Just wondering if anybody here is into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin or others? I had a studen get me into it a couple of months ago and have tripled my money in it. I want to start mining it but am confused. I was hoping someone in here knew a little something about all of it.
I don’t know anything about mining but I do know what they use. You are going to need 1 to multiple PCs with 3 to 5 video cards. Which means you need a mother board that can handle 3 to 5 video cards in SLI/Crossfire.
You are talking about $900-$1500 in video cards alone. Not counting CPU, CPU cooler, case, case fans, power supply, memory, and optical drives.
If you just want to do it for fun I am sure you could do it with a PC with just 1 video card but you aren’t going to be making much, if anything. The PC has to be able to do calculations super fast and they need to run 24/7 356.
The computer has to solve complex math problems to discover a block to be added to the block chain. If found you get a certain number of bitcoins for the work done.
Its such a volatile market right now, I would be careful with it.
I got all that. And the cards are going for $700. I don’t mind investing the money if the return is there. All the videos I’m watching are paying off in 4-6 months. Guys are averaging $30-40 per day depending on the rig. I want to talk to a real person who is doing it. I want to see real numbers. My student is selling his hashing power instead of mining. I see what he is doing but I think in the long run, mining would be more profitable. As far as volatility, yes, I understand the risks. That is why I want to know the ends and outs before I drop a couple of thousand. I honestly believe that cryptocurrency is the future. I have invested very little at this point and don’t want to keep buying. That’s why I am looking at a rig.
i would be wary of any numbers. BitCoin is very heavily regulated in that they limit the number of blocks that can be added to the block chain per month. This keeps the amount of Bitcoins created down. They will change this by increasing or decreasing the difficulty of the calculation.
check out the wiki - it breaks it down.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining
I thought about it in the past but you have to be able to keep up with the large miners out there running server farms.
Have you tried Reddit? Probably get better answers there.
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Like most hot investments, when it gets popular, you’re too late.
From what I’ve read, most small time miners lose money when you consider the cost of electricity into the investment.
Mining Bitcoin itself is not profitable right now unless you have a farm. The small guys are all mining altcrypto. Guy I work with (married a doctor) is building a rig and the student is going to help him get it up and running. I will see how he does.
There is a lot of really good research that can be found about this subject out in the Google Sphere. Several worth-while videos about it too. It’s really a big deal right now. The recent ingress of people jumping on the mining band-wagon has create an artificial bubble in the GPU market, artificially increasing prices of all GPU hardware. Most of the really profitable miners aren’t so much making money off mining as they are making money off re-selling used Video Cards at a profit from what they paid for them. It’s an artificial bubble. Here’s how it goes. They build a farm of 20 test-bench AMD rigs all running some distro of linux and 5 (for example) GTX 980’s they bought last year in bulk at around 150 - 200 a pop with a wholesaler license. They plug em in for a year, run the shit out of them in the rigs and make about 4 bucks a day per rig in mining (each rig is costing them 3.50 in electricity at their power configs)… so the are netting .50 a day for a year with those cards. Then after the market is sufficiently inflated they pull the cards and sell them for 250-300 bucks used depending on the market at the time… and the brand appeal of that card. By in large the money made from farms isn’t as a consequence of the crypto-currency mined. At lease, not today. If you had been into mining prior to the current artificial bubble being created by the mining fad, then we’d be having a different discussion… but at this point… man… it’s hard to imagine how the crypto-currencies could get more inflated. I really suggest doing a lot of research before sinking money into it. (even in the form of electricity)
Further Edit:
There is also a whole other counter culture aside from the rig builders whoare centered around renting mining rigs and basically day-trading crypto currency via web portals. Shit’s getting real weird… fast.
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Lol it just hit $16,500. All this negative talk is costing me money. Coworker set his up yesterday and had made 30 bucks in less than 24 hours.
I figure it’s a wash.
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Sold at $19,000. Currently buying more at these prices. You guys keep investing in your orange juice futures.
Good luck finding a decently priced video card. Prices are astronomical right now BECAUSE of mining for cryptocurrency.
I don’t think he’s farming bitcoin. I think he’s buying it.
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He who takes all the risks reaps all the rewards.
Not many people have enough disposable currency to invest in something with such a high risk profile.
It’s like flipping houses while they are simultaneously being built and on fire.