Cryptocoin Mining 101: How to Get Started as an Beginner MinerSo, you've decided that you want to try mining cryptocoins?This page will certainly help you get started.What follows below is a set of strong suggestions for people with consumer-level hardware and a dabbling interest in making a small passive second income.Expectations:  if you can keep your electricity costs to under $0.11 USD per kilowatt-hour, mining with 4 GPU video cards can net you around $8.00 to $10.00 USD per day, or around $250-$300 per month.The two catches are 1) the up-front investment in purchasing 4 ASIC processors or 4 AMD Radeon graphic processing units, and 2) the market value of cryptocoins.Decision: bitcoins are not a good choice for beginning miners.The mathematical difficulty does not make it profitable for consumer-level hardware.Better options for beginners are Litecoins, Dogecoins, and Peercoins.Online Approach:  you will need to join a group of miners on the Web called a 'pool'.There are dozens of pools out there, and they each have their pros and cons for profitability and ease of use.Hardware Approach:  you will want to run two computers, perhaps even four computers.

Some miners choose to make specialized component rigs called ASICS which do nothing other than mine cryptocoins.Many beginners choose to use their PC's with AMD Radeon video cards, and have their PC's mine while not in human use.Warning:  cryptocoin mining is a diminishing returns endeavour.As more cryptocoins get discovered, the crypto system makes each cryptocoin harder to mine.More hardware and electricity and time will be required as more coins get created.This translates into two key warnings:1.Cryptocoin mining rewards early adopters.If you wait too long to join the mining goldrush of a particular coin, the system difficulty will prevent you from profiting.Cryptocoin mining is an arms race.As your cryptocoin of choice gets more difficult to mine, then more expensive hardware will be required to to discover coins.You will be forced to either invest heavily if you want to stay mining that coin, or you will want to take your earnings and switch to an easier cryptocoin.More about cryptocoin mining here.

Posted Photo: A chain of block erupters used for bitcoin mining.Vast amounts of electricity go into feeding the Bitcoin delusion.bitcoin qt paperFortunately, it's unlikely that the digital currency will survive long enough to generate the environmental disaster that would arise if it became a major part of the financial system, writes John Quiggin.The digital currency Bitcoin has been seen by many as a source of threats, as potentially facilitating terrorism, money laundering, and drug dealing; undermining taxation systems; and rendering monetary policy unworkable.While these threats have raised concerns, it appears that all can be managed with appropriate regulatory and law enforcement strategies.By contrast, only a handful of insiders (most notably Guy Lane of BitCarbon) have noticed a threat inherent in the very design of the Bitcoin system: that of ever-increasing environmental damage from the electricity used in the 'mining' of Bitcoins.Even more striking, this same design feature ensures that Bitcoin cannot, in the end, provide a stable store of value.In essence, the creation of a new Bitcoin requires the performance of a complex calculation that has no value except to show that it has been done.que es el protocolo bitcoin

The crucial feature, as is common in cryptography, is that the calculation in question is very difficult to perform, but, once done, is easy to verify.In the early days of Bitcoin, the computations in question could be performed on ordinary personal computers.bitcoin coin splitNowadays, however, 'miners' use special purpose machines optimised for the particular algorithms used by Bitcoin.bitcoin advantages and disadvantagesWith these machines, the primary cost of the system is the electricity used to run it.ethereum sell shortThat means, of course, that the only way to be profitable as a miner is to have access to the cheapest possible sources of electricity.Most of the time that means electricity generated by burning cheap coal in old plants, where the capital costs have long been written off.ethereum overtake bitcoin

Even in a large grid, with multiple sources of electricity, Bitcoin mining effectively adds to the demand for coal-fired power.web irc bitcoinBitcoin computers run continuously, so they constitute a 'baseload' demand, which matches the supply characteristics of coal (and nuclear).bitcoin security forum gmail dumpMore generally, in the process of decarbonising the energy supply system, any increase in electricity demand at the margin may be regarded as slowing the pace at which fossil fuels can be phased out.The cost of coal-fired electricity can be as low as 5c/kWh for industrial users; mining with electricity costs above 10c/kWh is usually unprofitable.xapo bitcoin accountWith the coin price currently a little above $US200, optimized systems can break even with electricity requirements of around $150 for each coin.

At 5c/kWh, that's three megawatt-hours (MWh) per coin.That corresponds, in turn, to about three tons of carbon dioxide for coal-fired electricity.Even at 10c/kWh, each Bitcoin mined using coal-fired power is associated with 1.5 tons of CO2 emissions.The average US household uses 10 to 12 000 kWh in electricity each year, about the same as would be required to generate four Bitcoins worth a little under $1,000.But the same average household has about $6,000 in cash on hand and savings accounts, and around $15,000 in credit card balances.Switching even a small part of a typical household's financial transactions to Bitcoins must therefore entail a massive increase in electricity use.Fortunately, it's unlikely that Bitcoin will survive long enough to generate the environmental disaster that would arise if it became a major part of the financial system.The same design feature that requires the use of so much electricity is the fatal flaw in Bitcoin as a currency.The creation of a Bitcoin requires costly calculations.

But these calculations are of no use to anyone.If they were valuable, then they would be performed for their own sake, with Bitcoins as a free by-product.That would undermine the whole system.By contrast, all viable currencies are underpinned by the fact that the currency has a use outside its role as a medium of exchange.This is obvious in the case of metallic currencies such as gold and silver coins, and of paper currencies that are convertible into gold.But it is also true of 'fiat' currencies, not convertible into precious metals (the case with the US dollar since 1971).The external value of fiat money is more subtle than that of a metal coin.It is inherent in the fact that the government issuing the currency is willing to accept it in payment of taxes and other obligations.If the US government ceased to exist, people might choose to go on using US dollars as a medium of exchange for a while.Ultimately, however, all currencies without an external source of value must share the fate of the Confederate dollar and similar former currencies, becoming, at best, collectors' items.In the end, Bitcoins will attain their true economic value of zero.