Bitcoins

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Note: the estimated next change really doesn't mean anything, unless the growth in computational power is consistant, which I don't really suspect. The likely cause of this bump is rigs being brought backonline, like H&L's because it is much more profitable at this exchange.

I think short term consistency is pretty strong. There are a lot of rigs that went dormant in the dark ages (< $5 BTC). Seeing as how a 238% increase in difficulty basically means profitability is halved, I really don't see myself coming back online anymore unless the price of BTC also doubles accordingly (genuine possibility at current rates).

[Azure]

Yeah, I can probably do 100Mhash/s at best with my rig, so there really is no point in mining for me either.

Still extremely interesting though. And thanks for the information Hack!

[Diemenz]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Drinks on Diemenz!

And Azure, apparently!

Hahah!

I transferred my wallet this morning after hack lead me in the right direction. I will keep you guys updated on how it goes and if they move or not. I left the price open so at market and I will see what happens.

I pretty much have no idea what I am doing.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I think short term consistency is pretty strong. There are a lot of rigs that went dormant in the dark ages (< $5 BTC). Seeing as how a 238% increase in difficulty basically means profitability is halved, I really don't see myself coming back online anymore unless the price of BTC also doubles accordingly (genuine possibility at current rates).

As I said, there is a huge amount of inaccurancy with the calculator on this prediction, this is what it says this morning. By next week, I imagine it will be estimating even less.

The current mining difficulty is 7,673,000. The next difficulty is estimated to change by 12.75% to 8,651,173 on block #231,839. That should be 1 weeks 4 days 15 hours 45 mins 44 seconds from now.

[Thor]

I wonder if I could make some use of mining, considering my access to our datacenter, that I work with a Mainframe.

Hmmm, wonder if it would be worth looking into using some of our blade dell servers and see what kind of bitcoin a few of them could produce for me. IBM Mainframe would be pointless I guess.

[Thor]

Interesting, the more I read the more I realize one of the huge ddos attacks on 2 IPs at our datacenter was targeted at a bitcoin website, not sure what exactly they did but I know they are using bitcoins as currency.

This was a massive attack and we had to blackhole the 2 IPs and the client had to go elsewhere as we did not want this kind of trouble.

Cyber criminals are looking for ways to cash in on the recent surge in Bitcoin prices, which are now valued at around $137 a pop. This past week, we've witnessed DDoS attacks and database breaches targeting Bitcoin services, and now hackers are spreading malware, via Skype, designed to transform victims' computers into unwitting Bitcoin miners.

http://www.infoworld.com/t/data-secu...g-value-215923

[NuclearFart]

Interesting, I have never heard of this either. I get the essence of why the bit coin has tangible value, but the minting process seems wasteful based on my limited understanding.

For this "mining" procedure, other than contributing to transactions, are the calculations a mining computer performs essentially just a random useless task? Is this like having a bunch of people in a room jogging on the spot and you throw couple coins in for every hour they do it? If so, you'd think the computing power could be harnessed for something like SETI or solving string theory.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Thor

I wonder if I could make some use of mining, considering my access to our datacenter, that I work with a Mainframe.

Hmmm, wonder if it would be worth looking into using some of our blade dell servers and see what kind of bitcoin a few of them could produce for me. IBM Mainframe would be pointless I guess.

Doubtful, CPU mining is almost entirely pointless at this time. Not to mention a possible risk to your employment.

[Thor]

lol yeah, after reading much more its certainly not worth it.

[Azure]

Up past $170 now. This is insane.

The amount of money Hack COULD have is up to $85,000 right now.

[Azure]

And honestly Hack, I hope you fired up your rig again. According to my rough calculations you could make over $1000 right now mining at 5Gh/s.

Might as well milk it for all its worth. Maybe the price goes insane and hits $200.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Azure

Up past $170 now. This is insane.

The amount of money Hack COULD have is up to $85,000 right now.

Arrrgh!

Yeah, working on it.

[Rathji]

Saw it hit $194 (as a high) this morning. Last couple weeks I noticed a big surge every Monday.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Thor

lol yeah, after reading much more its certainly not worth it.

What your data center could do for you is provide the power and HVAC to house several rigs. It's certainly a better option than in your basement eating up your power bill (why I was forced to sell) and setting your house on fire.

[Thor]

Yeah plus we have very cheap energy and cooling costs as, I think one of the lowest in the world if not lowest.

Would you be willing to answer a few questions on what I would at least want to have to start out with, Rig wise, and any other questions I might run into as I take this a bit more seriously. Going to talk to my boss at the datacenter about the space, I have no doubt he will be giving me a great deal if I drop in my own rigs, we are just finishing a brand new modular space which will increase our capacity at the DC by 30%.

[Thor]

Problem is it seems once those ASIC start flooding the market custom built rigs will be laughable in comparison. So I don't see entry into this mining now unless we are talking about getting those nice prebuilt butterflylabs type machines, and those are crazy in demand and hard to get.

Uggh then I read this from a bitcoin developer in regards to if ASIC will destroy bitcoin, I'll highlight the part that obviously got my attention

Several people have asked me privately via email what I think of Butterfly Labs and ASIC mining in general, so:

What do I think of ASICs hitting the "mining scene" ?

meh.

It shows that Bitcoin is considered stable enough for a company to invest a LOT of money on design and production on it, which is very good. ASICs were bound to happen if Bitcoin survived long enough.

The long-term outlook for mining is "mining will happen with very specialized hardware, in places where either electricity is free or generating lots of heat is a benefit and not a cost" (and probably both; I still think Iceland will be a big mining hot-spot eventually).

I'm not worried about Butterfly Labs deciding to take over the blockchain with their superior hashpower. They'd be idiots to do something like try to mount a 51% attack-- they don't want to kill Bitcoin, they want it to get more successful so they sell more hardware.

And if they are successful they will very quickly have competitors.

Full disclosure: I spent some of my bitcoins to pre-order their USB coffee-warmer doo-hickey. It gets cold here in the winter.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Thor

Yeah plus we have very cheap energy and cooling costs as, I think one of the lowest in the world if not lowest.

Would you be willing to answer a few questions on what I would at least want to have to start out with, Rig wise, and any other questions I might run into as I take this a bit more seriously. Going to talk to my boss at the datacenter about the space, I have no doubt he will be giving me a great deal if I drop in my own rigs, we are just finishing a brand new modular space which will increase our capacity at the DC by 30%.

Feel free to PM me with any questions about mining. You could potentially be onto an Icelandic goldmine (or Bitcoin could collapse as has been predicted by people for years).

[Azure]

Who knows if the ASIC rigs will EVER hit the market. I mean they've been on pre-order forever. Hasn't the arrival date been post-poned multiple times as well?

[Daradon]

Ok, I get that mining is the way to earn bitcoins (and in one of those articles it was compared to being metaphorical to mining gold in real life) but what are these computers actually doing? Just pushing through a bunch of power and code to make imaginary money based on some arbitrary system that gets more consuming as the bitcoin reserve gets smaller?

I guess what I'm saying is, are these computers (and people) actually doing anything useful for society in which they are uncovering the bitcoins? I don't want to say creating, because as was mentioned, there is only a limited amount. So they aren't actually creating wealth, just 'uncovering' the bitcoins that were originally created through the task of 'mining'.

To me it seems like running on a treadmill to uncover these digital nuggets based on how the original creator created the system. But without the weight loss benefits. Good for the person I guess, if they do make their fortune in the coins, but ultimately a pointless exercise for the economy and the world. Wasteful, in fact.

[Rathji]

Those butterfly labs units have been pushed back for quite a few months.

The fact that they changed their pricing/models to match the results they were getting in their development is a good sign for me. Still about 30,000 units backordered at this point though, and best case shipping starts end of April.

I have wondered about setting up a small mining rig to run for a few months until they came online (and then sell and/or use the parts).

Any thoughts on motherboard/card/PSU?