May 18, 201115 yr Anyone running Bitcoin on their unRAID server? I want to install an ATI 5830 and mine bitcoins with it. Am I being silly, or would this work?
May 18, 201115 yr Is bitcoin a way of selling CPU / GPU cycles or something? What are they doing with them? Reading their website it isn't clear to me what they are using the cycles for.
May 18, 201115 yr Author As far as I understand, the cycles are used to do the security for the bitcoin network by doing complex algorithms/hash checks/whatever else. I don't know exactly how it works, but something like that.
May 18, 201115 yr Comments like this With quickly rising bitcoin exchange rates it is probably more profitable to buy bitcoins now than to mine. make me think someone is scamming someone somewhere.
May 18, 201115 yr It is. But I've been making pretty good money on it Define "pretty good" and Wattage consumed. Two BC a month, while using 80 Wats 7x24 does not equal profit.
May 18, 201115 yr Author No, but 45 a month is decent and that's what get with my 6950. I expect to get 20+ a month with a 5830. Maybe less now that the difficulty just increased, but whatever. I'm sure I can figure out how to do this myself, I just figured someone in here could help.
May 19, 201115 yr v0lrath, People tend to want to help when they see a benefit in it themselves. For instance I'm trying to figure out exactly what the deal is before I would even try it. Obviously if I thought it was a good idea I would try and instal it myself, but since I'm kinda confused on what the pay off is I'm less interested. Can you help us understand what is going on or exactly it is?
May 19, 201115 yr LOL, the website and such really doesn't say anything useful about how bitcoins benefit me or how I could use them. Share if you know. Peter
May 19, 201115 yr LOL, the website and such really doesn't say anything useful about how bitcoins benefit me or how I could use them. Share if you know. Peter I was thinking that same thing after reading through a little bit of it. I think the general gist is that: 1. Your hardware is used to solve complex math problems (kind of like seti@home, et al.) 2. You earn "virtual money" (bitcoin) for doing so 3. Bitcoin can be exchanged for real world currency/gift cards/etc. I think that is the gist, though I am not positive.
May 19, 201115 yr I think it's worse than that (never actually used it so could be very wrong!) - The complex math problem *is* the generation of a unique bitcoin. There is no benefit to anything else of solving this problem. I believe the complexity is in the hashing and functions required to guarantee a unique coin. I believe the validity of this coin is also somehow checkable by peers (i.e to confirm that you did have to spend cycles generating it and didn't just magic it out of thin air and that is is a valid coin which, now, exists). - You haven't, technically, earnt any money. You've created it. In return the cost to you is in the equipment and power required to generate the coin. So you could say you've bought or invested in that bitcoin. Or the bitcoin could be viewed as a share which you've just bought with your processing power. I believe the bitcoin 'market' fluctuates against the $ as any other currency. So one day your coin could be worth $x and the next $y. I find looking at it like shares much easier. - This last point is correct. Though, if I'm right about the above, I believe the generation required to make a bitcoins gets more complex as the number of coins increases (more work needed to ensure the one you've generated is unique). But this is not reflected in the coins value. Which means that early adopters were able to generate lots of coins quickly and are now sitting on a bunch of cash. I'm not sure if all that is accurate, like you I struggle to find any tangible info on their website. The whole thing sounds a bit too much like a get rich scheme for the creators to me. Or it could be the next world currency. Betting on the former! The sums based on current $ values of coins versus costs to generate them don't stack up either unless you can generate them on other peoples equipment. Which leads me back to the early adopters sitting on a pile of easy cash thing again... Somebody may be along in a second to say I've made all this up - I'd definitely be interested to hear the real details behind it - but the above is my impression from the limited reading I've done.
May 19, 201115 yr "This makes the whole system a lot sweeter for early adopters." Pyramid scheme! Ponzi!
May 19, 201115 yr Wow theres even a Stock Market or something that looks like one. http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/
May 19, 201115 yr http://lifehacker.com/5803518/what-is-bitcoin concise easy to understand explanation...i'm not impressed.
June 22, 201115 yr v0lrath, Did you ever make any progress with Bitcoin on your unRaid? I've been mining for a while now, and would definately be into running it on my unRaid server, but I'm not very Linux savvy. Looking forward to your reply! -PGPfan
June 22, 201115 yr Someone at work brought this to my attention a while ago. I compared it to what Easynews.com used to do. Then you could donate your CPU to work on possible cancer fighting models to gain GB's to download. At least that benefited someone while you gained something. Even then it wasn't worth the wear and tear on my system after the first 3 or 4 months. My bet would be that they are using the processing power to solve problems that the original creators get paid for…. With real money! Besides who’s to say that they don't have a way to create money on their own. What if they "created" the first million bitcoins before releasing the software to the public?
June 22, 201115 yr Guys, this isn't a philosophical question regarding Bitcoin. (although it is real and open source - hence the developer ISN'T making money from it at all) It is merely a question of whether or not anybody has installed this software on their unRaid server. If we MUST get into debate on it, Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer (meaning that there is no 'controlling entity charging fees, etc.) online payment system (think a replacement for PayPal) that offers annonymity identical to that of cash that is NOT tied to any govenmental currency. Perhaps it is/will become that 'StarTrek economy' where no body/agency/government has control over it's value. It's a marvelous cryptographic solution to a problem thought unsolvable (which if you notice my screen name, is a passion of mine anyway). Anyhow, I guess the answer would be no - there aren't anyone currently running on on their unRaid boxes. v0lrath - feel free to PM me on the topic, I'd love to explore what you come up with using BTC on unRaid! -PGPfan
June 22, 201115 yr It's a good job BitCoin hasn't recently collapsed due to fraud. Oh, wait... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/19/bitcoin_values_collapse_again/
June 22, 201115 yr Guys, this isn't a philosophical question regarding Bitcoin. (although it is real and open source - hence the developer ISN'T making money from it at all) It is merely a question of whether or not anybody has installed this software on their unRaid server. I would be amazed if he hasn't made a nice little profit in there. It was something that didn't exist. He created it. Early coins were easy to generate. Coins now have a $ value. The one person who should be making money and the one person positioned to make the most - is the original developer. It's a neat thing from a technical point of view - but from a finance point of view..well....
June 22, 201115 yr LOL has anyone read that article I linked, afik bitcoin is used mainly to buy drugs from the silkroad. Seriously people will talk about decentralizing banks and arguing for a non central user controlled p2p currency but the fact is the only reason I see having bitcoin is so I can log onto tor, go onto silkroad mail a nice vacuum packed parcel of cocaine and weed and european kiddie pron to a mail receiving service that I used a fake ID to set up, pay a homeless guy to pick up my package, and do the exchange inside a meat locker in an abandoned building with no cameras and get my shit. Also rumor has it maybe rival hackers or even FED white hats took down mt.gox because it was supposedly a threat to the DEA. At this point it takes about a month of 100% cpu power to generate ONE bitcoin worth something like $15 on the exchanges...I can make more donating sperm.
June 25, 201115 yr ilovegoodnugz, Haven't read the linked article, don't need to. You are speaking from a position of no experience whatsoever and just parroting a media outlet infobyte! Fact is, bitcoin has been around for over 2 years and there are many sites that accept it as a currency option for a wide range of purchases. To really learn for yourself, try spending time at the official forums of bitcoin. As I've tried to point out - bitcoin is nothing like what you mention - it basically is a cash replacement and that is it. Can you buy drugs somewhere with cash? Yes! Is it traceable? No! Same with bitcoin. Can you buy computer gear, prepaid Visa cards, cars, clothing, etc. with cash? Yes! Is it traceable? No! Same AGAIN with bitcoin. Perhaps you should actually learn what has been going on with Mt.Gox rather than listen to 'rumor'. It wasn't 'whitehat' hackers or anyone else like that that took down Mt.Gox - it was just a clever person that exploited a flaw in the security that Mt.Gox was using. No more, no less. As for the "100% cpu in a month to generate a bitcoin" statement, well that is so far from accurate it is scary. For one thing, bitcoins are generated in 'blocks', if you are lucky enough to find one of the blocks you receive 50 bitcoins - meaning it's not possible to "generate" one bitcoin at a time. More correct info is available to anyone who cares to learn it themselves, but please refrain from spreading BS about it unless you actually know. -PGPfan
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