Author

Topic: Took the BTC plung!! (Read 993 times)

hero member
Activity: 980
Merit: 508
August 09, 2013, 12:01:17 PM
#15
Welcome. I don't understand newer people's obsession with mining. It a waste of time and money for the average person now.
newbie
Activity: 3
Merit: 0
August 09, 2013, 10:51:25 AM
#14
Welcome and good luck.  I'm pretty new here too, though been into this for awhile now.  I find the BTC mining window seems to be quickly closing short of ASICS.  Seems alt's are definitely where the money is to be made now, even if the bulk of it is just trading back into BTC
legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 1491
LEALANA Bitcoin Grim Reaper
August 08, 2013, 09:47:17 PM
#13
Welcome. Bitcoin is like taking the red pill in the matrix. The rabbit hole is very deep. Smiley
newbie
Activity: 16
Merit: 0
August 08, 2013, 09:39:08 PM
#12
Welcome and happy mining!
BTC mining going to be profitable if you have gigahash machine for mining :p
newbie
Activity: 5
Merit: 0
August 08, 2013, 08:47:06 PM
#11
I enjoy an intelligent conversation..Thanks for entertaining.



"Let's also suppose that the difficulty continues to increase at about 50% per month as it has for the past few months. That means that starting now your USB Block Erupter will mine no more that 0.41 BTC over its lifetime."

How can this statement be true if you leave it plugged in it will mine and it will make money no matter how small the amount? So you mean to tell me if i ahve 500 block erupters and i just leave them going for 5 years I'm only gonna make .41 bitcoins? I find this false. Please show me the math and dont give me no shit about power cost.

If you have 500 miners running at 336 MH/s, then you will mine at most 500 x 0.41 = 205 BTC, if the difficulty increases 50% per month every month for the next 5 years. However, 500 miners are going to cost you 350 BTC up front.

It is an interesting bit of math. Here's a simple example: Let's say that you are paid a certain amount of bitcoins every week forever. The first week is 1 BTC and each following week is 1/2 of the previous week.

You would get this many bitcoins:

S = 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ...

This is called a "power series", and without going through all the math, I'll just tell you that you will receive 2 BTC total even though you will be receiving bitcoins forever.

In a more generic form, a power series looks like this:

S = 1 + r + r2 + r3 + r4 + ...

and the result when 0 <= r < 1 is this surprisingly simple expression:

S = 1 / ( 1 - r )

In the example above, r is 1/2, so S is 1/ (1 - 1/2), or 2.

Now, let's talk about mining. If the difficulty increases by 20% every difficulty period, then a miner mining at a fixed hash rate will mine 83.3% of the coins it did during the previous period. This is a power series in which r = 1/1.2!

So, with a difficulty increase of 20% each period, then

S = 1 / (1 - 1/1.2), or 6

This means that if the difficulty rises 20% every period you will mine will up to 6 times the amount you mined in the first difficulty period. Your miner currently mines 0.06327 BTC every period, so the total your miner will ever mine from now on in this case is 0.3822 BTC.

If the difficulty increases by 10%, then the total will be 11 times the amount mined in the first period. Your miner will mine 0.696 BTC

Of course, the difficulty can't increase at 20% or even 2% forever, so you are technically correct. The difficulty will flatten out someday.  However, the reality is that you will not mine forever, and also with the difficulty increasing so quickly these days, the small amount you mine this year is going to be 100 times what you mine next year.

The best thing to do is to avoid paying more for a miner than what it will mine, but if you can't do that, then the next best choice is to just buy the bitcoins outright now, and then use them to buy a miner when the difficulty finally flattens out.
legendary
Activity: 4522
Merit: 3426
August 08, 2013, 06:38:45 PM
#10

"Let's also suppose that the difficulty continues to increase at about 50% per month as it has for the past few months. That means that starting now your USB Block Erupter will mine no more that 0.41 BTC over its lifetime."

How can this statement be true if you leave it plugged in it will mine and it will make money no matter how small the amount? So you mean to tell me if i ahve 500 block erupters and i just leave them going for 5 years I'm only gonna make .41 bitcoins? I find this false. Please show me the math and dont give me no shit about power cost.

If you have 500 miners running at 336 MH/s, then you will mine at most 500 x 0.41 = 205 BTC, if the difficulty increases 50% per month every month for the next 5 years. However, 500 miners are going to cost you 350 BTC up front.

It is an interesting bit of math. Here's a simple example: Let's say that you are paid a certain amount of bitcoins every week forever. The first week is 1 BTC and each following week is 1/2 of the previous week.

You would get this many bitcoins:

S = 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ...

This is called a "power series", and without going through all the math, I'll just tell you that you will receive 2 BTC total even though you will be receiving bitcoins forever.

In a more generic form, a power series looks like this:

S = 1 + r + r2 + r3 + r4 + ...

and the result when 0 <= r < 1 is this surprisingly simple expression:

S = 1 / ( 1 - r )

In the example above, r is 1/2, so S is 1/ (1 - 1/2), or 2.

Now, let's talk about mining. If the difficulty increases by 20% every difficulty period, then a miner mining at a fixed hash rate will mine 83.3% of the coins it did during the previous period. This is a power series in which r = 1/1.2!

So, with a difficulty increase of 20% each period, then

S = 1 / (1 - 1/1.2), or 6

This means that if the difficulty rises 20% every period you will mine will up to 6 times the amount you mined in the first difficulty period. Your miner currently mines 0.06327 BTC every period, so the total your miner will ever mine from now on in this case is 0.3822 BTC.

If the difficulty increases by 10%, then the total will be 11 times the amount mined in the first period. Your miner will mine 0.696 BTC

Of course, the difficulty can't increase at 20% or even 2% forever, so you are technically correct. The difficulty will flatten out someday.  However, the reality is that you will not mine forever, and also with the difficulty increasing so quickly these days, the small amount you mine this year is going to be 100 times what you mine next year.

The best thing to do is to avoid paying more for a miner than what it will mine, but if you can't do that, then the next best choice is to just buy the bitcoins outright now, and then use them to buy a miner when the difficulty finally flattens out.
hero member
Activity: 955
Merit: 1004
August 08, 2013, 03:04:18 PM
#9
You finally took the plung?

What's a plung?  Is that a noun, verb, or adjective?

You should have read and researched more.  I'd advise any noobs to go straight into alt coins that use scrypt, and bypass BTC altogether.  3 months ago it looked like ASICs would not arrive anytime soon, but now they are coming in droves, sending the difficulty sky high and the production straight to hell.

I started by GPU mining BTC, but I saw the difficulty going up from 11 million and my production dropping fast so I switched to DigitalCoin and then to LiteCoin.  Both scrypt coins, which ASICs are useless for.

Assuming that guy's quote of 0.41 BTC is right, that is for one erupter and since you have 10, that would be 4.10 BTC over a long time.

Find one of the online calculators and input your total hash rate, and the current difficulty, and see how long it'll take to mine 1.00 BTC, which you'd currently get about $100 for in U.S. Dollars on an exchange.

And there is no guarantee that the price of BTC will stay around $100, it can go down as easily as it goes up.

My suggestion would be to get those erupters on eBay as soon as possible and hope some overeager naive noob who didn't do their research jumps on them and throws money at you.  That's your best bet for getting any money out of them.  You may not break even but you'll get money NOW.
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1000
Annuit cœptis humanae libertas
August 08, 2013, 02:18:24 PM
#8
I may still build a GPU mining rig, which will probably be mining litecoin because Bitcoin difficulty is too high now, because the heat it generates is useful in the cooler months.

And yes, one of the reasons I've never yet mined cryptocurrency is that it's often cheaper and easier just to buy it.
newbie
Activity: 5
Merit: 0
August 08, 2013, 02:15:17 PM
#7

"Let's also suppose that the difficulty continues to increase at about 50% per month as it has for the past few months. That means that starting now your USB Block Erupter will mine no more that 0.41 BTC over its lifetime."

How can this statement be true if you leave it plugged in it will mine and it will make money no matter how small the amount? So you mean to tell me if i ahve 500 block erupters and i just leave them going for 5 years I'm only gonna make .41 bitcoins? I find this false. Please show me the math and dont give me no shit about power cost.







Yes, I know "mining time's a waistin" but I don't expect to make any money on this little venture unless the price of BTC heads skyward.
It probably will - eventually!
Have fun with the mini mining project.

Here's some important information that new miners are generally not aware of:

There are two ways to get bitcoins, you can buy them or you can mine them, and it might be cheaper to just buy them. It all depends on how much you pay for the miner and what the difficulty will be in the future.

For example, let's take your USB Block Erupter that you just bought for $67. Let's also suppose that the difficulty continues to increase at about 50% per month as it has for the past few months. That means that starting now your USB Block Erupter will mine no more that 0.41 BTC over its lifetime. On the other hand, you can buy 0.70 BTC outright for $67.

So, which would you rather do with your $67? Buy 0.70 BTC or mine 0.41 BTC? Some people mine because it is fun, and not because they think they are going to make money. Also, keep in mind that the result is the same regardless of what happens to the price of BTC in the future.
hero member
Activity: 826
Merit: 1001
@Bit_John
August 07, 2013, 09:01:21 PM
#6
You can always get into altcoins to grow your Bitcoin wallet at cryptsy.com. I know shameless plug Smiley but in all reality Alt Coin trading is a great way to make more BTC.
legendary
Activity: 4522
Merit: 3426
August 07, 2013, 08:42:07 PM
#5
Yes, I know "mining time's a waistin" but I don't expect to make any money on this little venture unless the price of BTC heads skyward.
It probably will - eventually!
Have fun with the mini mining project.

Here's some important information that new miners are generally not aware of:

There are two ways to get bitcoins, you can buy them or you can mine them, and it might be cheaper to just buy them. It all depends on how much you pay for the miner and what the difficulty will be in the future.

For example, let's take your USB Block Erupter that you just bought for $67. Let's also suppose that the difficulty continues to increase at about 50% per month as it has for the past few months. That means that starting now your USB Block Erupter will mine no more that 0.41 BTC over its lifetime. On the other hand, you can buy 0.70 BTC outright for $67.

So, which would you rather do with your $67? Buy 0.70 BTC or mine 0.41 BTC? Some people mine because it is fun, and not because they think they are going to make money. Also, keep in mind that the result is the same regardless of what happens to the price of BTC in the future.
member
Activity: 88
Merit: 10
August 07, 2013, 07:59:03 PM
#4
I am about to buy my first Block Erupter tonight, then as I can afford to do so, continue buying some more and chain them together.
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1000
Annuit cœptis humanae libertas
August 07, 2013, 06:53:35 PM
#3
Welcome! Smiley

Yes, I know "mining time's a waistin" but I don't expect to make any money on this little venture unless the price of BTC heads skyward.
(emphasis mine)

It probably will - eventually!

Have fun with the mini mining project.
sr. member
Activity: 364
Merit: 250
August 07, 2013, 06:48:39 PM
#2
Now...if only you could take the plunge.

 Grin Cheesy
newbie
Activity: 2
Merit: 0
August 07, 2013, 01:16:29 PM
#1
I read the newbie restrictions...guess I have to post here first in order to post elsewhere. So here it is.

I originally bought a couple of GPUs to do some pentesting with oclHashcat. While in the process of seeking out these (GPUs) out I became aware of bitcoin and realized that I could use the GPUs to mine them. So that's what I did. As I did more reading about BTC it became clear that GPUs were not going to cut for very long, so I dove into block erupters. Neat little devices, work great, and use a whole lot less juice to run. Luckily, I bought them just as the price/device was falling and sat on the sideline until the price settled out to about $67+-. So now I'm mining with 10 BEs and 1 GPU until I can pick a few more BEs when the next orders from Asicminer and the rest hit the shelves, hopefully cheaper, then I'l retire the GPU. Yes, I know "mining time's a waistin" but I don't expect to make any money on this little venture unless the price of BTC heads skyward. So I'll wait awhile to see if the asics drop in price again then pick up enough to fill another hub.

Ok, this should be enough lines to qualify as a "substantial" post.....start the 4 hour clock Smiley
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