More people mining does not push price down as the difficulty adjusts (about every 2 weeks) automatically to keep the average rate of discovery of a block at 10 minutes.
Also, GPU mining of bitcoin has not really been possible for a couple of years. You need custom ASICS. Cloud mining can be done the cloud provider needs hardware designed to mine bitcoin... Not just a really fast computer. On Jun 18, 2017 5:38 PM, "David Johnson" <dave-gnhlug-l...@davej.org> wrote: > > Recent article, however it doesn't get into the risks. There is > clearly capital investment needed if you're going to be somewhat > serious about it. > > https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/an-idiots-guide- > to-building-an-ethereum-mining-rig > > If it's worth it depends on both electricity cost (which is highly > variable by geo location worldwide), but also the payback of any > hardware purchased. If the currency falls in value before you've paid > back your hardware investment after electricity cost you've lost money > and potentially lots of it. > > My impression is the more people mine, the currency price will be > pushed back down to find an equilibrium so there's lots of risk if > you're making an investment. > > The alternative strategy would be to use cloud based GPU instances on > demand when prices spike but not otherwise. That way there is no > capital investment. Now if cloud based GPU instances ever would be > cheap enough is a different question. > > > > > > Neil Schelly writes: > > I have a coworker who makes money mining. His strategy is to mine for > > the alternative currencies that are still comparatively easy to mine > > than BitCoin. Whatever value he earns there gets exchanged for value > > in BitCoin. From what I gather, he makes a decently steady side income > > from it, though I haven't really probed for details. I suspect it's in > > the range of a few thousand dollars a month profit. > > -Neil > > > > On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 8:46 PM, Lloyd Kvam <lk...@venix.com> wrote: > > > Bitcoin did hit a peak value of $3,000 last week, so that would help > the economics. > > > > > > My impression is that you need some edge in cost of bandwidth, > electric power, or > > > computer hardware for this to be an attractive business. Just tracking > the blockchain > > > can use enough resources to be annoying. > > > > > > An alternative approach would be to bet on bitcoins displacing gold: > short gold and > > > buy bitcoins. Of course that does not let you play with hardware. > > > > > > On Fri, 2017-06-16 at 18:12 -0400, Bill Ricker wrote: > > >> Bitcoin initially did not require specialized hardware, but as new > golden > > >> hashes get harder to find, mining costs more in electricity and > > >> depreciation without speciality gear (or a huge BITNET running for > free). > > >> If scarcity drives up BTC value, maybe, but odds of finding one still > > >> declining as payoff increases. I haven't checked the calculation > lately, it > > >> would be a good exercise: what would an AWS VPS mining cluster big > enough > > >> to average 1 BTC mined per week cost to operate? > > >> > > >> Which if any of the alt-coins have legit upside is not yet clear, and > the > > >> most likely of them already requires a cluster and has had its first > major > > >> scam. > > >> > > >> / bill > > >> > > >> On Jun 16, 2017 5:58 PM, "Greg Rundlett (freephile)" < > g...@freephile.com> > > >> wrote: > > >> > > >> > > > >> > My son is investigating crypto-currency mining and seems to think > it's > > >> > incredibly lucrative. > > >> > > > >> > I've not delved into it at all. > > >> > > > >> > Comments? Anyone actually making money mining? > > >> > > > >> > From what I've previously gathered, I thought the amount of > computational > > >> > power, expense and electricity just about squeezed out anybody but > those > > >> > with super-specialized hardware. > > >> > > _______________________________________________ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ >
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