Reply With QuoteFor bitcoin I think the days of cheaper hobby mining are long long gone, but if the price stays high, who knows.
Given the interest in recent threads about Bitcoin and other crypto currencies in general, I thought I'd start a thread about the possibility of mining Bitcoin or any of the other currencies.
Is it still viable, here in the UK? If so, what would you need to get started?
I know most of the mining is done on mining farms in places like China, but is there still a space for the home / hobby miner these days?
There are certainly lots of crypto mining items on places like eBay and some blogs etc. about this. My assumption was (maybe still is) that its tough for the hobby miners these days to make it worthwhile.
More curious than anything else.
For bitcoin I think the days of cheaper hobby mining are long long gone, but if the price stays high, who knows.
It's just a matter of time...
From the limited reading I’ve done, you’re about 3 years too late. We’re almost at the point we’re the cost to mine a Bitcoin is more than the bitcoin, even with its crazy high price.
Look like people are still spending fortunes on development if the Antminer S9 is anything to go by
Way too late. The electricity prices make mining Bitcoin impossible.
You could mine other alts. You would be better buying
Only ones that can make money are the s7 or s9. But they arent good investments.
Just to add these are very loud and get very hot. I wouldn't want them in my house.
Last edited by JPCain86; 15th November 2017 at 23:37.
Wtf this seems even more like the King with no clothes to me ?
Maybe I'm bonkers but how can you mine something that doesn't exist ????
Mining is a word that is used when advanced computers solve complex algorithms to approve transactions. They are awarded with Bitcoin.Originally Posted by ragerover
Dont take it too literally.
A lot of people bad mouth crypto currencies without doing their own research.
This is why I was asking - as that was my initial understanding too.
And then this makes me question my understanding
And then back again...
This really maps out why I asked the question to start with...
I set up a very modest 'mining rig' a couple of years ago purely in order to gain some practical experience in the subject. I used a cheap third generation asic (Antminer U3) from ebay, which was attached through a USB port to a Raspberry Pi that handled the network link to a mining pool.
Even back then it was next to impossible to turn a profit mining without using (expensive) state of the art kit and I knew before I started that I wouldn't even recuperate the cost of the electricity used - which I didn't. It did however help give me a better insight into the technologies involved. In fairness it also assisted in keeping the lemon tree, which my wife brings in for the winter, warm.
As an aside, over the nine months or so I was running the set up Bitcoin doubled its price. Thus had I simply used the money I spent on the asic and electricity to purchase Bitcoin, I would have made a one hundred percent profit.
You could replace an electric heater with a mining rig then mining would be effectively ‘free’. Noisy though!
And you could sell the lemons.
Ethereum is worth a look still.
I am at present building a 6 x RX 580 rig as a hobby project.
I have recently been looking at the hardware, I have been approached twice in the last few months to see if I could make something, I decided it isn't worth it, the Chinese are so far ahead it is far to late. I also spoke to a friend of mine who knows about this stuff, he said that bit coin isn't worth it but there are other crypto currencies that are.
Electroneum looks like an interesting concept and it's the first British crypto.
I wonder if there is any State sponsored mining going on, with access to their own electricity?
Cheers..
Jase
You are Milo Minderbinder and I claim my 5 btc.
Like a local community hydroelectric power station perhaps - http://www.lyntonandlynmouth.org.uk/...r-station-1890
You will find a lot of alt currency people who same the same but for me Bitcoin is the one. I think people just want to be the one who picks out IOTA, Ripple, Dash as the next big thing.
The usual attack on bitcoin is on speed of transfers and the fees but one thing that bitcoin has that none of the other alt coins have is a ledger with 8 years of transaction history.
There wont be just one coin that breaks out to mass adopted but if there are any (there will be) bitcoin will still be about.
Roger Vers apparently sold 50,000 bitcoin at the weekend and pumped it all into Bitcoin cash (thats ~£250m) if this happened to any other crypto they would have been wiped out but bitcoin dropped 20% and recovered back within 4 days.
Bet he's regretting that.. Bitcoin climbing again and Bitcoin Cash starting to hit the skids...
And how many significant thefts? That's what puts me off something like bitcoin.
I read this morning that VISA (I think) are about to launch bitcoin capable cards. Not sure how they'll work, but means you should be able to use your bitcoins instantly.
Is it important to have a long transaction history (or is your point that it has been in use longer than the others)?
Until the price stabilises I don't see how it will be used for everyday transactions.
I would imagine not many thefts if private keys are stored by the owner and not an exchange.
Bitcoin won't be used for transactions for small amounts imo. I can be but why would you? Larger items I can see it.
If I sell something for Bitcoin, within a day my Bitcoin could be up or down 10%. Unless I want to speculate I’ll need to convert to hard currency which might as well have been used anyway.
Can anyone explain this a little more?
I need Lampoc to do a Bitcoin mining thread for dummies.
Yes, wtf are you all on about?
If you've got a pencil and some paper handy you can have a go at it yourself - http://www.righto.com/2014/09/mining...and-paper.html
^Thanks Pete.
That is very interesting.
I couldn't understand it all but it reminded me of one-way prime factoring as espoused by Clifford Cocks.*
*I'm not being rude. He has a wiki page.
If you haven't already done so, it's worth following the link to his other article Bitcoin mining the hard way as well.
You are better asking companies that already accept Bitcoin. I would imagine if they wanted to reduce risk they would wait a day to transfer it to fiat currency.
Or maybe they take a view to hold the Bitcoin. I know Lamborghini, MacLaren, Tesla have all sold card for Bitcoin. Maybe they take a view that ask it is such a small amount of their cash flow at this stage they can hold a currency that on average has historically increased by 1% a day.
You need to understand that there will be further developments to Bitcoin to improve speeds of transactions and reduce fees.
Anyone spending Bitcoin now on daily purchases in my view is mad. But it has been happening for the last 8 years, a guy bought 2 pizzas in 2008 with Bitcoin. Unfortunately for him the value of that purchase today equates to £60m.
Thanks, will do.
There's a youtube channel (3Blue1Brown) of a guy who gets paid to create nice looking videos explaining science/tech subjects. He's got one for bitcoin as well which is worth a look:
(Also check his other videos if you're interested in that sort of thing)
That pizza had better have had all the toppings at the very least! And have been hand made and delivered on a gold tray!
So which alt coins would be worth looking at if BTC is not worthwhile from a mining perspective?
And it was probably Roger Vers that bought bitcoin back at 20% less using the Bitcoin Cash he had obtained 4 days earlier...!!!
In this country I wouldn't mine. I'd invest any money in buy ing the coins. The mining equipment is a depreciating asset so unless you can make a profit that over 2-3 years time a lot of the equipment will become old and pretty much redundant as the complexity of the algorithms they need to solve gets harder.
Plus you will likely have graphics cards running at 100% for 2-3 years solid. There's a chance they will burn out before.
There's absolutely no way that can be the case. Dropping £250m worth of BTC he is going to get a low sale price. Buying £250m of BCH (if that's what he did) would spike the price and he would pay an inflated price.
There is no way he could make money flipping that much between the two.
He dumped his BTC bought his BCH with a view of pumping the price so that people followed and hoped BCH would overthrow Bitcoin. It went horribly wrong as the hype lasted 4 days.
I noticed yesterday that Jura accept payments in Bitcoin via bitpay - I would expect they convert immediately to GBP.
This graph on Bitcoin volatility is interesting...
One of my tech friends in San Fran randomly told me that he reckons Bitcoin will hit 9K by Xmas and 27K by March!! So far he seems to be correct!! This was a convo we had at the beginning of Nov when it was 4K!! Should have bought some then!! Still time to get on the money train I guess....history has shown that speculation on things without physical value tends to crash!! Digital currency is something very very different though and only time will tell I guess. 🤔
Electroneum looked interesting but then flopped! I ended up selling my coins... but now started to go back up after weeks of it dropping in value! grrrrr
Ive managed to bag myself some MyEtherWallet domains ;) including datejust, submariner, royaloak, speedmaster and afew more :D :D
I have just downloaded Coinbase and invested a very small amount in the 3 coins they offer
Bit coin
Ethererum
Litecoin
Just want to see how it works over the weekend before investing a bit more
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Top three coins .. great choices! They will most likley go up in price
These are a great set of pictures, illustrating the efforts that have to be undertaken to make it worthwhile!
https://qz.com/1026605/photos-chinas...es-and-miners/
Wow, that is some set-up!! Definitely puts it in perspective!
I've just read the Economist book on Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin, it's fascinating and cements my realisation that mining for bitcoin is now the preserve of the rich industrialist or the cyber-thief.
When the big guys move to Iceland for the cheap geothermal energy to fuel the mining rigs, you know that a UK hobby-er is out of his depth.
What I like is the story about an early Bitcoin transaction, which was a fee for fetching two pizzas. At the time "get me 2 pizzas, I'll give you 10,000 Bitcoin"
Value now: $100 million !!
value in 20 years ????? Zero ?????
Top 3 coins (by market cap) doesn't include Litecoin. Ripple, Dash and Bitcoin Cash are all above
I get the skepticiesm but Bitcoin has an $187bn market cap (bigger than MacDonalds). There's a lot of support.
Most negative reports come from people with a link to banking and therefore are bias or people who haven't read up on the idea and just say it's a bubble because they don't understand.
To get a true unbias view you would need to find someone who is knowledgeable about the subject but hasn't invested and isn't in anyway linked to the financial industry.
Mark Cuban called it a bubble, then started investing.
Last edited by JPCain86; 3rd December 2017 at 08:12.
True. Getting an unbiased view on this is nigh on impossible.
Very interesting discussion.
I'm a keen investor and have read a fair bit over time on this subject and it is just my opinion that when investments are widely discussed and quantified their time is passed.
Obviously people who got in earlier have seen great profits if they cash in now but to start from scratch at this point........
Still remember the dot.com boom and bust. 😕
Cheers,
Neil.
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