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Anyone want to buy some Bitcoins from me?

Jewtoys

By Jewtoys
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greg1647545532 Newbie

greg1647545532

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How hard is it to "Farm" bitcoins and how long does it generally take? Ive read about it some before but i just dont understand how something thats nothing can be worth so much...

 

All money is nothing; it's just nothing that people agree is worth something for the sake of a functioning economy, whether its dollars, gold, or bitcoins.

 

The mining has nothing to do with it's value as a currency, it's just a technical solution to the problem of double-spending, a problem unique to a digital currency. The mining is just a financial incentive for people to use their computer cycles to validate transactions.

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Fubar231 Newbie

Fubar231

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So, the concept of money is lost on you, then?

 

No and I understand the whole economy concept and working for it etc, but to get Bitcoins dont you just "Farm" or "Mine" them on your PC and literally get money for doing absolutely nothing? Its not even working for your money its just... getting it.

 

I just dont understand bitcoins i guess...

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greg1647545532 Newbie

greg1647545532

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I just dont understand bitcoins i guess...

 

Double spending problem -- I buy something from you for a physical dollar, I no longer have that dollar. However, if I buy something from you for a bitcoin, which is just a string of 1s and 0s, I can simultaneously buy something from Orion using that same bitcoin. Since all transactions are public, you'll both know that you got scammed a few minutes later when your Bitcoin software updates, but by that point I'm long gone.

 

Solution -- All bitcoin transactions are publicly announced when they happen, but they don't "count" until someone out on the internet solves a mathematical problem generated just for that transaction. So if I give you a bitcoin, a bunch of people on the internet use their computers to try and solve that math problem, and the first one to do it gets a bitcoin. (Money for nothing, except hardware and electricity). The math problems take a set amount of time for the collective internet to solve, something like 10 minutes, and are constantly increasing in difficulty to keep up with advances in computing and an increasing number of miners. Once the problem is solved, you get your bitcoin and you hand over whatever I bought. The upshot is that if I give the same bitcoin to you and Orion, then while the internet is crunching this math problem, everyone realizes that I double spent the coin and puts the kibosh on one or both of the transactions.

 

There's some math that governs the reward payouts over time, but that's the gist of it.

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Orion Newbie

Orion

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Shane, you are being paid for leased time on your computer. "Mining" involves crunching numbers that provide solutions for the businesses that are looking for those particular solutions. I'ts the same as folding proteins via "Folding at Home" or collating radio signals for SETI at Home", except that you are receiving something for it and not doing it out of any altruistic sensibility.
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greg1647545532 Newbie

greg1647545532

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Shane, you are being paid for leased time on your computer. "Mining" involves crunching numbers that provide solutions for the businesses that are looking for those particular solutions. I'ts the same as folding proteins via "Folding at Home" or collating radio signals for SETI at Home", except that you are receiving something for it and not doing it out of any altruistic sensibility.

 

I don't think that's true; there's no benefit to solving the math problems other than transaction verification. The problems themselves are arbitrary, as long as they take long enough to complete that the public bitchains have time to update. The only one who benefits are other bitcoin users, in that they get a workable digital currency out of the deal.

 

The fact that bitcoins keep popping into existence means it's currently an inflationary currency. Eventually, they'll all be mined, at which point it should, in theory, become a deflationary currency and people will hoard their bitcoins until the rewards for validating transactions become so small that everyone will stop doing it and the system will implode. Or, it could all work out smashingly and be the way of the future. We live in exciting times.

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CRed05 Apprentice

CRed05

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How hard is it to "Farm" bitcoins and how long does it generally take?

 

I did some mining from my home desktop. The ATI graphics card I have puts out about 120MH/S. At today's rates, that comes out to about $0.01 per day. Not worth it, you'll use more electricity than that.

 

You need to be able to pull at least a couple of GH/s before it's worth it.

 

With something like this:

https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/5-gh-s-bitcoin-miner.html

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unfunnyryan Newbie

unfunnyryan

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I did some mining from my home desktop. The ATI graphics card I have puts out about 120MH/S. At today's rates, that comes out to about $0.01 per day. Not worth it, you'll use more electricity than that.

 

You need to be able to pull at least a couple of GH/s before it's worth it.

 

With something like this:

https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/5-gh-s-bitcoin-miner.html

 

Nope. You won't even be profitable even with TERAhash per second miners with the price they are pulling.

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Fubar231 Newbie

Fubar231

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Holy crap! So you would basically need a huge farm of these things even to pull a minute amount of money per day? That just seems so ridiculous...

 

Also whats 1 TH? Tera somethin obviously, and what kind of graphics card / GPU would you need to be able to pull that? Or would you just need a custom built bitcoin mining box basically.

 

Looking at this graphics card thats 600 GH/s, Cost $2100, so for 2 you would spend $4200, and make roughly $90 a day... It would be well over a month before it pays its-self off and by then who knows what they'll be worth... Seems like it COULD be worth it but only if you setup a few dedicated mining rigs pulling a few TH/s to even be able to make any decent money off it, and that would be a expensive investment (Im assuming $10,000 or so)

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