Mining Bitcoin: It’s easy to mine, but it’s hard to get your money back in 4 and a half months

Abao did some calculations. Assuming that the current price of Bitcoin remains at $120, and his computer runs 24 hours a day, minus the electricity cost, it would take about 4.5 months to recover the cost. In fact, Abao's computer does not run 24 hours a day, and he has only mined 0.11 Bitcoins so far.

Miner

Chankawa's computer runs 24 hours a day, and his "Bitcoin miner" mined for three months and yielded nearly 1 Bitcoin. "If you want to mine a lot of Bitcoin in a short period of time, you need to buy a lot of graphics cards and make a high investment. Because the price of Bitcoin is not very stable, few people will do this," Chankawa said.

Trading Platform

The "Bitcoin China Trading Platform" mainly serves the Chinese people. Its basic function is to provide real-time USD/RMB exchange rates for Bitcoin. Bitcoin can be bought with RMB, and Bitcoin can also be exchanged for RMB.

On April 10, the virtual currency Bitcoin, which has attracted much attention this year, soared to $266, making investors who bought it at a few dozen dollars a fortune. However, after reaching the peak that night, it plummeted all the way, with the lowest point close to $50.

Recently, Bitcoin has attracted the attention of many investors as a new "donation", especially the "Thank you all the miners" slogan of One Foundation, which made many people curious about "miners". What kind of group are they? How do they mine Bitcoin, an alternative currency? What kind of "mining equipment" do they need to invest?

Recently, the reporter approached two Bitcoin miners as a "peer" and, through their stories, deciphered for you the gold-digging career of these "mining masters".

Mining is actually very simple

Abao (online name) is a miner. He first discovered Bitcoin on the Internet. At that time, the price of Bitcoin was more than 300 yuan. He thought Bitcoin was a very interesting thing and had room for appreciation, so he decided to mine.

Abao told reporters that in the vocabulary of miners, "miner" usually refers to the computer graphics card used for mining (producing Bitcoin).

As Bitcoin has been rising, "mining machines" have now appeared. Mining machines are more powerful than graphics cards. They are hardware with specially designed circuits and are several times more efficient than miners. The cost of a mining machine ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan. Due to the high cost, few people use them.

It is understood that Bitcoin is calculated through the computer's CPU (central processing unit) or GPU (graphics processing unit, the "heart" of the display card) or other processors. Since the GPU has very considerable computing power, the graphics card is a good "mining" device.

Abao said that he felt mining was difficult before he started, but after he started, he found that mining was actually very simple, mainly through the calculation of the computer graphics card. For example, the current computer graphics card is 15GH/second, and running for 24 hours can get one bitcoin.

After deciding to mine, Abao searched the Internet for the basic conditions he needed: a graphics card with a high computing rate, a client wallet, and a registered account on a Bitcoin trading platform. In March this year, Abao bought a computer graphics card 7750 with a computing rate of 110m/s for 700 yuan and became a miner. According to the mining speed Abao knew, his computer would have to mine for 24 hours a day to obtain 0.007 bitcoins (110/15360; 1GH=1024m).

Chanchuan (net name) is also a miner. Unlike Abao, he started to get involved in Bitcoin at the end of 2011. The main reason why Chanchuan became interested in Bitcoin is the appreciation potential. The supply of Bitcoin is limited, while the real currency is always increasing.

So, Chanchuan bought some bitcoins at the end of 2011, and bought another 30 bitcoins in August 2012. This year, bitcoin once soared to 1,600 yuan (about 257 U.S. dollars), and Chanchuan sold most of his bitcoins, then bought a computer graphics card and started his mining career.

The preparation work is cumbersome

Abao introduced that before mining Bitcoin, a series of tedious preparations must be done. After buying a graphics card, you need to download and install the official Bitcoin client and get a Bitcoin wallet. "The Bitcoin wallet is where the mined Bitcoins are stored."

After getting a wallet, Abao chose a "mining pool". "A mining pool is where bitcoins are generated. The two commonly used mining pools are BTC Guild and deepbit." The role of the mining pool is to subdivide data packets for each terminal. Through a precise algorithm, the data packets calculated by the terminal can be paid in proportion to the corresponding amount of bitcoins.

In Abao's opinion, the more professional part is to connect the mining pool and wallet through the Bitcoin wallet address after registering an account in the mining pool. With the mining pool and wallet, you also need to download the mining software, the most commonly used one is GUIMiner. With these, mining can really start. In the mining software, you can choose any mining pool for mining. The miner will store the bitcoins mined in the mining pool in the mining pool, and automatically transfer them to the wallet when a certain limit is accumulated.

The mining pool used by Chanchuan is deepbit. After mining 0.1 bitcoins, the mining pool will automatically pay him.

Abao said that in addition to these basic operations, there are some professional points that need to be paid attention to. For example, when setting up a payment address in a mining pool, you must back up your wallet, because if the computer reinstalls the system or has problems, the wallet will no longer exist; at the same time, the mining pool must set up a miner account and calculate the miner's labor income. The management of miners by the mining pool is that one processing unit (GPU) needs a miner account to calculate the income of each unit.

Mining equipment is divided into different types according to computing power

After installing the graphics card, the computer can run mining on its own and takes up a relatively small amount of network speed. "But the only limitation is that I can't use the computer to watch movies or play 3D games," said Abao.

Abao did some calculations. Assuming that the current price of Bitcoin remains at $120, and his computer runs 24 hours a day, minus the electricity cost, it would take about 4.5 months to recover the cost. In fact, Abao's computer does not run 24 hours a day, and he has only mined 0.11 Bitcoins so far.

From the equipment provided by Abao, it can be seen that in addition to the main cost of computer graphics card configuration, other costs include electric fans, frames (these two are one-time expenses and can be ignored), electricity costs and time. Computers can run automatically and do not require miners' time and energy. In terms of electricity costs, mining power is generally required to be between 500W and 600W.

According to a reporter from the "Daily Economic News", among the stronger graphics cards on the market now, the computing power of 6990 is 800m/s; the computing power of 5970 is 700m/s. With such a graphics card, according to the above-mentioned Bitcoin mining speed, it takes more than half a month to mine one Bitcoin.

Online information shows that a 6990 graphics card costs about 2,500 yuan. The 5970 was the "king card" of that year. New cards are not easy to buy, and the current price in the second-hand market is around 3,000 yuan.

Abao's "miners" usually mine in groups. After mining bitcoins, they will "divide" the money according to the computing power of the graphics card, and the mining pool will also "take" a little. "It is almost impossible to mine alone. Group mining is randomly allocated by the mining pool according to the computing power of the miners." Abao said.

Chankawa's computer runs 24 hours a day, and his "miner" mined for three months, yielding nearly 1 bitcoin. "If you want to mine a lot of bitcoins in a short period of time, you need to buy a lot of graphics cards and make a high investment. Because the price of bitcoin is not very stable, few people will do this," Chankawa said.

Price changes: Price drops do not hinder mining

Abao has not mined 1 Bitcoin yet, and Bitcoin has been in a price drop recently, so he has not made any transactions yet.

The bitcoins that Chanchuan sold not long ago were sold through the Bitcoin China trading platform. He told the reporter of the Daily Economic News that to sell bitcoins on the Chinese Bitcoin trading platform, the price needs to be determined according to the market conditions. If there is a buyer willing to buy, the system will complete the operation on his behalf. "Bitcoin skyrocketed a few days ago, and I made more than 10,000 yuan."

In the view of Abao and Chanchuan, mining has some costs, but compared with speculation, it is still affordable. Even though the price of Bitcoin is falling now, there are still many people who insist on mining, because the surge and plunge give them more "room for imagination".

On April 10, the virtual currency Bitcoin soared to $266, making investors who bought it at a few dozen dollars a fortune. However, after reaching the peak that evening, Bitcoin plummeted all the way to $105, and then continued to decline, with the lowest point close to $50. As of April 23, it rebounded to around $120.

It is understood that MtGox and Bitstamp are global Bitcoin trading platforms, and the "Bitcoin China Trading Platform" mainly serves the Chinese. The reporter found on the "Bitcoin China Trading Platform" that the basic function is to provide real-time USD/RMB exchange rates for Bitcoin. Bitcoin can be bought with RMB, and Bitcoin can be exchanged for RMB. In addition, there are RMB recharges (through Tenpay, Alipay, etc.), Bitcoin recharges (importing mined Bitcoins to the Bitcoin China Trading Platform); withdrawals (exporting Bitcoins to an e-wallet address).

Abao introduced that when you click on the "Bitcoin Recharge" function of the Bitcoin China trading platform, the system will provide you with a one-time Bitcoin digital wallet address. This address can only be recharged once and will be invalidated after the recharge is successful. The system will then provide another address. The wallet address must be updated in time for each recharge, otherwise the recharge will fail or be lost.