Just want to throw this out there in PA since I did not find any thread about it ... I'm a late adopters to bitcoin (just since early august 2011). For more information: http://bitcoin.org/ Bitcoin forum: http://bitcointalk.org/ How much does PA community know about it? And what are your opinions?
I heard you can make money with it but you need a powerful computer or else it's just a waste of electricity
^ you'll need powerful graphics card; not so much on the computer power. But it seems like alot of PA have crazy graphics card that they already own for games. As for making money, it got to USD30 / 1 bitcoin once upon a time; since then, it has come down to $4-$7 / 1 bitcoin.
For those interested: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison For those wondering why AMD outperforms Nvidia at mining: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Why_a_GPU_mines_faster_than_a_CPU Also, i heard about some people planning to buy custom FPGA`s in bulk and reselling them on the forums.
I actually don`t do Bitcoin, i used to do WCG and some guys on my team were talking about mining bitcoins to fund their folding operations. FPGA stands for Field Programmable Gate Array, but i don`t know enough about them to give an answer with any confidence.
The download from www.bitcoin.org is just a client for your wallet address for payouts. If you pool mining, you'll need to sign up with each of the pools. Here is a link of the pool comparisons https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools
Might want to be careful with your Bitcoin wallet though, if you decide to start mining. They can be stolen.
I hate how some of the good vid cards like the 5870s and 6950s all inflated or went outta stock after everyone starting bitcoining. =(