4 ms·

What are you talking about? The average person may not be able to solo mine a block but you can still earn meaningful quantities through pools.

untog 13y ago
Well, perhaps I should have rephrased - I know you can still earn bitcoin, but you can earn more <newcryptocurrency>. So why not switch? The answer would be "because bitcoin is legitimate and dogecoin isn't" - but I'd argue that bitcoin hasn't gotten there yet. So it's a race, and one that any cryptocurrency is likely to lose.
_wdh 13y ago
But you'll never be able to earn as much as the average person who happened to start mining a month before you. The people who started first will always have an advantage over you. It all looks a bit like a pyramid scheme.
- TDL 13y ago
  Please look up the meaning of pyramid scheme. Whatever crypto-currencies end up being, they are not pyramid schemes.
bushido 13y ago
How do you define meaningful? For a single novice user this would be the cost of hardware (substantial), opportunity cost from delays in delivery of hardware, decaying returns with exponential increase in difficulty, cost of electricity and opportunity cost. Then it needs to be ascertained if they are mining a commodity or an investment. That is mining to sell (similar to farming and mining minerals, metals etc.) or are they looking to hold it for long periods expecting an appreciation. The later has other practical implications. For the majority of prospective miners, these costs are huge and have little to no chance of breaking even. Arguments could be made for or against the profitability from speculation/long term holding, but that is beyond the scope of most people's definition of meaningful.
- driverdan 13y ago
  Yes, please dissuade others from mining. It makes it more profitable for those of us who are already doing it ;)
flatline 13y ago
Not for bitcoin you can't. Not really, anymore. The rise of ASICs has marginalized everyone but the ASIC producers. They will always have the edge going forward. Even if they rent you the equipment, you are sharecropping and paying them enough that your sole profit will be from an increase in the value of the currency, not in acquiring coins at the current rate. You may as well just buy the bitcoins. I'm still not sure if this is to the net benefit of the currency or not; I don't think anyone is, people argue both sides, but I tend to think it's a bit premature since productive mining will proceed for years to come at the hands of only a few. One of the potential benefits of the scrypt algorithm used by Litecoin and Dogecoin (and others) is that even with scrypt ASICs being developed, the memory-intensive nature of the algorithm has so far prohibited a massive disparity in hashing ability. You can still buy a sub-$2000 mining rig that will basically pay for itself in a couple months.
- aestra 13y ago
  >You can still buy a sub-$2000 mining rig that will basically pay for itself in a couple month No you absolutely can't. About 6 or 8 or so weeks ago I was making about $4 a day mining scrypt coins. Now I'm making $1.50. I don't think it is going to be profitable 6 weeks from now. When Dogecoin first exploded I had several $15-$24 days. Right after I first started there was actually a graphics card shortage(!) because of the interest in mining. My graphics cards haven't been paid off yet with just mining, and I don't think they will be. That's not a problem for me, because I can sell one of them, and keep the other, which will pay them off. If you don't already have the PSU, CPU, MOBO, etc, you are wasting your money building a mining rig, especially now the profits are so low. Only buy a graphics card if you want the card for other reasons. Those mining profit calculators way way way overestimate. EDIT: My system has 600 kH/s hashrate. EDIT EDIT: Even 6 or 8 or so some people on the litecoin mining subreddit were very confused about people who were building expensive mining rigs and pointing out how those rigs will never pay for themselves.
  - driverdan 13y ago
    You need to change what you mine to whatever is most profitable. If you only target a single, popular one then yes, difficulty will increase and profitability will probably decrease. See http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/ http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/

untog 13y ago

Well, perhaps I should have rephrased - I know you can still earn bitcoin, but you can earn more <newcryptocurrency>. So why not switch? The answer would be "because bitcoin is legitimate and dogecoin isn't" - but I'd argue that bitcoin hasn't gotten there yet. So it's a race, and one that any cryptocurrency is likely to lose.

_wdh 13y ago

But you'll never be able to earn as much as the average person who happened to start mining a month before you. The people who started first will always have an advantage over you. It all looks a bit like a pyramid scheme.

TDL 13y ago
Please look up the meaning of pyramid scheme. Whatever crypto-currencies end up being, they are not pyramid schemes.

bushido 13y ago

How do you define meaningful? For a single novice user this would be the cost of hardware (substantial), opportunity cost from delays in delivery of hardware, decaying returns with exponential increase in difficulty, cost of electricity and opportunity cost. Then it needs to be ascertained if they are mining a commodity or an investment. That is mining to sell (similar to farming and mining minerals, metals etc.) or are they looking to hold it for long periods expecting an appreciation. The later has other practical implications. For the majority of prospective miners, these costs are huge and have little to no chance of breaking even. Arguments could be made for or against the profitability from speculation/long term holding, but that is beyond the scope of most people's definition of meaningful.

driverdan 13y ago
Yes, please dissuade others from mining. It makes it more profitable for those of us who are already doing it ;)

flatline 13y ago

Not for bitcoin you can't. Not really, anymore. The rise of ASICs has marginalized everyone but the ASIC producers. They will always have the edge going forward. Even if they rent you the equipment, you are sharecropping and paying them enough that your sole profit will be from an increase in the value of the currency, not in acquiring coins at the current rate. You may as well just buy the bitcoins. I'm still not sure if this is to the net benefit of the currency or not; I don't think anyone is, people argue both sides, but I tend to think it's a bit premature since productive mining will proceed for years to come at the hands of only a few. One of the potential benefits of the scrypt algorithm used by Litecoin and Dogecoin (and others) is that even with scrypt ASICs being developed, the memory-intensive nature of the algorithm has so far prohibited a massive disparity in hashing ability. You can still buy a sub-$2000 mining rig that will basically pay for itself in a couple months.

aestra 13y ago
>You can still buy a sub-$2000 mining rig that will basically pay for itself in a couple month No you absolutely can't. About 6 or 8 or so weeks ago I was making about $4 a day mining scrypt coins. Now I'm making $1.50. I don't think it is going to be profitable 6 weeks from now. When Dogecoin first exploded I had several $15-$24 days. Right after I first started there was actually a graphics card shortage(!) because of the interest in mining. My graphics cards haven't been paid off yet with just mining, and I don't think they will be. That's not a problem for me, because I can sell one of them, and keep the other, which will pay them off. If you don't already have the PSU, CPU, MOBO, etc, you are wasting your money building a mining rig, especially now the profits are so low. Only buy a graphics card if you want the card for other reasons. Those mining profit calculators way way way overestimate. EDIT: My system has 600 kH/s hashrate. EDIT EDIT: Even 6 or 8 or so some people on the litecoin mining subreddit were very confused about people who were building expensive mining rigs and pointing out how those rigs will never pay for themselves.
- driverdan 13y ago
  You need to change what you mine to whatever is most profitable. If you only target a single, popular one then yes, difficulty will increase and profitability will probably decrease. See http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/ http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/