Bitcoin And The Electronic Frontier Foundation

[Jeffrey Paul]

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On 16 Nov, 2010, at 03:41 , Kyle Williams wrote:

> For those who are wondering if it's worth trying to generate bitcoins, here
is something to think about.
> I've had a single Quad-Core (2.6GHz/core, 12MB L2 cache) server crunching on
bitcoins for about 6 months now.  About 2-3 months ago, it stopped generating
bitcoins.
> Someone is out there with a lot of GPU's, crunching away at the bitcoin
network and is hording/generating all the bitcoins.  I say this because the
amount of chatter on the bitcoin forums in regards to GPUs vs CPUs has
exploded, and new GPU clients are being released.


For those who are wondering if it's worth trying to generate bitcoins, here is
something to think about.

I bought an overpriced GPU for $700 (apparently they are closer to $500 from
other sellers) that generates about 50 bitcoins a day on the LOW end.
Bitcoins being worth approximately $0.25 USD (also on the low end), this card
generates $12.50 a day for approximately $0.70/day in electricity.  Both of
these figures (how often it generates bitcoins, as well as how much coins are
worth) will, without question, change radically in the next 90 days.

Minting is not essential to the liquidity of bitcoins.  If you are interested
in using them, anyone can log on to any of the exchanges (of which I think
mtgox.com is the largest) and purchase coins instantly.  Their utility is not
defined by "how easily can one make them out of thin air", but instead by "are
there people who accept these as valuable".

There are thousands of bitcoins available for sale, and thousands of Liberty
Reserve dollars available as bids.  The market, while small, is liquid and
becoming more so every day.

Also, this shadowy "someone" you speak of is sitting in the bitcoin-dev irc
channel, and I think he's up to about 20 GPUs at this point.  Still, his
effect on the market only strengthens the cryptographic underpinnings of
bitcoin.  It doesn't affect anyone else, as the network regularly
re-calibrates (as part of the bitcoin protocol) to ensure that no matter how
many GPUs are running, there is a fixed rate of 50-coins-per-ten-minutes of
inflation.

- -jp

- --
========================================================
Jeffrey Paul        -datavibe-        sneak at datavibe.net
+1 (800) 403-1126              http://sneak.datavibe.net
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           "Virtue is its own punishment."
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