Jan 01, 2016
Bitcoins – Mining and Trading
Jonathan Day, Carpe Diem
18th July 2013
What is Bitcoin?
An open source P2P digital currency
Bitcoin is a digital currency, a protocol, and a software that enables
Instant peer-to-peer transactions; Worldwide payments
Irreversible by design; Almost no processing fee
Relies on cryptography and p2p network – no central authority
21 million Bitcoins issued over 100+ years
11 million issued to date, worth > $1 bn, 10%+ changing hands monthly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um63OQz3bjo&list=WLDaLW09uZ1LZyb6p9C12Aa15PbQpfHG-D&feature=player_detailpage
Setting up to use Bitcoins
Step 1 – get a Bitcoin Wallet
Step 2 – create your Bitcoin Address
Step 3 –Set up a Bitcoin Miner
Step 4 – join a mining pool
Step 5 – Give up and buy some coins, or look to Alt Coins ;)
Step 6 – Don’t just hoard the coins, use them in commerce or at least sell them to mitigate price risk
Bitcoin Wallet
Head to http://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet
Download Bitcoin-Qt
Use a software wallet not an online one!
Encrypt with a strong password – Don’t Lose !!
Make several backups on offline media
Lots of space and time – 9 gigs and growing
Has built in mining capability
Bitcoin Wallet
Bitcoin Address
Using your Wallet software, create a Bitcoin Address
You can create additional addresses as often as you need
Usually looks like this: 1NJhki2Nhtd191tHkVuBoYiEBuKHemh5MZ
Or you can be less anonymous, like this: 1JonDaywo5MmiBdvtacKw39EB53VtpqsUe
Bitcoin Address – Anonymous?
Mining
Note – most Bitcoin users don’t mine. It is a competitive and fast moving business
Initially – CPU in your PC
Rapidly moved to AMD GPUs for 50-100x gain 600 mh/s, 300w power
Development of FPGA devices 800 mh/s, 60w, power costs becoming important
Development of ASIC – 100x increase60+ gh/s, 400w
Mining Software
Best option is currently ‘cgminer’ (or GUI Miner)
http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/
Mining Pool
Solo mining with Bitcoin is now a non starter,
Join one of the following Pools: Slush - https://mining.bitcoin.cz/BTC Guild - https://www.btcguild.com
Mining Equipment
Started with the nice idea of a ‘gaming rig’ that would pay for itself; something like:
Mining Equipment
But I was a year late and a Dollar short – This was the average rig by the time I started
Mining Equipment
BFL – FPGA to the rescue
$500 to buy
$10 per day income
60 watts
832 mh/s
50-25 Coin payout drop
Alt Coins
Litecoins with a Gaming Rig
3 x 7950 GPU
1000 watts
Very hot
$2-3 per day
USB - ASIC
The same power as a high end graphics card
Same price
But 5 watts vs 300+
$1 per day
No payback
But no heat!
AVALON - ASIC
ASIC is here
66 gh/s
750 watts
$1500
10 day ROI
Now £100 pd
The Beast3 x 80 gh/s
35 degrees +
3 kw
Equiv to 250 GPUs
Mining Difficulty – SkyNet ???
+20% per 12 days, 225 TH/s or c 1m GPUs
Mining Conclusions
Too late to get into Bitcoin mining due to: Difficulty rising 1.5% per day ASIC miner rigs the only viable option 3 month delays to get an ASIC miner
Other options for mining: CPU – Try PrimeCoin GPUs - Litecoin – the Silver to Bitcoin’s gold
Trading
B$ made the news due to extreme price rises and crashes
Due to day traders getting interested
Trading
Lots of online ‘Bureau De Change’ to swap $/£ to B$ MtGox.com, Cryptsy.com, BTC-e.com Slow, KYC, fees, but works
Volatile ?
Compared to ? Gold has dropped c 25% in 2 months!
Buying Bitcoins
New provider just arrived on the market: Bittylicious.com Swaps GBP to B$ in real time for 1% feeWorks from Jersey
Using Bitcoins
Any ecommerce sites should check out BitPay.com No set up costNo currency riskMinimal feesAccess to $1bn worth of custom
A Gift
Carpe Diem BitCoin ‘Faucet’First 20 people to set up a Wallet and Bitcoin Address
and send the address by email to [email protected] each be sent 0.25 BTC – c £15
How to spend your Bitcoins
Go to carpediem.je
Use your B$ to get
Xero 4 Dummies
For Free!
Opportunities for Jersey
Gain revenue for ecommerce sites easilyTourism profile for coffee shop / pub Potentially good tax opportunities
Questions?