Current Events > *Looks at the top ethereum miner in the pool I'm in*

(+) Yeah! (+)

He's making $300k/month, the vast majority of it off of one machine.

I wish to learn how to do this... I'm at like $35 worth so far in about 3 weeks of mining...
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Build yourself a big 'ol GPU farm.
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Have more money to spend than you can make
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DuranOfForcena posted...

i never understood cryptocurrency "mining". it's not like the ethereum is just sitting there waiting for someone to find it, like mining gold or whatever, right? mining for it actually creates it somehow or something? i don't get it.

The way it works is you're solving a block. A bunch of people work together to solve the block. When the block is found, it picks someone at random to give the credit, although the more you've worked, the larger the chance is that you'll get picked.

When you get picked for the block, you get the currency as a thanks. pools let people with weaker machines team up to search for blocks. This increases the chance the pool will get picked and when it does, it usually automatically distributes the currency in proportion to the people who did the most work. This means you get less per block, but most people wouldn't make anything at all otherwise.

There are some things out there called "bitcoin lottery tickets" which are crappy usb things that you stick into your computer and they just hash at some super slow rate, but since they're contributing to the block, there is a small chance that when the block is found you get credit for the whole block. They're as cheap as a lottery ticket and have about the same odds of paying off.

Generally speaking, most people who make money do so in a pool. Some folks have access to a large amount of machines and are in a position of authority where they can use those machines to mine currency.
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DuranOfForcena posted...

i never understood cryptocurrency "mining". it's not like the ethereum is just sitting there waiting for someone to find it, like mining gold or whatever, right? mining for it actually creates it somehow or something? i don't get it.

It... pretty much is like mining gold, it's just your computer is doing it digitally. I don't really get the exact details of it. I just know I started mining with my graphics card like 3 weeks ago and now I have about $35 worth.
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So the GPU I'm mining with is a 2.5 years old AMD Radeon R9 200 series... Can I add a newer AMD Radeon graphics card in addition to that one or would I need two matching GPUs?
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CableZL posted...

He's making $300k/month, the vast majority of it off of one machine.

do you mean "one" machine like:
http://cdn5.thinkcomputers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Litecoin-Rig.jpg

also, his profit should be counted against his total power bill.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

CableZL posted...

He's making $300k/month, the vast majority of it off of one machine.

do you mean "one" machine like:
http://cdn5.thinkcomputers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Litecoin-Rig.jpg

also, his profit should be counted against his total power bill.

he's still going to be fucking loaded, especially in areas where electricity is cheap.
if he plays his cards right anyway.
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mining is the work it takes to make sure nothing went wrong. it's security against fraud / attacks. the payout it the reward for using your resources to do so.
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DuranOfForcena posted...

what is a block though? what is solving it? why does it need to be solved? why is solving it incentivized? where does the "credit" and currency for solving it come from? i've read about the basic process of mining before, and i still don't know the answers to any of these.

A tl;dr definition of a "block" is a cryptography problem given to a computer to solve through brute force. The actual nature of the problem varies based on the currency. these "problems" are used to encrypt and secure the transactions of the coins themselves. Basically, you are pitching in to validate that a transaction is legitimate and in return, you get some free money.

the credit created is just created. It doesn't exist and doesn't really represent anything tangible. Like real money. When you look at your bank savings account and saw that you made 10 cents in interest this month. That money didn't come "from" anywhere, the bank just went into their database and told it to add 10 cents to your account.

Different currencies are used for different things.
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fuck that noise.

i bout some bitcoin years ago when it was super cheap and sold it for $300 a pop. that luck is as much work as ill ever put in
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ChromaticAngel posted...

When you look at your bank savings account and saw that you made 10 cents in interest this month. That money didn't come "from" anywhere, the bank just went into their database and told it to add 10 cents to your account.

the first half of your post is good, but this is wrong. local banks don't create (or destroy) money, only the federal reserve does. the interest payment from your bank comes from the money they (hopefully) made from the money you are letting them use.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

CableZL posted...

He's making $300k/month, the vast majority of it off of one machine.

do you mean "one" machine like:
http://cdn5.thinkcomputers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Litecoin-Rig.jpg

also, his profit should be counted against his total power bill.

I'd imagine it is something along those lines, but... even that wouldn't come close to costing $300k/month.
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Medussa posted...

ChromaticAngel posted...

When you look at your bank savings account and saw that you made 10 cents in interest this month. That money didn't come "from" anywhere, the bank just went into their database and told it to add 10 cents to your account.

the first half of your post is good, but this is wrong. local banks don't create (or destroy) money, only the federal reserve does. the interest payment from your bank comes from the money they (hopefully) made from the money you are letting them use.

lmao no.

if you add up everyone's bank accounts into a giant lump sum, you end up with much more money than actually exists.

Person A comes to me (the bank) and deposits $200,000. I, legally, am only required to keep 10% of that as cash, so I put $20,000 away, giving me $180,000 to lend out to someone else.

Person B borrows $180,000 from me and buys a house for sale by owner. The owner takes the $180,000 (magic land with no taxes or other miscellaneous costs) and opens up another savings account with me, so now I store his $180,000

Now I only ever got $200,000 once, but somehow that turned into $380,000 worth in savings accounts at my bank.

Oh, and I take off another 10% cash from the 180,000 giving me $162,000 I can loan to someone else repeat ad nauseam.
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let me put my thoughts a different way and see if we're talking about the same thing.

person S opens a savings account at bank B. S deposits $1000, B promises an interest rate of 1%
B takes $100 of that money and puts it into the guaranteed money safe, and $900 of that money and puts it in the lendable money safe.
person L comes into the bank, and asks to borrow $500. B agrees, with a 5% interest rate.

so, B makes $25 from L, and S makes $10 from B.

but none of that money was created by the bank. they just facilitated and secured the loan between S and L.
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Medussa posted...

let me put my thoughts a different way and see if we're talking about the same thing.

person S opens a savings account at bank B. S deposits $1000, B promises an interest rate of 1%
B takes $100 of that money and puts it into the guaranteed money safe, and $900 of that money and puts it in the lendable money safe.
person L comes into the bank, and asks to borrow $500. B agrees, with a 5% interest rate.

so, B makes $25 from L, and S makes $10 from B.

but none of that money was created by the bank. they just facilitated and secured the loan between S and L.

The money has an originating cash source from the federal reserve. But banks can and do take the same cash deposits and loan them out to become re-deposited multiple times.

The bank doesn't literally create money, but it doesn't have the money it gives you, either.

If everyone went to every bank and everyone all tried to withdraw all of their money at once, every bank would go under because the money the banks say you have doesn't exist.

This happened in the 1920s and it caused the Great Depression, and FDIC was created as a result, but that only protects your accounts for up to $100,000.

So, sure, they're not creating money, they're taking the imaginary money that doesn't exist and increasing it arbitrarily.
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