Bitcoin discussion and news
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Does it use that much more than just having a computer switched on normally?
joustmaster
offcumdun
how many hash/sec is it doing?
It would be making money by using energy. You might not be paying directly for that energy but that doesn't make it free.
True but don't all businesses use energy to make money? I'm struggling to see the difference between me and, say, microsoft or google.
Well my carbon footprint is tiny. I have virtually no possessions or gadgets. Even with a computer switched on I would still use far less energy than someone with a house. I agree with your general point but unless you live in a cave then shouldn't you be asking yourself the same questions?
grit
an ugly force for good
grit
an ugly force for good
More than 20 quid thats for sure.
Most businesses provide a product or service. These things have social utility.
You're more equivalent to a day-trader. Albeit you are providing computational power to run the currency. So it's not entirely valuess. You're helping speculators. And boy does society love speculators.
grit
an ugly force for good
Which is where economies of scale kicks in, anyone who is doing mining now is either betting big time on the price going up or has the resources already that are a fixed cost.
In summary, unless you have your own data center, its not a good investment. All the money spent on mining would be far better used trading on mtgox or similar.
joustmaster
offcumdun
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
If bitcoin are finite then surely we are going to reach a point where mining becomes pointless... Or have I missed something (i.e. that they are somehow destroyed when spent...)
grit
an ugly force for good
Not infinitely, up to 8 decimal places </nitpicking>
joustmaster
offcumdun
apparently once all the coins have been created, coins will be handed out for people connected doing the processing.
joustmaster
offcumdun
It sounds like you are talking about the bitcoin client, not a miner.
The miner is the thing you installed and configured with the mining pool details (Poclbm, Diablo etc)
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Category:Miners
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
From what I read mining is not really worth the effort any any more.
The last few days the currency has become more stable due to questions of liquidity I think. For a while I thought that speculators buying coins, resulting in the value of the currency rapidly increasing meant that the bubble would burst and the currency fail. However it seems that as the profile of the system increased people fear for the liquidity of the currency - ie the routes to turn the coins into hard currency came under the radar of national states and therefore the risk of these routes being shut down increased. With no hard currency equivalent they are useless.
Thanks to joustmaster for the details about the system. As a speculator I doubled my money, took out my initial investment and a bit of profit. The remaining coins are still floating around the network should they be a good little earner for me - or indeed be useful to buy a couple of treats.
The last few days the currency has become more stable due to questions of liquidity I think. For a while I thought that speculators buying coins, resulting in the value of the currency rapidly increasing meant that the bubble would burst and the currency fail. However it seems that as the profile of the system increased people fear for the liquidity of the currency - ie the routes to turn the coins into hard currency came under the radar of national states and therefore the risk of these routes being shut down increased. With no hard currency equivalent they are useless.
Thanks to joustmaster for the details about the system. As a speculator I doubled my money, took out my initial investment and a bit of profit. The remaining coins are still floating around the network should they be a good little earner for me - or indeed be useful to buy a couple of treats.
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
The 'mining' bit always struck me as a huge waste. I understand that you have to give a new currency credibility by not magicking it up out of thin air, but now that enough are in circulation, perhaps it would be an idea to stop getting all these processors churning out useless hashes and doing something useful instead!
grit
an ugly force for good
They are doing something useful, the process of computing the hashes is only part of it, the miners also process the transactions for the rest of the distributed network
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Slashdot are doing a participatory interview with Amir Taaki, owner of britcoin.co.uk
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/06/14/1357239/Ask-Amir-Taaki-About-Bitcoin
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/06/14/1357239/Ask-Amir-Taaki-About-Bitcoin
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