Bitcoin Mining - ???

[VtPC83]

Ok, seriously, I've seen this a couple of times now in Gen H/W requesting builds for Bitcoin Mining. WTH is it? I've done some searching but nothing comes up describing what it actually is.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Some idiot pyramid scheme people were buying into. It's over now.

 

[ultimatebob]

Some idiot pyramid scheme people were buying into. It's over now.

Last I saw, BitCoins were still going for $11 each, and a decent computer running a high end AMD gaming card could find 2 or 3 of them a week.

You're not going to make a fortune by running the Bitcoin miner applications on your Gaming PC, but it could be nice if you wanted a little extra pocket change for games.

Of course, the feds could crack down on Bitcoin by shutting down the popular Bitcoin to $$$ exchanges fairly easily if they wanted to, so buyer beware.

 

[mnewsham]

Last I saw, BitCoins were still going for $11 each, and a decent computer running a high end AMD gaming card could find 2 or 3 of them a week.

You're not going to make a fortune by running the Bitcoin miner applications on your Gaming PC, but it could be nice if you wanted a little extra pocket change for games.

Of course, the feds could crack down on Bitcoin by shutting down the popular Bitcoin to $$$ exchanges fairly easily if they wanted to, so buyer beware.

Bitcoins go for $9-12 regularly right now they are going for 10-11 (this can change at any moment). It isn't really worth it unless you are going to be doing this 24/7 or you already have the required equipment. My friend makes about 60 bucks a week mining, but he is getting about 2,000M/hash (equivolent of 3 HD 6990's give or take some) but he already had the GPU's and started sort of early (a month or so before the media took hold) He saw a nice profit when he sold his stash of 100BTC for 20 bucks a pop. This is NOT the normal however and Do NOT expect this, he killed one of his 6950's already and thinks a second has a dying fan, since the price dropped he has mostly stopped (he does it on the weekends someimes). Word of advise is to just not get into it unless you can either afford it or you have the hardware already.

 

[Chiropteran]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2167303

It's an incredibly risky investment to buy hardware for it now, but if you have a computer sitting around not being used and can be a fun little hobby to play with on the side. Pretty much requires an AMD video card though, it's not efficient to CPU mine and nVidia is about 70% slower.

 

[Zargon]

Some idiot pyramid scheme people were buying into. It's over now.

fail

 

[airdata]

Some idiot pyramid scheme people were buying into. It's over now.

Like fractional reserve banking, or insurance, or so many other things that run our daily lives?

I don't know why people like you are bitter... but nearly every argument you have is truly invalid.


Try this for example. Post some negative thing you have to say about bitcoin, and then replace bitcoin with USD. If the statement is still true, your argument is invalid.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Try this for example. Post some negative thing you have to say about bitcoin, and then replace bitcoin with USD. If the statement is still true, your argument is invalid.

99% of value based on speculation, that speculation driven by marketing using contrived figures. ("If 100% of the wealth was represented by Buttcoins, each Buttcoin would be worth millions of dollars." Yeah... and if 100% of the wealth was represented by my penis, my penis would be worth trillions. That doesn't mean my penis is a currency that's worth the entire planet, Einstein.)
Unregulated market susceptible to pump and dump.
Currency verification can be counterfeited with a botnet.
Savings are not FDIC insured.
Funds can be stolen by remote, untraceably and with no recourse.
Creator owns a large percentage of the currency in existence.
Not usable to buy much of anything and you have to jump through hoops to convert it to a usable currency. (Since you have to convert it to USD to buy anything it's just a skin for USD with a gambling addon)
No physical presence. (Power's out? Can't access any currency. Internet's out? Can't trade currency for anything. EMP or hardware malfunction? All currency gone.)

The computational inflationary model Buttcoins used meant that early miners could leech money from idiots who put real money into the system, with it being hidden by the Ponzi-scheme fictitious return values. Now mining isn't worth the electricity cost and you have a currency whose only basis is the shared delusion that it is worth X amount in USD. It's a currency whose only use is to be traded for another currency -- it can't purchase anything on its own.

Next you're going to be telling me that gold trading at $1700/oz means it's the bestest currency.
Idiots.

 

[ElFenix]

Like fractional reserve banking, or insurance, or so many other things that run our daily lives?

I don't know why people like you are bitter... but nearly every argument you have is truly invalid.


Try this for example. Post some negative thing you have to say about bitcoin, and then replace bitcoin with USD. If the statement is still true, your argument is invalid.

mcdonald's doesn't accept bitcoins for lunch.

 

[Zargon]

blah blah blah
Idiots.

I just sold coins today, not all of what I have mined, maybe 2/3'rds, paid my electricity and paid for another GPU I had been wanting.


idiot.

 

[DominionSeraph]

I just sold coins today, not all of what I have mined, maybe 2/3'rds, paid my electricity and paid for another GPU I had been wanting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubble

Go back to school. I don't really care what you bought with your tulip bulbs.

 

[Zargon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubble

Go back to school. I don't really care what you bought with your tulip bulbs.

never did I say it wasnt some sort of scheme. I merely pointed out that people, regular people, not the illuminati or stone masons, are making $$ doing this.

and you are calling us idiots. I made $$ doing very little, if that somehow makes me an idiot, fine. I'll go back to that while you go back to watching cartoons for 4 year old girls

alot of your points are correct, but there are not many hoops, I sold coin on mtgox, toss it in dwolla, and into my bank account it does. yeah it takes a few days. so does selling stock and getting a check. so does doing anything with paypal

 

[DominionSeraph]

I merely pointed out that people, regular people, not the illuminati or stone masons, are making $$ doing this.

That's how bubbles work. "It went up in value from when I purchased it," does not disprove a bubble -- that's what bubbles do. (until they burst)

Buttcoins are a deflationary currency (after the current scripted inflation cycle [mining] is over) that are completely dependent on a high-tech base. Deflation is bad for consumer spending (the engine of our economy), the fixed supply means that the monetary supply can't be expanded or contracted (a very useful tool to smooth out economic perturbances), and the high-tech base means that it's on very shaky ground. Drop down to a horse-and-buggy world and dollars still work great. Buttcoins don't work at all, so a Buttcoin economy would fall all the way down to barter economy.

It's not a very good currency. Other than playing the complete gamble of the "greater fool" theory, there's no reason to trade USD for Buttcoins. And the inflationary slope has tapered off to the point where mining the Buttcoins that make up the inflation isn't worth the cost in electricity.
With no mining to drive a large base into Buttcoins, guess what? People are gonna want to cash out into a currency that can actually purchase goods and services.
The superiority of Buttcoins in conducting illegal transactions is not enough of a basis for widespread utility. Dollars are better from an overall economic standpoint and they're entrenched -- there's no reason to switch.
Buttcoins are a dead-end currency.

 

[Zargon]

nothing you have said disproves my point. you can still make some money doing it, so its not 'over now'

thought i wouldnt recommend buying lots of hardware to do it

 

[airdata]

As I said in my previous post. Nearly everything you said is exactly the same for the USD.

USD only has value because we pretend it does. USD is used regularly to anonymously buy drugs, guns, hookers and anything else in an untraceable fashion and is regularly stolen in the same way.

Bitcoin is stated to be in it's infancy still... The USD on the other hand has lost some 96% of it's value over the past 80 or so years and is backed by nothing at all but faith. Or if you're an extremist you can say it's backed by our military power as I've seen similar "buttcoin" proponents like yourself say. Which isn't a valid argument because you're simply admitting it's backed by nothing without having the balls to actually admit it.

But hey, if we need more USD we can just have our trusty Federal Reserve print more money or put more zeros into a banks account, right?

oh... and the whole buttcoin thing doesn't help any argument you have. Changing somethings name and adding a word like butt to it is something an 8 year old would do. Shows a very low level of intelligence and a completely non existent sense of humor.

 

[airdata]

Insurance.

Have to have it by law ( home / car ).

Pay premiums every month. Never need a claim. Your money pays for other people's claims.

OH SHIT>>> IT"S A PONZI SCHEME!

Central banks... give us all your money so we can loan it to other people at interest when you're not using it... sure, it's insured FDIC because we can just print more Federal Reserve notes if we need to with no repercussions!

Have you never played Monopoly?!

 

[blinblue]

Insurance.

Have to have it by law ( home / car ).

Pay premiums every month. Never need a claim. Your money pays for other people's claims.

OH SHIT>>> IT"S A PONZI SCHEME!

Not sure if you are serious, but insurance is not a ponzi scheme. A ponzi scheme by definition is an "investment" that relies on new money coming in to pay out to investors, and not through profit from some actual product or investment. If new money stops, the whole things collapses.

Insurance is (often) a legitimate product. You pay a premium to reduce your risk, simple as that. The insurance companies (in general) have the money to pay premiums, and if they did their homework right should always have enough cash on hand. As long as the risk is legitimate and large enough to cause financial harm, then insurance may make sense. Now you can argue that mandating insurance is bad, but that doesn't make it a ponzi scheme. If states suddenly decided not to mandate car insurance it wouldn't cause the car insurance industry to collapse.

Furthermore, filing a claim shouldn't be viewed as a good thing. You should be perfectly happy never filing an insurance claim in your life.


Also, I don't see bitcoin really going anywhere, but that's just my opinion. I personally wouldn't spend any money on hardware just to mine for it

 

[DominionSeraph]

As I said in my previous post. Nearly everything you said is exactly the same for the USD.

USD only has value because we pretend it does. USD is used regularly to anonymously buy drugs, guns, hookers and anything else in an untraceable fashion and is regularly stolen in the same way.

LOL, talk about forced vision.

The fact that you had your little "fiat currency" spiel all planned out does not mean that I accommodated it. I pwned you. Get over it.

Not sure if you are serious

Stupid people abound. Especially in Texas.
There's no point in trying to explain complex things to mental midgets. Some things are just beyond them.

 

[Zap]

Zargon and DominionSeraph, please keep it civil in the tech forums.