Cryptocoin Mining?

[Chiropteran]

I'm not laughing. Class act.

I mean pyramid schemes don't end well. And that is basically what this is.

It's not a pyramid scheme. That term has a strict definition and it's pretty obvious that BTC doesn't follow it. You are not paying a fee to "join", you are not paying directly to people who recruited you, you are not given any false expectation of 10X return on your money. Well, some people get that impression, but it's not guaranteed by anyone anywhere.

The early adopters, who people are so jealous of because they have 50,000+ bitcoins, were basically mining away for bitcoins when they were completely worthless. It was a bit of a risk for them to invest in something worth nothing. Then at some point, BTC reached $1. Again those early adopters took a risk in either keeping or cashing out. Free money is nice, but is it a good idea to cash out at $1, or wait and see if it goes higher? Continue on to today, and those same people are still asking that question. $16/BTC sounds like a lot if you have 50k of them and you got them nearly for free, but what if you cash out and they reach $100 in 6 months?

While it's claimed that the system gives the early adopters "free money", ultimatly tthey must continually risk that "free money". Each day they don't cash out they could lose what they gained if the market turns around. This is a bit different from a pyramid scheme.

TBH though, I'd almost prefer if it collapses somewhat. I'd give me a chance to buy in some more at the ground level. See, unlike a pyramid scheme, BTC are not going anywhere. Value might drop out, but unless everyone quits using them they will remain around. If the "scam" collapses and value gets reduced, it might just encourage them to be used for the intended purpose, and value will build back up naturally over time.

 

[darkewaffle]

Right now bitcoins don't have a sustainable growth model outside of greater fool.

I agree with what you're saying, I think what 'we' are kind of missing however is that very few of the people here and outside the very 'core' bitcoin community don't really care about it's sustainability. For the people that are in it, it's like a penny stock that's being pumped and they're riding the wave. I think most people actually believe it won't last, but they're taking advantage of it until then. They don't care that it will crash, just when it crashes so that they can still come out ahead.

 

[darkewaffle]

TBH though, I'd almost prefer if it collapses somewhat. I'd give me a chance to buy in some more at the ground level. See, unlike a pyramid scheme, BTC are not going anywhere. Value might drop out, but unless everyone quits using them they will remain around. If the "scam" collapses and value gets reduced, it might just encourage them to be used for the intended purpose, and value will build back up naturally over time.

There are no numbers to back this up, but I think the tone from the threads and the very limited places to use bitcoins anecdotally support the opinion that most people using bitcoins are buyers and sellers. Not consumers. Because there are so few consumers, the value of a bitcoin is not grounded by any significant tangible prices or applications. Because the bitcoin market is dominated by traders and it is so liquid, swings up will last longer and be amplified higher (which then re-create buzz, push it higher again, etc). It'll ride itself higher until it peters out and crashes, just like every other bubble. I'd say sooner rather than later given the current rate of growth. However the breaking is more a matter of what than when, as I think it's going to be a price point rather than a point in time.

Many people buy bitcoins and many people sell bitcoins. Very very few people spend bitcoins. Nobody uses them, they just trade them.

You may be right that when the hype dies down it may be possible for a bitcoin to become a more stable currency, but for the time being at least they are a highly volatile commodity. The problem is if it gets to that point, then you're still stuck with bitcoins that you can hardly use anywhere meaningful and the userbase will shrivel, which are huge impediments to a currency.

 

[WelshBloke]

I agree with what you're saying, I think what 'we' are kind of missing however is that very few of the people here and outside the very 'core' bitcoin community don't really care about it's sustainability. For the people that are in it, it's like a penny stock that's being pumped and they're riding the wave. I think most people actually believe it won't last, but they're taking advantage of it until then. They don't care that it will crash, just when it crashes so that they can still come out ahead.

I think there's two parts to the bitcoin debate, there's the mining bit and the valid alternative currancy bit.

I think it's great that people are basically getting free money (especially people on this forum) by mining. There's not really any argument against doing it if you have an AMD VC and you're happy to have you're VC running full bore all the time. I think the only risk involved would be in splashing out on lots of hardware and the difficulty is increased to such an extent that you don't see a return on your investment.

On the alternative currency bit, I can't see it working out at all. For the average Joe I just don't see the advantages. It's always going to be a niche thing, noones going to get paid in them and no b&m shops accept them. Their use is always going to be limited to the Internet and I think most people are happy with the payment options already existing there.

So my opinion in a nutshell. Mining sounds a great idea while its profitable, there's little risk if you're sensible and it's free money. Alternatively currency is (to me) within the realms of loopy Internet nutter land.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Who's actually paying money for bitcoins? Because without a buyer for the bitcoins they are worthless.

 

[NoStateofMind]

Who's actually paying money for bitcoins? Because without a buyer for the bitcoins they are worthless.

They are bought and sold all day long here: https://mtgox.com/

Since this discussion now includes its viability I'll put in my .02BTC

BitCoin mining is about making money for me but I make this plunge knowing the bottom could fall out at any minute. This would not come as a surprise but rather a disappointment. Most think this way IMO. I don't think many mining now think they will make a living off of it. They (like me) have full time employment and this is just supplemental if anything at all. Pyramid scheme? To those who are skeptical, maybe. To me and many others this is just another way to make a few $$ with knowing the risk of making nothing at all. It's just like the stock market for nerds. This does not mean this BitCoin thing doesn't have pitfalls as we've heard of wallets being stolen, DDOS'ing Pools and exchanges, hardware shortages and price inflation, volatile exchange rates with transactions taking hours to complete. No this BitCoin mining isn't perfect, and its hazards are apparent but for those who go in thinking theres nothing to lose, there's everything to gain.

 

[WelshBloke]

Who's actually paying money for bitcoins? Because without a buyer for the bitcoins they are worthless.

It's a bit of a quizzer isn't it? But some ones obviously happy to buy them and I guess that's all that matters at the end of the day.

If I had to guess I would say that there's a lot of hording going on in the hope of rising BC values and/or having control over the market.

 

[notty22]

Here is some more info, on that possible bitcoin theft. Symantec,is confirming malware is now targeting bitcoin.
http://www.thetechherald.com/articl...-targeting-Bitcoins-suspected-in-recent-theft

 

[v8envy]

It's not a pyramid scheme. That term has a strict definition and it's pretty obvious that BTC doesn't follow it.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I see it as precisely a pyramid. At the moment it'll cost around $3 per bit coin to generate one. That's up several thousand % over the cost to generate one six months ago. While new blood doesn't necessarily contribute $ to buy into the pyramid, they do contribute computing power. And that computing power buys progressively less of the commodity in question, raising the value of those who came before. In other words, while new blood don't contribute directly to their recruiter and everyone up the chain, in aggregate the end result is identical.

In addition this pyramid is so steep that as little as 3 months may separate an "early adopter" from a "bagholder."

$140,000 of bit coins are being generated each day. I severely doubt $140,000 of new deposits are added to mtgox each day. The current winning strategy is to hoard most of the generated bit coins, selling just enough to cover costs. Which is exactly what we see happening. As long as fresh blood is coming in, following the above winning strategy and computing power of the network is increasing the pyramid will continue to grow.

Now, as soon as we see a flattening or even decrease in addition of new computing power the picture changes. It is quite likely that a bit coin being hoarded will not appreciate short term. In this scenario it makes sense to sell all generated bitcoins if not a big portion of the hoarded ones. Quickly collapsing the price, driving computing power out of the network and accelerating an inflationary death spiral. The end result being a few winners, and a whole lot of losers -- precisely the end result of any other pyramid collapsing.

So, I stand by my assertion that this is, at the moment, 100% a pyramid scheme. And seeing as many, many people recently bought a vast amount of AMD hardware to get into this game and will most likely sell 100% of their generated coins, the end may be closer than anyone thinks.

Not that it matters to me. As long as bitcoins are over $10/BTC come monday my hardware and power will have been 100% paid for. At that point I'm playing with (someone else's) money.

 

[Chiropteran]

Thinking about buying some more "mining" hardware, with a twist.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131736

As a cheap mining rig, this board would be a huge waste of money, but I am thinking I can hedge my bets and kill 2 birds with one stone by getting this board to use for mining now, and latter build it into a powerful bulldozer-based system to replace my main desktop.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151088
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103910

Other parts to round out the system, along with 2 $109 5830s I already have. I will use some spare RAM, an old hard drive to round out the system ,and run it without a case- good old cardboard box is all I need.

To mitigate risk, I will be buying all of this hardware through http://spendbitcoins.com/ using only BTC I have mined myself.

Though, I'll be kicking myself if BTC bounce back up to $30 after this weekend.

 

[NoStateofMind]

Thinking about buying some more "mining" hardware, with a twist.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131736

As a cheap mining rig, this board would be a huge waste of money, but I am thinking I can hedge my bets and kill 2 birds with one stone by getting this board to use for mining now, and latter build it into a powerful bulldozer-based system to replace my main desktop.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151088
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103910

Other parts to round out the system, along with 2 $109 5830s I already have. I will use some spare RAM, an old hard drive to round out the system ,and run it without a case- good old cardboard box is all I need.

To mitigate risk, I will be buying all of this hardware through http://spendbitcoins.com/ using only BTC I have mined myself.

Though, I'll be kicking myself if BTC bounce back up to $30 after this weekend.

This is what will increase the viability of BitCoin market. Being able to purchase from well known online stores with them will keep it alive and hold its value.

About your purchase.

That motherboard is bad for mining because it "only" has 3 PCIe? Or cost? Both? Why not get a beefier PSU? you may only be pushing 2 GPUs now but in the long run a 6x6+2 PCIe may come in handy. Why not the cheap $38 sempron if you plan on upgrading to bulldozer?

 

[dust]

@ notty:
I think I finally understand what you're trying to do here, and I thank you!


http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31828646&postcount=277
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31809849&postcount=166
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31807763&postcount=160
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31758800&postcount=8
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31870705&postcount=683
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31863583&postcount=618
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31862404&postcount=600
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31760074&postcount=15

Also, if I may suggest, if none of this works, try astrology/black magic articles too
How many BTC have you lost so far?

 

[artvscommerce]

Anyone using Slushs pool? I'm curious if it is still getting attacked. I can't tell if my mining has slowed because of the difficulty increase or because of the pool.

 

[hdfxst]

It's the difficulty increase,i went from .50 btc to .30,it's funny the 5830 i'm going to add later will put me back to where i started

 

[Chiropteran]

This is what will increase the viability of BitCoin market. Being able to purchase from well known online stores with them will keep it alive and hold its value.

About your purchase.

That motherboard is bad for mining because it "only" has 3 PCIe? Or cost? Both? Why not get a beefier PSU? you may only be pushing 2 GPUs now but in the long run a 6x6+2 PCIe may come in handy. Why not the cheap $38 sempron if you plan on upgrading to bulldozer?

Calling it bad for mining because it's $200, with $70 boards out there with dual slots it seems like too much to pay for a 3rd slot. Looks like it could handle 3 GPUs though. The cheap sempron might make more sense, but I was thinking I might use the computer for non-BTC stuff in a couple months and I am not sure how long it will be before bulldozer is really available.

The power supply, I am fairly confident it could handle 3 5830s. I don't think I'd need more. I ran 3 on my desktop for a few hours before I decided to cut down to 2 due to heat, and it has a lesser power supply. Watching power usage on my UPS showed it under 600W at all times. I don't need more 6x PCIE extensions because all my sapphire 5830s come with adapters.

 

[artvscommerce]

Calling it bad for mining because it's $200, with $70 boards out there with dual slots it seems like too much to pay for a 3rd slot. Looks like it could handle 3 GPUs though. The cheap sempron might make more sense, but I was thinking I might use the computer for non-BTC stuff in a couple months and I am not sure how long it will be before bulldozer is really available.

The power supply, I am fairly confident it could handle 3 5830s. I don't think I'd need more. I ran 3 on my desktop for a few hours before I decided to cut down to 2 due to heat, and it has a lesser power supply. Watching power usage on my UPS showed it under 600W at all times. I don't need more 6x PCIE extensions because all my sapphire 5830s come with adapters.

When you were running 3 5830s, were they overclocked or overvolted? Would you mind telling me the full system spec? I have a system with a 130W processor, several hard drives, and a Corsair TX 750W. I was thinking if the GPU's were drawing ~200W each it would be a bad idea to try to hook up 3, but from what you're describing it sounds like it might work.. I'm running 2 right now and it would be really nice to add a 3rd.

 

[blastingcap]

I don't think he lost BTC or hates BTC per se; it's more like, he wouldn't be so negative on them if NVIDIA cards were competitive miners. That's okay, AMD cards aren't competitive Folders.

@ notty:
I think I finally understand what you're trying to do here, and I thank you!


http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31828646&postcount=277
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31809849&postcount=166
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31807763&postcount=160
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31758800&postcount=8
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31870705&postcount=683
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31863583&postcount=618
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31862404&postcount=600
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31760074&postcount=15

Also, if I may suggest, if none of this works, try astrology/black magic articles too
How many BTC have you lost so far?

 

[chihlidog]

Dropping dropping dropping ............... I have to admit Im getting a little nervous now. I didnt care much when I was using the 5850 I already had, but now that I've spent actual money on a 5830 to mine with, seeing them drop is bugging me lol

 

[v8envy]

Also, in slush's pool the last blocks submitted before a solution is found are valued much higher than any of the other work. So in essence, his pool moves you closer to a more random, solo mining model. Over a very long time even slow hardware should approach the same results as fast hardware. Short term (read: over a period of days) you could get very lucky or very unlucky.

I wasn't feeling lucky as my returns over 12 hours were perceptibly (~20%) and reliably higher per block and per unit time in btcguild's pool so that's where I went.

 

[blastingcap]

Dropping dropping dropping ............... I have to admit Im getting a little nervous now. I didnt care much when I was using the 5850 I already had, but now that I've spent actual money on a 5830 to mine with, seeing them drop is bugging me lol

Yeah the trendline for BTC value is down, down, down as the media hubbub fades away.

 

[v8envy]

Calling it bad for mining because it's $200, with $70 boards out there with dual slots it seems like too much to pay for a 3rd slot. Looks like it could handle 3 GPUs though. The cheap sempron might make more sense, but I was thinking I might use the computer for non-BTC stuff in a couple months and I am not sure how long it will be before bulldozer is really available.

The power supply, I am fairly confident it could handle 3 5830s. I don't think I'd need more. I ran 3 on my desktop for a few hours before I decided to cut down to 2 due to heat, and it has a lesser power supply. Watching power usage on my UPS showed it under 600W at all times. I don't need more 6x PCIE extensions because all my sapphire 5830s come with adapters.

There are $15 asrock boards out there with 2 pcie 16 (16x and 4x) and 2 pci 1 slots. They are AM+ which means DDR2 -- something I don't have spares of.

My old Gigabyte P35DS3L has *5* pcie slots even though only one is 16x. I would need extenders to use them, but that's another possibility. cablesaurus sells 1x pcie to 16x pcie extender cables which use molex for power, not the board.

Anyway, I think you have the right mindset. Buy the hardware you want for purposes OTHER than bitcoin mining. Bitcoin mining is a nice bonus, but buying in solely for BTC mining could be very very good, or very very bad. All depends on factors outside of your control so whether you do it or not is solely up to your risk aversion level.

 

[Chiropteran]

When you were running 3 5830s, were they overclocked or overvolted? Would you mind telling me the full system spec? I have a system with a 130W processor, several hard drives, and a Corsair TX 750W. I was thinking if the GPU's were drawing ~200W each it would be a bad idea to try to hook up 3, but from what you're describing it sounds like it might work.. I'm running 2 right now and it would be really nice to add a 3rd.

Only ran them at stock (and I later under-clocked to see if it would help heat), but they ran fine. I'll give you more details after I get home, but it's a 125W 6core CPU, 2 physical harddrives + 1 SSD, no optical drive.

On an unrelated note, my Dad gave me an old Dell Precision 370 he was basically throwing away. Just for curiosity's sake, I put a 5830 in it and loaded windows. Everything went okay. Installed 11.6 catalyst drivers, setup guiminer, and started mining. Been working fine for 24 hours, I'm kinda amazed that the power supply can handle a modern video card. This is model is from the pentium 4 era, an old singe-core pentium 4, one of the first Dell Precision models with a PCIE slot.

 

[v8envy]

Yeah the trendline for BTC value is down, down, down as the media hubbub fades away.

Do you know about "paycheck friday?" If you look at the graph you'll see BTC trades in a very predictable pattern during certain times of day and certain days of the week.

There's also a reliable intra-week cycle of rally-consolidate-stabilize-panic, but that one is slightly harder to both spot and explain. Unfortunately the second cycle is out of phase with the first two (which I call the "Ponzi cycles"), which can either magnify or dampen the swings.

 

[aka1nas]

It's a bit of a quizzer isn't it? But some ones obviously happy to buy them and I guess that's all that matters at the end of the day.

If I had to guess I would say that there's a lot of hording going on in the hope of rising BC values and/or having control over the market.

Money laundering. I'm somewhat surprised that there isn't an online gambling site that takes bitcoins.

 

[notty22]

I don't think he lost BTC or hates BTC per se; it's more like, he wouldn't be so negative on them if NVIDIA cards were competitive miners. That's okay, AMD cards aren't competitive Folders.

Please, spend less time trying to Doctor Phil others. (includes Drivenbyvoltage)
Use the report button like I did, if you have a problem with others posts.
By the way, what happened to all the impassioned rhetoric about being green ? The amount of emotion I heard spilled about gaming a few hours a week, using a less efficient video card was being compared to sin. LOL
Now a nerds dream of making money with their computer has erased all that logic. Run em 100% 24/7 , screw electricity or any common sense ! I'm getting rich !
facepalm/