I like the idea of a computer sitting in my bsement makeing me money. So a few questions to get out of the way:
I thought bit coins handed out the reward to the person who completed the lock fastest? Like the only people who make coins are the one with th fastest computers who race to finish the next block? If thats not true can you just do hashes and get some money like 10-50$ (What ever that is in BTC @ 4200.00$ USD.
Also whats the start up cost? Im pretty good at electronics and building computer even thought I have never built one for this purpose. I hear the graphics card are being sold out quickly. Is there an advantage to running older ones?
As computers get faster do you need to compete with the others out there to earn the coins? Kind of like my first example but instead be willing to mine small amounts?
Or could have your lap top plugged in doing it and just expect less coins but aside from the electricity your machine is making you some sorts of money?
My bitcoin strategy is as follows $2000USD start up plus $500 a month goes into an exchange. Half those coins will be day traded and the other half with be used for my prediction (long) that its going to go up in the next year and it has to ride out the bump, because no mater what its staying in the market. The other half is deemed acceptable loss if everything goes wrog because I suck at trading but so far I'm winning on paper.
But mining now presents a third option: even if the gains are not much I'm thinking i leave this machine on for 3 years and half the value comes from the GPU making coins and the other half of the value come from appreciation.
So Price? Time? and would a minier take away from my other two investment ideas.
I say bit coins ut some of the day trade money will go into a bunch of different coins and the miner may be used for different coins as well if BTC is too hard for an aveage person to keep up with the other miners.
Most Bitcoin are mined by "mining pools", which split the load among those that participate in the pool and split the resulting profit when the pool finds a block.
You CAN'T mine Bitcoin on anything except dedicated ASIC machines and expect to earn a noticeable amount - ASIC took over several years ago and are literally THOUSANDS of times more efficient on Bitcoin than GPUs are.
You're looking at a startup investmend in the $1000 range if you opt for a CURRENT, profitable ASIC miner - the Avalon 741 can be had for around $800ish and then add a good power supply.
I'd recommend reading up more before you ask any more questions - this is all COVERED in various threads here.