Cryptocoin Mining?

[Silverforce11]

Cryptos are down and summer is coming. I'm looking forward to the falling diff across the board as the miners with one or two card rigs decide it isn't worth it any longer and quit.

Last time I did that, ie. quit, was May 2013 after the bubble crashed and almost everyone thought BTC would never be above $200 again, ever.

Not to mention before that as well in 2011 to 2012..

Needless to say, those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat the same mistakes!!

 

[KingFatty]

I would definitely recommend the MSI 750Ti GAMING for anyone wanting to mine with Nvidia... I have mine at 99-100 percent load and with the fan at 100% (quieter than the ambient noise in my office from a couple feet away - not cased) they are at 42C and stay there. I plan to get maybe a dozen more of these since they are great performers and are so quiet and cool. I am looking into modding the bios and the cards for increased performance over stock limits

How is the current outlook for return on investment for these (e.g., a few months etc.) where they pay for themselves and then start turning a profit?

I wonder what point people will get "spooked" and start selling cards on craigslist/ebay - once that tide turns, there will be a rush to sell used/older video cards asap. So it seems getting new Nvidia cards is much safer, because you could actually use it or resell it quite easily, compared to buying a used 5870 or 6950 etc.

 

[geokilla]

Cryptos are down and summer is coming. I'm looking forward to the falling diff across the board as the miners with one or two card rigs decide it isn't worth it any longer and quit.

Switchpools is partially to blame. They dump the coins they mined every hour or every day, so if someone puts up a sell order of 1 million DOGE at 10 satoshi below market value, well everyone's going to buy it up.

 

[frowertr]

Switchpools is partially to blame. They dump the coins they mined every hour or every day, so if someone puts up a sell order of 1 million DOGE at 10 satoshi below market value, well everyone's going to buy it up.

Oh, I agree that is part of it. I think the other part of the equation is that all the alts don't really bring anything new to the table. Everyone just mines them, converts to BTC, and then profits. If there was some actually innovation going on, it would make me (and my 20Mh/s farm) much happier.

I do think that the coin switching pools are a dying breed. Especially with Kimoto Gravity Well being implemented into various coins now. I think this is a good thing for the crypto economy as a whole

 

[hungtran]

How is the current outlook for return on investment for these (e.g., a few months etc.) where they pay for themselves and then start turning a profit?

I wonder what point people will get "spooked" and start selling cards on craigslist/ebay - once that tide turns, there will be a rush to sell used/older video cards asap. So it seems getting new Nvidia cards is much safer, because you could actually use it or resell it quite easily, compared to buying a used 5870 or 6950 etc.

Used 5870 or 6950 cards will just go back pre-mining prices in the secondary markets, maybe a little lower due to newer generation of AMD cards being available on the market. Those cards you mentioned were getting obsolete anyways even without mining. The R9 AMD cards will not drop too much from MSRP, if at all. If you can get brand new AMD cards close to MSRP, then it's about as safe as getting a new Nvidia card. With Nvidia, your card might be obsoleted by high performance Maxwells in a couple of months whereas with AMD you can still can get more life out of Mantle.

 

[nwo]

Thinking about adding an NVIDIA card or two. Is it possible to run both ATI and NVIDIA cards in the same motherboard? If so, I assume that it is possible to mine with both of them at once, although it might require separate instances of cudaminer/cgminer?

It is not possible to have both AMD and nvidia display drivers installed at the same time, therefore you definitely won't be able to mine with both nvidia and AMD on the same motherboard.

 

[x3sphere]

Last time I did that, ie. quit, was May 2013 after the bubble crashed and almost everyone thought BTC would never be above $200 again, ever.

Not to mention before that as well in 2011 to 2012..

Needless to say, those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat the same mistakes!!

Same here, I will continue to mine as long as it covers electricity. Otherwise if BTC goes back to $1200 a coin or higher I'll be kicking myself.

 

[geokilla]

I do think that the coin switching pools are a dying breed. Especially with Kimoto Gravity Well being implemented into various coins now. I think this is a good thing for the crypto economy as a whole

I read about it but I still don't quite understand how KGW works.

I think what we need is not a currency popping out, but a currency popping up after it's been worked with the general public where X business will accept such cryptocurrency, and not waiting for the public to adopt it.

 

[hondaf17]

Geokilla - interesting concept.

What if a business, like Amazon, introduced a new coin, and said from the start that they would accept it as payment on their website. Instant credibility, right? Wouldn't that have the potential to squash all other alt coins?

 

[frowertr]

I read about it but I still don't quite understand how KGW works.

Instead of using a fixed time/block retarget, KGW retargets after EVERY block. So if massive 10Gh/s coin switching pool were to hit a coin with KGW, the diff would jump sky high after the 1st block got solved thus reducing the profitability of the coin immediately and forcing the switching logic of the pool to move on to its next target. The coin then re-adjusts the diff down after the next block gets solved (which might take some time as the coin switcher just induced 10Gh/s of speed into the network before it left and the network thinks it is still there until it realizes it is taking waaaay to long to solve the next block). But at least, the diff is only sky high for this one last block. This is the block AFTER the coin switcher left.

A lot of coins still used fixed block/time retargets. So a profit switching pool can solve blocks at insane speeds before the re-target. After a fixed amount of blocks/time has finally been met, the diff jumps which forces the coin switcher on to its next target.

However, the main difference here from KGW is that now the entire network (the everyday miners not a part of any coin switching pool) has to continue solving blocks at that ultra high diff which was caused by the coin switching pool even though it isn't even on the network anymore. This is because the nature of the diff calculations is static and a fixed amount of time/blocks must happen first before the diff is recalculated.

Hopefully what I wrote makes some sense.

 

[iiiankiii]

It is not possible to have both AMD and nvidia display drivers installed at the same time, therefore you definitely won't be able to mine with both nvidia and AMD on the same motherboard.

Yes, you can run both nvidia and amd cards at the same time on the same motherboard. Im doing it right now with my 780ti and 280x. It works.

 

[Mark R]

Instead of using a fixed time/block retarget, KGW retargets after EVERY block. So if massive 10Gh/s coin switching pool were to hit a coin with KGW, the diff would jump sky high after the 1st block got solved thus reducing the profitability of the coin immediately and forcing the switching logic of the pool to move on to its next target. The coin then re-adjusts the diff down after the next block gets solved (which might take some time as the coin switcher just induced 10Gh/s of speed into the network before it left and the network thinks it is still there until it realizes it is taking waaaay to long to solve the next block). But at least, the diff is only sky high for this one last block. This is the block AFTER the coin switcher left.

That's basically it:
The original bitcoin algorithm, would every 2000 blocks, measure the time between block n*2000 and (n-1)*2000. The target for that would be 10 days. Any short term changes between the scheduled block numbers would be lumped together in the overall average at the next scheduled re-target.

KGW adjusts the difficulty every block, based upon the average block-time since the incept of the coin. In the event of a sudden change in hash rate, KGW will weight the difficulty towards the new hash rate, and overshoot the expected difficulty. The next block after a multi-pool joins will be super difficult. Because this can cause problems for the network after the multi-pool leaves, there is a further "relief valve" mechanism. If a block takes significantly longer than would be expected, then the difficulty for that block is automatically reduced back to the long-term average.

 

[KlokWyze]

Cryptos are down and summer is coming. I'm looking forward to the falling diff across the board as the miners with one or two card rigs decide it isn't worth it any longer and quit.

Difficulties are not going to fall, but continually raise. More and more cards coming on the market. Look at the new faces in here.

Damn... not sure if I should sell, hold on to or buy DOGE... :hmm:

 

[IEC]

Powercolor PCS+ 290 developed a rattling fan (middle of the 3) over the past day or so. I ended up being able to fix the rattle by unscrewing the fan from the mount, flipping it over, unpeeling the sticker on the back carefully, and putting a drop of lube in the spindle area (used Slick EWL 2000 as it is what I had handy...) They used ball bearing fans but apparently forgot to put enough lube...

Now it is silent again. If it stays silent I will be happy.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Difficulties are not going to fall, but continually raise. More and more cards coming on the market. Look at the new faces in here.

Damn... not sure if I should sell, hold on to or buy DOGE... :hmm:

I know, it's hard to think about.

On the one hand, I hope that BTC holders/miners will become more tight-fisted, since tight-fisted BTC holders mean the fiat price of BTC goes up, which determines profitability for all altcoins, even if the altcoin/BTC ratio goes down. On the other hand, I would like to get as many BTC as I can right now, although I have been spreading it around some.

Namely, I am trying to dip my fingers in as many PoS-style coins as possible (NXT, BitShares, PeerCoin, Mint, etc.... has anybody set up MasterCoin? It seems like a huge PITA, although I do like the idea and want to get into it.) I mined a bit of VersionCoin (SHA256, PoW-then-PoS) which seems like a decently designed coin (no premine, active dev, pet project for a guy who has acted as dev on other coins). I also mined a bit of TakeiCoin (SHA256) as it was priced pretty high for a day or two. I am no longer mining MazaCoin (SHA256) as the profitability has now reached BTC levels thanks to the addition of Cryptsy and other exchanges, which put it on CoinWarz which brought the news to everybody that it was 2x as profitable as BTC. However, I am glad that I mined it, as I made more BTC than I would have mining BTC during that same period, with some MZC left over just in case it actually takes off.

As for DOGE, I'm still mining it and holding some in reserve. I really do think that it could have a permanent niche in the digital currency ecosystem, but the slow and steady decline is certainly worrisome.

 

[devhda]

What about energy/money?

 

[frowertr]

Difficulties are not going to fall, but continually raise. More and more cards coming on the market. Look at the new faces in here.

Damn... not sure if I should sell, hold on to or buy DOGE... :hmm:

Overall, I think you are correct. I was more speaking of short term trends. I'm hopeful the summer will bring a small diff decrease that I/we can take advantage of across the crypto coin board due to miners not wanting to heat their apartments/basements/houses any longer with their rigs.

Perhaps that, coupled with the failing profitability may make even more rethink their mining situation.

 

[geokilla]

Holding DOGE is getting disturbing... I've been holding 250k DOGE for a long time but at this rate, they're going to be worthless just like PANDA! ASICs gotta be the problem.

 

[JDG1980]

Holding DOGE is getting disturbing... I've been holding 250k DOGE for a long time but at this rate, they're going to be worthless just like PANDA! ASICs gotta be the problem.

There are currently no ASICs for Scrypt that are competitive in hash rate with the top-end (Tahiti/Hawaii) AMD video cards. A more likely culprit is the profit-switching multipools: they mine DOGE if it's profitable and then immediately dump it all on the exchanges to cash out in BTC, which keeps prices depressed.

 

[nwo]

Yes, you can run both nvidia and amd cards at the same time on the same motherboard. Im doing it right now with my 780ti and 280x. It works.

That goes against and contradicts every driver installation guide I have ever read or seen posted here on the forums.

Holding DOGE is getting disturbing... I've been holding 250k DOGE for a long time but at this rate, they're going to be worthless just like PANDA! ASICs gotta be the problem.

I'm aiming for 1m doge, I'm halfway there now. Holding and selling at 250 satoshi.

 

[JBT]

That goes against and contradicts every driver installation guide I have ever read or seen posted here on the forums.

It *shouldn't* be an issue, but it *can* cause issues. It still works.

 

[Attic]

I've been anxious with Doge as well. I never liked it's concept or it's fundamentals, but it took off like a bullet early on.

The halving of block rewards have clearly done little to this time to up it's value. This is a concern going forward with future halving/s.

 

[frowertr]

I am in agreement with you guys. Doge looks dreadful. I'm not sure it is wise holding it any longer as the downhill slide has been constant. On the up side, the devs are in talks to fix the block reward issues where multipools can look at the next block reward to determine if it is worth mining. Also, they are trying to figure out a KGM-like retarget solution to keep the multipools away for good. But can all this be done in time??

What's funny is the diff has basically stayed the same. Is this because of all the sunshine pumping Doge "shibes" that are only mining because they like the damn mascot and enjoy saying silly terms like "to the moon" and "much love"??

I guess they are content to mine it into the ground without knowing any better.

 

[wand3r3r]

Personally I think you guys are underestimating it. It's a few months old, every alt-coin is in the dumps. There simply may not be enough interest to maintain the current rate it's being mined at. Look back at litecoin/bitcoin and see how they fared, it's not simply a nice smooth curve up to the current levels. I think there is no coin with a bigger following for the 3rd major coin. I may be wrong but it does feel like the 3rd major coin. Look at it's history in January, or was it already in February when it steadily went down to 30. It's still 4x that value even after a major decline. Either way it will be interesting to see the situation a year from now, much less the next few months.

 

[chimaxi83]

That goes against and contradicts every driver installation guide I have ever read or seen posted here on the forums.

It works, both for mining and gaming. No, it isn't bug free. It works though. Ever hear of hybrid PhysX? Same concept.