Forgive me for bringing up another sort of DC project, but for my potential application it would benefit SETI.

I have been aware of the phenomenon that is "bitcoin mining" for a few months now. It seems to have been a profitable venture especially for those who began mining early on. It is apparently so profitable that some people have set up "bitcoin farms" in much the same way that some of us (myself included) have set up SETI crunching farms.

I would like to be able to add GPU's to my SETI rigs as often as possible, and I am also hoping to build a monster cruncher as soon as possible. High end GPU's are clearly quite expensive, and since the crunching infrastructure is already in place for myself and others, I have thought perhaps dedicating some time to bitcoin mining in order to exchange those bitcoins for hardware. I have found that some sites will sell you a GTX 680/690 for a certain amount of bitcoins. As I plan on putting multiple GTX 690's in my new rig, I thought perhaps this might be a creative way of financing at least a portion of this rig and upgrading GPU's in my existing Seti rigs.

If anybody has any experience with bitcoin mining, would you please share your thoughts? I have no indication of how many dollars worth of bitcoins I could mine in a given amount of time with my current hardware, but if any of you know it to be lucrative or fast enough, I might give it a shot.

I hate to take my rigs away from crunching SETI WU's for even a moment, but as they say, sometimes you have to take 1 step back to take 2 steps forward- in the longrun this would greatly increase my SETI output if it actually affords me some decent hardware without me having to go into my currently sparse pockets. I haven't decided for sure if I'm going to do it yet, I first want to get a rough estimate of how productive my rigs (all the ones on my computer list here on S@H) will be, if it doesn't seem worth it then I won't them off of crunching at all and I'll just continue to come out of pocket for this project.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

A pyramid scheme isn't a pyramid scheme until it comes crumbling to the ground... then everyone goes, "Oh! It was a pyramid scheme":)

Stay away!

Maybe I should explain a bit better: Unless you have access to FREE high-end ATI cards and access to FREE electricity...Stay away!

I truly apologize for any bubble-bursting.

If bitcoins......

A. Were worth more than the cost of the electricity to produce them.
B. Had no legal questions surrounding their use.
C. Were readily used to purchase goods and services.

I suspect everybody would be mining them and the US treasury would go out of business.

---

"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

I'm sorry, but I can't see for the life of me (or what's left of it) the point behind Bitcoin Mining.

Cheers.

---

I'm sorry, but I can't see for the life of me (or what's left of it) the point behind Bitcoin Mining.

Cheers.

Laziness and greed.

I'm sorry, but I can't see for the life of me (or what's left of it) the point behind Bitcoin Mining.

Cheers.

Laziness and greed.

Yep & a famous old quote comes to mind...

"A fool & his money is soon parted"

---

From what I understand, they are going to be hitting a wall with GPU mining when you factor in hardware, electricity and the ever increasing difficulty. It's going to move over to FPGA mining being the only way of keeping it profitable in the future. If you have enough to invest in an FPGA mining cluster right now and (again) you get free electricity then it could be a very good idea, otherwise, I wouldn't jump in.

---

And not to mention all the cheating that is going on.

It's just one big scam, you can't make money out of nothing...

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

I've found that dedicating your time & energy into paid work pays substantially better than other options, with less after-hours stress. I tried being a street bum, which actually pays pretty well & has little stress, but getting good wifi in the squat can be a challenge. 9-5 routine... then be good at the share market on top would be the quickest way to build a megafarm IMO. Shares in an energy company might help.

---

"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

Bitcoin mining is a joke of a pyramid scheme, where even the original one or two probably won't ever have any real money to speak of.

If you want to spend your electricity and computers time on something, may I recommend sticking with DC projects that serve a purpose.

And, at NO point in bitcoin history, (not since before the money split the first time), has there been any way to profit. The electric itself costs more money that the money it produces, and once you factor in hardware...
well you get the point.

---

#resist

Bitcoin mining is a joke of a pyramid scheme, where even the original one or two probably won't ever have any real money to speak of.

If you want to spend your electricity and computers time on something, may I recommend sticking with DC projects that serve a purpose.

And, at NO point in bitcoin history, (not since before the money split the first time), has there been any way to profit. The electric itself costs more money that the money it produces, and once you factor in hardware...
well you get the point.

It's like gambling for people bad at math, or using a change machine that charges a fee.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Got it guys, thanks for the info. I knew I felt like I was missing something when I first read and watched videos about it.. Electricity cost is higher than the value of the bitcoin then that makes it pointless right there. I must admit though, as a professional commodity trader/investment banker/stock broker, following currency fluctuations by the minute is one of the main things I look at to navigate my clients money safely- and I was intrigued by the idea of this so called project that is creating an alternative currency. I specialize in gold, silver and oil investments and as all western currencies are being aggressively undervalued day by day, I have done extremely well by pouring capital into gold, silver, and oil at the right timing of course. Bitcoins sound like they were conceived to be another alternative currency, something I strongly believe in these days from an investment standpoint. But as many of you have pointed out, it is extremely flawed, unprofitable, and likely unsafe. I'll keep my eggs in gold and silver coins/bars/stocks and continue to stick with what I know. I wasn't looking to make myself a return with the bit coins, I was just trying to be clever and use my existing crunching infrastructure to finance more hardware for SETI. Oh well- I guess you can't get something for nothing after all :)

I have a reasonable BOINC balance (600M) and have been doing bitcoin related stuff for the last year. Mining pays for all my electricity, my house is noce and warm and it keeps my CPU projects running quite happily. In addition, there is real money involved and despite the bad comments here, ignorance isn't universal.

---

I have a reasonable BOINC balance (600M) and have been doing bitcoin related stuff for the last year. Mining pays for all my electricity, my house is noce and warm and it keeps my CPU projects running quite happily. In addition, there is real money involved and despite the bad comments here, ignorance isn't universal.

Thanks for sharing patrick, first good thing I've heard so far. Approximately how many hours a week do you "mine"? Is it with that one computer i see on your computer list here (or rather the GPU on that machine since as I understand it, bitcoin mining only works off your GPU(s)? How many bitcoins do you earn in that time?

If you use your bitcoins to pay for your electric bill, it sounds like you must be making a few hundred a month with bitcoin- you haven't found that it eats up more electricity than it pays for? That is one of the main arguments I seem to hear. Like I mentioned before, I just wanted to run the bitcoin miner long enough to earn enough bitcoins to purchase some new hardware for my dedicated SETI boxes, so that was the only return I was hoping for.

oh yea and another reason i figured I wouldn't even bother with this is that only AMD cards seem to be worth the time. even top of the line NVIDIA cards dont compete with lower end AMD for the bitcoin tasks...I will stick with buying NVIDIA cuda cards for crunching SETI.

Bitcoin mining is a joke of a pyramid scheme, ...

And so is any currency. Even the Euro, and even more the USD.

Currency is basically worth whatever people agree it is worth. Nothing more, nothing less. The definition of "worth" and "people" are open to discussion, of course.

---

Currency is basically worth whatever people agree it is worth. Nothing more, nothing less. The definition of "worth" and "people" are open to discussion, of course.

+1

Basically it's: "currency = trust".

Without trust, there's no currency.

When trust is gone, this happens (beer becomes pretty expensive *g*):



But what happened to the Zimbabwean dollar can also happen to Bitcoins. Or to the Euro. Or to the US dollar.

My personal bet is: Bitcoins will still be worth something - long after the US dollar has gone down the drain ...

Frizz I couldn't agree with you more :)

Your words are pretty much exactly the same as the ones out of my mouth each day as I implore my clients to trade in their dollar and Euros for shares in gold, silver mining, and oil producing companies as well as ETF's that hold physical gold and silver. Those who listened to me are sitting pretty, unfortunately many are still too paralyzed with distrust and fear of the markets and investments so they under-invest, and those who I am pursuing as new business shrug it off and force me to call them back 3 months later to rub in their face how they missed out on a 60% gain in just a few months time. Personally I don't keep a savings account, I only use my checking account for medium term cash needs and check writing purposes. My savings account is in silver bars, american eagle and canadian maple coins, and a little bit of physical gold as well. (i believe silver will outperform gold tremendously over this decade and so far it has proved true, i am also young and willing to take the extra risk as silver is far more volatile compared to gold, so I am personally leaning much heavier in silver). sorry to get all financial lol

I'll be intersted to see how long bitcoins stay around and where their value goes in comparison to dollars, gold, euros, etc..

(Bullion charts from www.monex.com)

Gold:

Silver:

Platinum:

Palladium:

Looks to me like pretty much all precious metals are trending down atm....

So Yay! for random financial advice from strangers!

---