How many blocks before I typically get a Bitcoin

[alan2here]

How many blocks on the status bar of my client must show before I typically get a Bitcoin. I'm on 109473 at the moment.

[FreeMoney]

How many blocks on the status bar of my client must show before I typically get a Bitcoin. I'm on 109473 at the moment.

Using a CPU will get you 50BTC about once a decade at the current difficulty. Most miners now are using GPUs and are in pools to get small amounts frequently instead of an occasional complete reward.

Check out the mining section for more info.

[benjamindees]

1) See the FAQ.

2) That's just downloading the block chain, not generating blocks.

3) Generating Bitcoins with the standard (CPU-based) client is not at all worthwhile.  You need a GPU or an optimized miner.

[alan2here]

Can you recommend GPU bitcoin generating software?

[Haxxy]

Can you recommend GPU bitcoin generating software?

You'll probably have the easiest time with this one:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/?topic=3878.0

[theboos]

The default poclbm software actually gets me the highest hashrate on a GTX 480. I'd run with -v -f 30, or -v -f 1 if you won't be using the computer while mining. You can mine for yourself, which, as FreeMoney points out, will find a block very rarely at current difficulty (110 days on average, with 110 MH/s). Alternately you can join a pool to get smaller payouts more frequently. Most of them are posted on this forum: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?board=14.0. Pools are operated independently and have no affiliation with the Bitcoin software.

[Ian Maxwell]

I assume you're looking at the guiminer interface?

1. CUDA is the correct choice. Mining with your CPU isn't even theoretically profitable unless you get free electricity.

2. All of the servers are Bitcoin pooled mining servers. The best thing would be to pick one and create an account there, but you can also go solo---it just takes a bit more work (you basically have to run your own server). I recommend BTCmine.

[bittrader]

And to calculate how often you'll get Bitcoins on average (when mining solo), take this number: http://blockexplorer.com/q/hashestowin
and divide by the number of hashes you're trying per second. That'll give you the average number of seconds per 50 Bitcoins.

[alan2here]

Thanks.

GUIMiner is stuck on "starting..." status in the status bar and "Connecting..." on the taskbar (small icons on the right, with the clock and volume controll) tooltip.

[stakhanov]

Are you certain you want to get into mining? There's a lot more to bitcoin than block generation, and it can be more fun and more lucrative to earn or trade bitcoins than to mine them.

[SomeoneWeird]

I've read the Wikipedia post and some of thease forums, followed your steps for GUIMiner as well as figuring some out myself and it's nevertheless stuck. But I think that the bitcoin currency is a good idea and right now I don't mind investing time in helping out with getting this stuff working more smoothly even if it turns out I can't make a profit with it anyway.

Your right, generating bitcoins seems like it dosn't involve much, it's a game of waiting, like idleRPG except less pointless.

I like the idea of trading bitcoins although I know little of the theroy of have any practical experance of trading for example stocks, although as far as I can tell there seems to be a lot of randomness in trading stocks. Although 1bitcoin in bitcoins = 1bitcoin in bitcoins, I can't see how trading would work unless it is bitcoins for services or products.

I'm open to the idea of earning them although I can't think of anything that wouldn't have occured to me before with standard money.

Yes, but as more people start mining, the difficulty goes up, therefor the harder they are to mine, therefor the price of bitcoins go up, so say you have 1BTC, this time next week it might be worth 1.2BTC, then you've made a profit.

[w128]

I've read the Wikipedia post and some of thease forums, followed your steps for GUIMiner as well as figuring some out myself and it's nevertheless stuck. But I think that the bitcoin currency is a good idea and right now I don't mind investing time in helping out with getting this stuff working more smoothly even if it turns out I can't make a profit with it anyway.

I wonder what percentage of people have this charitable attitude?

The blend of "types" in the bitcoin world is interesting.

There are:

Academics who debate it.
Dreamers who simply want to be a part of it.
Investors who've made science out of monetizing it.
Gamblers who just spend $2000 on something called a GPU that they'd never heard of two weeks ago.
Influencers who amassed their bitcoin fortunes months ago and want to get the word out.

[FooDSt4mP]

I've read the Wikipedia post and some of thease forums, followed your steps for GUIMiner as well as figuring some out myself and it's nevertheless stuck. But I think that the bitcoin currency is a good idea and right now I don't mind investing time in helping out with getting this stuff working more smoothly even if it turns out I can't make a profit with it anyway.

Your right, generating bitcoins seems like it dosn't involve much, it's a game of waiting, like idleRPG except less pointless.

I like the idea of trading bitcoins although I know little of the theroy of have any practical experance of trading for example stocks, although as far as I can tell there seems to be a lot of randomness in trading stocks. Although 1bitcoin in bitcoins = 1bitcoin in bitcoins, I can't see how trading would work unless it is bitcoins for services or products.

I'm open to the idea of earning them although I can't think of anything that wouldn't have occured to me before with standard money.
[/quote

Your safest bet is offering a service or goods for bitcoins.  As far as trading goes, the basic idea is buy low and sell high.  If you sell 1 bitcoin for $7, and the price goes down to $6.5, you can now buy ~ 1.07 BTC.