So I have recently learned what Bitcoin actually is and have done some research on it but I am still confused on a few things after encountering things like CPU, GPU, and FPGA mining. So I have a few questions.
1. What is CPU, GPU, and FPGA mining?
2. Why do you need a powerful computer to mine Bitcoins?
3. Where do Bitcoins come from while Bitcoin mining?
4. Why are Bitcoins so hard to come by mining solo?
5. Is Bitcoin mining worth it?
cpu bitcoin mining has become obsolete, slow, and too expensive. And now with RISC, GPU will be too.
Because otherwise there is almost no margin of profit. And how things are looking up now, only RISC is profitable, because the difficulty has risen so high you need to find more hashes for lesser power consumption.
OMG my head will hurt trying to explain because it is SO complex (and cryptographicly beautiful) I dont even get the true essence. bitcouns come from 'found blocks', a UNIQUE cryptohash found by a miner or a team of miners. You could find a unique hash on a fluke, or you could have searched weeks for it. Thats why its so profitable to mine in teams, because sharing the loot, in this case, is often more profitable. A found bitcoin block is worth serveral bitcoins, according to the difficulty. The difficulty RISES as the number of blocks will reach the end. When all blocks are found, mining will DISSAPEAR. that is another beauty of the valuta: there is a finite number of blocks, and you CANNOT raise them as it is cryptographical impossible. while blocks need to be generated uniquely, they are actually formed with data in it of the last transactions, but in an unique way. That is why they are getting harder to find. And thats how you verify a payment: you can only verify payments when you have completely synced up with the entire blockchain (every block found).
There. My head hurts, I hope i made it as clear as possible. if anyone wants to point out the wrongs, go ahead, because its not simple material.
is it worth it? only with RISC devices, specially tailored devices with extremely low power consumption and high hashrates.
I do have to admit I am still mining coins with GPUs in the winter, as my 2 7970s are excellent room heaters, And I even get payed to heat my room. :)
5. Is Bitcoin mining worth it?
Currently for me it's not worth it even with free electricity.
At a 330 MH/s (7850) I'm going to get somewhere around $15 a month running a miner 24/7. Not worth stressing the hardware.
And if you have to pay for electricity, GPU mining is not viable.