# Lifestyles & Discussion > Bitcoin / Cryptocurrencies >  Creating Bitcoin at home?

## XTreat

I have a pretty decent machine I built myself and am interested in getting into processing Bitcoins.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

How much can I expect to make? Can you easily set it to process only in down time? Does it use CPU or GPU?  etc. 


Any evidence I'll make enough before I burn out my video card and have to buy a new one that I will still turn a profit?

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## brandon

You aren't going to make any money mining bitcoins. You will probably lose money. If you want to just do it for fun though,, just download the client, join a pool, and hit start. You can be started mining in probably about 20 minutes from now if you want. Just go for it.

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## Indy Vidual

Too late

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## opal

from what I glean, the process involves solving very complex math problems.  
In the event I ever want to really hurt my brain matter, are any of the equations published anywhere.. just to look at?

next question.. where did these equations come from and what beyond bitcoins will they be used to do?

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## muh_roads

> I have a pretty decent machine I built myself and am interested in getting into processing Bitcoins.
> 
> Can anyone point me in the right direction?
> 
> How much can I expect to make? Can you easily set it to process only in down time? Does it use CPU or GPU?  etc. 
> 
> 
> Any evidence I'll make enough before I burn out my video card and have to buy a new one that I will still turn a profit?


Do you have nVidia or Radeon?

GPU's & FPGA's stopped being profitable a long time ago.  It wouldn't be worth your time regardless.

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## XTreat

> Do you have nVidia or Radeon?
> 
> GPU's & FPGA's stopped being profitable a long time ago.  It wouldn't be worth your time regardless.



Nvidia 580 GTX, it's stand alone, not SLI and its not top of the line anymore but its relatively close. 

So how is it not profitable? What if I only earn .00001 btc but someday a 1 btc can buy a house?

Am I missing something?

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## newbitech

> Nvidia 580 GTX, it's stand alone, not SLI and its not top of the line anymore but its relatively close. 
> 
> So how is it not profitable? What if I only earn .00001 btc but someday a 1 btc can buy a house?
> 
> Am I missing something?


no you aren't missing something.  i just fired up my miner for first time.

you need a wallet.

you need to set up an account with pool.  ( i used slush's for a quick start)

you need to down load and install a mining app.  (slush's pool recommended GUIMiner, so i installed that.)


I have been running for about 20 minutes.  I have submitted 3 level 1 difficulty shares accept for this round.   

I'll let you know how much it pays bitcoin wise.

I'm on an i5 quad core, nvidia geforce gts360m 1gb, 4gigs ram.

Right now im getting something like 20Mhash/s.  The network from what I understand is at about 160Ghash/s.

So' we'll see.

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## newbitech



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## newbitech

that first bit of coin my wife got for me by watching some videos or something, haven't gotten my .01 yet for writing the poem, and this mining pool isn't going to send me anything till I hit 1 bitcoin total reward.

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## brandon

> Nvidia 580 GTX, it's stand alone, not SLI and its not top of the line anymore but its relatively close. 
> 
> So how is it not profitable? What if I only earn .00001 btc but someday a 1 btc can buy a house?
> 
> Am I missing something?


Yes you are missing several things

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## newbitech

> Yes you are missing several things


you better hope it doesn't rain.

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## XTreat

> that first bit of coin my wife got for me by watching some videos or something, haven't gotten my .01 yet for writing the poem, and this mining pool isn't going to send me anything till I hit 1 bitcoin total reward.



seems like it will be a long long time until you hit 1 btc

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## newbitech

> seems like it will be a long long time until you hit 1 btc


meh, this is just my test run.  I'm also have the full bitcoin peer software validating the full block chain from when it all started.  Once that is done, i free up the 75% clock time its sucking down.  

We'll see what happens then.

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## muh_roads

> no you aren't missing something.  i just fired up my miner for first time.
> 
> you need a wallet.
> 
> you need to set up an account with pool.  ( i used slush's for a quick start)
> 
> you need to down load and install a mining app.  (slush's pool recommended GUIMiner, so i installed that.)
> 
> 
> ...





> Nvidia 580 GTX, it's stand alone, not SLI and its not top of the line anymore but its relatively close. 
> 
> So how is it not profitable? What if I only earn .00001 btc but someday a 1 btc can buy a house?
> 
> Am I missing something?


Radeon's run @ much higher MH for some reason than nVidia (10-20x+).  Mining doesn't require the 3D floating point integers.  Something about the way the data that feeds into ATi's chip is more linear or something.  This makes them best for mining.  Unfortunately most gamers are nVidia because they play games better than they mine.

Having said that you still won't make much...harming your PC, burning your cards, and then the electricity costs to boot.

You're better off investing in BTC than buying all new equipment if you're that curious.

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## amonasro

I have a Radeon 4870 video card. Apparently the 57xx series are the ones to get for bitcoin mining.

Unfortunately, the algorithm is designed such that to increase the odds enough, you need multiple machines running multiple video cards. That's thousands of watts running 24/7 and a huge power bill. I wonder how many college students have these set up in dorms 

There are new chips coming out soon that are made just for bitcoin mining. They consume much less power, like hundreds instead of thousands of watts. They are expensive.

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## muh_roads

> I have a Radeon 4870 video card. Apparently the 57xx series are the ones to get for bitcoin mining.
> 
> Unfortunately, the algorithm is designed such that to increase the odds enough, you need multiple machines running multiple video cards. That's thousands of watts running 24/7 and a huge power bill. I wonder how many college students have these set up in dorms 
> 
> There are new chips coming out soon that are made just for bitcoin mining. They consume much less power, like hundreds instead of thousands of watts. They are expensive.


They look ridiculous...lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLt8Se3vVNg

2 years ago this was maybe worth it if you weren't scared out of whatever Bitcoins you made.  Very few.

Today doing this would be a big waste of money.  Too many involved with a difficulty that is shooting to mars.

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## newbitech

> Radeon's run @ much higher MH for some reason than nVidia (10-20x+).  Mining doesn't require the 3D floating point integers.  Something about the way the data that feeds into ATi's chip is more linear or something.  This makes them best for mining.  Unfortunately most gamers are nVidia because they play games better than they mine.
> 
> Having said that you still won't make much...harming your PC, burning your cards, and then the electricity costs to boot.
> 
> You're better off investing in BTC than buying all new equipment if you're that curious.


perhaps then you are posting in the wrong thread?

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## muh_roads

> perhaps then you are posting in the wrong thread?


Did I screw up somewhere?  It's Miller Time so I have an excuse right now.

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## newbitech

> Did I screw up somewhere?  It's Miller Time so I have an excuse right now.


I could have sworn I read the thread title that said something about creating bitcoins at home.  It doesn't sound like you do this, so i thought maybe you'd like to post in one of the other threads that deal with investing.  I kinda like the idea of having a thread with the discussion about creating coins rather than trading frns for them..

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## The Rebel Poet

Over six thousand messages in your inbox? Remind me never to write you... lol

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## brandon

> I could have sworn I read the thread title that said something about creating bitcoins at home.  It doesn't sound like you do this, so i thought maybe you'd like to post in one of the other threads that deal with investing.  I kinda like the idea of having a thread with the discussion about creating coins rather than trading frns for them..



I think he contributed pretty nicely. He essentially said the MH rate of your GPU is nearly infinitesimally small compared to the network hash rate so you will never mine anything worthwhile.  And that's exactly correct.  If you really want to mine you should probably look into getting some of the ASIC boards but I don't know about their current availability. If they are widely available now then I suspect they too are nearly worthless.

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## brandon

Meh this image is too big to post here,but click the link

http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-lin-ever.png


GPU mining wasn't profitable before the recent tripling of the network hash rate.

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## brandon

> from what I glean, the process involves solving very complex math problems.  
> In the event I ever want to really hurt my brain matter, are any of the equations published anywhere.. just to look at?


It helps if you have a basic understanding of cryptographic hashing. Specifically, bitcoin uses SHA 256.

Basically what everyone tries to do at the same time is find a number such that the output of putting that number through the SHA is less than a certain value. The smaller that value is the harder it is to find a solution. The first person to find it wins 25 Bitcoins.





> next question.. where did these equations come from and what beyond bitcoins will they be used to do?


Unfortunately they aren't useful for anything besides bitcoins. Well maybe one day the equipment would make a really good distributed encryption cracker. But that's about it.

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## green73

Jeff Tucker says he knows a guy making minimum wage mining bitcoins. Have no idea what that entails as far as a setup.

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## muh_roads

> I think he contributed pretty nicely. He essentially said the MH rate of your GPU is nearly infinitesimally small compared to the network hash rate so you will never mine anything worthwhile.  And that's exactly correct.  If you really want to mine you should probably look into getting some of the ASIC boards but I don't know about their current availability. If they are widely available now then I suspect they too are nearly worthless.


Pretty much.

The system is designed to only pay out 3600 coins to all the miners around the world combined per day.  It used to be 7200 per day before "halving day" last year in November.

ASIC is incredibly difficult to come by.  By the time you get them if you order today, the hashrate will be incredibly high as will the difficulty.  Early adopters who paid for their equipment still haven't received their ASIC and it has been almost 1-year now.  Newbies don't stand a chance.

The money would be better off used to buy BTC directly.  Who knows what the price per coin is by the time you receive your equipment.  A lot of the early adopters feel screwed because they paid with lots of BTC when spot was much, much cheaper.  Many now wish they never did that...a lot of people would be worth 6 figures if they kept their money as BTC.

The general consensus from old-school GPU miners is that ASIC is ruining mining.  Many have shut down their equipment and sold off their Radeons.

The best time for mining was 2-3 years ago.  But even back then when spot was dirt cheap it may have been better to buy directly also.

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## newbitech

> I think he contributed pretty nicely. He essentially said the MH rate of your GPU is nearly infinitesimally small compared to the network hash rate so you *will never mine anything worthwhile.*  And that's exactly correct.  If you really want to mine you should probably look into getting some of the ASIC boards but I don't know about their current availability. If they are widely available now then I suspect they too are nearly worthless.


I realize the OP mentioned "profit", but it sounds more like the tone of the OP was more directed at actually doing it rather than speaking of the risks involved.

There are plenty of "what if" threads regarding the value of bitcoin.  I was hoping this thread would be more directed at the actual doing of the thing.  Guess people would rather speculate than produce.  Whatever.

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## opal

TY Brandon..  even the description made my brain hurt

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## talkingpointes

Is there any EEs here that could give us an equation for this. I don't have good equipment. But even with old equipment with modified hardware (fan, heat sinks) you can almost double output of core speeds in GPUs, and increase core clock on ram about 20-30%

I run a modified 8800gt - I put a cpu heatsink and fan on it. Sealed it nicely with silicon and can run (600 core/825 now)25% faster without seeing barely any increase in heat. However I hit the threshold of power on my entire unit. Anymore and games artifact and pause up. Any other overclockers ?

Given the amount of power it now takes to create a block, that is I assume a sort of mechanism to add stability ?

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## talkingpointes

Just looked up something to consider.... 

The 5970 uses a VLIW-5 architecture, which means the 3,200 Stream Processors are actually 640 "Cores,"  That is vs CPU's. 

In other words - any cards of medium to low end are useless becuase they have 1/2 to a 1/3 amount of stream processors. Overclocking in the artic seems like the way to go. I live in Phoenix, so dealing with heat is huge. But at night the temp can drop 30 degrees.

Nvidias cards are made for details/textures while radeons seem to be made to have a $#@! ton of physics going on. Makes sense becuase doing math is different from filling in pixels.

en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Why_a_GPU_mines_faster_than_a_CPU

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## kylejack

Your equipment will likely fail before you mine a single bitcoin. It's not all about heat management, a video card or CPU can only handle constant operation for so long. You're better off working a low paying job and just _buying_ some bitcoins and waiting for them to appreciate.

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## talkingpointes

But if this is the case what about physics(physx) boxes ?? The cuda boxes ? Those would basically be a miners engine and they are external ?

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## talkingpointes

> Your equipment will likely fail before you mine a single bitcoin. It's not all about heat management, a video card or CPU can only handle constant operation for so long.


I am not interested in mining with this rig. I'm just stating what is easily possible. Also you're completely wrong, it's ALL about heat management. The only way for it to run a "constant" is with a few other factors precisely because of that. That's why you have so many classes of cards. Most high-end cards are of the last made chips over-clocked with extra ram. Most hardware enthusiast know this. Most cards actually have a range of operable temps far higher than intended, and that is what you work with to over clock. The higher voltage is allowable by the internal hardware and software. 

99% Of cards are ran at a few degrees sort of their ceiling from the factory when you run them at their highest settings. That is their purpose, they don't build them so you can play a few hours with them. Look at the electrical components. They are top-of-the-line almost always. Hardware failure is so uncommon know it's almost always traced back to a bad solder - IE 88-9800s and the baking fix.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overclocking#Manufacturer_and_vendor_overclocking

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## talkingpointes

To further hit home the point. I'm already over-clocking a card that from the factory was over-clocked - and it's 5 years old. I'm the third owner.

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## newbitech

> Your equipment will likely fail before you mine a single bitcoin. It's not all about heat management, a video card or CPU can only handle constant operation for so long. You're better off working a low paying job and just _buying_ some bitcoins and waiting for them to appreciate.


Buying them from who?  People who want me to pay $90 bucks for something that the created by using their computer for something other than minecraft a few years back?  I mean really, there really is no effort involved at all in "mining" bitcoins.  Its a false scarcity.  The only justification I am hearing that I should buy this string of numbers an accept it as valuable is that someone else figured out how to decode the previous string before I did. 

So what?  

I thought it would be fun to see if I could make some microbitcoins or some millibitcoins.  But you know what, it's not $#@!ing fun because I think the only people ever going to have a real benefit off this is the people who initially bought into the idea.  They are gonna cash on out, and everyone left holding the bag will have to hope to find the next idiot.  

People will come to their sense I think and realize that the bitcoin really isn't that scarce since it will have to be divided by 10 some many times anyways to make it a viable currency for everyday use.  

eBeanieBabies!

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## kylejack

If you believe you know better than the people that have tried and failed to run a profitable bitcoin setup, have at it. See you in 3 months when you spent more on replacement hardware than you made in bitcoins. There are many blog posts that you can add your voice to.

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## kylejack

> Buying them from who?  People who want me to pay $90 bucks for something that the created by using their computer for something other than minecraft a few years back?  I mean really, there really is no effort involved at all in "mining" bitcoins.  Its a false scarcity.  The only justification I am hearing that I should buy this string of numbers an accept it as valuable is that someone else figured out how to decode the previous string before I did. 
> 
> So what?
> 
> I thought it would be fun to see if I could make some microbitcoins or some millibitcoins.  But you know what, it's not $#@!ing fun because I think the only people ever going to have a real benefit off this is the people who initially bought into the idea.  They are gonna cash on out, and everyone left holding the bag will have to hope to find the next idiot.  
> 
> People will come to their sense I think and realize that the bitcoin really isn't that scarce since it will have to be divided by 10 some many times anyways to make it a viable currency for everyday use.  
> 
> eBeanieBabies!


Bitcoins are like gold or any other currency in that they only hold the value that the public places in them.

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## talkingpointes

> If you believe you know better than the people that have tried and failed to run a profitable bitcoin setup, have at it. See you in 3 months when you spent more on replacement hardware than you made in bitcoins. There are many blog posts that you can add your voice to.


If I believe... Whoa, dude no need to be offensive. It's thermodynamics, electricity and a little know how. OH, and the other millions of people doing it. Rather then saying: oh, just google it. I thought I would explain it. But you don't want a discussion you just want to be rude or snarky.

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## talkingpointes

> Bitcoins are like gold or any other currency in that they only hold the value that the public places in them.


The value it takes to create them plus what you said called external cost. Everything has that, it's not just what people make up. There is a threshold for return on investment.

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## talkingpointes

Also to be clear, I would never bother overclocking a cpu. That is not as isolated on the hardware system as a whole compared to a gpu. You burn up a video card, and you replace one thing. Blowing transistors one a mainboard when you have a power surge can blow everything as a short results.

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## brandon

I think if anyone wants to mine bitcoins for fun they would probably be best doing it independently outside of a pool. Your chances of solving th3 block and winning 25 bitcoins is very very low but it still could happen. I would look at it like you are getting a couple free lottery tickets everyday. Im sure the odds are still better than playing powerball.

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## newbitech

> If you believe you know better than the people that have tried and failed to run a profitable bitcoin setup, have at it. See you in 3 months when you spent more on replacement hardware than you made in bitcoins. There are many blog posts that you can add your voice to.



im gonna tell your right now, bitcoin at a stable $100 per price is absolutely useless and novel  2.1 billion max cap?  I think beanieBabies market was something like 6 billions.

2.1 billion is not even 1% of USD currency replacement.  Let alone global currency replacement!  Sure I could go spend $100 (about what I pay for 1 month summertime bill here south west FL) and get 1 bit coin.  Or I could run my little nvidia crap card here at 10 cents a day  365 days and get my bitcoin that way.(in a pool obviously).

I've yet to see anyone offering to pay bitcoins for anything they need.  I've seen a bunch of the bit faucets and sites that were paying 1 bit coin to watch a 5 minute video move the decimals over.  

Give you a good idea of how people arbitrage your time.  Just to get in the market a little and beta test this thing, I did a couple of those watch this click that kinda things.  They send me less coin than my PC generates in an hour at 20mhash/s.  

Basically tells me that the marketers out there are using the bitcoin hype to dupe people out of their time even worse than mturk type schemes.  Seriously if someone understood that the value they were getting out of bit coin was the equivalent of paying you about 4.5 cents per hour, I think they would rather just do something else with their TIME and MONEY and let their computer labor out that artificial scarcity!

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## XTreat

> I am not interested in mining with this rig. I'm just stating what is easily possible. Also you're completely wrong, it's ALL about heat management. The only way for it to run a "constant" is with a few other factors precisely because of that. That's why you have so many classes of cards. Most high-end cards are of the last made chips over-clocked with extra ram. Most hardware enthusiast know this. Most cards actually have a range of operable temps far higher than intended, and that is what you work with to over clock. The higher voltage is allowable by the internal hardware and software. 
> 
> 99% Of cards are ran at a few degrees sort of their ceiling from the factory when you run them at their highest settings. That is their purpose, they don't build them so you can play a few hours with them. Look at the electrical components. They are top-of-the-line almost always. Hardware failure is so uncommon know it's almost always traced back to a bad solder - IE 88-9800s and the baking fix.
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overclocking#Manufacturer_and_vendor_overclocking


This is spot on, hardware out of the box these days is designed knowing users are going to overclock and push them to the limits. Those limits are determined by cooling and wattage. Heat is the #1 cause of hardware derogation not usage, so if you can keep your box cool you can overclock with little noticeable effects. My next project is installing a water cooler anyways, so I am interested in checking this out.

Also I live in Army barracks so electricity isn't even an issue.

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## well_met_sir

Some points:

Bitcoin is a decentralized ledger.  Miners are the people who encode your transaction into the ledger.  The more computing power that is thrown at this task the harder it is for someone to make a counterfeit ledger.  Miners get paid for their efforts with transaction fees.  Right now (early in bitcoin's history) fees are low and there is a subsidy.  As time goes on the subsidy will decrease and the fees will increase.

So you can see, miners are not typical bitcoin users.  They are people paid to make the system work.  Bitcoin is not and cannot be about mining.  That's like saying that shopping at the grocery store is about credit cards.  Shopping at the grocery store is about food.  If you want to simply "get into bitcoin" then mining is not the most natural way to do so.

Miners compete with each other for the fees (and more importantly, the subsidy).  Although mining is increasingly professionalized, there is always room for new competition.  Maybe you know more about hardware than the next guy, maybe your electricity is cheaper, maybe you have some other competitive advantage.  For example, if you use electricity to heat your house then mining to heat your house means that you can consider the electricity to be free (due to the laws of nature all electric heating is equally efficient).  I'm considering buying a used mining rig to heat my house.

There are basically three classes of mining hardware: CPU, GPU, ASIC.  CPU is the worst, ASIC is the best, and GPU is in between.  It has been a long time since CPU has been profitable.  If you try to CPU mine you will lose money.  ASIC mining has just started and ASICs are in short supply.  The people who get them first are making lots of money and everyone else is making less (remember that miners are racing to encode your transactions, the winner gets paid and the losers get nothing).  Once ASICs become more common, GPU mining will no longer be profitable.

Here is a profit calculator: http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/

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## newbitech

my computer makes right at .0005 btc in 6 hours.  That's .002 btc/day.  This is in slush's pool running average 21.016Mhash/s

in 10 days, that will be .020, in 100 days that will be .200.

So I may have 1 btc in about 500 days, of course there is diminishing returns.  

Now, I hear people talking about btc going "to the moon".  I don't believe it will, but it will have to, if its going to be anything more than a novelty currency replacement.  So I throw some cycles at it.  

I am picking up a nice mid-tower for $50, and I will put in a card for around $200 that can get me up to 200Mhash/s.

That will mean I can invest $250 and mine .02/day .2/10days 2/100days 10 in 500 days.  

if BTC can get to $500 in 500 days, at the end of 500 days I will have $5000 for my $250 experimental investment, then subtract power, which I estimate will be about 2 dollars a day. So net 4k.  Then diminish return.  If I can move my decimal place to the right on my initial in 500 days, I would be stoked.

If it crashes and burns?  SO what.  

So that's how I play it.  I will get around diminish returns by following the price.  If it rises to cover my  initial, I will double down.  But, it can't stay at $100 and work. 1BTC is going to need to be worth something like $1,000 to grab 1% of US trade, and $10,000 to really compete global.  

That number looks intimidating but considering that even now, you have to move the decimal on the BTC to the left a couple place to even make it useful as an everyday currency.  That will be even more significant if/when this thing breaks out of the niche.

I am highly skeptical, but I will like to see it happen, so I will participate like the early adopters did, put in my time and effort like I do with all things and use what I have around me to mke something good happen.

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## newbitech

good stuff right here.

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/a-g...ebay-for-20600

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## Ignostic?

> that first bit of coin my wife got for me by watching some videos or something, haven't gotten my .01 yet for writing the poem, and this mining pool isn't going to send me anything till I hit 1 bitcoin total reward.


You got your 0.01 BTC for the poem.  I'm busy and haven't been around to say anything.  I saw the poem and sent the BTC immediately.

It was sent on 3/30/13 14:07 (that should be Eastern Standard time).  Transaction ID: 7db45be18e35aaa71938bc348fd427e049a12402edd018b9e8  829513680f1850

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## newbitech

> You got your 0.01 BTC for the poem.  I'm busy and haven't been around to say anything.  I saw the poem and sent the BTC immediately.
> 
> It was sent on 3/30/13 14:07 (that should be Eastern Standard time).  Transaction ID: 7db45be18e35aaa71938bc348fd427e049a12402edd018b9e8  829513680f1850


yes i did get that, i think the wallet software i was using was screwed up (multibit).

I've since installed the full client with armory on top.  Still trying to figure out how to get things synched up with my mobile.

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## Crystallas

> my computer makes right at .0005 btc in 6 hours.  That's .002 btc/day.  This is in slush's pool running average 21.016Mhash/s
> 
> in 10 days, that will be .020, in 100 days that will be .200.
> 
> So I may have 1 btc in about 500 days, of course there is diminishing returns.



I just want to point out, that your hardware is your normal machine. Designed for whatever you purchased it to do, not mine. It's capable of mining, but not fully designed to mine. Kind of like going to a mineshaft and trying to find some gold with a Leatherman. If you got there early enough, and gold was to be found, you might actually come away with something nice. But now that hundreds of thousands of people have beat you to it, your multitool isn't getting much. 

A strange analogy, but I think it fits. 

Your hardware isn't able to get the same returns on these math problems, because the value of the math problems have gone up due to the volume of miners(difficulty), and the demand for the currency is steadily increasing along with it. Much like it would be nice to have a mining tractor in 1840 LOL.

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## newbitech

> I just want to point out, that your hardware is your normal machine. Designed for whatever you purchased it to do, not mine. It's capable of mining, but not fully designed to mine. Kind of like going to a mineshaft and trying to find some gold with a Leatherman. If you got there early enough, and gold was to be found, you might actually come away with something nice. But now that hundreds of thousands of people have beat you to it, your multitool isn't getting much. 
> 
> A strange analogy, but I think it fits. 
> 
> Your hardware isn't able to get the same returns on these math problems, because the value of the math problems have gone up due to the volume of miners(difficulty), and the demand for the currency is steadily increasing along with it. Much like it would be nice to have a mining tractor in 1840 LOL.


 I understand what you are saying.  If you think about it tho, the software will always have the capability to make the hardware look like a pickaxe next to laser drill over the next iteration. 

Difference is, there really still is gold in them thar hills.

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## Mordan

fools

Just buy BTC online. Mining is no more a geek thing. It is a pro thing. You will just lose money trying to mine a single BTC.

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## newbitech

> fools
> 
> Just buy BTC online. Mining is no more a geek thing. It is a pro thing. You will just lose money trying to mine a single BTC.


who is the fool?  If bitcoin value raises the way it needs to raise to be anything more than a novelty, then mining .0005 bitcoin/day will pay off.

Max BTC ~ 20,000,000 (million)
USD money M2 supply = 3,000,000,000,000 (trillion)

Max ratio of BTC/USD = 1/150,000

BTC trading at $100/1BTC

Max BTC USD market cap = $2,000,000,000 (billion)

BTC USD displacement at $100/1BTC = 1/1,500 or .001

So at 1/10th of 1% displacement (.1%)

1 BTC = $100
.1 BTC = $10
.01 BTC = $1
.001 BTC =  $.10
.0001 BTC = $.01
.00001 BTC = .1 penny
.000001 BTC = .01 penny
.0000001 BTC = .001 penny
.00000001 BTC = .0001 penny

That is, each bitcoin can be divided in up to 1 million pieces.

Pretty much any modern PC with a graphics card can mine at 20mHash/s and in a pool that gets you about

.0001 in a day or USD = $.01  

So quick summary.

Anyone right now can mine a penny a day at a USD displacement rate of BTC .1%

So the fools are betting, what if the replacement rate goes up?

well, at a 1% displacement that's mining $.10 a day.

10% is $1 a day.

Now, here is the kicker, factor in global displacement.  Meaning, the USD wont get 100% of BTC.  So now, lets look at global share of BTC rates.

at 100% global share and 10% USD displacement, we are mining $1 a day.
at 10% global share and 10% USD displacement, we are mining $10 a day.

That's on a crap machine at a 20mHash/s rate in a pool.  

What if I got an el cheapo vid card?  I can get that up to 200m/Hash/s rate in a pool.

Oh, so $100 a day?  

Yeah, I need 10% global share and 10% USD displacement.  If that happens in 20 years, after I have mined say todays equivalent of $1, which would take me just over 500 days, 

That's $10,000.  Not bad for a $100 graphic card and about $500 in extra power.  

So what if I had say 10 of those running?  $1000 in my cards, $5000 in power over 500 days.

$100,000.... 

hmmm.. doesn't seem foolish, doesn't even seem risky.  And, if it doesn't work out?  Coulda been worse, could put that $6000 to buy 60BTC, or could bought a couple of those AICS (if I could get em).

Course the difficulty rate is gonna slam that penny a day in few months that im getting now.  But, we'll see what happens.  Right now, no skin off my back to dabble.  

And then there is always diversification into other crypto-currencies.  I could simply run a different program.

But if I buy BTC or investing in AICS and the thing crashes, I lose with nothing to show.  If i do it my way, at least I could open up a cyber cafe or donate to a school or something.

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## brandon

> who is the fool?  If bitcoin value raises the way it needs to raise to be anything more than a novelty, then mining .0005 bitcoin/day will pay off.



You really aren't getting this. Whatever money you spend on mining would be much better spent just buying bitcoins instead. If the value of bitcoins continues to increase so will the mining difficulty.

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## newbitech

> You really aren't getting this. Whatever money you spend on mining would be much better spent just buying bitcoins instead. If the value of bitcoins continues to increase so will the mining difficulty.



Exactly what is it that i am not getting?

What % of the USD do you think bitcoin replace and at what global distribution rate?  

Right now we only know that at most BTC has displaced .1% of the USD on domestically traded exchanges.  
We have no idea what the global distribution of the ~10 million bitcoins is, so we cannot be certain of the exact displacement.  

So at .1% USD replacement, your 1 bitcoin is at present trading for $110 (already adjusted for global distribution via the market).

If we get 1%, your 1 bitcoin will be something like $1100.  
At 10%, something like $10,000
and at 100%, something like $100,000( that is where those crazy numbers we hear are coming from by the way.  Do the math!)

So there is a curve.  

You will spend right now $110 dollars and have that one bitcoin.

I will right now spend $110 dollars and be able to generate .005 bitcoin per day.  

Now visualize the curve. 

In 200 days, I will have my bitcoin.  So we will be on par.  On day 201, I will have 1.005 bitcoins, and you will have to go and buy your second bitcoin at whatever the price is in 200 days. 

Your argument is that the difficulty will rise faster than the price in USD.  

Or a better way to see it, the difficulty will rise faster than the replacement ratio.

That is valid, but I will also point out, the hardware has found it's limit on the top end as well. 

This means that, ultimately as time goes on, it will be harder and harder for you to convert your FIAT to BTC.  

Whereas for me, as time goes on, the hardware required to mine curve gets easier and easier.

We both face the same challenge.  Get in as much as we can now and reinvest.  

In my case, I am hedged by exchanging my fiat for something that I can put to use in the event that BTC fails.  In your case, you will have to find a buyer in a collapsing environment hoping to break even.

Regardless, if BTC replaces the dollar in any substantive way, you and I will do alright.  

I get it, I've done the math.  I'm not in this to flip bitcoins.  I'm in it to create them. 

Will it cost me?  No more than it would cost someone speculating with buying 1 of em at this time.

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## jclay2

> You really aren't getting this. Whatever money you spend on mining would be much better spent just buying bitcoins instead. If the value of bitcoins continues to increase so will the mining difficulty.



Phase 1: Mine Bitcoins
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit

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## dannno

> Phase 1: Mine Bitcoins
> Phase 2: ?
> Phase 3: Profit


Please read post #43 and educate yourself.

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## osan

> Today doing this would be a big waste of money.  Too many involved with a difficulty that is shooting to mars.


Smells like a scam.  Early in, early out and leave the chumps holding the bag.  Sheesh.

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## Bodhi

> So quick summary.
> 
> Anyone right now can mine a penny a day at a USD displacement rate of BTC .1%


Anyone who leaves their computer on 24 hours a day to earn a penny either has free electricity (not to mention free access to spare computer parts, running your computer 24 hours a day will take its toll)  or is just really, really bad at math.

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## kylejack

> Oh, so $100 a day?  
> 
> Yeah, I need 10% global share and 10% USD displacement.  If that happens in 20 years, after I have mined say todays equivalent of $1, which would take me just over 500 days, 
> 
> That's $10,000.  Not bad for a $100 graphic card and about $500 in extra power.  
> 
> So what if I had say 10 of those running?  $1000 in my cards, $5000 in power over 500 days.
> 
> $100,000.... 
> ...


Meanwhile, no halving days have occurred, no equipment has failed, no new equipment purchases were needed in 20 years, etc. Your hypotheticals don't include all the variables. 

You can get a J.O.B. that pays you fiat currency and use those to buy Bitcoins if you believe in Bitcoin as a currency. That would be a much better investment of time and effort.

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