[ExI] Bitcoin

[Gordon]

> I bought Bitcoin and know a bit about mining and trading them.

> What do you want to know?

Hi Mirco. This is day two of my investigation into this subject, so I'm more a less a complete newbie. I'm looking at mining Bitcoin (BTC) or Litecoin (LTC), but I'm not sure if it would be worthwhile on my computer. I have a Dell XPS 17 laptop with a P7 2.2 Ghz (capable of something like 3 Ghz in burst mode) and 6 gigs of RAM. It is basically a desktop replacement, but it has only an onboard NVIDIA chip and not a separate card. I think this means I cannot do GPU mining, but I don't know that for a fact. Do you? From what I gather, GPU mining is much more efficient than CPU mining. 

I've seen some say that CPU mining is no longer worth the trouble, at least for BTC. I wonder if CPU mining for LTC would still make sense, as the blocks are smaller. I am as I type this doing some LTC mining in solo mode (just installed it last night). I have not yet succeeded in connecting to any pools. For some reason my Litecoin client won't function except in solo mining mode. 

Solo or pooled, I don't yet know if this is a worthwhile endeavor, as it is maxing out my resources (CPU utilization 100%, running in burst mode at 2.4 Ghz). I worry that I might fry my computer in pursuit only a few dollars. Perhaps mining is only worthwhile on desktops with high end graphics cards and good cooling.

I've read about the new ASIC dedicated mining machines that are just beginning to hit the market. From what I understand, they will change everything. I've heard they will cause the Difficulty level to rise dramatically, making even GPU mining almost pointless. I don't know if that is true.

I would be grateful for any insights. Thanks. 

Gordon
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20130403/12e329f7/attachment.html>