Cryptocoin Mining?

[OCGuy]

I just wonder why my output varies so much....sometimes I check in on my box and my cards are averaging 355 each, and then other times they are only doing 280/each.

 

[krumme]

Well i dont know if this will last longer than Greece but i have my doubt.

Some basic difference from this bit -not- coin to a more normal currency:

The FED have some gold to back up the paper money. Not a huge amount, but probably relativesly more than what is invested here as indicated by the withdrawal limitations. Secondly - it might seem like a minor issue for the americans - the currency is backed by production that have a value that could be exchanged - bartered, - without whatever symbol used.

I know its boring details, 5970 talk is better.

Have fun

 

[Aikouka]

More people getting into mining and you getting fewer shares will not reduce your returns, not directly anyway.

It's somewhat hard to look into this, because mining bitcoins isn't about a set amount of processing... a block can take 8 seconds or it can take hours. It's the computing equivalent of finding a golden ticket... in Soviet Russia where you have to share it with your comrades.

But anyway, my own anecdotal "evidence" is how I've seen my own spoils drop, but it wasn't anything at all evident after last week's difficulty increase. The decrease in bitcoin "production" was seen over the last few days as BTCG's hash rate went from 1.4THash to 2.3THash. It's also interesting to note that with a cursory glance, I don't see a terribly big difference in solve time over the course of the growth of the pool. I've looked at smaller pools and seen some rather large solve times... large enough that I'd be more worried to join them and make less bitcoins simply because I'm not making them as quickly.

But what this leads me to ponder... is there actually a sweet spot in regard to pool hashing rate? I wish I had a lot of block data from some of the pools. I'd like to compare difficulty, solve time, hashing rate and number of workers (which is related to hash rate anyway). I'd like to create some graphs to help determine this. My thought is that since finding a block is somewhat luck-related (there isn't a set amount of data that needs to be processed to find one), eventually, the extra hashing thrown at a problem will mean less and less as it won't provide much in regard to shorter solve times.

Just a thought though.

EDIT:

I just wonder why my output varies so much....sometimes I check in on my box and my cards are averaging 355 each, and then other times they are only doing 280/each.

Are you actually looking at your machines or are you looking at something like BTCG's hash rate listed? As an example, BTCG's hash rate is dependent on how fast you solve the blocks, which is why sometimes it lists the rate as too high (400 vs 370) and sometimes too low (340 vs 370).

 

[Spike]

Confirmed reward is what you could get right now, if your send threshold was low enough to trigger a send.

Unconfirmed reward is what you will get in time, even if you stop mining right now, except it may possibly reduced because occasionally blocks prove to be invalid. Blocks require 100 confirmations before becoming confirmed.

Estimated reward refers to the current block being worked on and once that block is done will be moved into the unconfirmed reward total.


If you found 1 block, it means your miner actually generated a 50 coin block (subject to confirmation). If you were solo mining, you would have 50 coins from that, however since you are pool mining the 50 coins is divided among everyone who did work towards that block and you only get a share of it. It doesn't really matter whether you find the block or if anyone else in the pool finds it, your reward is the same, but the statistic is there for the curious.

Thanks for the great info, that helps me understand this better.

As for your solo comment how would I go about setting up solo mining? I have the wallet setup but could I use the same miner program I am now? I don't plan on this right now, just curious. At the moment I'm just seeing how my hardware will cope with this. I'll most likely stick to just using my 5870 and setting up an additional fan to cool it though the dual fan it has (gigabyte model) seems to work fairly well.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Well i dont know if this will last longer than Greece but i have my doubt.

Some basic difference from this bit -not- coin to a more normal currency:

The FED have some gold to back up the paper money. Not a huge amount, but probably relativesly more than what is invested here as indicated by the withdrawal limitations. Secondly - it might seem like a minor issue for the americans - the currency is backed by production that have a value that could be exchanged - bartered, - without whatever symbol used.

I know its boring details, 5970 talk is better.

Have fun

But what backs up the gold? The fact that people are willing to buy it at a certain price. This is no different. Personally it would be too much risk for me to rush out and drop thousands on hardware just to mine, but since I already have two 5870's if the bitcoin market crashes before I post this message, I'm only out a few bucks in electricity and some time I used to research this. And for those who are buying new equipment? If they take a risk and lose, they sell the hardware for what they can and take a loss. I think the number one rule when gambling is to not bet what you can't afford.

 

[XX55XX]

I just got into this whole Bitcoin mining thing recently. I get roughly 86 Mhash/s on a GTX 560 Ti. At this rate, it'll probably take a month to earn a single Bitcoin, given that I do not have my computer on the entire time.

 

[bart1975]

I just got into this whole Bitcoin mining thing recently. I get roughly 86 Mhash/s on a GTX 560 Ti. At this rate, it'll probably take a month to earn a single Bitcoin, given that I do not have my computer on the entire time.

It is really not worth mining with nvidia cards.

 

[ultimatebob]

Out of curiosity, how are you guys cashing out your Bitcoins? It looks like most people are using Mt. Gox or TradeHill to trade them into US dollars, and getting that money to their bank account using Dwolla.

Question is.. how do I know that I can trust my money with Dwolla? They look like a small time outfit, just like Mt Gox and TradeHill. Who's to say that these guys aren't going to get hacked as well?

 

[SlowSpyder]

Out of curiosity, how are you guys cashing out your Bitcoins? It looks like most people are using Mt. Gox or TradeHill to trade them into US dollars, and getting that money to their bank account using Dwolla.

Question is.. how do I know that I can trust my money with Dwolla? They look like a small time outfit, just like Mt Gox and TradeHill. Who's to say that these guys aren't going to get hacked as well?

I'll probably trade for a Newegg gift card (I think those are/were available) and finally get an SSD. But to answer your question, well, I can't. I have not yet traded in my bitcoins.

 

[Ares1214]

Out of curiosity, how are you guys cashing out your Bitcoins? It looks like most people are using Mt. Gox or TradeHill to trade them into US dollars, and getting that money to their bank account using Dwolla.

Question is.. how do I know that I can trust my money with Dwolla? They look like a small time outfit, just like Mt Gox and TradeHill. Who's to say that these guys aren't going to get hacked as well?

I get payed thru paypal.

 

[YoungGun21]

Out of curiosity, how are you guys cashing out your Bitcoins? It looks like most people are using Mt. Gox or TradeHill to trade them into US dollars, and getting that money to their bank account using Dwolla.

Question is.. how do I know that I can trust my money with Dwolla? They look like a small time outfit, just like Mt Gox and TradeHill. Who's to say that these guys aren't going to get hacked as well?

Dwolla is legit. No worries with them.

 

[NoStateofMind]

Next difficulty increase in ~3 days.

 

[XX55XX]

It is really not worth mining with nvidia cards.

If that's the case, then would buying a cheap Brazos netbook and leaving it on 24/7 do? The HD 6310 gets 12 Mhash/s while being more energy-efficient at the same time.

 

[NoStateofMind]

If that's the case, then would buying a cheap Brazos netbook and leaving it on 24/7 do? The HD 6310 gets 12 Mhash/s while being more energy-efficient at the same time.

 

[XX55XX]

Well... would selling my GTX 560 Ti and replacing it with a 6950 do?

 

[NoStateofMind]

Well... would selling my GTX 560 Ti and replacing it with a 6950 do?

For mining? Yes, but you will need to find out what results you are looking for first. I would recommend getting a reference 6950 so you can unlock it (if you can find one).

 

[XX55XX]

Hmm. 6950 is too long for my Antec 300. Maybe a 6870 would do? But it would be slower in gaming, however.

This Bitcoin really rewards those who have a ton of computing power at their disposal... My resources are limited to a GTX 560 Ti and a 9400M on my MacBook Pro.

 

[dakU7]

50% Difficulty increase makes this way harder now.

 

[XX55XX]

50% Difficulty increase makes this way harder now.

Yeah, I've been hearing about this. So the yields are going down.

Guess I need to find another way to earn Bitcoins. This mining business is becoming less profitable.

 

[Smartazz]

Yeah, I've been hearing about this. So the yields are going down.

Guess I need to find another way to earn Bitcoins. This mining business is becoming less profitable.

If prior trends continue, the increase of difficulty should be met with an increase in price per bitcoin though, shouldn't it? The people providing the supply of computing power to mine bitcoins should decrease in number as suppliers are no longer willing to supply if the price of a bitcoin does not go up when difficulty goes up.

 

[Smartazz]

Hmm. 6950 is too long for my Antec 300. Maybe a 6870 would do? But it would be slower in gaming, however.

This Bitcoin really rewards those who have a ton of computing power at their disposal... My resources are limited to a GTX 560 Ti and a 9400M on my MacBook Pro.

I wouldn't bother switching tbh. I just happened to have a 6870 that's why I'm doing this. I wouldn't risk buying another card unless you can get a 6950 for about as much as you sold your 560 for.

 

[YoungGun21]

If prior trends continue, the increase of difficulty should be met with an increase in price per bitcoin though, shouldn't it? The people providing the supply of computing power to mine bitcoins should decrease in number as suppliers are no longer willing to supply if the price of a bitcoin does not go up when difficulty goes up.

That hasn't proved true so far. The explosion from $3 to $30 was from speculation and large growth in the network. After the crash back to $10 it went up to $19 and has pretty much stayed there ever since. Of course, MtGox has been down for a couple days now so nobody really knows what the price is right now.

 

[artvscommerce]

It's been between $14 and $15 on tradehill since mtgox has been down.

 

[Spike]

For some reason I could not get solo mining to work with Guiminer. It kept saying there was a connection problem even when I used previous versions of the program. Oh well, back to pool mining for now. After ~36 hours and mainly my 5870 crunching I have .75 total BC and .55 confirmed. Guess that works for me... as long as I don't ruin my gpu(s).

 

[Zargon]

It's been between $14 and $15 on tradehill since mtgox has been down.

more like 12-15, averaging around 14 till today its been right at 14.80 most of the day

For some reason I could not get solo mining to work with Guiminer. It kept saying there was a connection problem even when I used previous versions of the program. Oh well, back to pool mining for now. After ~36 hours and mainly my 5870 crunching I have .75 total BC and .55 confirmed. Guess that works for me... as long as I don't ruin my gpu(s).

yeah since I am not THAT into it, and since the room with my htpc is being used all the time right now due to a kitchen reno, I clocked it down to ~650mhz and turned the power down 20% to keep it cooler with the fan at 40% all the time. thats barely noticable when you have the TV on anyways