Adventures in Mining

The moment I learned how Bitcoin works, I knew it will forever have a place in our society as long as there is a place for money.  It's anonymous, unreproducible, easily transferred, and backed by it's own scarcity.  It's like gold that teleports itself wherever you need it.

A lot of people get caught up in the mining aspect.  Most people will never mine it, and that's the way it's meant to work.  The same is true with gold.  That having been said, if given the opportunity to make money mining for gold, or Bitcoin, who am I to pass it up?  It's currently too popular, which makes the profit margin is too low for an end user like me.

The other day a friend of a friend told me about a second chance.  He told me about other crypto-currencies that are catching on, and that he is making money on the side generating them.  I asked a few questions, and here's what he told me.

He is making $10 a day.
He is mining several different coins, whichever is most profitable at the moment.
He is using a dedicated machine that he spent $1,300 on specifically for this.
He is using two video cards.
He's preforming 1500 kH/s.

His info, plus a little research, was all I needed to know.  I already have a well ventilated, water cooled computer, and I was just about to spend $200 on a video card.  I consulted a hardware comparison chart, and found I could get two video cards "like new" for $515 that should do slightly more kH/s than his, or play a mean video game.  With a start up cost of $315, I'd be stupid not to get involved.  I'd make my money back in a month, and I'd have some awesome video processing power as a bonus.  I jumped on it.

We'll, to make a long story short, my friend of a friend wasn't entirely honest, and I didn't check up on his numbers.  He now says that the days of $10 a day are behind him, and he's making more like $2 a day.  I did check his numbers this time, and find there are unfortunately accurate.

If that's my experience, I'll make my money back in a little under five months, so it's still an amazing investment if you factor in the free video processing upgrade.  Even if I never make it back, those two cards are worth what I paid for them.  Heck, maybe I'll get lucky, and one of the types of coin I generate will go through the roof like Bitcoin did.

As always, I'll keep you informed.