Back to the topic at hand (custom mining rigs):
I spent some time trying to figure out how to build one for myself, and how much that would cost. I eventually gave up, because I don't have time for a project like that. However, it would be very tempting if someone were selling purpose-built mining rigs that I could just buy and plug in.
I think it very likely that there is a market (of unknown size) for selling boxes like that - built by someone with PC building skills but no access to cheap electricity and sold to someone like myself who does have access to cheap electricity but doesn't have much free time. Such a buyer would want a PC optimized for the highest MHash/$. All the seller would have to do is set up a simple web store and advertise it on this thread.
Topic: Building computer for mining - page 2. (Read 30613 times)
What sort of safeguards are in place to prevent transaction fees from becoming prohibitively high?
Concurrence. Free market. Offer and demand.
What I mean is that bitcoin allows all miners to compete as far as their fees are concerned. Hopefully this free market approach should reduce mining fees.
Am I right ?
As far as I understand current bitcoind implementation does not have an easy way to force non-zero fee (which is a good thing).
The relevant code is very easy to change. ArtForz used to operate with non-standard, less-restrictive fee rules.
Is this blatantly false?
Yes. Bruce "exaggerates" a lot. There is also no encryption in Bitcoin, payments are not guaranteed to be irreversible (though reversal is difficult), and anonymity is not great.
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What sort of safeguards are in place to prevent transaction fees from becoming prohibitively high?
The small-fee transactions will accumulate, which will incentivize new miners to step in and claim those fees. The required fee should always be quite small, though these transactions may take a while to be included.
This bothers me. I thought one of the main advantages of bitcoins was that you didn't have to deal with transaction fees. What sort of safeguards are in place to prevent transaction fees from becoming prohibitively high? From bitcoinme.com:
"Whereas credit cards and other online payment systems typically cost 1-5% per transaction, plus various other fees adding up to hundreds of dollars... Bitcoin usage and transactions are always free. It doesn't matter if you send $0.01... or $1,000,000.00... the transaction cost is always the same: free"
Is this blatantly false? If so you shouldn't be advertising to people that the transactions are always free. Can someone explain to me how this works?
If the transaction fees don't start going up at least a little, there may be little incentive to mine/generate in the future.
It's the miners who set the fees, so this is a self-correcting "problem".
One thing to keep in mind is that the reward for crunching a block gets cut in half each 210,000 blocks. If the transaction fees don't start going up at least a little, there may be little incentive to mine/generate in the future.
Perhaps I don't understand the system completely (highly likely). Do you have to be generating coins to be part of the network, or do you simply have to have the client running on your computer? I thought generating the coins was how individuals supported the network by verifying previous bitcoin transactions.
I think you also collect the transaction fees associated with those transactions, meaning that you have to have the client set to generating coins. Can someone confirm? Come to think of it, that doesn't solve the problem of having minuscule processing power compared to the rest of the network, since there's just as much competition for the fees as the regular awards per block. I suppose the incentive to "generate coins" will have to come from the desire to win the lottery by solving a block, and that depends on the value of bitcoins increasing dramatically.[/quote
Ah, I get what you are saying. But transaction fees are few and far between, from what I can tell, and as you said have the same difficulty associated as solving blocks. But I suppose as the difficulty increases people will stop mining, causing the difficulty to decrease, combined with the rising value of bitcoins which will bring some people back to mining.
Perhaps I don't understand the system completely (highly likely). Do you have to be generating coins to be part of the network, or do you simply have to have the client running on your computer? I thought generating the coins was how individuals supported the network by verifying previous bitcoin transactions.
I think you also collect the transaction fees associated with those transactions, meaning that you have to have the client set to generating coins. Can someone confirm? Come to think of it, that doesn't solve the problem of having minuscule processing power compared to the rest of the network, since there's just as much competition for the fees as the regular awards per block. I suppose the incentive to "generate coins" will have to come from the desire to win the lottery by solving a block, and that depends on the value of bitcoins increasing dramatically. I just thought the idea was that the more people running the bitcoin client, the stronger the network. If only 30 people with specialized high-power mining setups are doing all the mining (and several mining pools) then you'll have a less secure network as there will be far fewer points of failure, right? I'm not trying to be the newbie who thinks he found the crack in bitcoin's armour. This is probably a non-issue as enough people will keep mining even for diminished returns on bitcoins, and additionally some will runt the client to support the network even without expecting to gain any bitcoins from it. Thoughts?
People will also run the client for the sake of collecting transaction fees.Perhaps I don't understand the system completely (highly likely). Do you have to be generating coins to be part of the network, or do you simply have to have the client running on your computer? I thought generating the coins was how individuals supported the network by verifying previous bitcoin transactions.
At some point, the standard client might detect and support graphics cards "out of the box". It's unlikely to happen soon, of course.
I just thought the idea was that the more people running the bitcoin client, the stronger the network. If only 30 people with specialized high-power mining setups are doing all the mining (and several mining pools) then you'll have a less secure network as there will be far fewer points of failure, right? I'm not trying to be the newbie who thinks he found the crack in bitcoin's armour. This is probably a non-issue as enough people will keep mining even for diminished returns on bitcoins, and additionally some will runt the client to support the network even without expecting to gain any bitcoins from it. Thoughts?
People will also run the client for the sake of collecting transaction fees. The incentive for independent miners seems to be quickly decreasing, because the average person can't just download bitcoin, fire up his computer and expect to generate any coins in a reasonable period of time. So it seems like the tendency will be towards group mining or people just won't bother to run the application.
Specialisation of labour. Should I say more?
I just thought the idea was that the more people running the bitcoin client, the stronger the network. If only 30 people with specialized high-power mining setups are doing all the mining (and several mining pools) then you'll have a less secure network as there will be far fewer points of failure, right? I'm not trying to be the newbie who thinks he found the crack in bitcoin's armour. This is probably a non-issue as enough people will keep mining even for diminished returns on bitcoins, and additionally some will runt the client to support the network even without expecting to gain any bitcoins from it. Thoughts?
The incentive for independent miners seems to be quickly decreasing, because the average person can't just download bitcoin, fire up his computer and expect to generate any coins in a reasonable period of time. So it seems like the tendency will be towards group mining or people just won't bother to run the application.
Specialisation of labour. Should I say more?
The incentive for independent miners seems to be quickly decreasing, because the average person can't just download bitcoin, fire up his computer and expect to generate any coins in a reasonable period of time. So it seems like the tendency will be towards group mining or people just won't bother to run the application.
The best way to obtain bitcoins, in my opinion, is to buy them.
I think that too but we should not discourage people for mining. The more miners there are, the stronger is the network.
... there is an addictive adventure side to the mining process
There's that "rush" when you use the computer in the morning and you see that it says "Generated: +50.00". There's also that "downer" when you have gone weeks without generating.
The best way to obtain bitcoins, in my opinion, is to buy them.
I think that too but we should not discourage people for mining. The more miners there are, the stronger is the network.
You guys are doubtless correct, and I plan on purchasing bitcoins at some point soon, but there is an addictive adventure side to the mining process. It's like the gold fever of the California gold rush.
Hmm, since my wife would kill me if I set up a CPU farm of several dozen computers in our house, perhaps I should go the route of a single miner with a reasonably powerful GPU.
(Also the landlord would probably start wondering I was growing marijuana when he noticed the electric bill.)
(Also the landlord would probably start wondering I was growing marijuana when he noticed the electric bill.)
The best way to obtain bitcoins, in my opinion, is to buy them.
I think that too but we should not discourage people for mining. The more miners there are, the stronger is the network.
My crappy GPU, installed by default on my $500 computer, is as fast as a dozen old pentium 4's.
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