Where can I ask about learning to mine Bitcoin?

[Jet Cash]

I want to learn about Bitcoin mining. I don't want to buy a dedicated asic for a variety of reasons. I don't expect to receive any money from this, and all I want is the knowledge about the process. I started a thread on the mining beginners board, but it looks as if it has been deleted without the courtesy of an explanation. I assume this is because i planned to use an old laptop computer. Is it possible to ask this question anywhere in this forum, or is this another case where I have to find another forum to ask the question?

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[matvee]

You can post even in bitcoin discussion section like this thread :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2185062.0

[cissrawk]

You can post even in bitcoin discussion section like this thread :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2185062.0

Its better go to Mining section, since there discuss about hardware, pools, mining software, etc.

[Jet Cash]

My thread appears to have been deleted from the mining board. I'm interested in acquiring knowledge, and don't care if my efforts wouldn't result in any payment. Bitcoin Talk seems to be moving away from the exchange of knowledge, and is starting to be obsessed with the acquisition of money.

[ajiejot]

There are many discussions about mining here in bitcointalk forum.

But I can give you some resources for mining:

1. http://www.whattomine.com/ - Compare profitability of various coins that you want to mine. You can check here what particular coin is profitable to mine.

2.  https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/#/pools - Compare the whole Crypto Currency mining pool websites in one place. (There are also calculator for your profits)

3. https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-mining-calculator/ - Simple mining calculator from 99Bitcoins.

4. https://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency - List of cryptocurrencies are being compared to Bitcoin mining to determine if a cryptocurrency is more profitable to mine than mining Bitcoin.

5. Bitcoin & Crypto Mining - (UK Only) - It seems you are from England and maybe you can join on this facebook group, there are tons of facebook groups out there, just try to search legit groups that are for bitcoin hardware mining only, keep away on facebook groups that are spamming referral links/phishing links.  If you want to learn from experts, there are some community out there teaching for free. My best advice is to join in some facebook group.

I hope this will help you.

3. Mining BITCOIN is done exclusively with dedicated BITCOIN mining hardware based on ASICs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit . You CAN NOT meaningfully mine bitcoin today with CPU, GPU or even FPGAs. Bitcoin difficulty adapts to match the amount of mining done on the network and has reached levels trillions of times too high to mine meaningfully with PCs, laptops, tablets, phones, webpages, javascript, GPUs, and even generalised SHA hardware. You will not find software in this section to help you mine bitcoin in this absurdly inefficient manner in this subforum. It would cost you thousands of dollars in electricity per year to earn only a few cents in bitcoin. Even if you combined all the computers in the world, including all known supercomputer, you would not even approach 0.1% of the bitcoin hashrate today. Any discussion outside of ASIC related mining, except in the interests of academia, will be moved to the altcoin mining section. There isn't any point attempting to mine bitcoin with CPU or GPU even in the interests of learning as it shares almost nothing with how bitcoin is mined with ASICs and will not teach you anything.

TL/DR Summary:
 - You CANNOT meaningfully mine bitcoin with your PC or laptop no matter how powerful it is.
 - You CANNOT meaningfully mine bitcoin with your tablet or phone no matter how powerful it is.
 - Mining apps for your phone or tablet that claim to mine bitcoin are almost certainly scams.
 - You CANNOT find software here to mine bitcoin with your PC by itself.
 - You MIGHT be able to do one of the above with altcoins, but such discussion goes into the altcoin mining section.
 - You CANNOT find or post software here to mine on other peoples' PC without their permission.

[Steamtyme]

Hey Jet,

What do you want to know? I've been a small home miner for just over a year now and can shed some light on certain aspects.

There are a lot of really knowledgeable miners of all sizes here on the Forum, but depending on what and how you ask moderation can seem a bit heavy handed.

If you want to try another thread Mining support would probably be the place. Just leave out any mention of a laptop being used in the OP, as that will probably trigger a move immediately to the alt coin section. Which could in itself give you a glimpse into what BTC mining would have entailed in the GPU days.

Mining support - This is for all questions regarding understanding the process of BITCOIN mining, and any issues with setting up hardware, configuration issues, stability issues, etc. Where hardware has a dedicated support thread by the manufacturer or maintainer of the hardware, there will be a post in the hardware subforum so please use that first. CPU, GPU and FPGA mining support will be moved to the altcoin mining section.

[TheBeardedBaby]

I was like you back in 2013 and I mined some satoshi with my home PC without even knowing what I was doing.
What do you want to know, maybe I can help

[Jet Cash]

Thanks for the replies, and the offers to help. All the comments in this forum seem to be telling me that I won't make any money, so I shouldn't do it. Obviously deleting my thread is an indication that it is considered a waste of time to attempt to mine with outdated computers to gain knowledge. I need the knowledge because I am considering starting my own coin, so I don't care about the money.

I've decided to try to work it out for myself, and if I hit unsurmountable problems, then I'll seek advice, or just buy some better hardware. I've found out in the past that you often learn more by trying to use tools with limited functions, than by using equipment where everything is automated for you.

[Jet Cash]

I was like you back in 2013 and I mined some satoshi with my home PC without even knowing what I was doing.
What do you want to know, maybe I can help

I'm jealous - I wish I had done that.

At the moment I'm at the stage where I don't know what I want to know. I'll install some mining software, and see if it recognises the graphics card. If it doesn't I'll have to have a rethink.

[TheBeardedBaby]

I was like you back in 2013 and I mined some satoshi with my home PC without even knowing what I was doing.
What do you want to know, maybe I can help

I'm jealous - I wish I had done that.

At the moment I'm at the stage where I don't know what I want to know. I'll install some mining software, and see if it recognises the graphics card. If it doesn't I'll have to have a rethink.

Back in the day, we had no idea what we were doing, I owned (still owing) a computer repair shop so we tried a different cards, just for fun, nothing serious. I did't learn much about it tho, just tried. My buddy begin to mine more serious again a few months ago, but ETH.
I doubt you can mine bitcoin with a regular PC anymore.
I had some fun mining ETN this winter, it was cold and I used the home PCs for heating, as I said it was just for the sport with a regular old gaming PC

[Jet Cash]

Back in the day I owned a computer shop. I built computers with 5Mb MFM hard drives. They were about the size of house bricks.

I've been doing some research, and it looks as if it isn't worth trying to use the graphics card as there is no software to support it any more. I'll probably buy a USB stick for it, and try mining with that.  It would have been nice if I had received that advice to save me wasting time hunting the net. Anyway I'm probably better off adding it as a project on one of my sites.

[coinlocket$]

Thanks for the replies, and the offers to help. All the comments in this forum seem to be telling me that I won't make any money, so I shouldn't do it. ~

I'm still a noob on this field but I've started my "carrier" on Bitcoin with the interest of the mining.

Take my example
I've a nvidia gtx 970 and I live in Italy.
Has power: around 20 MB
cost of 1kw ~ 0.20$ (italy)
Power max used by the GPU 145W, but considering also compenent of the pc you need to increase this value, you ca assume 250W.

Fees ~10%

Bitcoin Mining Calculator Summary
Days to generate one block mining solo: 12620192303.40 Day(s) (can vary greatly depending on your luck)
Days to generate one BTC: 1009615384.27 Day(s) (can vary greatly depending on the current exchange rates)
Days to break even: NEVER (can vary greatly depending on the current exchange rates)

You can try with your data.
https://www.coinwarz.com/calculators/bitcoin-mining-calculator/?h=0.02&p=250.00&pc=0.21&pf=5.00&d=5077499034879.02000000&r=12.50000000&er=6300.04000000&hc=1000.00

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

Mining board moderators are really harsh and strict in cleaning up their board. They never allow newbie questions (basic questions about mining) to be posted there. If in case we post, it would be deleted pretty quickly. Using ASIC is really a waste of time and investment as there are bigger giants than us (normal people) in mining. Unless we buy an ASIC at a very cheaper price and the electricity in your area is cheap it is pretty useless to mine BTC these days. We should never post in mining board, unless we have a good knowledge in mining process.

Regarding mining process, I would recommend you to read Andreas "Mastering Bitcoin 2e - Programming the open Blockchain". Just buy a copy of the book (it's hardly 25$) from Amazon or read it online from here. Study Andreas Book completely and I am sure you would have an excellent, complete understanding of bitcoin and how it works. You can answer almost all the questions about bitcoin. I feel sometimes that who doesn't have a basic knowledge on bitcoin and its working is not fit to stay in this forum. This forum has become more of a political area rather than discussing about bitcoin and altcoins.

[Steamtyme]

Considering you likely have a few PSU's kicking around why don't you just pick up something considered unprofitable right now. S7/S5

One of the few times I would suggest grabbing an older model Antminer. This way you don't have to grab a controller as well. They're relatively cheap right now so you'd be out 200$ tops.

You can also look up low difficulty coins right now in the ALT coin, this is where you can get a feel for CPU/GPU mining processes. You'll also be able to look into the different ALGOS; right now things are headed in the direction of x16R and x16S. These are an attempt to be ASIC resistant.

Good luck on your venture and quest for knowledge.

[Jet Cash]

I understand Bitcoin and how it works, and I run 2 nodes. I just don't know anything about the commands used in setting up a miner.
I just want an easy option to play with the software. I've just tried to buy a GekkoScience stick on Ebay, and Ebay have screwed up the payment acceptnce. That's probably because I won't use their scammy payment service, but wanted to use a credit card.

I've spent too long on this, so I'll have another look later in the week. Thanks for all the help from you guys anyway.

[OgNasty]

If you’re going to mine without an asic, you probably need to be posting in this section.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=160.0

[Jet Cash]

If you’re going to mine without an asic, you probably need to be posting in this section.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=160.0

Thanks for the link, and I did spend quite a bit of time trying to work out the correct board. I want to experiment with Bitcoin and not an alt. I don't think the mining boards here are for mining starters like me, but I have managed to get some advice away from their boards, and this includes Meta, which seems to be completely the wrong place.

I've put mining back on ignore for the moment. I think they should reconsider their policy towards prospective miners if they want to encourage decentralisation of mining. This is especilly true as mining kit is being included in home appliances such as heaters.

[Steamtyme]

Yeah you fall into a niche category as far as "Miner" goes; what with the aspirations of coin development.

When you are recharged maybe just go poking around the "Development and Technical Discussion"

In regards to commands and behind the scenes stuff you could also try Pm'ing users like CK, or Kano.


Good luck

[ionabori]

You can post even in bitcoin discussion section like this thread :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2185062.0

Its better go to Mining section, since there discuss about hardware, pools, mining software, etc.

I agree to this suggestion. As per the rules, you can post in bitcoin discussion as other members have did.

But you also need to understand that the probability of getting a more helpful answer is higher in mining section. Bitcoin discussion is already overcrowded and it will most probably get moved to second page before you even get some answers there.

[Jet Cash]

Once again, thanks for the suggestions and help. I thought I would explain my sudden interest in mining, and then I'll lock the thread, as i have managed to find a few discussions.

I've been toying with the idea of creating a coin for some time now, and I even added the English Gold 'currency' to Fit to Talk English. I believe that to create a new peoduct, you need to have an USP ( Unique Selling Proposition ), and I don't have the odd couple of billion that would be needed to create the obvious USP for English Gold. I've been interested in the political objections to the Bitcoin mining factories, and I've seen that a few entrepreneurs are starting to react to the problems by creating dual-purpose mining rigs. When I saw that Thermo Coin.com was available for purchase, I thought that was an ideal name for a coin based on the new generation of mining rigs. I was late in coming to Bitcoin, and I missed the economic mining window, so I need to catch up on the applications.

As a result of my recent discussions, I feel that I should start with Scrypt mining, and I'll try that over the next few months.