All About Bitcoin Mining: Road To Riches Or Fool's Gold?

By Greg Ryder
published

By now, you've probably heard all about Bitcoins. But what are they? And are people actually striking it rich "mining" these things? Today, we'll find out with a first-hand look into the world of this crypto-currency, straight from a Bitcoin miner.

The Basics Of Bitcoin

151 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Darkman69
    Finally a proper write up on Mining Bitcoin with the good the bad and the reality.
    Reply
  • esrever
    How does mining new coins make sense if there will ever only be 21 million? I am so confused by that point.
    Another thing is, with an economic system like this, a billionaire can easily manipulate market prices and make extremely large amount of money and still be completely fine due to this being in a grey area of the law. You can't pump and dump stocks legally but it seems pretty easy for something like this considering you can dump the bit coins off as currency in any country.
    Reply
  • s3anister
    10943052 said:
    How does mining new coins make sense if there will ever only be 21 million? I am so confused by that point.

    To quote the Bitcoin wiki page: "The last block that will generate coins will be block #6,929,999 which should be generated at or near the year 2140."

    So to directly answer your question, the whole reason for mining bitcoins is because you'll most definitely be dead before the last block chain is even completed.
    Reply
  • smeezekitty
    Shitcoins definitely = fools gold!
    Huge waste computing power IMO
    Reply
  • vmem
    10943126 said:
    Shitcoins definitely = fools gold!
    Huge waste computing power IMO

    someone needs to rewrite the algorithm and somehow hook up block generation to folding@home or some similar constructive use of the computational power.
    Reply
  • smeezekitty
    10943157 said:
    10943126 said:
    Shitcoins definitely = fools gold!
    Huge waste computing power IMO

    someone needs to rewrite the algorithm and somehow hook up block generation to folding@home or some similar constructive use of the computational power.
    That would be a great idea. Verifying a relatively small hash to screen out the cheaters then perform something useful like F@H.

    Reply
  • dannyboy3210
    A very interesting read. I had been reading about Bitcoins (mainly because I just couldn't figure out what they were exactly), but this clears a lot of things up.
    Also, at the bottom of page 5, in the Comparison of FPGA and ASIC Chips table it says "Power Fraw".
    Reply
  • slomo4sho
    Fiat currencies... I guess for some people the dollar wasn't worthless enough.
    It is amazing how you can lose your "wallet" and your funds permanently disappear from the pool.
    Reply
  • toarranre
    Never heard of this and I'm quite confused by it. Use graphics cards to find units of a currency that from what I can tell must be extremely succeptable to artificial inflation or all out collapse.
    Reply
  • phenomiix6
    www.bitcoinpaypal.info
    Reply