Limit?

[robertcarlyle]

Would there have been a limit to the amount of btc that could be mined in early 2010?  Could someone realistically have mined 1000s of btc just for themselves?

[Mia Chloe]

Would there have been a limit to the amount of btc that could be mined in early 2010?  Could someone realistically have mined 1000s of btc just for themselves?

Do some research... People mined way more than that in a couple of months and that's how Laszlo was able to spend over 50,000BTC on pizza in total. Anyways the system doesn't stop you from mining. Back then the difficulty was far lower than we currently have because of the very little total hash rate too then.

In addition to that the block reward was very big then 50BTC and 25BTC over the first 8 years.. compare it to what we have now it's just a fraction of what it was back in the day.

[robertcarlyle]

If someone mined like 100000 btc, how much might that be worth?  Could they have mined this much?

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Ref https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTC-USD/history/ for prices over the years.

[robertcarlyle]

I mean 100000 individual btcs... youre confused!  rsvp.

[_act_]

In 2010, miners were using CPU to mine bitcoin because the mining difficulty was still not much at the time. But later in 2010, miners were moving to using GPU to mine bitcoin, but the mining reward was still 50 BTC.

That amount is huge, but not that huge to miners at the time because bitcoin price was $0.003 to $0.3 in 2010. So miners that were mining bitcoin at the time mined huge amount of it.

You can see Laszlo whose the day he bought Pizza with 10000 BTC in May 2010. He mined over 100000 BTC and there are many other miners that time that mined huge amount of bitcoin.

[philipma1957]

If someone mined like 100000 btc, how much might that be worth?  Could they have mined this much?

If you mined in 2009 and 2010 and held coins 100,000 btc was possible.

100,000 x 80,000 = 8,000,000,000

That is 8 billion dollars

To give you an idea of 2012 mining

I mined 21gh out of a network of 21th

Ie I mined  1/1000 of the entire network in my garage.

Or 144x50= 7200 coins of which 7.2 i got.

This was doable in 2012

It was too hot to do on a steady basis. But if I could and did mine 7 coins a day in 2012 if I knew to hold I would have more than 1000 coins today.

[hosemary]

There's no limit on how many blocks a miner can mine, and in theory, a single miner can mine all Bitcoin blocks.
In 2010, the block reward was 50 BTC and every single miner had the chance of getting 50 BTC plus transaction fees in every approximately 10 minutes on average.

[robertcarlyle]

Were the puzzles that were to be solved inearly 2010 to mine btc easy or hard?

[FP91G]

Were the puzzles that were to be solved inearly 2010 to mine btc easy or hard?

Bitcoin puzzle transaction ~32 BTC prize to who solves it
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1306983.0

As far as I know, all the simple puzzles were solved long ago, while the complex ones require extensive calculations that aren't easily performed without powerful hardware. Try searching the forum, and you'll find them.

[Mia Chloe]

In 2010, miners were using CPU to mine bitcoin because the mining difficulty was still not much at the time. But later in 2010, miners were moving to using GPU to mine bitcoin, but the mining reward was still 50 BTC.

The more total hash rate increases the more the general difficulty does too and because of that the profitability in mining is alike an n curve and sadly we are on the downward slope side of it. The difficulty adjustment is the point if it didn't exist then with the kinda hardware we have today wo would have exhausted the supply years ago.

~snip

The thing is barely any of them actually thought it was gonna be this big those who did Hodl do so out of luck so having them in bulk then didn't really mean much.

[robertcarlyle]

But were the puzzles in early 2010 or 2009 easy to solve for the average joe/masses of people or only some people?

[NotFuzzyWarm]

But were the puzzles in early 2010 or 2009 easy to solve for the average joe/masses of people or only some people?

If you are referring the the work that miners do - those are NOT puzzles. It has always been a very straightforward process of finding the solution that matches the hash of work sent to the miner. ref https://kano.is/index.php?k=bitcoin and https://kano.is/index.php?k=minedet. Since there is no equations that can be used to solve this, a miner is simply stepping through all possible combinations one at a time to find the matching one.

Folks talking about 'puzzles' here are referring cryptographic puzzles of varying difficulty difficulty that people can solve to earn rewards. All of the easy ones were cracked long ago, I think the 1st current uncracked one is 70bits (?) long and despite the insane speed of current GPU cards & farms there is no signs of cracking it anytime soon. For reference, a BTC key is 256 bits long

[hosemary]

Bitcoin puzzle transaction ~32 BTC prize to who solves it

I think OP is referring to the proof of work problem.


To OP:
Miners actually try to find a number that produces a hash below the target if it's hashed twice through SHA256 function.
The more the total hash rate is, the lower the target becomes.

In 2010, the total hash rate was much lower than today, the target was much higher, finding a valid number required much lower computing power.

[Somegory]

Would there have been a limit to the amount of btc that could be mined in early 2010?  Could someone realistically have mined 1000s of btc just for themselves?

You are asking this question because you don't understand how mining works, when a new coin is been released the difficulty is literally on the ground, especially when not much people believe in the coin.

This was the case with Bitcoin many years ago, not many people want to join the train instantly, others believe it's another bubble loading innovation, so they avoid it, many people used Pentium 4 CPUs to mine 40 BTC every 24hrs.

All you got to do is try mining a new shitcoin that you can find in altcoins thread using GPU or a old Asic miner, you will see how many numbers of coins you can mine, less interest in the coin is why it can go months with the difficulty not increasing.

[FP91G]

Bitcoin puzzle transaction ~32 BTC prize to who solves it

I think OP is referring to the proof of work problem.


To OP:
Miners actually try to find a number that produces a hash below the target if it's hashed twice through SHA256 function.
The more the total hash rate is, the lower the target becomes.

In 2010, the total hash rate was much lower than today, the target was much higher, finding a valid number required much lower computing power.

If a newcomer writes about mining, they should note that in 2010, mining was unprofitable because Bitcoin was worthless. Mining was done solely on PC processors, and many enthusiasts complained that it caused their computers to overheat. Nowadays, such easy pickings are a thing of the past, and for many miners, the cost of mining can exceed the coin's market value.

[robertcarlyle]

If their desktop pcs overheat, what does this mean assuming their pc desktop didnt die?

[NotFuzzyWarm]

If their desktop pcs overheat, what does this mean assuming their pc desktop didnt die?

why would their pc die? Any crappy PC that cannot sustain running at full speed may overheat and shut down but will recover once it cools off. If the user keeps it up, ja, it MAY eventually fail but that's only because the owner was an idiot with a crappy PC that they liked to abuse.

It just means that in theory they could have mined a maximum of 50BTC every 10min assuming they had 100% of the hash rate. Many folks have already told you that so what do you not get??

Why the interest in what-could-have-been? It changes nothing today and is a pointless exercise in 'what if?'.

[Stalker22]

If their desktop pcs overheat, what does this mean assuming their pc desktop didnt die?

What do you think that means?  It means their cooling system is garbage, just like the quality of questions you keep posting here. 

And, PC overheating without dying means the thermal throttling actually worked, or the entire PC simply shut down to save the CPU from permanent damage.  Stop fucking asking stupid questions like this over and over again.

[FP91G]

If their desktop pcs overheat, what does this mean assuming their pc desktop didnt die?

Technically speaking, every processor sits in a socket on the motherboard. Manufacturers specify the maximum processor heat output (TDP) that a given motherboard supports. If a processor is paired with an inadequate cooler and dried-out thermal paste, it can lead to motherboard socket failure—damage that is typically very difficult to repair.

If you are using the processor for mining and it has a heat output of 100 watts, I would recommend a high-quality copper cooler rated for 200–250 watts, along with high-conductivity thermal paste that is replaced every 6–12 months. The motherboard must also support that specific processor.

In most PCs, the cooling systems are not designed for continuous processor load, so the PC needs to be prepared for mining.