Topic: BITCOIN MINING INTRO & RULES OF THIS SUBFORUM - READ BEFORE POSTING (Read 34349 times)

1. Obey the overall rules of this forum: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/unofficial-list-of-official-bitcointalkorg-rules-guidelines-faq-703657

2. This section is for BITCOIN MINING and related discussion ONLY. All bitcoin forks and alternate cryptocurrencies and discussion of them should be directed to a dedicated forum for those, or one of the altcoin subforums on this forum. All discussion regarding them will be moved without warning to the altcoin sections. If your topic is related to multiple currencies, then unless it is primarily about bitcoin it will be moved. Even if it is about sha256d mining but not about bitcoin it will be moved. BITCOIN mining is done today ONLY with ASICs, and any discussion of mining with CPU, GPU or FPGAs will be moved to the altcoin mining section.

3. Mining BITCOIN is done exclusively with dedicated BITCOIN mining hardware based on ASICs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit . You CAN NOT meaningfully mine bitcoin today with CPU, GPU or even FPGAs. Bitcoin difficulty adapts to match the amount of mining done on the network and has reached levels trillions of times too high to mine meaningfully with PCs, laptops, tablets, phones, webpages, javascript, GPUs, and even generalised SHA hardware. You will not find software in this section to help you mine bitcoin in this absurdly inefficient manner in this subforum. It would cost you thousands of dollars in electricity per year to earn only a few cents in bitcoin. Even if you combined all the computers in the world, including all known supercomputer, you would not even approach 0.1% of the bitcoin hashrate today. Any discussion outside of ASIC related mining, except in the interests of academia, will be moved to the altcoin mining section. There isn't any point attempting to mine bitcoin with CPU or GPU even in the interests of learning as it shares almost nothing with how bitcoin is mined with ASICs and will not teach you anything.

TL/DR Summary:
 - You CANNOT meaningfully mine bitcoin with your PC or laptop no matter how powerful it is.
 - You CANNOT meaningfully mine bitcoin with your tablet or phone no matter how powerful it is.
 - Mining apps for your phone or tablet that claim to mine bitcoin are almost certainly scams.
 - You CANNOT find software here to mine bitcoin with your PC by itself.
 - You MIGHT be able to do one of the above with altcoins, but such discussion goes into the altcoin mining section.
 - You CANNOT find or post software here to mine on other peoples' PC without their permission.


4. Use the subforums as much as possible:

Mining support - This is for all questions regarding understanding the process of BITCOIN mining, and any issues with setting up hardware, configuration issues, stability issues, etc. Where hardware has a dedicated support thread by the manufacturer or maintainer of the hardware, there will be a post in the hardware subforum so please use that first. CPU, GPU and FPGA mining support will be moved to the altcoin mining section.

Pools - This is for all questions and discussion regarding BITCOIN pools, their operation, support etc. Where a pool has a dedicated thread from the owner, admin, or support staff of the pool, please use that. If the pool has a self moderated thread, then you are allowed to create your own personal thread to discuss those pools to not be prone to censorship by the pool owner/admin. Altcoin pools will be moved the altcoin pool mining section.

Mining software - This is for all posting of new BITCOIN mining and mining related software, pool software, proxies, controllers, monitors, web page design, apps etc. Discussion of software for education purposes to understand mining related functionality can go here. All altcoin mining related software will be moved to the altcoin mining section. No trojans, botnet, web page miners etc. are acceptable here - threads will be removed without warning and posters banned.

Hardware - This is for dedicated discussion regarding BITCOIN mining hardware ONLY and hardware in development. There should be only one topic per new piece of hardware, preferably started by the creator of the hardware, and they can then provide support for that hardware on that one thread. Where hardware has no manufacturer representative on this forum, the thread can be started by anyone but all discussion should remain in the one thread. If the manufacturer has stared a thread but it is self moderated, then you are free to create your own personal thread to discuss that hardware and avoid the manufacturer's censorship, but discussion of actual support should go in the Mining support subsection.

  Hardware - Group Buys- This is for coordination of BITCOIN mining hardware group buys ONLY. Threads can be created by the initiator of the group buy or expressions of interest, or discussion of existing group buys if a moderated thread exists elsewhere. It is NOT for selling hardware. All altcoin mining related group buys well be moved to the altcoin section.

 Mining speculation- This is where all BITCOIN mining related opinion discussion goes. Opinion means mining related speculating about new hardware, difficulty, economic effects, profit estimates, requesting opinions, asking for hardware recommendations etc. All altcoin mining related speculation will be moved to the altcoin mining section.

 Anything else that does not belong into one of those categories above, such as mining related offtopic discussion can go into the top mining section, but it must be BITCOIN mining related. Non mining offtopic discussion will be moved and non bitcoin mining discussion will be moved to the altcoin mining section.

5. Mining altcoins, even if you get paid in bitcoin, does NOT amount to mining bitcoin. Ethereum is NOT bitcoin. Monero is NOT bitcoin. Litecoin is NOT bitcoin. Bitcoin cash is NOT bitcoin and so on. Any discussion regarding mining anything NOT BITCOIN will be moved to the altcoin mining section.

6. All virtual mining - such as cloud mining, purchasing hashrate etc. is a service and NOT bitcoin mining. Discussion regarding cloud mining, contracts, hosting services, renting hashrate etc. belong in the economic services subforum and not the mining subsection.

7. Scam accusations belong in the economic scam accusation subforum, even if it is bitcoin mining related.

8. Mining hardware for sale or wanting to buy goes into the "economy - computer hardware" subforum. Mining hardware that is for mining altcoins belongs in the altcoin mining marketplace forum.

Threads that have been redirected to another subforum will be done silently if there is only an opening post. Any threads that have been redirected after some responses exist for that post will get a redirection thread message where they were originally posted to make it easier to find for followers of that thread