Bitcoin discussion and news

[camouflage]

Like all speculative bubbles, it's a great thing to be invested in until it bursts and whoever is holding the baby loses everything.

In the meantime, fill yer boots and pray.

And after a bubble...

 

[camouflage]

It's like regular money, but "fun".

 

[spacemonkey]

its made me a lot of money though

Nice one. I bought a couple of hundred when they were £2 and have already sold enough to cover my original stake.

 

[Epona]

So what's the current status on this and the whole mining thing? I have a decent gaming PC which is already left on 24/7 mostly, with a high end GPU (and I'm soon to add another one) - is it worth letting it do a bit of number crunching and maybe earn me a few bitcoins? Or is it a fool's errand?

 

[Divisive Cotton]

Research has showed that the most you'll ever make is to break even - it will only cover the expense of the hardware and running costs

 

[Crispy]

Fools errand. You'd pay more in electricity by the time you get lucky to mine a coin.

 

[joustmaster]

I've been mining for a month and have made a couple of hundred dollars. that has been helped by the volatile exchange rate though

 

[ExtraRefined]

So what's the current status on this and the whole mining thing? I have a decent gaming PC which is already left on 24/7 mostly, with a high end GPU (and I'm soon to add another one) - is it worth letting it do a bit of number crunching and maybe earn me a few bitcoins? Or is it a fool's errand?

What's the GPU? I'll do the maths for you.

FWIW I've made about £1000 mining bitcoins at the cost of about £100 in electricity.

 

[Crispy]

Huh, didn't think it was that profitable!

 

[joustmaster]

I "won" $4000 speculating off a couple of hundred quid

 

[kabbes]

I "won" $4000 speculating off a couple of hundred quid

Have you taken that cash out of the system yet?

 

[joustmaster]

Have you taken that cash out of the system yet?

yes. well most of it..

 

[xes]

Ok, I'm now interested. Some questions.....in a random order as i think of them.
Does it cost money to set up a mining pool?
What kind of money do I have to lay out, to see a return?
Could I trade in say...rivets using bitcoin, and could I charge silly prices?
How many people are there usually in a mining pool?
Can you sell bitcoins for actual cash?
In gambling with bitcoin, do they do horses? (my boss is a big horse better, he makes loads, this could be a good way to make cash)

probably more questions to follow.

 

[kabbes]

yes. well most of it..

Then it's £CHING! to you.

How much do you still have at stake?

 

[grit]

Ok, I'm now interested. Some questions.....in a random order as i think of them.
Does it cost money to set up a mining pool?
What kind of money do I have to lay out, to see a return?
Could I trade in say...rivets using bitcoin, and could I charge silly prices?
How many people are there usually in a mining pool?
Can you sell bitcoins for actual cash?
In gambling with bitcoin, do they do horses? (my boss is a big horse better, he makes loads, this could be a good way to make cash)

probably more questions to follow.

Unless you have access to cheap power and already have a decent amount of hardware its not cost effective to mine.

MtGox will do currency transfers between BitCoin and eur/usd etc

 

[xes]

so how does one accumalate alot of bitcoin?

 

[joustmaster]

britcoin is the place to exchange GBP for bitcoin.. Its free to transfer money, and works with a normal bank transfer

 

[xes]

we have 9 pcs here at work, some of which are left on 24/7. Would it be worth setting them all up to mine? (they can all be left on if I can twist the bosses arm into thinking it's worth it)

 

[joustmaster]

so how does one accumalate alot of bitcoin?

Buy it when its cheap. Sell it when its expensive
Sell drugs on the silk road
Start mining back in winter and spring (!)

I used a mostly unused VM server at work - 24 cores. And a £50 graphics card that I had spare. At one point I was getting about a coin a day. Now its a lot less.

 

[joustmaster]

we have 9 pcs here at work, some of which are left on 24/7. Would it be worth setting them all up to mine? (they can all be left on if I can twist the bosses arm into thinking it's worth it)

A PC's processor doesn't do enough maths really.. You need some fat graphics cards.
But if its not your electric...

 

[grit]

we have 9 pcs here at work, some of which are left on 24/7. Would it be worth setting them all up to mine? (they can all be left on if I can twist the bosses arm into thinking it's worth it)

Do they have independent graphics cards? If not, its not worth it. In addition the algos the bitcoin client crunches are computationally heavy so will impact performance on the machines which is probably not acceptable if they are being used for work.

 

[xes]

Right, so I've got to "persuade" the boss into buying loads of bigass graphics cards. And nick his leccy? This isn't going to work

Fuck it, it's payday tomorow, I might just invest in some for the lulz, and see where it takes me.

 

[xes]

Do they have independent graphics cards? If not, its not worth it. In addition the algos the bitcoin client crunches are computationally heavy so will impact performance on the machines which is probably not acceptable if they are being used for work.

yes, that would be a problem. Performance is key, we need to be able to work at a decent rate.

 

[grit]

Then its not possible, the machines pretty much need to be dedicated.

 

[xes]

Then its not possible, the machines pretty much need to be dedicated.

Ok, so mining is out, unless I set up a small mining account for home, which'll earn me fuck all. I am thinking of getting solar panels, so when they're installed, maybe then it'd be more worth it. So basically, it's get some bitcoins, and maybe think of something to trade in. (I can get levitra sex pills, maybe I can sell them )

 

[grit]

Ok, so mining is out, unless I set up a small mining account for home, which'll earn me fuck all. I am thinking of getting solar panels, so when they're installed, maybe then it'd be more worth it. So basically, it's get some bitcoins, and maybe think of something to trade in. (I can get levitra sex pills, maybe I can sell them )

Right now, unless you have access to the hardware power that I've been speaking about. The only real option is to speculate by buying and selling on the exchanges same as any other currency.

 

[joustmaster]

Ok, so mining is out, unless I set up a small mining account for home, which'll earn me fuck all. I am thinking of getting solar panels, so when they're installed, maybe then it'd be more worth it. So basically, it's get some bitcoins, and maybe think of something to trade in. (I can get levitra sex pills, maybe I can sell them )

or set up a site that uses them. drugs and gambling seem to be the big money makers at the moment.

 

[xes]

Are bitcoins on the stock exchange?

 

[grit]

or set up a site that uses them. drugs and gambling seem to be the big money makers at the moment.

I think the best thing would be to create a payment gateway that does on the fly Bitcoin conversion to USD/EUR/GBP to allow people to spend bitcoins in regular online stores.

 

[grit]

Are bitcoins on the stock exchange?

Its not a company, its a currency, so no.