Mining Bitcoins for Cash

davidjwest

I've recently discovered "Bitcoins" and it seems like a reasonable way to make a bit of extra cash, but I have questions!

1. Is it legitimate?

2. What kind of returns can you get?

3. Is it best to join a pool or go it alone?

4. Anyone got any experience of this who is willing to give their experiences?

Thanks.

I have read what's on the net but haven't ever come across anyone who is making money from it, other than those who may have a vested interest.

gb12345

davidjwest wrote: »

I've recently discovered "Bitcoins" and it seems like a reasonable way to make a bit of extra cash, but I have questions!

1. Is it legitimate?

2. What kind of returns can you get?

3. Is it best to join a pool or go it alone?

4. Anyone got any experience of this who is willing to give their experiences?

Thanks.

I have read what's on the net but haven't ever come across anyone who is making money from it, other than those who may have a vested interest.

There was a lengthy thread on bitcoins in the Banks forum started by a "bitcoin trader" who had had his bank account frozen due to a dodgy transaction.

He went to great lengths to big up bit coins, but is probably one of those with a vested interest that you mention. I'm sure that I remember him mentioning though that there is no longer any money in mining.

My personal opinion - I doubt you would make enough money to cover the costs of running the machines for the mining.

davidjwest

Thanks, I'm currently running a mining program as I surf the net and work on a website so it's not actually costing me anything.

But I doubt I'll earn much from it, but worth a try to see if I do get any return.

paddyrg

1) It's not illegitimate if that's what you mean, but it's certainly not a stable, government backed currency

2) Pretty poor once you factor in the electricity - there were people with whole farms of bitcoin-generating parallelised processors, so you'll make slow work.

3) Alone, probably, but YMMV

4) Not really - I spent a few hours mining 0.000001ish bitcoins then gave it up as a bad job. At the time, they traded for $15 - since then they have traded at upto $240-odd and have dropped back to $90-odd.

The big problem is like every other bubble, the valuations are completely removed from their use/worth. Personally, I can see a load of people getting a haircut from bitcoins. It is a 'fiat' currency, not linked to any physical assets whatsoever. Since dumping the gold standard, most world currencies are also now fiat HOWEVER they are effectively backed by the armies and of the countries that back the currency. Bitcoins trade entirely on trust, and if there's a crash tomorrow it could go from $90 to $9 in a day whereas most national currencies still have some inherent value so will not crash so fast.

Is it worth it? I don't think so. If I'd mined a lot when it was quick and easy back in 'the day' and cashed out when all the muppets started piling into them I'd answer differently, but now the upside is marginal at best I'd say. How about you give it a go, it'll cost you nothing, and you can see if it's making anything like useful money compared with the hours and hours your computer has to keep running. A normal desktop PC might have a 350W power supply, so 3 hours might cost you 1 unit of leccy. What's that, 15p maybe? More if you leave the monitor on.

DaveTheGeordie

Mining bit coins? What is that? Is it legal? Is it a passive afk programme?

OP: I haven't watched them myself but Sal Khan from Khan Academy has done a few videos on bitcoin. Might be interesting. He is a super-smart guy.

davidjwest

I've found this site quite useful, I have no affiliation to it myself:

http://www.bitcoinplus.com/

There's a built in mining program that the webmaster gets a 3% cut of. I've been running it for 2 hours or so and earned nothing so far but will try using it when I am online and report back.

paddyrg

Well, if it takes say 2h to 'earn' 0.00000113BTC (the lowest amount you can mine on that site) then 200hrs might earn you a whole US cent, and 20,000h $1 based on $90/BTC

gb12345

davidjwest wrote: »

I've found this site quite useful, I have no affiliation to it myself:

http://www.bitcoinplus.com/

There's a built in mining program that the webmaster gets a 3% cut of. I've been running it for 2 hours or so and earned nothing so far but will try using it when I am online and report back.

That site seems to be generating 0.00000113 a time for its members.

Not sure how long it takes to generate that much, but you are never going to generate enough to earn more than a few cents from it.

imoneyop

gb12345 wrote: »

That site seems to be generating 0.00000113 a time for its members.

Not sure how long it takes to generate that much, but you are never going to generate enough to earn more than a few cents from it.

A couple of us at work ran that site on a machine for about 5 days to prove to a colleague that there was no money in it.

The machine was running 24 hours a day for the 5 days - some times we would earn a payment in an hour, other times we would go 6 to 10 hours without earning a thing.

DaveTheGeordie

I started watching a couple of videos yesterday on bitcoin after reading this. I saw a similar thing called litecoin. There are apparently equivalently in value more than 200 litecoins to a bitcoin, and with bitcoin people make these kits of computer graphics cards because they are better at the mathematics in the mining. With litecoin it was made to work more comfortably with the computers main processor, apparently making it easier for people without all the bitcoin kit to run.

paddyrg

With either litecoin or bitcoin you are just generating numbers. Neither has any material worth or value beyond what other people will pay for them in a real currency. It's like collecting beanie babies, except without even having some toys at the end of it.

Also just to note the main exchange where you turn these virtual numbers into money was founded for selling virtual weapons or whatever in the game Magic: The Gathering (Hence mtgox - ox for Online eXchange). You're not dealing with a bank, but a broker whose website has been several things over the years. Not a problem per se (in fact they're better suited to trading virtual assets than many), but relevant.