Topic: Does mining require a professional (Read 5442 times)

Not really. I started mining BitCoins recently I just joined mining pool BitMinter. I had about 170 MHash/s it's wasn't really profitable. I recommend you buying mining device if you seek real profit.

I disagree that Bitcoin mining should be left to big companies.  There is always a place for individual miners with small rigs.  It is important for the health of Bitcoin to have the hashrate owned by many different people, and also located in many different places - the more decentralised the better. 

With a given hashrate and difficulty the BTC earned every day will vary a bit due to pool luck.  Over time these variations even out, so one should earn pretty close to the theoretical earnings (minus any pool fees).  To see what a given hashrate will earn at the current difficulty, try the MineForeman Bitcoin Mining Calculator.

Only one miner gets the block reward (currently 25 BTC).  If that miner is part of a pool, the reward is shared between all miners on that pool.

All miners are competing with each other to solve a block and get the reward.  If you want 1% of the block reward, you would need 1% of the total world hashrate - which is a lot!  Let's work through your other example of earning 1 BTC per day...

Currently there are 25 BTC generated every 10 minutes
=> 25 * 6 = 150 BTC per hour
=> 150 * 24 = 3600 BTC per day

1 BTC per day is 1 / 3600 = 0.028% of the Bitcoins generated every day
So to earn 1 BTC per day, you need 0.028% of the global hashrate.
At the time of writing the world hashrate is roughly 5 PH/s = 5,000 TH/s.
5,000 * (1 / 3600) = 1.39 TH/s

So you currently need a 1.4 terahash mining rig to earn 1 BTC per day.  This number goes up with every difficulty increase.

You don't have to be a professional, but I believe it helps to be an enthusiast.  If you enjoy the challenge of configuring and running a miner and have the aptitude/motivation to learn, then you don't need a lot of up-front knowledge - you can learn as you go. 

Many struggle with breaking even on mining rigs, some manage it, some don't.  I look at it as a fun hobby.  I have enjoyed the journey so far and have learnt a lot.

A great way to get started in mining is to buy a Raspberry Pi, a powered USB 2.0 hub (USB 3.0 is not compatible with the RaspPi), some USB ASICs, and download the free MinePeon software (write it to an SD Card for the RaspPi).  The reason why a Raspberry Pi is so great is it runs on about 2.5 to 3.5 Watts.  Aim to mine 24 hours a day to maximise Bitcoins earned.

If your main goal is to make money through Bitcoin, then it may be easier (and more profitable) to simply buy Bitcoins directly.  However I believe running a small Bitcoin rig is a great way of supporting the Bitcoin network, should pay for its own electricity running cost, and gives one warm fuzzies inside. 

setting up GPU max hashrate requires proffesional

As I have said before, I bought my mining equipment when BTC was worth $330. Now my mining equipment will be paid off within a month due to the BTC worth going up. The thing about mining is that nobody knows the outcome of the worth of BTC. Sure the difficulty will go up, but then also the worth could go up, so no matter the difficulty a person could possibly still mine $19 a day even with a higher difficulty, but keep in mind that is only if the price raises with the difficulty. In my case it did. BTC is slowly raising to $1000 so the decision is up to you honestly. If the worth goes down then people will bail on mining causing the difficulty to go down with it. It is entirely up to you.

I say do what your gut tells you to do. I remember months ago people saying that buying asic mining equipment would never ROI. Instead buy BTC. Buying and holding is not as easy as people say it is. You have to have nerves of steel to not sell when BTC prices and dropping. Person on Just-Dice lost 7000 BTC playing a 96% win roll. Investing in mining equipment or BTC both have their challenges.

I was also thinking of mining but after serious consideration I think its not very viable way to earn bitcoins. With the hardware cost and the electricity cost its not worthwhile. Unless, you can spend on solar set-up or plug on some free electricity source then it can be viable probably, but recovering startup costs can take years I guess. I think its better to earn bitcoin from service and trading.

Yes.

Everyone though that it would slow down once it hit 100 million difficulty, but it has been increasing even faster until 500million difficulty.. So no

The difficulty never stop until all BTC is mined....

This has been said every month for over the past year. Difficulty will surprise you.

Depends on which ASIC you are buying, most ASIC comes with instruction so it should be easy. What you should be worrying the most is making profit from it....

Yes, agree. break-even is now the hardest thing to do....

proffesional or not, you will learn over time

The short answer is: mining is easy, achieving a nice ROI with mining... isn't.

It really depends on what you are buying, USB erupter should be really easy and things like GPU you need some skills...

Why? I think its better to just buy both...

Buy bitcoins, mine litecoins.

Shouldn't be hard to find stable clock right? Just keep trying different clock speed until you get the best one...

Depends what u use, CPU or GPU.

IF CPU then there is no problem. With GPU there is problem to find stable clocks, but when u find it you have no trouble anymore

It comes with instruction but, it won't be super easy even with instruction but as long as you are not like my father that asking me how to install skype. You should be fine....

Nah, its easier to trading then mining:)

It usually come with instrution so it should be easy.

Mining required a professional, its not just as simple as plugging in and click the start button...

Only tradeing requires a proffesional!


or you loose all you money

Why is that? There is something I don't get in mining BitCoins. Let's say I got the ASIC and I have set everything up and started mining. And let's say with difficulty x I am suppose to make 1 BTC a day. Is there a chance I will be making less than 1? if yes by how much? and what are the chances of getting less than 1?

I know that mining alone is difficult, and mining in pools is better. For me I think of it that way. Plz correct me if i am wrong: Every 10 minutes the system releases currently 25 BTC. If I'm contributing with 1% of the total system hash rate, I will be getting 1% of 25 BTC undependantly on which pool I am mining with, right?
If the answer is no, then each 10 minutes, only 1 pool gets the 25 BTC? (I mean the pool that was able to solve the equation?) or it is divided equally among everyone in the whole system?

Please clarify this for me because it is very confusing, and if it is not certain that I will get BTC when I am contributing this makes it way more difficult to ROI.

Thank you

I totaly agree with you pawl

Yes, it is difficulty for someone who have totally no idea... buying Bitcoin is easier

Its really hard for me at first, especially when I don't even know what is pool. But after you understand more it should be easy..

Mining shouldn't really be done by one person anymore. Looking to big mining companies to do it and you get a little profit
Unless you mine something that isn't BitCoin

If you wish to make it worthwhile and you want to make some money out of it , you need to be a pro. You need to get reels manufacturer and some board designs assembled. Cut out all useless middlemen. Shoot them down with a tank. Vertically integrate. And you will make positive ROI.

Otherwise you will just collect second hand garbage buying, mining, and selling in between difficulty bumps.

Don't need a professional to start mining, but you do need to be professional if you want to ROI.... 90% of the miners are having negative return..

You should mine some altcoins with gpu if you have low electricity cost

fool in present day to start mine

as my friend said: Did you look that picture     "nevergonnaROI.jpeg" ?

It requires a genius at getting software and hardware to work together. But you also have to be a fool at the same time. 

First learn everything then decide will you mine, and do you have ROI if you mine!

IMO, the easiest "Mining for dummies" approach is to get a Raspberry Pi with a minepeon image and a miner (BFL, Avalon etc.)

If you can burn a CD using a PC, you could easily install MinePeon. From there, its virtually click and mine.

Setting up your miner is the hardest part about mining and can take a little research to do if you know nothing about it. GUIminer is probably the easiest but most use bfgminer or cgminer which can be a bit tedious to set up if you have zero computer knowledge. I currently have 2 block erupter asic's mining on a linux laptop; the hardest part was going through the command line process in linux which i had zero prior experience with.

Basically, if you understand you will not make your money back unless you're willing to drop a LOT of cash up front, mining is pretty simple.

Its better to learn up before buying any Bitcoin related stuff, buying share on CEX is as bad as the price now is too high...

You don't need if you are interested to learn on your own. But if you're too tired to do a research. Just buy shares in cex and sell it when price is high. Also you earn from mining with your share.

There is no ROI guarantee, doesn't matter how long the time frame, the cost of running equipment will rapidly outpace anything it can earn in btc. Reward will drop by half approx. every four years, next due around Aug/Oct 2016, hash rate will sky rocket, electricity costs will rise significantly. You'll be trapped in a loop of pouring more and more fiat or earned btc money into ever more efficient miners just to stand still. Anyone not upgrading in line with the increases will just end up being squeezed out of the process.

If you're going to start mining for profit now you're insane, for a hobby fine - no problem, otherwise just buy btc. All the benefits of increasing btc "value" with none of the overheads, stress and hassle.

You dont need to be a proffesional, you just need to spend a couple of days on this forum and read the topics

What you trying to say is wrong, the earning would go so low that it would not ROI for the lifetime... Do some calculation please

Well now with the speed the difficulty is increasing, hardly worth it.

For me, its quite actually quite hard to setup. You also have to understsnd more about overclock, heat management and pool.

You forget about electricity charges....

I don't really agree with all the naysayers, as long as your hardware doesn't die you will get a ROI someday.  It may not be today, or tomorrow, or this year, but eventually you will break even and if the price of BTC keeps going up you might even profit a bit.  You won't be the next 'Bitcoin Millionaire' such as the people who started in its infancy, but you can have fun and break even or even profit a small bit(also save on heating bills).

There are plenty of guides around to make mining btc very easy, there's no need to be an expert.  make sure you have a wallet, join a pool like btcguild, etc. and you should be good to go.

Mining has become very hard lately so make sure your aware of electric costs if you pay for your own electricity and factor that in.  It's a very fun hobby but one that is increasingly hard to see an ROI on.

There is much truth in the sentiment that it's now far better for an individual to buy btc with their money rather than mining equipment.

If you end up getting heavily into BTC remember that security is your friend.  Always use 2 factor authentication for everything related to bitcoin and preferably don't keep your wallet on the same computer you do all your daily web browsing on.

keep in mind...everyone in here has a common interest to deter you away from mining.  You are literally taking away from the pie by entering into the bitcoin game.  This is the way it works with all hardware and cryptocurrency mining.  As far as time to get it up and running, these guys are right.  Its an upfront investment of maybe 5 hours tops if you are using an asic (a little longer if you were stupid and went the gpu route (gpu requires you to test settings and find an ideal middleground setting that won't crash the pc) not stupid totally if you decided to mine alt-coins, but absolutely dumb if you thought you would buy gpus to mine for btc)

I think we've all found out the hard way here, that by attacking the same pie....no matter how much money you throw onto an asic - you're likely to lose btc if you plan to only mine btc with it.  I spent an hour getting my knc miner configured and only because I did a lot of checking here and there I could have just simply entered in my pool credentials (join a pool like btcguild or eligus)  and it began hashing away.  Make sure you have a wallet on your phone or on a secure pc and point your account on the pool to the wallet. 

If you used something outdated like bitcoinx.com/profit, then stop, goto a place like mining.thegenesisblock.com and see where you stand for at least the next 90 days.  ignore anything beyond that as there is no way to have the system double upon double upon double every month like their calculator is expecting. 

In short, you don't need to be good at PC cause instruction is all over the internet. But you need to spend some time if you have never done it before. 1-20 hours depending on the problem you face..

You can also consider the big ASIC miners...such as cointerra for 2TH for 6k... or you can try could mining at cex.io... it's my signature if you're interested.

If you are interested in it as hobby is fine and not too difficult to do but you will never get a ROI.
If you have a financial background you should do trading or invest in shares of Bitcoin related companies.

Another possibility is to work part time for a company who pays in Bitcoin.

If you want to spend some you can buy hi-tech and gadgets from our website www.bitroad.co.uk

Hope you will find the best solution to fit your needs.

Regards

Please don't buy any ASIC, you will regret like I do. The difficulty is increasing at 40% per 10 days, since your a banker you should be really good at calculating it.

Easy to mine after you setup it correctly, you can just leave it for months. The main problem is you will never ROI. Buying stocks or btc directly is better.

Exactly...so get into it if you want to do it as a hobby.  If you take a look at ebay and do some hashrate per dollar calculations, it's quickly evident that there are no returns... get into it for fun!  Or unless you believe bitcoin will hit 1,000,000 dollars someday.

Before you buy any miner, invest some time how difficulty works, what difficulty might be in near future and play with mining profitability calculators. If you do all right you will find out mining is not golden mine, in fact it is unprofitable now

It is very unlikely you will make ROI with mining at the moment, better to buy BTC low and sell high.

Generally you could be looking at 5% a day over the last couple of weeks, good luck with even getting near that with mining hardware.

Mining is easy; making ROI is not. There is lots of easy-to-use mining software out there. I recommend MinePeon, a Linux mining distribution for Raspberry Pi. You certainly don't need a degree in computer science, but some configuration is necessary.

I just want you to understand that you won't make a profit doing this -- especially if you are mining on a desktop, which consumes more power. Treat it as an educational hobby

I am thinking of buying an ASIC and start mining BTC. I just have 1 question to miners. Is it difficult to mine? I mean should I be a PC professional or have a computer science background to mine? Few people told me that I shouldn't mine because it is not something easy, and if i don't know what I'm doing, it might cause me trouble in terms of ROI.

I work at a bank from 8 to 6 everyday, so I won't have time to sit on the PC, but in order to make money, I should keep my PC running at least 20 hours a day. Is mining just plugging the hardware and letting the PC run alone to mine BTC?

I appreciate your help with this matter.

Thank you