Does BitCoin work?

[TimeLine2Point0]

All I want to know is if BitCoin will actually get me any dollar amount (even $10). Is it legit, or is it some sort of scam?

[pm94]

I'm new to bitcoin only mining for 2 months but for what I've learned its legit but you need to have an amd card or else you will be expending more money on your electric bill than the money you earn by mining

see the link so you can know how many mhash/s you can produce

just for example i have a 8800gt on my pc and i can produce 27 mhash/s avg not using 24/7 ( if i add all the hours mining maybe 2 weeks of work)

and i made 0.05 bitcoins but that is with nvidia cards if you have an amd one you can make the triple with a low end card

[Lyons]

(This is also for anyone else who wants to look into Bitcoins, some of this probably won't be relevant in a month or 3)

Bitcoin is not a scam [however some argue it has no legitimate backing]. The simple fact is that you CAN make money out of them Like any investment, there is capital involved. The two ways you can make real money out of it now are these; the first, outright buy them and when they go up in value, sell them. Doing this effectively requires economical knowledge that the average person isn't usually aware of, and most rely on luck or the fact that a lot of others are buying or selling at the same time. The second option is to purchase a Bitcoin mining ASIC from Butterfly labs or Avalon (see links below). Starting GPU mining is now out of the question. The more Bitcoins are mined (FYI there is actually a limit to how many bitcoins can ever be mined), the difficulty to mine them increases exponentially. This level of difficulty has currently reached a point where unless you have about 10 or more GPU's mining 24/7, you won't make back enough money to cover your electricity bill.

If you Don't pay for electricity and want to try GPU mining, it's essentially free money, BUT, it will be incredibly slow, essentially worthless; you can make money much quicker and easier if you buy and sell Bitcoins, but this is market dependant. The ASIC miners are capable of mining at a rate that is fast enough to stay on top of the difficulty, however there is a catch: If you want to mine with an ASIC, it's too late. The ASIC's that have been ordered a year or more ago still haven't shipped, and once all the people who ordered early get theirs, they will be mining non-stop, and with this extreme saturation of mining, the difficulty will skyrocket. If you order now, who knows when you'll receive your ASIC, but it will be too late, especially if you buy a low end one.

For perspective, at the current level of difficulty, an overclocked AMD 7950 will mine at a rate of about a 600th (if I've calculated correctly, but it's a HELL of a lot lower anyway) the speed of the lowest teir ($150) Butterfly Labs ASIC, which has a hash rate of a claimed 4.5GH/s. You can see what I'm getting at anyway. Some people got really lucky, and bought 200 Bitcoins when they were worth $5, and have recently sold them at $85, others have invested heaps into hardware and still made a decent profit, and there are some that invested at the wrong times and fallen victims to last year's crash and bailed out, it's all situation, time, and market dependant. In summary, it's legit, but if you want to make money, you have to put money in. Quite a lot, depending on the given value of BTC.

Sometimes I wish I got into the whole Bitcoin mining thing, but oh well. We live in a speculative world! I doubt anyone saw the current value of Bitcoins happening. There is a small surge of Litecoin mining happening at the moment, they are much less difficult to mine than Bitcoins, but last time I checked the conversion rate was 1:135. Who knows where that will go...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

https://products.butterflylabs.com/

http://launch.avalon-asics.com/

https://mtgox.com/

[Helltech]

Unless you have a mining ASIC machine from Avalon or Butterfly Labs, don't even worry about it. The cost of electricity to mine wouldn't be worth it. Anyone who mines without a mining machine is basically just doing it for fun. You CAN make money with mining machines though.

[Jmjam]

I'm quite new to Bitcoin as well and right now my 7950 gets me to 0.03-0.04 BTC/day ($3-4 CAD). I think it's not too bad of a money maker since I don't have to pay the electric bill.

However I see people Litecoin mining as well. Does anyone know the differences between Bitcoin, Litecoin and other popular digital currencies that are out there? Which one would I benefit from most as a person who only has 450-500Mh/s and wants to make money from this? I would like to convert these coins to CAD too. I've already found a site that does this with Bitcoins.