Short answer: You need to calculate the bitawatt (electricity to run the
algorithm) costs vs the value of the coin. FWIW Google counts bitawatts.
A 1% reduction in power/heat to run an algorithm saves them lots of $$$.
As the computational complexity went up, the amount of electricity needed
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
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
On 06/16/2017 06:12 PM, 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
>
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
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.
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
