Absolutely new to bitcoins

[Astero]

Hey so i tried reading on posts here but even the newbie threads seem too advanced for me (AKA what kind of coin should i start mining?)

So what i did is start an account on the pool slush

Got guiminer

Set up options: bitcoin directory path is my multibit folder, bitcoin data directory is the same

So i start GUIminer with the ID and pass i got from Slush, it starts mining and i got like 80 shares before i stopped mining.

Thing is, i dont see anything in my multibit wallet

Is there some point i need to wait before stopping mining or else it wont register?

Did i set up everything right?

Just trying to make the basic thing work before i delve any further in

[1715677378]

1715677378

[Jacce]

You have to mine 0.01 BTC to pay out from Slush's pool and send it to your Multibit wallet. This will take ages to reach with a normal computer, because there is new hardware made just to mine and it's much more efficient, called ASIC miners.
However, there are other coins, for example those using the hashing algorithm "scrypt" (Bitcoin uses "sha256"). There are no ASIC miners for scrypt, making it much more profitable to mine with standard gear.
So I suggest you download GUIminer scrypt (Google it, it should be the same website as from where you downloaded normal GUIminer) and instead start mining the cryptocurrency Litecoin (one pool where you can do this that I use is Coinotron). Litecoin is the second largest cryptocurrency and has a lot of support. One LTC is worth about 0.03 BTC currently.

However, I'd suggest you stay away from other coins than BTC and LTC in the beginnining since they are a lot more speculative.

Another way you can do if you still want to receive Bitcoin is to use the mining pool Middlecoin (still with GUIminer Scrypt). It will mine the most profitable scrypt coin and then automatically sell it and pay you in Bitcoins once you get 0.001 BTC.

[Astero]

So what are the 80 shares i got? Do i need to mine for a full cycle for this to be registered? When do i know when that cycles done so i can stop mining? Or does pool remember everything and pays you once you get to 0.01?

Also i got a gaming computer, Nvidia 770 with 4 gigs, 8 gigs ram, 3.4 ghz quad, is that considered a normal computer?

Thx for info

[hyphymikey]

So what are the 80 shares i got? Do i need to mine for a full cycle for this to be registered? When do i know when that cycles done so i can stop mining? Or does pool remember everything and pays you once you get to 0.01?

Also i got a gaming computer, Nvidia 770 with 4 gigs, 8 gigs ram, 3.4 ghz quad, is that considered a normal computer?

Thx for info

You do not have to mine for any set period of time. Most pools payout threshold is .01btc, so after you accumulate .01btc it will pay out to your wallet, whichever one you told slush to pay out to.

How shifts work (cycles)

I'm not sure about slush, but the pools I use average out your shares for the last 10 shifts. Shifts are a set amount of time by your pool (7 minutes on gnash.io, and over 1 hour on bitminter presently). Lets say you have 1% of the shares in each of the last 10 shifts, you will get 1% of the coins mined by your pool during that time. Once you stop you will have 9 shifts at 1% and 1 shift with 0%, so your average will be 0.9%.  If you continue to not mine, the next shift will come and go and you will have 8 shifts at 1% and 2 with 0%, now your new average will be 0.8%, so the coins mined during the shift you will get .8% of them.

Thing is, you might mine for 10 straight shifts at 1% of the pool, and your pool not find a single block so nobody receives anything, you may then not mine for 10 straight shifts and they still not find a block, and now your shares are 0% over those 10 shifts, so you would have mined for nothing. They may even solve a block (get bitcoins) the minute after you reach 0%!


All pools average out over time how many coins they mine by their size, just the bigger pools are more consistent in solving blocks during the time you mine, although your payout will be more smaller ones. The smaller pools you would of course get a bigger % of the coins mined, but you may go a while before they solve a block.

Hope that helped some!

[Astero]

It did thanks.

To make sure everything should work right:

My blockchain folder is set on my multibit client folder and bitcoin.exe is set on multibit.exe is this ok?

[coaex]

I recommend you start mining with new altcoins for quick results. For example, MemoryCoin might be suitable for you to see some results.
Nowadays, an ordinary CPU like Intel i5-2500k 3.3 ghz mines about 1 MMC/day. GPUs are around 4-10 times higher.
It was one of the most profitable coin couple of weeks ago but its value dropped significantly after this quick production (miners' dump). Make some research about it and you'll find lots of information.