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Who's Keen for a MR BitCoin Team?
- Thread starter DoFoT9
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I still don't understand where the value comes from. Like goods and services produce value. What does BitCoin offer that provides value to somebody else?
I guess I'm just not getting it this time around.
As anything it comes from demand. So long as other people want to purchase then the market will dictate the price.
But what I don't get is what are people demanding? We make these hashes with a GPU send them off someplace and then what is done with them?
I won't pretend to have a machine that will be able to do anything remotely productive. But If you need someone to join simply to fulfill a requirement for team members, I would be happy to join (and to bow out for later arrivals if needed).
I'll play
The GeFOrce GPU in my current model 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 imac is (apparently) not a patch on radeon cards when it comes to bitmining. Is there any (easy) way of plugging in PCIe cards to it?
I looked into buying a custom ASIC device from Butterfly Labs (that plugs into USB). They look like an absolute bargain at $274 for a machine that would (if I could plug one in right now) mine/mint enough bitcoins to pay for itself in under a week. When I did a little research however, I discovered that delivery times are well over six months (!!!) by which time, due to the nature of the system, they will not be able to make money anything like as quickly. This is widely being called a scam, though the company have produced hardware before. For reference, an older device of theirs that would produce 20% of the coins this new device promises is currently on sale on ebay for over $1800 with 12 hours still to run!
Be aware that as more coins are minted/mined the 'difficulty' of the calculations increases. This is the means by which the rarity value is controlled and so makes 'investments' on a 6+month timescale very risky.
EDITED ADDITION
I just remembered I had thunderbolt on my iMac so I did a little Googling and discovered, (from what I can work out at least), that I should be able to buy a thunderbolt to PCI adapter http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/index.php?t=product/sonnet_son-echoexpse into which I would be able to plug in a PCI video card http://www.ebuyer.com/454252-sapphi...-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-graphics-11196-19-20g that would vastly increase the rate at which I can mine. Can someone with a better idea of the above confirm this for me?
A hardware comparison I've looked at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison suggests the above card could perform at 500Mhps. The built in GeFOrce card on my iMac does 22Mhps.
The GeFOrce GPU in my current model 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 imac is (apparently) not a patch on radeon cards when it comes to bitmining. Is there any (easy) way of plugging in PCIe cards to it?
I looked into buying a custom ASIC device from Butterfly Labs (that plugs into USB). They look like an absolute bargain at $274 for a machine that would (if I could plug one in right now) mine/mint enough bitcoins to pay for itself in under a week. When I did a little research however, I discovered that delivery times are well over six months (!!!) by which time, due to the nature of the system, they will not be able to make money anything like as quickly. This is widely being called a scam, though the company have produced hardware before. For reference, an older device of theirs that would produce 20% of the coins this new device promises is currently on sale on ebay for over $1800 with 12 hours still to run!
Be aware that as more coins are minted/mined the 'difficulty' of the calculations increases. This is the means by which the rarity value is controlled and so makes 'investments' on a 6+month timescale very risky.
EDITED ADDITION
I just remembered I had thunderbolt on my iMac so I did a little Googling and discovered, (from what I can work out at least), that I should be able to buy a thunderbolt to PCI adapter http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/index.php?t=product/sonnet_son-echoexpse into which I would be able to plug in a PCI video card http://www.ebuyer.com/454252-sapphi...-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-graphics-11196-19-20g that would vastly increase the rate at which I can mine. Can someone with a better idea of the above confirm this for me?
A hardware comparison I've looked at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison suggests the above card could perform at 500Mhps. The built in GeFOrce card on my iMac does 22Mhps.
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Count me in. I have a server that is on 24/7. I have been thinking of pickup up a nice nvidia card for it for just this. Right now i am doing CPU only mining and it is painful.
How do we go about setting up a group?
How do we go about setting up a group?
People who are intrested in bitcoin might also want to look at LTCs (litecoins) much easier to mine with average hardware and little to know knowledge required
http://miningpool.nl/
http://miningpool.nl/
I have joined Eclipsemc and it's been a lot of fun. I've made about $10 in 2 days with a machine that will consistently do over a 1gh/s. They also don't take fees unless you do PPS (Pay Per Share).
Although I am confused by how they list the speed of my machine. I checked it right now and it was saying it was going 3.44gh/s. I don't believe this is mathematically possible
My hardware is crap everything except a 1200w PSU and 2x7970's. I have been running it since tuesday night.
When I OC the cards with the AMD catalyst control center I can get 700+ mh/s out of them but I can't do this until I get a good fan setup blowing on them. They tend to run over 80c when OC'd.
If anyone wants to try bitcoin mining for fun, I would recommend it. It's not going to make you rich mining with your macbook pro but it is a lot of fun. It is also not that difficult to pick up. I use GUIminer which makes things much easier.
Can you schedule GUIMiner? My iMac is on all the time so when I'm at work it could happily chug away.
Since cheap ASICs are starting to ship and get into people's hand the difficulty is going to spike soon (Even more than it already is) and it will render FPGAs and GPU mining far too inefficient and costly. Unless of course your hardware is already paid for, then you still got a little bit of run left.
Butterflylabs is shipping a $278 dollar 5 GH/s USB dongle based miner that runs on 5 W. They have been taking orders for a year and they recently fulfilled about half of their pre orders. One of the guys I normally speak with picked up 8 of them for $2000 and hes about halfway on his initial investment after a few days. Hes averaging about 2.5 coins a day which will decrease but he still stands to make his money back quickly and then a lot more before the difficulty ramps up too far.
However the longevity of these Butterfly ASICs has yet to be seen. I can't imagine though even with ASICs going down due to bad hardware the difficulty will be doing that big of a pullback.
Butterflylabs is shipping a $278 dollar 5 GH/s USB dongle based miner that runs on 5 W. They have been taking orders for a year and they recently fulfilled about half of their pre orders. One of the guys I normally speak with picked up 8 of them for $2000 and hes about halfway on his initial investment after a few days. Hes averaging about 2.5 coins a day which will decrease but he still stands to make his money back quickly and then a lot more before the difficulty ramps up too far.
However the longevity of these Butterfly ASICs has yet to be seen. I can't imagine though even with ASICs going down due to bad hardware the difficulty will be doing that big of a pullback.
I'll play.
Been mining Bitcoins since mid 2010 and Litecoins since late 2011. From my experience, digital currency is like a roller coaster ride from h***. I'm still considered a "small time" miner.
Now that I have experience with ASICs, I can honestly say GPU mining is done for. LTC is probably everyone's best bet if they already have equipment.
My advise to newcomers is to cautiously buy whatever you feel comfortable with. Remind yourself everyday you could wake up tomorrow and have BTC and LTC be worthless. If you're willing to live with that fact, then welcome to future!
Been mining Bitcoins since mid 2010 and Litecoins since late 2011. From my experience, digital currency is like a roller coaster ride from h***. I'm still considered a "small time" miner.
Now that I have experience with ASICs, I can honestly say GPU mining is done for. LTC is probably everyone's best bet if they already have equipment.
My advise to newcomers is to cautiously buy whatever you feel comfortable with. Remind yourself everyday you could wake up tomorrow and have BTC and LTC be worthless. If you're willing to live with that fact, then welcome to future!
The last thing you want to do is to buy an nVidia card for bitcoin mining, the most cost efficient cards are the radeon 5xxx series.
I'm hunting for a new pair of 5970's. (dual 5870 on one PCB)
Can I buy a liter of milk with bitcoins or anything at Amazon ?
I really don't get it ... Seems like a pyramid game or a big bubble generator ...
If I read that stuff I feel old as I really don't get what makes the value. And as it create kind of income I wonder what the tax authorities say once they realize there is virtual value convertible into real world currency.
I guess I keep folding aliens
But I don't mind someone explain an old man what's behind.
I really don't get it ... Seems like a pyramid game or a big bubble generator ...
If I read that stuff I feel old as I really don't get what makes the value. And as it create kind of income I wonder what the tax authorities say once they realize there is virtual value convertible into real world currency.
I guess I keep folding aliens
But I don't mind someone explain an old man what's behind.
Technically, it's illegal in most countries - it's a decentralised currency. America (especially) won't allow it, as ALL money has to go through the correct avenues. Granted, I have heard of some shops/outlets that allow for BC transactions to be made in USA and other places.Can I buy a liter of milk with bitcoins or anything at Amazon ?
I really don't get it ... Seems like a pyramid game or a big bubble generator ...
Illegal. Fake. Non trusted. Etc.
The drive is the algorithms and computation time, it is also a limited asset, in that there are x amount of BitCoins out there, and nobody can ever great more. All you can do is use your computer to "mine" for more, you invest and you are rewarded. Each iteration makes it harder to be rewarded (so you have to either spend more time computing, or more $ investing to get the same exact number of BCs as the previous iteration). It's a slow process though. It was designed this way to take into consideration Moore's Law and whatnot.
hehe, aren't they going to stop that soon enough? (I thought I read that somewhere)I guess I keep folding aliens :
Hi CJ, and all others - I've been busy with work these past few months travelling around and whatnot, but let me chime in here for an update, the best I can do for midnight on a Sunday evening anyway!
Firstly, thanks for the participation thus far. It's been good reading the positive and negative comments. As somebody who would consider investing money into BC I appreciate the speculation and criticisms as much as the other comments.
Secondly, I think the most appropriate way to explain BC trading (and mining) is like a commodity such as gold.
- BC, like gold, can be traded from entity to entity - I could convert my hard earned cash into the BC currency via online traders. I give the online trader my secure wallet ID public key (such that it's 100% secure, aka, deposit only), they take their 1-3% exchange rate fees (as they always do) and suddenly I have internet moneys. In a similar fashion, I can convert my BC back into another currency. That is the trading side of it, currently it's very unpredictable. As in, $60USD = 1BC on Thursday, $100USD = 1BC yesterday.
- In addition to trading the commodity, one can also mine it. If you are rich enough, you can mine for gold (I'm sure there are licensing fees in some countries for this, but the Internet is a free place - so please disregard that aspect for now) just in the same manner you can mine for BCs.
My idea was to set up a MacRumors team, and a server (I would organise) that each team member connects to, to mine for BCs. A BC is generally broken up into many pieces, each persons machine attempts to compute the correct mathematical conversions for the BC, and if we are successful in getting the answer before anybody else then we win! Each member of the team gets their cut (the cut is a percentage of how much computing power they contributed into the pool over the entire period of calculations, so is a fair return) and the next BC is chosen.
Of course, there are quite a few considerations, such as investment (electricity usage, purchasing extra hardware) vs return (BC received, time, machine damage) & additional concerns I'm sure; such as "how much do I have to contribute per day to make a positive return?", etcetc.. So if you have them please voice, and I will attempt to address as best I can. I am still learning a lot about this myself - but I think it would certainly be fun to play around with!
Thanks for the time & attention! I do hope this can be successful.
DoFo
I am currently putting out 68.5 MHash/s and would be willing to jump in and help you. I know it's kinda slow but I am planning on purchasing a block erupter soon as well as a nice radeon to replace my gtx 460. I do this for fun and am not worried about power use as my local rates are cheep and I am starting to use solar to offset my cost.
Just ordered a block erupter off ebay. It will be fun to play with. I wish I had spend the $1200 I used for my rig on a bunch of block erupters. But oh well, live and learn
Nice guys - how is the performance of that thing going?!
I'll try to get my act together and see what I can do for the BTC mining server. It has been very tense of late, even the BTC Exchange went down for a while and it wasn't certain if it would come back up.. Here's hoping.
edit: updated OP to include pricing changes/history.
It's been doing the advertised 334mh/s since I set it up. It was a bit confusing using CGminer which is a command line miner as opposed to the GUIminer which is GUI hahaha. It was also a little difficult to get the drivers installed correctly but now that it works it is nice. I have mildly overclocked my cards and the machine now does an average of 1.5gh/s over a scale of about 10 blocks. It is nice. The pool I'm on, Eclipsemc was at about a 3th/s network speed when I originally posted in early june and it is now at over 20th/s!!! A lot of the ASIC miners have shipped which have caused the network speed and difficulty to skyrocket. Luckily I'm still making a few bucks a day but from a profit standpoint when factoring in electricity costs I am deep in the hole. But oh, well it is fun to mine
That info is really valuable - thanks for explaining. There has been a lot of negative hype, especially from SEC in the US a few days ago (see here).
For me it's more just the entire concept that I find attractive - so I enjoy it. I've used cgiminer a bit so if you need help give me a shout.
Ah no problem - have you calculated your ROI properly yet or just playing with the numbers? I'm still trying to decide what's best for a good return.