• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Cryptocurrency Mining

Fenton

Fenton

DP Veteran
Joined
Nov 17, 2012
Messages
29,771
Reaction score
12,231
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Conservative
When Im not posting about all things Politics here at DP, Im either sitting at my test bench using my signal generator and oscilloscope to signal trace through old amplifier and pedal circuits, repairing and or building different analog and digital circuits for a variety of applications, or building gaming computers.

I just built one for my oldest son this last weekend, and while we were working on it he asked if it could be used for " mining bitcoin "

Mining what ???!! Honestly, I have never heard of such a thing

I told him I would look into it and wow, I had no idea
We have quite a few really sharp posters with IT backgrounds, so please correct me if I'm wrong

Bitcoin miners use specialized rigs to audit past crypotcurency transactions arranged in sequential blocks in a public ledger known as a blockchain.

Once a new block is verified, its recognized from that point on in the blockchain, and the process to discover the new block starts over.
The bitcoin miner responsible is awarded 12.5 newly minted bitcoin for his troubles.
This is the ONLY way new bitcoin can be minted

Bitcoin blocks are encrypted using SHA-256 cryptographic algorithms which produces a 256 hexadecimal number or signature for each block chain.


Bitcoin mining rigs verify new blocks which are 1MB in size by solving a complex mathematical puzzle, which is to find a number that when combined with data in the block and then passed through a hash function produces a desired resust or " hash " within the specified range to discover the new block.

This number is called a " Nonce", and is a integer between 0 and 4,294,967,296

Typical mining rigs are comprised of multiple high end video cards. So why use GPUs and not CPUs ?

CPUs can have 4 or more cores executing 1 x 32 bit instruction per clock cycle while GPUs like the Radeon 5970 can have up to 3200 cores or ALUs, or " shaders " executing 32 bit instructions per clock cycle.

Multiple video cards are set up to run gigacycles of calculations per second in parallel giving the bitcoin miner a advantage over other miners who are all competing to be the next to verify a new block in the blockchain ledger.

I told my son that technically, yes, his new rig could be used to mine cryptocurrency, but is ill suited and to not waste his time
 
You've got it. There's an additional reward to the miners which is a fee that the users involved in the underlying transactions are paying.

The intent of the designer of this system was that the bitcoin reward is cranked down as the number of minted bitcoins reaches its max, while the transaction fee is increased up as bitcoin becomes more popular/accepted.

Thus miners continue to mine as they're receiving reward from the transaction fee instead of the minting.

Edit: Or, stop mining because imho this all is a fad.
 
Is this for the xbox or ps4?






:D
 
brothern said:
You've got it. There's an additional reward to the miners which is a fee that the users involved in the underlying transactions are paying.

The intent of the designer of this system was that the bitcoin reward is cranked down as the number of minted bitcoins reaches its max, while the transaction fee is increased up as bitcoin becomes more popular/accepted.

Thus miners continue to mine as they're receiving reward from the transaction fee instead of the minting.

Edit: Or, stop mining because imho this all is a fad.
Click to expand...

When I was researching this I came accross a pic of a bitcoin mining operation that was set up in a aircraft hanger.
Had to be 10s of thousands of GPUs all working in parallel to identify the newest block
The cost to set that up must have been enormous

I showed it to my son and said thats your competitors if you ever want to get into crypto currency mining
 
Bitcoin is a bubble, there's no substance to it. It purports to be a currency, but by design has a limit to the number of transactions that can be processed. The number is comically low. 10-ish IIRC. That transaction rate cannot possibly function as a currency. Instead, bitcoin functions like a commodity. Its "value" is based entirely on the idea that someone else will pay you more dollars later than you paid for it. Problem is, it's a commodity that doesn't really exist. It's a bunch of made-up numbers on a computer.

If you've got GPU hardware that can profitably mine bitcoin (edit: rather, you'll be mining a different cryptocurrency) right now, sure, why not. Remember to check the math on power consumption, your electric bill will go up. But do not, under any circumstances, buy hardware for the purposes of cryptocurrency mining. The bubble is going to burst.

To answer the OP's question, its actually changed a little bit. GPUs were popular for bitcoin due to the high core count as he mentioned, but nowadays bitcoin mining is dominated by ASICs, which are specialized devices aimed at doing this specific math efficiently.

tl,dr: cryptocurrency mining is dumb and it's way too late to be thinking about jumping into it.
 
Last edited:
Deuce said:
Bitcoin is a bubble, there's no substance to it.

tl,dr: cryptocurrency mining is dumb and it's way too late to be thinking about jumping into it.
Click to expand...

It was a bubble, and 9 months after you made that post it is now a given.

It is now less than half it's value at the height, and has flattened out again. And it is unlikely to ever rise again.

Myself, I am waiting for the next bubble to appear, so I can yet again laugh at those that try to ride it to wealth, then fall flat on their face as it crashes around them.
 
Deuce said:
Bitcoin is a bubble, there's no substance to it. It purports to be a currency, but by design has a limit to the number of transactions that can be processed. The number is comically low. 10-ish IIRC. That transaction rate cannot possibly function as a currency. Instead, bitcoin functions like a commodity. Its "value" is based entirely on the idea that someone else will pay you more dollars later than you paid for it. Problem is, it's a commodity that doesn't really exist. It's a bunch of made-up numbers on a computer.

If you've got GPU hardware that can profitably mine bitcoin (edit: rather, you'll be mining a different cryptocurrency) right now, sure, why not. Remember to check the math on power consumption, your electric bill will go up. But do not, under any circumstances, buy hardware for the purposes of cryptocurrency mining. The bubble is going to burst.

To answer the OP's question, its actually changed a little bit. GPUs were popular for bitcoin due to the high core count as he mentioned, but nowadays bitcoin mining is dominated by ASICs, which are specialized devices aimed at doing this specific math efficiently.

tl,dr: cryptocurrency mining is dumb and it's way too late to be thinking about jumping into it.
Click to expand...

Global banking system says hello.

Whether we're talking hard currency (based on the idea that a shiny metal has some kind of inherent worth) or soft currency, it's all a shell game anyway. But if we all silently agree to pretend the coins or the numbers are worth something, it works. Reality from unreality.
 
Mr Person said:
Global banking system says hello.

Whether we're talking hard currency (based on the idea that a shiny metal has some kind of inherent worth) or soft currency, it's all a shell game anyway. But if we all silently agree to pretend the coins or the numbers are worth something, it works. Reality from unreality.
Click to expand...

Real currencies derive their value from the fact that they (and only they) can be used to settle tax obligations. Bitcoin is purely a game of hot potato.
 
Fenton said:
When Im not posting about all things Politics here at DP, Im either sitting at my test bench using my signal generator and oscilloscope to signal trace through old amplifier and pedal circuits, repairing and or building different analog and digital circuits for a variety of applications, or building gaming computers.

I just built one for my oldest son this last weekend, and while we were working on it he asked if it could be used for " mining bitcoin "

Mining what ???!! Honestly, I have never heard of such a thing

I told him I would look into it and wow, I had no idea
We have quite a few really sharp posters with IT backgrounds, so please correct me if I'm wrong

Bitcoin miners use specialized rigs to audit past crypotcurency transactions arranged in sequential blocks in a public ledger known as a blockchain.

Once a new block is verified, its recognized from that point on in the blockchain, and the process to discover the new block starts over.
The bitcoin miner responsible is awarded 12.5 newly minted bitcoin for his troubles.
This is the ONLY way new bitcoin can be minted

Bitcoin blocks are encrypted using SHA-256 cryptographic algorithms which produces a 256 hexadecimal number or signature for each block chain.


Bitcoin mining rigs verify new blocks which are 1MB in size by solving a complex mathematical puzzle, which is to find a number that when combined with data in the block and then passed through a hash function produces a desired resust or " hash " within the specified range to discover the new block.

This number is called a " Nonce", and is a integer between 0 and 4,294,967,296

Typical mining rigs are comprised of multiple high end video cards. So why use GPUs and not CPUs ?

CPUs can have 4 or more cores executing 1 x 32 bit instruction per clock cycle while GPUs like the Radeon 5970 can have up to 3200 cores or ALUs, or " shaders " executing 32 bit instructions per clock cycle.

Multiple video cards are set up to run gigacycles of calculations per second in parallel giving the bitcoin miner a advantage over other miners who are all competing to be the next to verify a new block in the blockchain ledger.

I told my son that technically, yes, his new rig could be used to mine cryptocurrency, but is ill suited and to not waste his time
Click to expand...

That's a pretty good take..

I'd add that the basic idea behind blockchain is to "solve" the double spending problem without the need for a centralized system. Ie.. I own a coin. I simultaneously agree to sell it to two different people. Now both people think they bought the same coin. Someone or something needs to decide who actually owns the coin.

Double-Spending Explained - Mycryptopedia
The idea behind blockchain is verified through a concept called "proof of work". All transactions are kept in a public ledger that everyone has access to. If you run on the bitcoin network you literally have to download every single transaction ever made to start.

When you request a transaction it goes into a "block" of transaction. This potential "block" on the "chain" is sent to miners who must solve a decryption problem. ie they need to compute a hash which essentially joins the new block to the last block on the chain. When they solve the problem they submit it to others. Because it's cryptography, solving a has is very slow, but checking it is very fast. This means that a successful hash will propagate through the network very quickly. Once it has propagated "far" enough, the probability of it remaining valid is high enough to assume that it went through.


If your son is at all interested, he should look into this:
Mining Calculator Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash and Monero

Modern mining is a tradeoff between the cost of electricity/computing and mining profits.
 
Mr Person said:
Global banking system says hello.

Whether we're talking hard currency (based on the idea that a shiny metal has some kind of inherent worth) or soft currency, it's all a shell game anyway. But if we all silently agree to pretend the coins or the numbers are worth something, it works. Reality from unreality.
Click to expand...

Yes. All currency is “fiat currency.” The entire concept rests upon agreed value of the currency.

But unlike bitcoin, real currencies are actually capable of functioning as a currency.
 
Deuce said:
Bitcoin is a bubble, there's no substance to it. It purports to be a currency, but by design has a limit to the number of transactions that can be processed. The number is comically low. 10-ish IIRC. That transaction rate cannot possibly function as a currency. Instead, bitcoin functions like a commodity. Its "value" is based entirely on the idea that someone else will pay you more dollars later than you paid for it. Problem is, it's a commodity that doesn't really exist. It's a bunch of made-up numbers on a computer.

If you've got GPU hardware that can profitably mine bitcoin (edit: rather, you'll be mining a different cryptocurrency) right now, sure, why not. Remember to check the math on power consumption, your electric bill will go up. But do not, under any circumstances, buy hardware for the purposes of cryptocurrency mining. The bubble is going to burst.

To answer the OP's question, its actually changed a little bit. GPUs were popular for bitcoin due to the high core count as he mentioned, but nowadays bitcoin mining is dominated by ASICs, which are specialized devices aimed at doing this specific math efficiently.

tl,dr: cryptocurrency mining is dumb and it's way too late to be thinking about jumping into it.
Click to expand...

your electric bill will go up

Presumably, there is an environmental cost to the use of that energy, especially in a mega-mine conducted in an airplane hanger.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom