by Jim_TX 48 Replies latest social current
Howdy!
It's been a while since I've poked my head in here...
I was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with Bitcoin mining?
I am, and am having fun doing it. I was just wanting to chat with others are doing it, and share experiences, tips, etc.
Yes, I know there are forums for that sort of thing... I was just hoping to hang out here and chat a bit with like-minded folks.
Regards,
Jim TX
From what I understand, the opportunity for individuals to profit from mining Bitcoin has passed and it's now the realm of dedicated mining companies and even they are struggling - it requires more and more processing power to mine coins and at some point the power and computing costs become too much.
Of course it can be made profitable from transaction fees which then negates one of the touted benefits of crypto currency plus the miners need to sell the coins which can put downward pressure on prices.
Personally, I think it's one huge bubble and lots of the claimed benefits are either not real benefits at all or will disappear if it ever takes off. Right now it's really a techy / early adopter fantasy and not something that real people use in the real world.
I'm sure the ones looking to profit from it will continue to promote and hype it as much as they can but I can't see it being tremendously useful for regular people without major changes being made which will then change what it is.
Inevitably, the existing payment processing and money transmitting system will be re-invented by new groups wanting to steal market share away from the incumbents.
I read that the BitCoin network only supports something like 7-9 transactions per second compared to 10,000 for VISA (just one of many).
Hype, hype, hype - which isn't to say that peope can't make money from it, just beware ... even the proponents say you should invest money you can't afford to lose.
If you got in early though and are doing it for fun and learning - good job !
I'm having fun learning it too. These days you need to join a collective mining to obtain any real money, unless you've got a few hundred thousand dollars to invest in a minining farm. I've joined up with https://bitminter.com/ and have used my GPU's to earn a bit there.
A few months ago I converted several hundred dollars into bitcoin when it was way down from the Mt. Gox incident, and it's already appeciated about 13%. The goods and services that you can buy with it are very real. Additionaly, I've even purchased serveral things online already, and many brick and mortar shops in Germany accept Bitcoin, perhaps others will follow.
If you're interested in trading some U.S. dollars to Bitcoin I've had good luck with http://www.virwox.com.
Well...
RE: Simon - so that's a 'no' from you. Okay.
RE: Tt2C - Cool. It looks like you are mostly trading BTC and not really mining it. I say that because GPU's are not really capable of cranking out much in BTC - if I understand it correctly.
Most of the modern (well - 12 months old) technoogy use ASICs. The more recent ones are about .5w per G-Hash. I've even seen ASIC's that are .33w per G-Hash. The lower the power, the better the ROI.
I've discovered that you need >1TH/s to even start thinking about doing any BTC mining.
I'm still a newbie at this, and have only been mining for neary two months, but am learning as I go.
Yeah, sorry - I can see that it will play a part in future payment systems but right now there are far too many 'dodgy' players involved and the whole thing is in desparate need of legislation to protect people and shake out the less reputable elements. Until this happens I'll be negative on it.
I also think that not enough attention has been paid to the computing power (which means energy and pollution) effectively being 'wasted' in creating made-up currencies vs more useful things.
Simon,
I appreciate that you are the 'owner' of this forum, and have every right to kick me off for speaking my mind.
I was looking for folks who are bitcoin mining to speak up, and have a discussion.
You are NOT bitcoin mining, and yet continue to speak in this thread. You have made it very clear how you feel.
You have also made it clear that you think anyone who does bitcoin mining is either 'dodgy' or wasting computer power.
So unless anyone wants to go against you, they are going to remain silent.
Thanks for being a thread-killer, dude.
BTW - running a forum for as long as you have could also be construed as 'dodgy' and "wasting computer power (which means energy and pollution)".
Regards,
Jim TX
Gutsy, pal. But totally misguided. The difference is that Simon is using his time and electricity to run a forum that benefits other people. Bitcoins are all about helping yourself. The cycles spent mining them could be used for folding DNA or searching for ETs. As it is, you are buying into a potentially unstable system with an uncertain future. Maybe it will really pay off for you. But don't blame those of us who aren't dipping our toes in that water.
And Simon's disagreeing with the idea of bitcoins won't deter others from being pro-bitcoin if they want to chime in here. It's not like our admin is demanding that others agree with him. He just happens to be a tech-savvy person who knows what bitcoins are and has an opinion about them, which probably cannot be said for most people on this forum.
I am working with a Bitcoin mining company. We have our own datacenter using hydro power. I would agree that individual consumers buying hardware and running it themselves is not economically viable. I would also agree that there is a lot of background noise and outright scammers.
The value we see is that BTC has the potential to disrupt banking including payment processing, money transfer and ecommerce. Large companies are now accepting it as a means of payment. Expedia and Dell are two examples
It is also a protocol that goes beyond banking - the underlying technology could be used for many things where validating identity without a 3rd party middleman would be useful. Examples include the exchange of contracts and voting systems.
We see Bitcoin disrupting many industries in the same way and at the same scale as the Internet has already reconfigured media and communications.
Whether it will succeed and how it will do so is highly speculative - its difficult to imagine that the concept of digital currency is not going to play out to the benefit of the consumer, maybe starting at scale with the 3 billion new folks that will have mobile internet access but no bank account within the next decade.
Just my 0.02BTC :-)
Jim_TX
no, but as long as there's a bitcoin thread, there may as well be some enlightening information on it.
