Bitcoins

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Azure

If you want to get your money almost instantly that is how I would do it.

Localbitcoins is actually an escrow service, and they take a fee, but it is worth it.

I would never trade with anyone without escrow.

It takes a long time to get USD out of any exchange including BTC-E.

You can get a debit card for Virtex .

[Azure]

The verification process is a huge pain though. Way easier to move your bitcoins to the localbitcoin wallet and just sell them there.

[Miniac]

CavirtEx verification process if currently working on applications from Nov. 18th..

Edit: I was told this after calling customer support.

[MrCallahan]

Holy. ####. I finally got my virtex account verified, after waiting over 2 weeks for it. This only got done, because my brother happens to be happens to be doing some work for them, I think he may have tossed my name into them to get verified quicker.

I've heard some rumblings of what features Vault of Satoshi will be adding soon, and I think their service will soon be much more attractive than VirtEx, but I think i'm going to switch hit between the two for a while.

[Kelekin]

Originally Posted by MrCallahan

Holy. ####. I finally got my virtex account verified, after waiting over 2 weeks for it. This only got done, because my brother happens to be happens to be doing some work for them, I think he may have tossed my name into them to get verified quicker.

I've heard some rumblings of what features Vault of Satoshi will be adding soon, and I think their service will soon be much more attractive than VirtEx, but I think i'm going to switch hit between the two for a while.

I like what I know of VoS so far, although I tend to end up spending my bitcoins and thus not needing to cash them out.

Getting rid of most of my Butterfly Labs ASIC miners, figure I should try to upgrade to a KNC (though not for $20k like the bitcoin store guy wants).

[Leon]

6 months ago I was reading the SA forums buttcoin thread and how the various exchanges were just rampant with ponzi scams and such. Now they're almost in widespread commercial use. What changed?

[MrCallahan]

Originally Posted by Kelekin

I like what I know of VoS so far, although I tend to end up spending my bitcoins and thus not needing to cash them out.

Getting rid of most of my Butterfly Labs ASIC miners, figure I should try to upgrade to a KNC (though not for $20k like the bitcoin store guy wants).

Which Butterfly Labs gear are you running? Are they still performing decently?

[Kelekin]

Originally Posted by MrCallahan

Which Butterfly Labs gear are you running? Are they still performing decently?

I run 50 GH/s, although I'm quite lucky with two of them, a guy put in fan mods before he sold them to me and they seem to run between 56-59 GH/s, which is above the 10% variance. Depending on how you run them as well as bitcoin price, you are looking at $40-60 a day per machine. It might technically take up to 2 months to ROI on one of them, but that's ROI + having the machine which will still sell.

[BigNumbers]

What's the minimum you can convert from LTC to BTC and then flip to fiat cash?

I've got two LTC I've mined in the past couple days - I want to trial turning it into cash...

I believe that's going to be like .02 of a BTC ... Is it something I can use BTC-e to flip to BTC and then use local coins to flip to CAd or usd? Or is that too few BTCs?

[Rathji]

I think btc-e has a min of 0.01 to transfer out, so that's fine.

I have no idea on local coins minimums

[photon]

Wow trying to buy any 7950's or R280X's is brutal, I've had ones disappear out of my shopping cart even. Is it just holiday shopping or are people buying them to mine litecoins?

There's a guy on kijiji selling lots of 4 sealed 7950s for $350 each, so I assume it is to mine. Not sure if I want to commit to buying 4.

[Rathji]

From Virtex, posted yesterday

Nov 19 to present we have 1530 people waiting for verifications. In the past 4 days alone we have verified 268 customers. With 12 staff dedicated full time to verifications as of today, at a target of 10-20 verifications per person, that comes to 120 to 240 people per day. Currently we are working on verifications submitted between Nov 19th to Nov 25th. With the increased staff our target is to be caught up in 2 weeks. New verification requests are also coming at around 100 per day. To address this workload I am working on two fronts:

1) Training 6 new additional human resources TOMORROW
2) Third party verification portals that are FINTRAC compliant for Canadians and that allow you to do your own verification through their API. Applications have been filed and once finalized it will be a matter of days to make live on the site.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by photon

Wow trying to buy any 7950's or R280X's is brutal, I've had ones disappear out of my shopping cart even. Is it just holiday shopping or are people buying them to mine litecoins?

There's a guy on kijiji selling lots of 4 sealed 7950s for $350 each, so I assume it is to mine. Not sure if I want to commit to buying 4.

It's GPU mining.'

Hi Guys,

Due to increased interest in GPU mining, several models of video cards are currently in short supply. Radeon 7950, 7970, & 280X cards specifically due to their popularity among miners, however other models may be affected as well.

Please note we are working diligently to keep any delays to a minimum, but in the meantime orders are being filled on a first come, first serve basis.
Topic URL: http://forums.ncix.com/forums/topic.php?id=2642191

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by photon

Wow trying to buy any 7950's or R280X's is brutal, I've had ones disappear out of my shopping cart even. Is it just holiday shopping or are people buying them to mine litecoins?

There's a guy on kijiji selling lots of 4 sealed 7950s for $350 each, so I assume it is to mine. Not sure if I want to commit to buying 4.

Locally, it's the Bitcoins Brains guys. They want OVER 20K for their KnC Jupiter miner and they've also gone to MemEx to buy up all the local R9 280X cards and are asking $4000 to sell people ready built mining rigs with 4 or 5 those cards.

And of course, all the other local miners as well. I know a guy at work that bought 4 R9 280Xs for mining.

[photon]

Dang that's a good idea (selling premade mining systems), I should have done that.

I'm starting out with two to validate the process to my wife, then I might be able to get more.

I wonder how many I'd need to replace my work income...

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by photon

Dang that's a good idea (selling premade mining systems), I should have done that.

I'm starting out with two to validate the process to my wife, then I might be able to get more.

I wonder how many I'd need to replace my work income...

I've been doing this for 2 years and it's a slippery slope. I still need work income and constant reminders to myself to keep going even though I should have had a million dollars in BTC by now if didn't sell to pay my bills in 2011. It's currently more profitable to mine some of the alt currencies (feathercoin, novacoin, digitalcoin) but converting them to BTC and then cashing out is more difficult and uncertain.

For me, alt currency (including Litecoin) is there only to help pay for Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin mining is probably the way you want to go to replace your day job if you can afford to drop a couple grand to stay ahead of the constantly growing ASIC mining curve. I currently have thousands put into Butterflylabs and KnC miner pre-orders that I don't even have in my possession yet.

Having no wife helps

[Kelekin]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I've been doing this for 2 years and it's a slippery slope. I still need work income and constant reminders to myself to keep going even though I should have had a million dollars in BTC by now if didn't sell to pay my bills in 2011. It's currently more profitable to mine some of the alt currencies (feathercoin, novacoin, digitalcoin) but converting them to BTC and then cashing out is more difficult and uncertain.

For me, alt currency (including Litecoin) is there only to help pay for Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin mining is probably the way you want to go to replace your day job if you can afford to drop a couple grand to stay ahead of the constantly growing ASIC mining curve. I currently have thousands put into Butterflylabs and KnC miners that I don't even have in my possession yet.

Having no wife helps

I have a hard time investing into machines I can't physically see. I know I could get a Saturn for no more than 8 bitcoins, but on an ROI level it isn't necessarily worth it.

To be honest though, if it wasn't for day-trading and the fact that I diversified, I wouldn't have made the equivalency of 3.5btc in 3 weeks with /mainly/ two 50 GH Butterfly Labs miners. But I've also researched alt-coins non-stopped and played around on exchanges to make 0.05btc here and there, but I've also gone for whatever is the most profitable at the time. Even among ASIC mining, Bitcoin is rarely the most profitable for more than an hour or two at a time, so spending a few hours a day on others isn't a bad idea. I wish I could pay attention to it full-time, but alas.

[Miniac]

If you're interested in mining why not try something like this https://www.cex.io/ its cloud mining.

My friends has about 40 GH and is making about ~$850 this mouth, half as much next month etc.

[Kelekin]

Originally Posted by Miniac

If you're interested in mining why not try something like this https://www.cex.io/ its cloud mining.

My friends has about 40 GH and is making about ~$850 this mouth, half as much next month etc.

That's 13.5 GH per BTC ($1070 at time of writing). So he is effectively paying over $3000 to make $850? The other thing people forget with cex.io is that they think "oh I can re-sell it later". Yes, but it will continue to drop as a single GH becomes less valuable. In two months, cex.io GH's will likely be less than half that rate.

You're much better off with a physical miner, cex.io is comparatively not attractive.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Kelekin

That's 13.5 GH per BTC ($1070 at time of writing). So he is effectively paying over $3000 to make $850? The other thing people forget with cex.io is that they think "oh I can re-sell it later". Yes, but it will continue to drop as a single GH becomes less valuable. In two months, cex.io GH's will likely be less than half that rate.

You're much better off with a physical miner, cex.io is comparatively not attractive.

Possession of a physical miner is another way to play the game. As evidenced by Bitcoin Brains listing their KnC Jupiter ($6995 at pre-order) at over $20,000. On Ebay, they are going for around $25,000.

One strategy is to mine for a month or two and the flip the unit for 2-3 times what you paid for it as long as the next generation has yet to be released (and the ensuing difficulty spike) and the appetite is strong.

If you need a datacenter for hosting, there are plenty of options for rackspace in Calgary at okay rates. Nothing like the cheap power and cooling of Iceland though (hint hint...Thor!).