What to do, What to do

[suukool]

Okay, so I'm seventeen and have been watching bitcoin since it was about 60$, I'm convinced as of now that this is the currency of the future,
In the long term the prices are always going to go up, pretty soon I will be eighteen and be able to take my savings and buy a miner, possibly with a loan.
The difficulty for bitcoin mining has risen so much It's not really profitable anymore is it? To someone like me? Let's say I have 500$ to invest in a miner, what should I get? Should I just build a PC and upgrade my GPU to something really nice?

If I want a sound return on my money then should I mine altcoins? I mean when bitcoin booms you know the altcoins go with it.
So should I invest in a scrypt style miner? I hear protoshares are a HUGE interest right now because of how new they are and how close they are to bitcoin.

What should I do?

[vpasic]

Without $5000-$10000 to invest in moner it's not worth even trying.
Buy bitcoin with that money and play with arbitrage. With a little of luck you can make some more and buy your self a nice peace of gear.

[Voodah]

Do not use your money for mining. It's not profitable atm.

Just straight up buy BTC.

Don't trade. Don't do anything.

Keep acumulating and only when you feel you have a decent amount and have done enough research, separate a 10-20% chunk to use for high risk speculation: alts, mining, trading, etc.

[joshv06]

I've been watching Bitcoin since it was $3 lol.

[suukool]

Do not use your money for mining. It's not profitable atm.

Just straight up buy BTC.

Don't trade. Don't do anything.

Keep acumulating and only when you feel you have a decent amount and have done enough research, separate a 10-20% chunk to use for high risk speculation: alts, mining, trading, etc.

Even if I focused on the new coins?

[vm1990]

ever since bitcoin and sha256 (bitcoin based coins) went ASIC all the GPUs moved to Scrypt coins (litecoin and such)
and there was a massive boom wich basicly locked out any new members from making a profit
2 coins id be interested in at the moment are
primecoin and protoshares
both are CPU only protoshares is harder to mine but worth about 20x the primecoin
but id recommend against investing in any gear unless you can get it really cheap 

[crocko]

Buy coins, trade coins.
The BTC price  will raise again.

[Noruka]

Okay, so I'm seventeen and have been watching bitcoin since it was about 60$, I'm convinced as of now that this is the currency of the future,
In the long term the prices are always going to go up, pretty soon I will be eighteen and be able to take my savings and buy a miner, possibly with a loan.
The difficulty for bitcoin mining has risen so much It's not really profitable anymore is it? To someone like me? Let's say I have 500$ to invest in a miner, what should I get? Should I just build a PC and upgrade my GPU to something really nice?

If I want a sound return on my money then should I mine altcoins? I mean when bitcoin booms you know the altcoins go with it.
So should I invest in a scrypt style miner? I hear protoshares are a HUGE interest right now because of how new they are and how close they are to bitcoin.

What should I do?

litecoin mining. 1600 for a 3x R9 290 machine that can net you about 930 a month at 30 USD price tag. Add in the resale ability of the parts and you have a great entry mining point that will ROI in about 2 months.

trade up to BTC at the higher level of the BTC/LTC ratio (.038 - .04) and you are set