Bitcoin/Bit mining questions

I'm not sure if this is the correct sub-forum for this, but I figured that since it's software it might be applicable to ask here.

Anyways, I've got a friend that's been doing this for awhile now and has been making a decent amount of money. I was wondering if a stable internet connection is required to do this.

I'm currently deployed to Afghanistan, but I do have access to the internet in my room, however, it's fairly slow and unstable. On the plus side power consumption is free, so bitcoin would be pure profit (minus the cost of a new laptop, which I've been considering anyways).

Also, if anyone else had other comments to add about bitcoin I would appreciate perspective/tips.

 

Bitcoin mining full tilt at present rates is supposed to generate around $150 on a workhorse desktop. Considering bitcoins are apparently depreciating in the face of recent hacks and attacks, it may take some time to recover the laptop's cost.

 

$150/what? every month or year?

I need a new laptop anyways, I figured this would just help out a little to pay for it.

 

PCPer.com did a great article on bitcoin mining, check it out here.

PCPer.com also does a great podcast on comuting and hardware, recommend you check it out. They talked about their article on bitcoin mining in one episode.

I'm not sure how a laptop GPU would compare to these desktop graphics cards though. Not very well I'd imagine.

I can't help but wonder how much money you could make if you had access to a military server farm, hehheh.

PCPer.com did a seperate article that takes cost of power in the US into consideration. You can read it here. Wouldn't apply to your case though.

 

lol, yea I could make a killing if i could access all of our computers on the network and mine that way.

Anyways, I'm probably going to get 6990's in CF, which I believe are the desktop 6870, but slightly downclocked. I'd be happy if that chart was correct and I made around $2/day.

However, I'm still wondering about the necessary internet connection? I was told that some people were only using about 20mb dl/day. My internet connection here is going to be fairly slow so i was wondering if that was going to hinder me.

 

Be careful, it may be best to talk to someone in the military first about this. Using the internet in a deployed location to farm for bitcoins might get you in trouble. Everyones internet use will be monitored. Also, if it does require a large internet presence, you might find yourself slowing down the internet for everyone else.

 

I won't be using the government's internet. It's a private line that I have to pay for.

 

Ok well then you're sorted! What laptop are you planning on getting? From what I know, I can't see it using much internet. Do you have a phone with internet? Might be an idea to tether your phone up, reset the downloaded data setting, then start up Bitcoin. Track it for an hour, then see how much has been downloaded.

 

Hmm, no I don't have an internet phone.

I'm currently deciding between the M18x and the x7200 both with 6990 CF.

 

The reason the bitcoin will depreciate is it will become harder and harder to generate new blocks (as they become longer with the more bitcoins created, it requires more processing calcuations to generate a new one). Plus there is only going to be 21 million of them, period. Be careful because one of the co-founders admitted that bitcoins are widely used by the russian mafia in money laundering, as well as used for illegal/illicit purposes. I'd stay away.
Instead invest in a real currency or precious metals.

 

^
Don't you mean that they will appreciate in value (assuming more people buy into the idea). I mean you have more people competing for a supply that is getting harder to generate...

 

^ No that's not the case.

Interesting post about the legality of it. I'd say you'd have nothing to worry about, but might be worth looking into.

 

whatever you do, don't invest in "real currency".

as for the bitcoin thing, I would highly recommend not buying an expensive laptop with the idea that you will pay it off with bitcoin mining. At this point, you probably won't be able to pay it off. The total mining is increasing dramatically quickly and the total amount of bitcoins being distributed over time is decreasing, so every day you will make less BTC than the day before.

On top of that, I don't think BTC has much of a long term future. I dont know when you plan to cash out the BTC (maybe you'll intend do it regularly instead of holding onto BTC), but even then, the value of the BTC has gone down considerably because of hacking and security issues.

$2/day might seem like a lot, but keep in mind that your (expensive) laptop will be entirely non-functional while mining, and in all likelihood, you'll be making $1/day before long, and then .50c/day, assuming there is no sudden catastrophic event surrounding bitcoin. You very well might pay off half the laptop over a few years if you never use it. It's really not an awesome value proposition.

As far as internet connection goes, you don't need a lot of data transfer capacity, but you do need a reliable connection. If you can't get a reliable connection you will forfeit a lot of your income.

 

Considering my 6950 uses ~200 watts of power at 100%, is it even profitable to do this from a profit/energy use perspective?

Never even heard of this before, but if it's an opportunity to get free money I'm all for it.

And if this would make financial sense, how do I cash out "bit coins" for real money?

Does "mining" really make a computer 100% unresponsive, or could I still do basic tasks on it at the same time?

 

not unless you're getting free electricity.

 

Which I am.

I heard that if you set it to only use GPU power you can still do basic tasks, obv not play games. CPU mining is apparently incredibly inefficient compared to even basic gpus.

According to some people I know there are a few ways to turn these into real cash or goods.