So, about a week ago, I learned about Bitcoin mining bots. I hadn't learned how to program the script to manually mine coins, but then I learned about CryptoTap Browser. in about a week, I've mined 0.00000122 BTC, and the bot just continues to mine as long as I leave the browser running. So, my question to you all lovely people out there, is as there were previously 6 "0's" to start with, one dropped off as more BTC is mined. So if continued to let it run for say a week or two max, would it, or would it not, mine me an entire $55,000 (Plus or Minus) 1.0 BTC?
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So this is sort of a 3-Fold; General Bitcoin Mining/App/Mac Processing Power Question:
- Thread starter davemp88
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The way I see it, if it took 1 week to mine 0.00000122 BTC, and the process is linear, then the time to reach 1.0 BTC would be:
There are 52 weeks per year, so:
This assumes you don't upgrade your hardware, and nothing breaks.
A "linear process" means that it takes as long to do the next piece as it did to make the previous piece of the same size.
For example, 0.000001 BTC is one millionth of a BTC. If that took 1 day, hypothetically, then the expected time to reach 1.0 BTC is one million days. In short, the first day ends with one millionth BTC. After two days, there are 2 millionths BTC. After 30 days there are 30 millionths, and so on. One million days is about 2700 years.
I have no idea if BTC mining is linear, but I'd be very surprised if its rate increase would jump from 0.00000122 BTC / week to a rate that produces a full 1.0 BTC after only a couple weeks, or even anything approaching that rate.
1.0 / 0.00000122 = 819672.13 weeksThere are 52 weeks per year, so:
819672.13 / 52 = 15762.92 yearsThis assumes you don't upgrade your hardware, and nothing breaks.
A "linear process" means that it takes as long to do the next piece as it did to make the previous piece of the same size.
For example, 0.000001 BTC is one millionth of a BTC. If that took 1 day, hypothetically, then the expected time to reach 1.0 BTC is one million days. In short, the first day ends with one millionth BTC. After two days, there are 2 millionths BTC. After 30 days there are 30 millionths, and so on. One million days is about 2700 years.
I have no idea if BTC mining is linear, but I'd be very surprised if its rate increase would jump from 0.00000122 BTC / week to a rate that produces a full 1.0 BTC after only a couple weeks, or even anything approaching that rate.
Bitcoin, and many other, possibly all, crypto-currencies have a difficulty parameter that scales with the amount of hardware power engaged in mining to control inflation. As the amount of compute power in the overall bitcoin system (worldwide) increases, the amount of compute you need to earn 1BTC increases. With ASICs and FPGAs in the mix, CPUs and GPUs are basically pointless for mining BTC for that reason. They can’t keep up with the scaling
I was pretty sure there was an increasing difficulty over time, but I didn't know what the scaling rate was.
In any case, if we assume a linear process, then that's better than what happens in the real world. So the linear estimates are basically "best-case" projections. In other words, it won't take less time than the linear estimate, assuming no technological change, such as pan-dimensional ultra-computers (with or without fjords), or going back in time to invent BTC and thus capture all the earliest coins.
Only way I foresee mining rates becoming faster is if the currency completely crashes and becomes practically worthless, so all the hardware made for mining it gets taken down and the difficulty parameter gets lowered... In which case the 1BTC you could easily mine would also have no value but still!
What is the conversion from hash rate, measured in hashes/second (H/s in the screenshot), into BitCoins per week?
Simply knowing the hash rate of approximately 1038 hashes/second tells you nothing useful, unless you can convert it into BitCoins per week (or per hour, or per day, or per some other time unit). BitCoins are the desired output product. Hashes are the mechanism for producing BTC. Hashes are the "production machinery", not the actual output product.
If you've been running that process for an entire week, and you only have a little more than 1 millionth of a BTC, then the conversion rate from hashes/second into BTC/week looks pretty dismal.
Simply knowing the hash rate of approximately 1038 hashes/second tells you nothing useful, unless you can convert it into BitCoins per week (or per hour, or per day, or per some other time unit). BitCoins are the desired output product. Hashes are the mechanism for producing BTC. Hashes are the "production machinery", not the actual output product.
If you've been running that process for an entire week, and you only have a little more than 1 millionth of a BTC, then the conversion rate from hashes/second into BTC/week looks pretty dismal.
Do this if you find it fun only. Mining BTC unless you have an ASIC for it is never going to be profitable. Especially not with a browser based implementation that's likely only using the CPU through JavaScript.
Surly for this sort of return, you’d be paying more in electricity than the return? Not exactly environmentally friendly either!
Out of curiousity, what are your electricity rates?
If you assume your computer consumes 100 watts (extremely low numbrer), that would be 2.4 KW a day, or 12 KW for 5 days. If your electricity is $.20 KWh, then you spent $2.64 to get $.0835 bitcoins. In my case if my iMac is running all out it runs about 370 watts so I would burn almost $9 in electricty. I had to stop running the folding at home app when I saw my computer power consumption for the month hit $90.
Hate to zombie this thread (not really 
) But, it's something I've thought about now and then particularly when, like now, I have an old Mac Pro 5,1 laying round unused, and can't help but wonder if there's some kind of passive income it could be generating for me...
Everything I've been reading says Bitcoin, particularly on pre Silicon Macs, will never be profitable. Even if it was "only" $500 a year income against the power costs - I'd be up for it.
Particularly from a power perspective - we do plan to put solar panels on our roof some time soonish, which should at least half the power costs... (A solar battery wont probably happen for a good 12-24 months after the panels...)
) But, it's something I've thought about now and then particularly when, like now, I have an old Mac Pro 5,1 laying round unused, and can't help but wonder if there's some kind of passive income it could be generating for me...Everything I've been reading says Bitcoin, particularly on pre Silicon Macs, will never be profitable. Even if it was "only" $500 a year income against the power costs - I'd be up for it.
Particularly from a power perspective - we do plan to put solar panels on our roof some time soonish, which should at least half the power costs... (A solar battery wont probably happen for a good 12-24 months after the panels...)
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Bitcoin miners started using ASICs a while a go. Dedicated hardware made specifically for the Bitcoin hashing functions. Competing with that is completely infeasible. If you really want to do this you're better off looking at other "coins", but it's really a useless endeavour in my opinion. If you want to put the computer to use when you're not using it, use BOINC instead; Actually does some good with the computing resources instead of just wasting them.
Crypto is moving towards Proof of stake anyway
Yeah, it's that golden carrot... the idea of making money by doing nothing much... Plug a computer in, leave it running in the corner of the room and have a little bit of money coming in from it.
I was part of the SETI @ Home thing back in the day - the Mulder in me wanted to help find what was out there...
I might look at the other coins when we get solar power hooked up to our roof, as it sounds like that would certainly help if power costs were not a factor. I know the Mac Pro 5,1 is a power beast, part of why I went away from it.