Ethereum GPU mining?

[DrMrLordX]

On ETH difficulty:

http://www.coinwarz.com/difficulty-charts/ethereum-difficulty-chart

Using the 3m resolution, you can see ETH difficulty going from ~73T to ~180T. Much of this has to do with the recent price flux which you can see for yourselves. This thread is for mining more than anything else, so at this time I feel it a good idea to avoid price discussions.

Needless to say, a lot of money is coming into the crypto realm from investors who noticed the recent failed attempt to form a BTC ETF. The end result has been massive price flux for DASH and ETH. Secondary flux is hitting smaller coins that have been mostly dormant, like SDC. Even DCR is seeing flux.

So what does that mean for miners? It kind of sucks if you still want to mine, but if you are holding ETH you can probably take profits now if you like. There's no telling where it will go from here. My own predictions have been shown overly-conservative. I expected ETH to remain mostly dormant until PoS became imminent. With all this money flooding the crypto realm, things have gotten a little weird.

The other side-effect of this is that the freight train towards difficulty-mageddon has cranked its engines up to 11. PoS might need to happen sooner than later . . .

 

[Ancalagon44]

On ETH difficulty:

http://www.coinwarz.com/difficulty-charts/ethereum-difficulty-chart

Using the 3m resolution, you can see ETH difficulty going from ~73T to ~180T. Much of this has to do with the recent price flux which you can see for yourselves. This thread is for mining more than anything else, so at this time I feel it a good idea to avoid price discussions.

Needless to say, a lot of money is coming into the crypto realm from investors who noticed the recent failed attempt to form a BTC ETF. The end result has been massive price flux for DASH and ETH. Secondary flux is hitting smaller coins that have been mostly dormant, like SDC. Even DCR is seeing flux.

So what does that mean for miners? It kind of sucks if you still want to mine, but if you are holding ETH you can probably take profits now if you like. There's no telling where it will go from here. My own predictions have been shown overly-conservative. I expected ETH to remain mostly dormant until PoS became imminent. With all this money flooding the crypto realm, things have gotten a little weird.

The other side-effect of this is that the freight train towards difficulty-mageddon has cranked its engines up to 11. PoS might need to happen sooner than later . . .

Are you still mining ETH?

I'm dual mining ETH and DCR, wondering if I shouldn't switch over to something like ZCASH.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

dual mining eth and dcr here. i sell most of it for btc but i do want to keep a minimum of eth as it has lots of stuff being developed for it. and who knows maybe something useful will actually come out of all that

when the warm weather hits ill switch to zec as much less power/heat, unless something drastic happens.

 

[thilanliyan]

when the warm weather hits ill switch to zec as much less power/heat, unless something drastic happens.

Zcash isn't that much lower in power use anymore now that the mining software has started to push the cards more.

 

[IEC]

I never bothered changing from ETH and have rigs with 100% uptime since many moons ago. The stability is one reason why I never bothered mining anything else. The other was the long-term price outlook.

I remember when I was mining almost 100 coins/month

 

[poofyhairguy]

Holy crap, ETH is almost $30! That will give mining a shot in the arm. I probably need to move over from ZEC though, as selling ZEC to mine ETH won't work at those prices.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

@thilanliyan - been a while since ive mined zec, several miner version back. was a good amount as i recall but i always dual mine something else when doing eth so maybe thats part of what i remember. oh well..

@IEC - laziness is mainly why i am sticking with eth. other algos run best with different vbios's and changing a rig with cards tuned for eth to cards tuned for zec is a pain. once i had this setup for eth i just left it.

 

[Madpacket]

Interesting times indeed. I switched from ZEC back to Eth a little while ago as the earnings got close and I got tired of exchanges taking a cut. Hydro costs getting close between the two. Also I don't dual mine as I like my cards to last more than a few months, and have better uptime

 

[Madpacket]

I never bothered changing from ETH and have rigs with 100% uptime since many moons ago. The stability is one reason why I never bothered mining anything else. The other was the long-term price outlook.

I remember when I was mining almost 100 coins/month

Yes uptime is the most important metric especially over a long stretch of time. I kept most of my gear and have kept mining despite $800 hydro bills every 60 days, I'm actually surprised we got away with it for as long as we have to be honest.

I don't want to give myself bad luck by stating this but of the ~+40 cards I've been mining with 24 x 7 over the last 6+ months, only one card kicked the bucket. The only card I had die on me was a Geforce 1070. I RMA'd it and never used it again for mining, works perfect for umm gaming tough.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Are you still mining ETH?

I'm dual mining ETH and DCR, wondering if I shouldn't switch over to something like ZCASH.

No. The ETH difficulty curve made it less profitable than ZEC mining for me, even after ZEC's price collapsed. Now ZEC mining has become quite profitable for whatever reason, at least indexed in USD anyway.

Holy crap, ETH is almost $30! That will give mining a shot in the arm. I probably need to move over from ZEC though, as selling ZEC to mine ETH won't work at those prices.

It'll send difficulty through the roof, which may uh . . . well I dunno. All I know is ZEC mining profitability went up by about 33% in the last two days for me, so I'm sticking with ZEC.

 

[Feld]

Still mining eth here too. I never stopped, and I've never sold anything I mined. I have bought more eth directly though. At this point my holdings are better than 3x the value of what I've put into it. Not sure how long I'll keep mining at full capacity, but I do plan to keep on holding my precious eth through the switch to proof of stake at a minimum.

 

[ozzy702]

Still mining eth here too. I never stopped, and I've never sold anything I mined. I have bought more eth directly though. At this point my holdings are better than 3x the value of what I've put into it. Not sure how long I'll keep mining at full capacity, but I do plan to keep on holding my precious eth through the switch to proof of stake at a minimum.

Any clue how much ETH you'll need for POS? How far off? I only follow this thread so any info you guys post is much appreciated.

 

[Feld]

Any clue how much ETH you'll need for POS? How far off? I only follow this thread so any info you guys post is much appreciated.

The minimum staking amount hasn't been decided yet, but the most recent word is that it could be as low as 32 ether. Though obviously, the more you stake the more you make.

There is no date set yet but back in early January Vitalik said he put it between a 50-80% chance that proof of stake would arrive by the end of 2017. A ~month later he seemed to indicate early 2018 was more likely. Now recently it's been indicated a hybrid rollout may be on the table where both PoW and PoS are used simultaneously, and if so it would come sooner than if it had been a straight transition to PoS. So basically, by the end of the year it may be here, or at least very close.

 

[Madpacket]

Any clue how much ETH you'll need for POS? How far off? I only follow this thread so any info you guys post is much appreciated.

I've heard as little as 50 and as high as 1000. I don't think anyone outside Vlad and Vitalik know for sure. I don't think they want it super prohibitive to get involved but I could see it going something like the mining pools route but with better distribution, or more even distribution. Remember that inflation will essentially drop to under 1% with PoS so this should also increase the value of existing coins.

There's also talk of "gasless" contracts coming which will allow the contract or DAPP owners to cough up the gas funds to process initial transactions. This should tear down the barrier of entry for new users who just want to use DAPPs without needing some ether first. Think of online casinos with free to play options that still leverage Blockchain for security. This combined with the lightening network and ZKSnarks in Casper, it's no surprise Ethereum along with the Enterprise Edition that the price is climbing.

Oh and the denial of the Bitcoin ETF plus block time transaction times supposedly had some impact on ether pricing but I think mainly Dash / Monero is reaping these rewards instead.

 

[thilanliyan]

When PoS comes, will it still be traded at exchanges as it is now?

 

[fleshconsumed]

When PoS comes, will it still be traded at exchanges as it is now?

If I understand PoS correctly, if you choose not to stake it, then yes, you will be able to trade it on exchanges just like you do now.

 

[thilanliyan]

Anyone selling at these prices? There's always a crash waiting isn't there?!

 

[suklee]

Hey guys, is there a reliable way to measure and log each mining rig's actual power usage? I'd like to calculate exact electricity usage, as I am setting up more rigs. I've tried the Belkin Wemo and Dlink remote power switches but they seem to be unreliable (for logging power usage).

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

my kill-o-watt meter measures and give cumulative power use and cost, you just enter enter your electric rate and it gives power and cost to date since last reset. but its only displayed on the meter, it doesnt interface with a computer.

 

[Madpacket]

Hey guys, is there a reliable way to measure and log each mining rig's actual power usage? I'd like to calculate exact electricity usage, as I am setting up more rigs. I've tried the Belkin Wemo and Dlink remote power switches but they seem to be unreliable (for logging power usage).

I use the Rosewill power meters from NewEgg as they often go on sale for cheap. Really though if you have a larger number of cards the temperature can have a large impact on energy consumption. Run them as cool as you can to save money.

 

[Madpacket]

Anyone selling at these prices? There's always a crash waiting isn't there?!

I said it few pages back but will restate it again. I normally regret selling my coins afterwards. That being said if you're itching to cash out set a target price and put in a sell order. No one knows if this is a bubble or simply a price correction. Probably a bit of both but you can't predict the top. Also think long term. Are you planning on staking coins to collect dividends?

Ethereum is still young and there's going to be plenty of bull and bear runs as it matures but long term it still looks like the preferred platform of choice.

 

[x3sphere]

Bought at $7-8 and still haven't sold. ETH is a long term hold for me, I was surprised when it dipped below $10, didn't think I'd get a chance to buy that cheap again.

 

[Madpacket]

Bought at $7-8 and still haven't sold. ETH is a long term hold for me, I was surprised when it dipped below $10, didn't think I'd get a chance to buy that cheap again.

The DAO had a big part in that price drop. No doubt there will be future DAOsasters (and opportunities to buy the dip) but I'm in Hodl mode until I can stake my coins.

 

[Mercennarius]

Really happy with how ETH is performing right now...wish I bought more of it a few months ago.

 

[suklee]

my kill-o-watt meter measures and give cumulative power use and cost, you just enter enter your electric rate and it gives power and cost to date since last reset. but its only displayed on the meter, it doesnt interface with a computer.

Sounds promising, but I would like some type of logging functionality - guess nothing exists on the market?
@Madpacket does the Rosewill have logging?

The Wemo Insight Switched seemed good but its reports are wildly inaccurate.

Don't really have time to tinker with DIY Raspberry Pi type solutions... (although, just remembered I DO have a couple of RPi's sitting unused)

I'm setting up at least 10 rigs with friends, so it would be really helpful to know roughly how much electricity each rig is consuming.