Bitcoin Discussion Thread

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Yamaki

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I'm taking jebo_4jc's advice from another Bitcoin-related thread that was getting off-topic and making a centralized thread for the discussion of Bitcoin. I know a few of us are getting into mining and even switching from other DC projects to earn some coin (guilty as charged :D) so I thought this would be appropriate.

What is Bitcoin? How do I get started? Read this.

Useful links
Bitcoin Charts - Market data and conversion rates
Bitcoin Forums - Official forums, very active
Bitcoin.org - Official project site
BTC Guild - Popular mining pool (my primary)
Deepbit - Another popular mining pool (my backup)

Bitcoin stats at start of thread (6/7/2011):
mtgoxUSD rate: $18.80
Difficulty: 567358
Block #: 129211
 
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So with that difficulty a 250Mh/s HD 5830 would give you about 3.2 coins a week which is about $60.
 
Let's also keep this thread civil, on topic, and troll free. Bitcoin threads in the past have lead to unnecessary heated discussions. Bitcoin is not everyones cup of tea but, for those who want to run it, they should be able to discuss it freely in this forum.
 
I just hope that it steals enough people from EVGA to let us catch up and pass them :) If it does that, then I'm all for it!
 
My 6950 is now about halfway to buying me either SB-E or Bulldozer for folding. :)
I see BTC as a viable alternative for AMD cards that are not great for many DC projects.
 
Are there any good setup guides around? I have 5850 and a 2 pci-e slot mb incoming. I'll probably end up getting a 5830 on the cheap to go with the 5850. My problem is that I really know nothing about video cards in general and certainly nothing about Bitcoin
 
Added a link to the official Beginner's Guide in the first post. That should tell you everything you need to know.

5830s are definitely the best PPW and PP$ available, especially if you get the Sapphire ones from newegg for $110. I have two on the way myself.
 
From the linked guide:

"I think its definitive, the ship has sailed on buying rigs for mining."

That pretty much tells me what I want to know, since I did read into why the author makes this statement. With the difficulty increasing at such a rapid rate, there is no way this will be profitable for long now, if at all. Congratz to those who got in early - anyone wanna buy a 5850?
 
From the linked guide:

"I think its definitive, the ship has sailed on buying rigs for mining."

That pretty much tells me what I want to know, since I did read into why the author makes this statement. With the difficulty increasing at such a rapid rate, there is no way this will be profitable for long now, if at all. Congratz to those who got in early - anyone wanna buy a 5850?

I dont think its 100% accurate because the BTC price is currently also linked to the difficulty which is based on how many are mining.

With that said, I dont think its worth creating a 20 computer system to do BTC mining only.
 
I don't agree that it's not profitable to invest in mining--you will definitely at least break even in a couple weeks if you start mining now, and from then on it's pure profit. But, as Infect0 said, it's not advisable to go overboard.

Is anyone interested in mining in an [H] pool? I think it would be great if we could all get together and search for BTC. If enough people are interested I'll set one up.
 
So if I were to get a 5830 and place it in a PC running F@H (smp), how much of a hit would it take? Does it use most of a core or just a few percent of the CPU? Also, if I were to do this, do people that are currently mining assume it would at least pay for the electricity for the foreseeable future, not including upfront cost of card (3 - 6 months)?

EDIT: I understand the question about money is entirely an opinion, but what would a card like the 5830 generate on a monthly basis at current rates?
 
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So if I were to get a 5830 and place it in a PC running F@H (smp), how much of a hit would it take? Does it use most of a core or just a few percent of the CPU? Also, if I were to do this, do people that are currently mining assume it would at least pay for the electricity for the foreseeable future, not including upfront cost of card (3 - 6 months)?

Exactly what I was about to ask.
 
Exactly what I was about to ask.

First problem is its hard to find 5830s cheap.

As for the main question, it uses little of the CPU. I am sure F@H would take a small hit but all of the work is being done on the GPU.
 
I don't agree that it's not profitable to invest in mining--you will definitely at least break even in a couple weeks if you start mining now, and from then on it's pure profit. But, as Infect0 said, it's not advisable to go overboard.

Is anyone interested in mining in an [H] pool? I think it would be great if we could all get together and search for BTC. If enough people are interested I'll set one up.

I am interested in this. I don't know enough about anything to help, but I will participate.
 
I would also be interested in joining in. How many people does it take for a successful pool (so it isn't weeks in between finishing a block)?
 
So if I were to get a 5830 and place it in a PC running F@H (smp), how much of a hit would it take? Does it use most of a core or just a few percent of the CPU? Also, if I were to do this, do people that are currently mining assume it would at least pay for the electricity for the foreseeable future, not including upfront cost of card (3 - 6 months)?

EDIT: I understand the question about money is entirely an opinion, but what would a card like the 5830 generate on a monthly basis at current rates?

We need some good numbers on this. I theoretically have 12 PCI-e slots on SR-2 folding rigs that could be used. My guess is that the CPU hit will be enough to make it not worth running, though. It all depends on the client I suppose.
 
Little to no CPU use if you are GPU mining.
CPU mining is completely pointless.
Nvidia mining is completely pointless.

The larger pools are in the terrahash/second, figure your average recent model Radeon gives you about 2-300mh/s.

Hardware results list:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

Just to add some additional thoughts to people thinking about mining.
Cards are getting harder to find.
A month ago people thought mining would be pointless, but the bitcoin value has gone up significantly.
Actual mining results are dropping fast with all the people joining in...counterbalanced by the increased value.
Bitcoin is now starting to make mainstream news, and no one knows what will happen in the near future.

I tend to be cautious by nature, I would say if you have or can get a few AMD cards pretty cheaply, try it out, see what happens.
I dont know that building mining farms though is wise, unless it *really* takes off, which is possible, but unlikely.

I started about two months and managed to get in when it was under $1, and I managed to pay off $1000 worth of GPU's....but my daily coin generation now is MUCH less than it used to be.
 
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Little to no CPU use if you are GPU mining.
CPU mining is completely pointless.
Nvidia mining is completely pointless.

The larger pools are in the terrahash/second, figure your average recent model Radeon gives you about 2-300mh/s.

Hardware results list:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

We are fishing for whether us folders could load up folding boxen with ATI GPUs and not kill out F@H performance too badly while also running a miner.
 
The problem is, unless you already have the hardware, it is exceedingly difficult to find at a good price.
 
We are fishing for whether us folders could load up folding boxen with ATI GPUs and not kill out F@H performance too badly while also running a miner.

Ill look on my machines later when I get home to see what CPU usage is, but its low, as in 1-2% if that, which is what it normal idles at anyways.
 
Monkey God is right about CPU usage--it's negligible. The only thing you have to do is make sure you run your miners at a higher process priority than your other DC projects, because when GPU miners have competition for that 1 or 2 percent of CPU that they use, their performance decreases substantially.

As far as having a successful pool, I think it would take at least 10Ghash/s, which would put us at maybe one or two blocks per week (just a guesstimation). Once I have all of the cards in my sig in hand I will have about 1Ghash/s.
 
So with that difficulty a 250Mh/s HD 5830 would give you about 3.2 coins a week which is about $60.

Actually, about $80 per week right now.

Bitcoins generated/day * $/bitcoin has been holding pretty steady, so monthly payout in dollars is roughly equal to your Mh/s...or at least it was until value spiked over $24 a few hours ago. :eek: Right now, it's about a 4:3 dollar to Mh/s ratio.
 
The market price change makes we what to close my eyes and hope it doesn't crash. If prices stay like this then I too will be picking up a of HD 5870 or two that a local store still has in stock and getting it set up this weekend. So 2 5870's would be $250 a week? You have to admit this system is just a little buggered in it's current state.
 
Here's what I've got in the line of Vid cards, all of which in rigs.

2 x 5870's
1 x 5770
1 x 4870
1 x 4850

By what I've read, I should be at around 1.1Gh/s or whatever you call them things. Is that about correct? But ya, if this is for real, count me in on a [H] group. Gives me an excuse to pickup WaterCooling parts to migrate the heat out of the house (radiators outside) and I'll even start folding (for [H]orde!) since they'll be on anyway :D
 
I started mining at the beginning of last week, first trying a bit of solo-mining, then jumping into a pool ("continuumpool"). So far I have yet to see a single bitcoin, but the pool has not found a block since May 30th, which makes this their longest round yet (I have great timing, apparently :rolleyes: ).

I checked out BTC Guild but the message at the top of their homepage ("The pool server is under heavy load, causing idles and connection errors. Two new servers are coming online this week to balance the load.") made me think it might be a good idea to wait, and indeed I got server communication errors when I tried to use their pool. Perhaps later in the week I'll try again.

Currently I'm mining with 1.15 Gh/s (2x 6970 @950Mhz, 1x 5850 @888Mhz). I figure I'll give it a try but I've yet to see any results. If I go another week without anything I'll just sell the hardware like I had planned anyway. Any advice for a noob is appreciated.
 
I joined the http://mining.bitcoin.cz/ pool yesterday and have gotten .5 bitcoin in roughtly 17hrs @ 275mhash. The pool operates at 1000-1200ghash. Seems like I am receiving BTC slightly faster then what the calculators say :)

If the BTC rate stays as high as it is this week, I might purchase another card to put in other rig.
 
I started mining at the beginning of last week, first trying a bit of solo-mining, then jumping into a pool ("continuumpool"). So far I have yet to see a single bitcoin, but the pool has not found a block since May 30th, which makes this their longest round yet (I have great timing, apparently :rolleyes: ).

I checked out BTC Guild but the message at the top of their homepage ("The pool server is under heavy load, causing idles and connection errors. Two new servers are coming online this week to balance the load.") made me think it might be a good idea to wait, and indeed I got server communication errors when I tried to use their pool. Perhaps later in the week I'll try again.

Currently I'm mining with 1.15 Gh/s (2x 6970 @950Mhz, 1x 5850 @888Mhz). I figure I'll give it a try but I've yet to see any results. If I go another week without anything I'll just sell the hardware like I had planned anyway. Any advice for a noob is appreciated.

Not familiar with the pool but I would recommend switching to a slightly more powerful pool. The whole point of joining one is so you dont have to wait long periods of time out to collect.

Lately I have been using the Reddit BitCoin Mining Team. Its free and so far has good uptime.
 
The market price change makes we what to close my eyes and hope it doesn't crash. If prices stay like this then I too will be picking up a of HD 5870 or two that a local store still has in stock and getting it set up this weekend. So 2 5870's would be $250 a week? You have to admit this system is just a little buggered in it's current state.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. This value spike happens pretty much every time the difficulty increases. How long it can go on like this, though, is anyone's guess, but bitcoin just now seems to really be getting up a head of steam. As long as everyone maintains the status quo, there's no reason to believe it won't continue as it has.

There's a select few people out there that got in early and hold a large percentage of the current bitcoin pool. They're a major wild card right now since if they decide to move a large number of bitcoins, it could throw the whole market out of whack.
 
Not familiar with the pool but I would recommend switching to a slightly more powerful pool. The whole point of joining one is so you dont have to wait long periods of time out to collect.

Lately I have been using the Reddit BitCoin Mining Team. Its free and so far has good uptime.

there is now a way to "spend" your bitcoins on Amazon if you want to take some of your prospective gains (BTC) and turn them into realized gains (hardware or whatever you can find on Amazon)...

spendbitcoins

I've been watching this since yesterday and it APPEARS to be legitimate, a lot of people on bitcoin forums are using this and Newegg appears to be the next site they're working on, but it's an option for those who may want to add cards to their mining ventures with no "real world" money costs, do your homework and be careful though...

basically you fill out your order, send the site your bitcoins and they send you a giftcard for the amount of your order, there is a certain way to do this so that it works, just follow the directions...

why would the guy do this, what does he get out of it and more importantly what do YOU get out of it...? well, basically he's buying bitcoins (from you) at the current exchange rate with no fees and you are getting what you want, paying with bitcoins without having to exchange them into usable money first saving you fees as well...

needless to say, when I get enough BTC I'll be shopping on Amazon for another 5800 series card...

again, this post is in no way a guarantee from me that any transaction will go smoothly, be careful, personally, I'm gonna take the risk...
 
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Not familiar with the pool but I would recommend switching to a slightly more powerful pool. The whole point of joining one is so you dont have to wait long periods of time out to collect.

Lately I have been using the Reddit BitCoin Mining Team. Its free and so far has good uptime.

I may have to switch from Deepbit soon, everybody and their mother that is joining seems to be joining Deepbit and increasing their hashing powah, which could have some pretty disastrous consequences if it reaches over 50% of the total hashing powah of the network, there are posts on bitcoin forums that go really in depth about these concerns...
 
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Here's what I've got in the line of Vid cards, all of which in rigs.

2 x 5870's
1 x 5770
1 x 4870
1 x 4850

By what I've read, I should be at around 1.1Gh/s or whatever you call them things. Is that about correct? But ya, if this is for real, count me in on a [H] group. Gives me an excuse to pickup WaterCooling parts to migrate the heat out of the house (radiators outside) and I'll even start folding (for [H]orde!) since they'll be on anyway :D

with some overclocking it could probably push about 1.5GH/s, but you'll also want to consider the power draw, with that many cards basically running at full load your light bill will sky rocket, efficiency wise the 4800 series cards really aren't worth it considering what you have, it'd be better just to sell those and buy another 5770 to crossfire with the other one, one 5770 pulls more hashes than both of those 4800 series cards combined, uses way less power and runs cooler...

I'm gonna ditch my 4800 series cards (4890 and 4870 crossfired atm) once I get enough BTC to buy a 5800 series card off Amazon...
 
Sumbitch. Rate just hit $30/BTC!

there is now a way to "spend" your bitcoins on Amazon if you want to take some of your prospective gains (BTC) and turn them into realized gains (hardware or whatever you can find on Amazon)...

spendbitcoins

I've been watching this since yesterday and it APPEARS to be legitimate, a lot of people on bitcoin forums are using this and Newegg appears to be the next site they're working on, but it's an option for those who may want to add cards to their mining ventures with no "real world" money costs, do your homework and be careful though...

basically you fill out your order, send the site your bitcoins and they send you a giftcard for the amount of your order, there is a certain way to do this so that it works, just follow the directions...

why would the guy do this, what does he get out of it and more importantly what do YOU get out of it...? well, basically he's buying bitcoins (from you) at the current exchange rate with no fees and you are getting what you want, paying with bitcoins without having to exchange them into usable money first saving you fees as well...

needless to say, when I get enough BTC I'll be shopping on Amazon for another 5800 series card...

again, this post is in no way a guarantee from me that any transaction will go smoothly, be careful, personally, I'm gonna take the risk...

That's beautiful. Looks like he's paying full Mt. Gox going rate, too.

Ahh, looks like he's making his money both with being able to buy bitcoins with no fees but also with affiliate links.

Things are gonna get scary for me once he adds newegg.
 
I wish I hadn't deleted my bitcoin wallet from a few months ago.... I had 10 BTC in there!
 
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