Security researchers have spotted a new strain of malware that targets Bitcoin, the peer-to-peer virtual currency that exploded onto the tech scene earlier this year.In a report issued last week, Symantec researchers described a Trojan that uses the user's computer to mine Bitcoins on behalf of the intruder.They estimate that, at current exchange rates, a fast computer could generate as much as $150 worth of Bitcoins per month.This is not the first Bitcoin-related malware spotted in the wild.In June, security researchers discovered malware that acts as a virtual pickpocket, scanning an infected computer for Bitcoin wallets and sending their contents to the attacker.There have also been previous reports of Bitcoin-mining malware, but estimates had suggested that most botnet owners would make more money renting their machines out for other uses.In contrast, the newest Bitcoin malware takes full advantage of the computing power on each compromised machine—including its GPU.The parallel computing capabilities of modern GPUs means that they can perform certain specialized computing tasks much more quickly than traditional CPUs.

And Bitcoin mining, which involves computing trillions of hashes, happens to be one such task.Symantec estimates that GPUs can compute hashes up to 750 times as quickly as a typical CPU.This means that while CPU-based mining can be expected to generate less than a dollar per month in Bitcoin profits, Badminer can generate as much as $150 per month.tv anchor bitcoinDoes this new breed of malware represent a new threat to the credibility of Bitcoin?bitcoin wallet to usbActually, the answer is probably no.feather bitcoinAs we described in our original Bitcoin feature, "mining" is the Bitcoin network's method of clearing transactions.bitcoin dogecoin litecoin wallet

At the end of each 10-minute round, one of the participating nodes is effectively chosen at random to get 50 newly created Bitcoins as a reward for participating.Having thousands of botnet computers join the mining process will reduce the average profits of other miners, but it won't harm those who are merely using the network to make transactions.bitcoin pool explainedFor ordinary users, the big danger continues to be old-fashioned Bitcoin-stealing malware.bitcoin buat apaBitcoin is a digital version of cash.bitcoin vs litecoin profitabilityThis has some important advantages; payments can be made with no intermediaries and no transaction fees.steam bitcoin botBut Bitcoin also has most of the disadvantages of cash: if someone takes your cash, it's almost impossible to get back.william hill bitcoin

Likewise, there's no way to reverse Bitcoin transactions once they've been accepted by the network, and it's relatively easy for the bad guys to cover their tracks.The Bitcoin/malware nexus is a troubling development for the broader society.As botnets become more profitable to own, the bad guys will devote more resources to compromising our computers so they can add them to their herds.At the margin, more botnet profits—either from stealing Bitcoins or mining them—means more machines getting owned.The lure of stolen Bitcoins depends on how much Bitcoins are worth, and the value of a Bitcoin has taken a wild ride in recent months.It peaked at $32 in June, then fell below $7 earlier this month before rising to the current price of around $11.In the very beginning, Satoshi Nakamoto was mining alone, so he got the block reward (50 BTC) every 10 minutes (the block interval).So 7200 BTC per day.For every miner that joined, they’d split that reward n-way (since the supply of Bitcoin per day is fixed, no matter how many resources and how many people are mining; the block reward halves every couple of years, and is currently 25 BTC, not 50 - and next year it’s expected to halve again, to 12.5).Depending on your definition of early stages, but in general, it was very easy.Especially when the value of each Bitcoin and each reward block was very low (less than $1).Many people were just running normal pcs or using old machines with recent graphics cards, and they could earn a few Bitcoins every day.Once ASICs began to appear, it became more serious and the total hashing power in the mining pool meant that you needed to invest real money into hardware and power (electricity).

Then it shifted from being a hobby and fun side project to considering serious commercial cost / benefit on returns.This was around the end of 2012 (4 years ago), when each Bitcoin moved above US$10 / Bitcoin.GPU MININGI mined 20 Bitcoin every 2 days in 2012 on 16 Ghs.So it was easy, it was only profitable if one had the foresight to keep the Bitcoin.FAUCETBitcoin faucets used to give 0.1 BTC, once again… Foresight.Keep this things in mind when considering if Bitcoin is for you!NiceHash Miner is an easy to use CPU & GPU cryptocurrency miner for Windows.With a simple an intuitive graphical user interface it allows you to quickly turn your PC, workstation or server into money-making cryptocurrency mining machine.Why leave your computer idle, whereas it could earn you Bitcoins with just a few clicks?Please follow us on Twitter @NiceHashMining for updates on new versions and other important information.NiceHash Miner is essentially the only tool a miner needs.No need to go through tons of configuration files, various mining software versions, configuration tuning or cryptocurrency coins market analysis.

Auto-tuning for best performance and efficiency, automatic selection and runtime automatic switching to most profitable cryptocurrency algorithm are all integrated into NiceHash Miner and will enable you seamless, joyful and profitable mining experience.All you have to do is download, extract and run the miner (no installation needed), choose the server location that is the closest to your location, run built-in benchmark and enter your Bitcoin wallet address where you want to get your coins sent at - and you are ready to start mining and maximizing your profit.Note: .NET Framework 2.0 or higher and Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2013 is required.No additional installations should be needed if you use Windows 7 or later.However, if you encounter any issues when starting application (application would fail to start or errors/warnings about missing DLL files are displayed) you should download and install Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2013 (vcredist_x64.exe) (after installation a reboot might be required).

WARNING: Due to specific requirements of the supporting back-end program "sgminer", you can not run NiceHash Miner through Windows RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) if you are using AMD GPUs.By running NiceHash Miner you're essentially selling the hashing power of your CPUs & GPUs to hashing power buyers.Those are using the hashing power to mine various cryptocurrency coins and support decentralized blockchain networks - similar to cloud computing - only that by running NiceHash Miner you're actually being a provider for the cryptocurrency mining hashing power.You are being part of a global compute power network, empowering decentralized digital currencies.Profitability of mining can go up and down that may be unprofitable to mine especially places with high electricity cost.By using the "MinimumProfit" settings, NiceHashMiner will stop mining if the current profits are below the minimum amount (in USD).This will help you mine during "profitable" times only.NiceHash Miner will be relaunched with the ability to modify configs.

Alternatively, you can manually modify \configs\General.json for general settings and \configs\benchmark_XXX.json (XXX is your device UUID) files for device benchmark settings (close NiceHash Miner first).If your CPU has 8 virtual cores and you would like to mine only with 7: My NVIDIA video card(s) is/are not detected.Make sure to install latest official NVIDIA drivers from here: /Download/index.aspx /wiki/CUDA#Supported_GPUs My AMD video card(s) is/are not detected.Make sure to install latest official AMD drivers from here: /en-us/download /wiki/List_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units I am having issues with my AMD GPU drivers.We recommend you to use 15.7.1 version of AMD GPU display drivers.The latest Crimson drivers are also supported, but optimal speed for the majority of algorithms can be achieved by using 15.7.1 version.This version can be downloaded here.When uninstalling or reinstalling display drivers we suggest you to use Guru 3D Display Driver Uninstaller.

This utility will make sure you get a clean driver state.You can download it here.If you are using Windows 10, the AMD installer utility is sometimes unable to install drivers, therefore you have to install them manually.Download and run diver installer, let it extract the archive and then cancel it when prompted to execute actual install.After this go to Control Panel / System / Device Manager, Right click on your GPU, choose to Update driver manually and point to c:\AMD[driver version] folder to finish the manual driver installation.I'm getting "Always ask before opening this file" when running NiceHash Miner Make sure you un-check the checkbox "Always ask before opening this file" when NiceHash Miner is starting cpuminer, ccminer or sgminer back-end programs.This is needed because back-end programs will be executed several times while NiceHash Miner is running (auto-switching according to profitability and in case programs hangs) and you have to make sure these programs will be to executed automatically without your intervention.

My anti-virus is blocking the application Some anti-virus software might block NiceHash Miner as well as supporting back-end programs (cpuminer, ccminer, sgminer) due to false-positive matches.All software, included into NiceHash Miner has been verified and checked by our team and is absolutely virus/trojan free.However, make sure you never download and run any files from other unknown sources!If you downloaded the software package from our GitHub repository you can simply resolve the issues with false-positives by adding the files sgminer.exe, ccminer_sp.exe, ccminer_tpruvot.exe, cpuminer_x64_AVX.exe, cpuminer_x64_AVX2.exe and cpuminer_x64_SSE2.exe to anti-virus exception list.I'm getting "Enqueueing kernel" errors on AMD GPUs If you have very low amount of system memory (RAM), especially if lower than 4 GB, than you might encounter this kind of errors: This is because the sgminer mining application, which is used for AMD GPU mining, requires a particular amount of free system memory (RAM) to be able to run successfully.

We suggest you to upgrade your system with more RAM.My benchmarking results are not accurate Any kind of automation can only be done up to a particular level.We've spent significant effort to make benchmarking as good as possible, but it can't be made ideal.First of all, make sure to run Precise benchmark if Standard benchmark is not giving you satisfactory results.If you still see a deviation of actual mining speed from the one, calculated from benchmark, then you should manually enter these observed speed numbers from actual mining into config.json file or set them via the "Settings" button.Benchmarks on particular algorithms keep getting terminated on AMD GPUs In some particular combinations of Windows version + AMD Driver version benchmarks on some algorithms keep getting terminated. (No orders - mining unavailable), then this is normal expected behaviour.However, if benchmark is also terminated for active algorithms, then you have to apply workaround solution.The solution is to copy all .cl files from the [..\bin\sgminer-5-3-0-general\kernel] folder into [c:\Users[your_username_here]\appdata\local\temp] folder and then re-run the benchmark for the algorithms that are terminated during benchmark.