no way to have the system double upon double upon double every month like their calculator is expecting. 

The difficulty never stop until all BTC is mined....

[BitcoinAddicts]

keep in mind...everyone in here has a common interest to deter you away from mining.  You are literally taking away from the pie by entering into the bitcoin game.  This is the way it works with all hardware and cryptocurrency mining.  As far as time to get it up and running, these guys are right.  Its an upfront investment of maybe 5 hours tops if you are using an asic (a little longer if you were stupid and went the gpu route (gpu requires you to test settings and find an ideal middleground setting that won't crash the pc) not stupid totally if you decided to mine alt-coins, but absolutely dumb if you thought you would buy gpus to mine for btc)

I think we've all found out the hard way here, that by attacking the same pie....no matter how much money you throw onto an asic - you're likely to lose btc if you plan to only mine btc with it.  I spent an hour getting my knc miner configured and only because I did a lot of checking here and there I could have just simply entered in my pool credentials (join a pool like btcguild or eligus)  and it began hashing away.  Make sure you have a wallet on your phone or on a secure pc and point your account on the pool to the wallet. 

If you used something outdated like bitcoinx.com/profit, then stop, goto a place like mining.thegenesisblock.com and see where you stand for at least the next 90 days.  ignore anything beyond that as there is no way to have the system double upon double upon double every month like their calculator is expecting. 

Everyone though that it would slow down once it hit 100 million difficulty, but it has been increasing even faster until 500million difficulty.. So no

[polarhei]

Yes.

[metaverse22]

I was also thinking of mining but after serious consideration I think its not very viable way to earn bitcoins. With the hardware cost and the electricity cost its not worthwhile. Unless, you can spend on solar set-up or plug on some free electricity source then it can be viable probably, but recovering startup costs can take years I guess. I think its better to earn bitcoin from service and trading.

[dogjunior]

I say do what your gut tells you to do. I remember months ago people saying that buying asic mining equipment would never ROI. Instead buy BTC. Buying and holding is not as easy as people say it is. You have to have nerves of steel to not sell when BTC prices and dropping. Person on Just-Dice lost 7000 BTC playing a 96% win roll. Investing in mining equipment or BTC both have their challenges.

[NoobCoin007]

As I have said before, I bought my mining equipment when BTC was worth $330. Now my mining equipment will be paid off within a month due to the BTC worth going up. The thing about mining is that nobody knows the outcome of the worth of BTC. Sure the difficulty will go up, but then also the worth could go up, so no matter the difficulty a person could possibly still mine $19 a day even with a higher difficulty, but keep in mind that is only if the price raises with the difficulty. In my case it did. BTC is slowly raising to $1000 so the decision is up to you honestly. If the worth goes down then people will bail on mining causing the difficulty to go down with it. It is entirely up to you.

[rampalija]

setting up GPU max hashrate requires proffesional

[Zelek Uther]

I am thinking of buying an ASIC and start mining BTC. I just have 1 question to miners. Is it difficult to mine? I mean should I be a PC professional or have a computer science background to mine? Few people told me that I shouldn't mine because it is not something easy, and if i don't know what I'm doing, it might cause me trouble in terms of ROI.

I work at a bank from 8 to 6 everyday, so I won't have time to sit on the PC, but in order to make money, I should keep my PC running at least 20 hours a day. Is mining just plugging the hardware and letting the PC run alone to mine BTC?

I appreciate your help with this matter.

Thank you

You don't have to be a professional, but I believe it helps to be an enthusiast.  If you enjoy the challenge of configuring and running a miner and have the aptitude/motivation to learn, then you don't need a lot of up-front knowledge - you can learn as you go. 

Many struggle with breaking even on mining rigs, some manage it, some don't.  I look at it as a fun hobby.  I have enjoyed the journey so far and have learnt a lot.

A great way to get started in mining is to buy a Raspberry Pi, a powered USB 2.0 hub (USB 3.0 is not compatible with the RaspPi), some USB ASICs, and download the free MinePeon software (write it to an SD Card for the RaspPi).  The reason why a Raspberry Pi is so great is it runs on about 2.5 to 3.5 Watts.  Aim to mine 24 hours a day to maximise Bitcoins earned.

If your main goal is to make money through Bitcoin, then it may be easier (and more profitable) to simply buy Bitcoins directly.  However I believe running a small Bitcoin rig is a great way of supporting the Bitcoin network, should pay for its own electricity running cost, and gives one warm fuzzies inside. 

[Zelek Uther]

Mining shouldn't really be done by one person anymore. Looking to big mining companies to do it and you get a little profit
Unless you mine something that isn't BitCoin

I totaly agree with you pawl

Why is that? There is something I don't get in mining BitCoins. Let's say I got the ASIC and I have set everything up and started mining. And let's say with difficulty x I am suppose to make 1 BTC a day. Is there a chance I will be making less than 1? if yes by how much? and what are the chances of getting less than 1?

I know that mining alone is difficult, and mining in pools is better. For me I think of it that way. Plz correct me if i am wrong: Every 10 minutes the system releases currently 25 BTC. If I'm contributing with 1% of the total system hash rate, I will be getting 1% of 25 BTC undependantly on which pool I am mining with, right?
If the answer is no, then each 10 minutes, only 1 pool gets the 25 BTC? (I mean the pool that was able to solve the equation?) or it is divided equally among everyone in the whole system?

Please clarify this for me because it is very confusing, and if it is not certain that I will get BTC when I am contributing this makes it way more difficult to ROI.

Thank you

I disagree that Bitcoin mining should be left to big companies.  There is always a place for individual miners with small rigs.  It is important for the health of Bitcoin to have the hashrate owned by many different people, and also located in many different places - the more decentralised the better. 

With a given hashrate and difficulty the BTC earned every day will vary a bit due to pool luck.  Over time these variations even out, so one should earn pretty close to the theoretical earnings (minus any pool fees).  To see what a given hashrate will earn at the current difficulty, try the MineForeman Bitcoin Mining Calculator.

Only one miner gets the block reward (currently 25 BTC).  If that miner is part of a pool, the reward is shared between all miners on that pool.

All miners are competing with each other to solve a block and get the reward.  If you want 1% of the block reward, you would need 1% of the total world hashrate - which is a lot!  Let's work through your other example of earning 1 BTC per day...

Currently there are 25 BTC generated every 10 minutes
=> 25 * 6 = 150 BTC per hour
=> 150 * 24 = 3600 BTC per day

1 BTC per day is 1 / 3600 = 0.028% of the Bitcoins generated every day
So to earn 1 BTC per day, you need 0.028% of the global hashrate.
At the time of writing the world hashrate is roughly 5 PH/s = 5,000 TH/s.
5,000 * (1 / 3600) = 1.39 TH/s

So you currently need a 1.4 terahash mining rig to earn 1 BTC per day.  This number goes up with every difficulty increase.

[yntro]

Not really. I started mining BitCoins recently I just joined mining pool BitMinter. I had about 170 MHash/s it's wasn't really profitable. I recommend you buying mining device if you seek real profit.