Cryptocoin Mining?

[blastingcap]

Others are picking up the story with more unverified details.
Alleged $500,000 Bitcoin heist raises questions


http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...tm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

You can get mugged for your wallet, or get your house broken into, or get hacked and have someone install a keylogger and steal your credit card info. Or have your BTC stolen. What's your point? BTC has advantages and disadvantages like cash. The guy should have repeatedly backed up his wallet.dat in an encrypted file... or not gotten hacked in the first place, if he even got hacked at all. Do you know this guy personally? If not, then you don't know if the story is true or not.

Remember, this is potentially a scare story like the jerks last weekend who went around the BTC forums spreading fear in a blatant attempt to devalue BTC, perhaps so they could buy some for cheaper. This sort of thing happens all the time in places like the Yahoo Finance boards.

 

[SZLiao214]

Lol at his name being Allinvain.

I would go berserk if i lost half a million dollars that way.

 

[WelshBloke]

You can get mugged for your wallet, or get your house broken into, or get hacked and have someone install a keylogger and steal your credit card info. Or have your BTC stolen. What's your point? BTC has advantages and disadvantages like cash. The guy should have repeatedly backed up his wallet.dat in an encrypted file... or not gotten hacked in the first place, if he even got hacked at all. Do you know this guy personally? If not, then you don't know if the story is true or not.

Remember, this is potentially a scare story like the jerks last weekend who went around the BTC forums spreading fear in a blatant attempt to devalue BTC, perhaps so they could buy some for cheaper. This sort of thing happens all the time in places like the Yahoo Finance boards.

Just out of interest what would happen if he had backed up his wallet somewhere?

There would be two copies of all the bitcoins. Would they all still work? I presume not but how would anyone prove they were the owner? Would the first person to spend/convert them get the cash?

 

[bart1975]

I don't think he lost half a million dollars. I think what he lost was time and electricity costs.

 

[v8envy]

Did you cash out through mt gox? How is using Dwolla, never heard of it so seems sketchy giving bank info out?

So create a new account, then give them that routing slip. It's not hard. Once the money is in a more legitimate bank, there you go.

I'm not keeping very much in either mtgox nor dwolla.

That said, haven't received $ in a legitimate bank yet.

 

[YoungGun21]

Just out of interest what would happen if he had backed up his wallet somewhere?

There would be two copies of all the bitcoins. Would they all still work? I presume not but how would anyone prove they were the owner? Would the first person to spend/convert them get the cash?

The transfer from his wallet to the thief's wallet has already been confirmed by the network, so even if he did try to double spend, the network would recognize that his coins have already been spent.

 

[Darkstar757]

I recommend http://www.tradehill.com/?r=TH-R1495 over mtgox. I have been using them with dwolla and have had no problems what so ever. They do instant sells and buys and have a fast turn around time.

 

[YoungGun21]

So create a new account, then give them that routing slip. It's not hard. Once the money is in a more legitimate bank, there you go.

I'm not keeping very much in either mtgox nor dwolla.

That said, haven't received $ in a legitimate bank yet.

We use Dwolla and have successfully transfered from dwolla to bank account and from bank account to dwolla.

 

[v8envy]

None of this is going to end well.

For whom?

BTC is obviously a pyramid scheme. It'll end well enough for some, and poorly for others. The trick is beating the hordes to the exit when the time comes.

My hardware is nearly paid for after 9 days of mining. So for me, whatever happens, this ended well. If I can't deal with ATI drivers I simply pawn the hardware ($104/card shipped -- my downside is very limited) and get whatever is nicest then.

 

[blastingcap]

Just out of interest what would happen if he had backed up his wallet somewhere?

There would be two copies of all the bitcoins. Would they all still work? I presume not but how would anyone prove they were the owner? Would the first person to spend/convert them get the cash?

You could either make two accounts--a "checking" account and a "savings" account. Or back up your sole account every time you get a deposit into it. Shut down the program, back it up, and so long as nothing else changes, like your getting more BTCs or something, then you should be fine. The first method is probably the most sensible: encrypt the savings account wallet.dat and store it somewhere safe. That way a thief can only get at the few coins you've accumulated in your "checking" account.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Yea, if your hardware is already paid for and you are getting it as a gift then you are set. Do you mine in a pool? I ask because I have had insane luck with one pool and mediocre luck with another. Deepbit kept giving me connection issues but was giving me a rather steady 1BTC per day payout. I switched to bitcoins.lc and this place is insane. Since I moved there on Sunday morning, I have mined 5.92 bitcoins over 4 days. Today alone I mined 1.965 bitcoins, and half of the day has been at a 55% higher difficulty. I don't know what is going on, but its awesome. Running a 655Mhash/s setup using a 5850 and 5830 btw.

I tried using Slush's pool and had non-stop connection problems. So I went with Deepbit, they had just started up so I was earning 1 Bitcoin a day with them. Deepbit started to have problems so I went with BTC Guild, partially because they are cheaper. I'm just starting with Bitcoin.lc to give them a try.

Honestly I'm tempted to dust off the 4670 I have not being used to see how well that would do at mining.

 

[YoungGun21]

I recommend *EDITED over mtgox. I have been using them with dwolla and have had no problems what so ever. They do instant sells and buys and have a fast turn around time.

Yea way to put your referral code on the end there...how much do you get paid for referrals anyway?

 

[Blitzvogel]

So uh, what's the program or whatever to get if you want to mine on Windows 7 64? I've done a number of google searches that accounted for nothing. TBH I do not want to have to go the Linux route.

Edit: Nevermind, found it

Now to give this a try......

 

[Dark Shroud]

Just to be sure, you are using Gui Miner and the offical client right?

 

[kowalabearhugs]

Those Radeon cards could probably tear through some RC5-72 blocks : http://www.distributed.net/Main_Page/en

 

[ImDonly1]

I think I'm gonna quit. In 1 1/2 days I barely got 0.35-0.4 coins on btcguild. I was hoping for 0.4/day at my 190Mhash/sec. Also the difficulty increased to 800,000 which makes it even harder. I'd probably barely get $100/mo.

Seems to be only good now if you have spare PCs and multiple cards.

 

[sandorski]

For whom?

BTC is obviously a pyramid scheme. It'll end well enough for some, and poorly for others. The trick is beating the hordes to the exit when the time comes.

My hardware is nearly paid for after 9 days of mining. So for me, whatever happens, this ended well. If I can't deal with ATI drivers I simply pawn the hardware ($104/card shipped -- my downside is very limited) and get whatever is nicest then.

It's not a Pyramid scheme. New Miners don't need to pay anyone anything. Neither to start nor to Acquire/Use/Convert BTC. IMO it's doomed, eventually, but not because it's a Pyramid scheme.

 

[YoungGun21]

I think I'm gonna quit. In 1 1/2 days I barely got 0.35-0.4 coins on btcguild. I was hoping for 0.4/day at my 190Mhash/sec. Also the difficulty increased to 800,000 which makes it even harder. I'd probably barely get $100/mo.

Seems to be only good now if you have spare PCs and multiple cards.

190Mhash isn't much. What did you expect? With 788 we were getting about 1.1BTC/day at the old difficulty. Now running 1052Mhash/s, but it hasn't been a full day since I put the card in so I'm not sure what our production will be. Should be just under 1 though, since difficulty went up about 50% and our production went up 33%.

 

[Dribble]

It's not a Pyramid scheme. New Miners don't need to pay anyone anything. Neither to start nor to Acquire/Use/Convert BTC. IMO it's doomed, eventually, but not because it's a Pyramid scheme.

It is kind of. The early adopters took 99% of the bit coins when it was easy, then they drum up interest to try and make them worth something. While you don't pay them, the fact that you invest by paying your electricity company money is drumming up interest so effectively your money is making them rich.

The future is either:
a) the world works out that this is just a made up currency with no real value (i.e. no backing) owned by a dodgy bunch of hopefuls.
b) some more powerful entity decides this is a great untraceable way of doing probably very illegal business - e.g. the drugs trade - so invest in it. This really depends on how reliably the currency is maintained and how hard it is to break it. e.g. can LulzSec hack it and produce tons of fake coins so no one knows what is real any longer.

Either way it's people I don't want to support. Also I'd be very surprised if governments didn't intervene pretty fast if it does take off - the tax man won't be easily denied!

 

[ImDonly1]

190Mhash isn't much. What did you expect? With 788 we were getting about 1.1BTC/day at the old difficulty. Now running 1052Mhash/s, but it hasn't been a full day since I put the card in so I'm not sure what our production will be. Should be just under 1 though, since difficulty went up about 50% and our production went up 33%.

The online calculators estimated me to get about $180-200/month at the difficulty of 500,000. I calculated with what the rate I was going at and it seemed I'd get maybe $100/month. Not sure if that's because my miner went idle too much because of the servers of btcguild or what. I just minimized it and didn't may attention to it.

 

[Chiropteran]

It is kind of. The early adopters took 99% of the bit coins when it was easy, then they drum up interest to try and make them worth something. While you don't pay them, the fact that you invest by paying your electricity company money is drumming up interest so effectively your money is making them rich.

We have about 6 million BTC in existence so far, out of a total of 21 million by the time generated blocks stop appearing from mining. Nobody has 99% of the bitcoins. Nobody has 10% of the total bitcoins, even.

 

[Muyoso]

We have about 6 million BTC in existence so far, out of a total of 21 million by the time generated blocks stop appearing from mining. Nobody has 99% of the bitcoins. Nobody has 10% of the total bitcoins, even.

And isn't it sad that not even a third of the bitcoins have been mined and already its only going to be profitable for people who spend tens of thousands of dollars on complex mining setups? By july, a person mining with a card or two is going to be making peanuts.

 

[kowalabearhugs]

And isn't it sad that not even a third of the bitcoins have been mined and already its only going to be profitable for people who spend tens of thousands of dollars on complex mining setups? By july, a person mining with a card or two is going to be making peanuts.

I don't think the goal of bitcoin is to provide sustainable income to people with high-end video cards.

 

[boochi]

Can you people take this bitcoin shit to the Off Topic forum? It does not belong here.

 

[OCGuy]

Can you people take this bitcoin shit to the Off Topic forum? It does not belong here.

Or you can just not click the thread.