Prospector Phil's Scrypt Mining Update - 3D Printed Shroud for Gridseed Orbs

Here's one of the projects I'm currently working on... 3D printed shrouds for Gridseed Orbs.

Profitability of a GPU Mining Rig for X11 Altcoins Using Outdated Hardware

I've been itching to do this post for a while now but haven't been able to because, well, I didn't have a GPU mining rig running... that is, until now.  The mining rig is old and out of date and doesn't hold a candle to what's available but it's made up entirely of parts that were already laying around and hey, something's better than nothing.

The rig consists of not much more than a motherboard/cpu/ram combo, an old ATI Radeon 5850 video card, and an ancient network card.  There's no hard drive, the Linux based operating system runs on a bootable USB thumb drive.  Notice the motherboard has several PCI-e slots... this is so I can (hopefully) run more than one GPU in the future.

The miner is slow and ugly but chugs along just fine mining altcoins for me... just my type of beast.

I know the 5850 video card is old and there are way better options for mining but with all the new algorithms out there and improvements in mining software, I was curious to see just how much money an old single GPU miner could make.

As it turns out, mining X11 coins at NiceHash.com or a few profit switching pools I tried, this setup only makes about 1.5 cents per day.  Yuck!

Keep in mind, that's when mining X11 altcoins.  I'm going to play around with mining some other algorithms to see what sort of profits (if any) can be had.  This video card came from a time when GPU mining scrypt coins was still profitable and before the scrypt ASICs entered the scene.  So nowadays it'd be completely worthless trying to mine scrypt coins unless I happen upon one that somehow magically explodes in price (to da moon!).

But I don't want to rely on luck...

For now I'll start messing with other algorithms to see if there are coins out there that can be mined profitably on shoddy old computer hardware.  mining X13 coins seems to make slightly less than X11 coins, so I'll start messing with some newer and/or more obscure algos.

Bookmark and check back often and I'll update the site with my findings.

Keep on & have fun!

Free Bitcoin Site Offers Auto-Sharing of Referral Commissions with Those You Refer

I've been collecting free Satoshi from FreeBitco.in for a while and never even noticed until now some of the cool extra features they've recently added to the site.  Of course, you can refer people to the site and earn commissions but one new feature in particular allows you to automatically share a percentage of your referral commissions with the people you've referred.  What's more, you can set it to split the shared payouts based on user activity, keeping leechers to a minimum.

So that's exactly what I've done... If you create a free account and collect free Satoshi using my referral link, 50% of the commissions I receive will go back to my peeps.

The site has some other interesting features including a weekly lottery and a Hi-Lo dice roll betting game.  The weekly lottery is pretty sweet since you earn more entries every time you collect free Bitcoins and the payouts are very nice...

You can collect free Satoshi every hour and while the amount fluctuates slightly, it's currently been over 300 Satoshi every time I've collected.  Automatic (weekly) payouts are free but the minimum is 32,000 Satoshi.  So far I've had one successful payout of almost 50k Satoshi and am working towards another.

This site has a lot of cool stuff going on and quite a few ways to earn or win free Satoshi -- I'll definitely be writing more about it in the near future.

So check out FreeBitco.in and start earning some free Satoshi with me!

Passive Income Bitcoin Mining Hardware for Small-Time Miners -- "Set It and Forget It"

It wasn't long ago that I started my quest to become a Bitcoin Billionaire and one of the first things I did was to dig up some old Gridseed (Scrypt) mining hardware to get something mining any form of crypto-currency as quickly as possible.  My mining rig includes a Gridseed Blade and a handful of Gridseed Orbs (or "Mini's"), and since I was lazy and had other stuff on my plate, the whole mess of Scrypt miners got pointed at the first thing that came to mind... www.LitecoinPool.org.  If you don't already know, there are much more profitable scrypt-based coins to mine besides Litecoin... but again, I was lazy and just wanted something going.

Fast forward to months later where I've all but forgotten about my little Gridseed mining rig.  Surprisingly, they're all still chugging along, happy as can be, slowly earning a small pittance of Litecoins.  But... that small pittance now totals 4.3 Litecoins as I write this (about $17.20 US).  It took about an hour to get the mining rig going and I haven't had to do anything since.  This is exactly why I wanted "something, anything" mining when I very first started... Do it once and keep collecting the rewards.

Ok, so this is a simplified form of passive income, and I'm not including the cost of the hardware nor electricity to run it.  But it is the concept I'd like to share and hope you'll remember... Do it once and keep collecting the rewards indefinitely.

Perhaps time will help get the point across as well... I'll revisit this post in a year with an update to see how much the small pittance of Litecoins has grown.

If you're looking to create a huge abundance of wealth, as I am, Passive Income is an essential key.  In the case of my Gridseed mining rig, I spent the time up front to get it running and now it requires almost no effort on my part to continually generate income for the foreseeable future.  More tradition examples of passive income include royalties from books and other intellectual property, licenses on patents, subscription based content, etc, etc.  Anything you can do once and get paid for multiple times qualifies as passive income and will help us both create wealth much more readily than simply trading our working hours for a set wage.  After all, there are only so many hours in the day...

So while my little mining rig isn't really passive income when you factor in cost, it is something I can "set and forget" and at least have one small stream of continual income.  Now I just need to find about a thousand more little streams and then we can create a massive torrent of wealth.

Keep on keepin' on!

Earn Free Bitcoins Playing Casual Games Online

Recently I've come to the conclusion that most Bitcoin faucets and free Bitcoin websites aren't worth the time it takes to visit them.  If your goal is to earn Bitcoins, spending time collecting a few Satoshi's from a faucets is a poor way to do it.  Even if you're a master level ninja at collecting from Bitcoin faucets, it currently takes 40,000 satoshi to equal 25 cents US.  I usually can't even collect half of that in a full hour of clicking on Bitcoin faucet sites.  So to me, visiting websites for the sole purpose of making perhaps 6-12 cents per hour is quite unappealing.

On the flip side, I still love playing online games... especially the mindless ones that are good time wasters.  And, since I'm going to play these type of games from time to time anyway, I might as well search out games where you earn free Bitcoins while you play.
In this case, the amount of free Bitcoins you can earn per hour is not as big a deal because it is not the main focus... it's more of a bonus for doing something you're gonna do anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still on a quest to Bitcoin Billions and am not above spending mind-numbing hours doing captcha's for a few Satoshi's.  But that's so I've got a nest egg to grow into something larger, and if I can build the nest egg by playing games instead of clicking pictures of mountains, then why not?

Free Bitcoin websites have gradually evolved over the past several years as webmasters compete to attract (and keep) visitors.  Part of this evolution is gaming websites that give free Bitcoins for playing games.  I'm not talking about the gambling or betting websites, rather, the free-to-play "casual" game sites, where you truly can earn free Bitcoins for playing games and risk nothing at all because they won't even accept deposits.

One such website is GameFaucet.com.  This site offers several silly little flash games that you can play and win free Bitcoins.  Most of the games are dumb, one or two are completely worthless (Flap Cat), but I've found the Bubble Shooter game is actually quite addicting.  It's the type of game I'll play whether or not I'm earning free Bitcoins, and that is precisely why I'm writing about this site now.
I don't even play the other games unless I'm really bored, but I'll play Bubble Shooter and gladly earn free Bitcoins while playing.

The site has another aspect which is addicting and annoying at the same time... You can upgrade to higher levels by spending Satoshi from your account.  Higher levels means an increased bonus payout for each game played and a decreased waiting time limit between playing games.  It's nice to get a bonus payout each time you play a game but each Satoshi spent upgrading your account is one less Satoshi you can put in your pocket now.  Upgrading to higher levels is definitely a long-term strategy as it will take a dump-load-o-time to break even.

In any case, if you're interested in a really easy way to earn free Bitcoins and like to play games online, check out GameFaucet.  And yes, the site is (seems) legit.  I haven't been playing on there long but so far they've paid out 50,000 Satoshi and it went straight to my FaucetBox.com account.  I'll do a better review on the site in a future post.

Stay tuned and keep earning Bitcoins!

AdSense Bans Bitcoin Faucet Websites - Deathblow to Faucet Owners' Revenue

It appears as though Google AdSense is cleaning house, banning many free Bitcoin faucet websites for violating their terms of service.  While I haven't looked into the matter fully, I assume it has something to do with not allowing websites that reward visitors (whether or not it is an incentive to click ads).

Whatever the reasons, many Bitcoin faucets are running dry as their owners scramble to find other ways to monetize their websites, offer free Bitcoins, and stay profitable.  For many faucets, AdSense was their main (or only) source of income, and to lose it is a deathblow.

One faucet that's already closed the doors is Donaldcoin.com, mentioned in a previous post on this blog.  It's too bad, I've earned thousands of satoshi's from that site, but I think they might have had more shady ad violations than other sites and either way, the owners have shut it down.

Another site recently banned from AdSense is FaucetGame.com (and their sister site, GameFaucet.com).  FaucetGame.com has removed their faucet and drastically reduced payouts on the games.  GameFaucet.com has taken similar measures.  While both sites continue to operate for now, it'll be interesting to see if they can survive without revenue from AdSense.

So I think Google has made it clear that free Bitcoin faucets aren't allowed on the AdSense network.  This will mean lots of changes for existing faucets and Bitcoin faucets in the future, although it's tough to say to what extent it will go.

Only time will tell but it will be interesting to watch and see.

Top Five Ways to Make Money and Earn Bitcoins with Pokemon Go

It’s a worldwide phenomenon that nobody heard of a week ago. Heck, even after hearing about Pokemon Go multiple times from many people over several days, I still didn’t know what it was. I had to Google it. :-)

By now you’ve at least heard about Pokemon Go, even if you’re like me and don’t know what all the fuss is about. In a nutshell, Pokemon Go is an App. It’s a game for your cell phone. You wander around looking for funny little creatures (Pokemon) to capture so you can level up and find more funny little creatures so you can level up again. Yup, that’s what all the fuss is about.

But this game has a clever twist… it uses the cell phone’s GPS to find your location and map your surroundings within the game then places game objectives, random Pokemon, etc on the map so you are forced to traverse the real world if you want to go anywhere in the game. You can play while going about your everyday activities, or plan a real world activity to a destination that corresponds with an objective in the game. The phone will even vibrate when you are near a Pokemon or game objective, constantly reminding you there’s no need to pay attention to driving or other real world activities.

People old and young love the game, they can’t get enough of it. You have the challenge of collecting Pokemon mixed with friendly competition, in-game rewards, and a playful sense of treasure hunting and adventure.

The popularity of Pokemon Go has soared so fast that droves of entrepreneurial types are taking advantage of all the hype and earning real cash (and/or Bitcoins) in the process. Here are a few of the ways I’ve seen people making money with the Pokemon craze…

• Pokemon Go Drivers – I’ve seen more than a handful of people offering to drive others around (for an hourly fee) so the passengers can play the game in the real world without having to deal with silly real world stuff. Typical Wage: $10-20/hr.

• Pokemon Go Players – So you want to play the game, but don’t want to play it? Why not pay someone else to play it for you? Now you can and YES, this is a real thing! People are paying others $10 per hour or more to play the game for them. The players will log into your account and wander around their own town, collecting Pokemon for you and increasing your character’s level. I’ve seen more than one parent eagerly hire Pokemon Go Players to help boost their son or daughter along.

• Make posts on new Pokemon Websites, Get Paid in Bitcoin! – Bitcointalk.org is a great place to find a few webmasters looking to pay people to join their new Pokemon Forums and post relevant topics. If you like to post to forums and wanna talk Poke-whateves, this is an easy way to make some Bitcoin.

• Make Pokemon Go Related Videos and Monetize Them – One way to ride the coattail of this gravy train is make a video even remotely related to Pokemon Go then monetize it on YouTube. A quick search there will show the popularity is at a fever pitch, meaning it should be pretty easy to hop along for the ride.

• Write a Pokemon Go Related Blog Post and Monetize It – Um… kinda like the blog post you’re reading right now… except I haven’t really figured out the whole money thing yet. But seriously, it’s a huge craze and if you want traffic to your blog (like I want traffic to my blog), then maybe posting about Pokemon is worth a shot…

So now that you’re “in the know” on Pokemon Go, I’m not sure if you should thank me or curse me.

I’m sorry and you’re welcome.

Bitcoin 10-Day Price Chart - BULLISH Pattern for July 18th, 2016

Current BTC Price as of this writing:  $675.77 USD (Coinbase.com)

I just ran a 10-day Bitcoin price chart and am happy to see a nice bullish pattern emerge with the STRONG POSSIBILITY of a PRICE INCREASE over the next 24-36 hours.

As long as the support level holds, it appears as though upper resistance will be tested again, meaning the price could pop up to the $685-$690 range.

The relative strength is right where it needs to be for such a move to occur, and the slow stochastic just had a bullish crossover (I've pointed out the previous three crossovers in blue and tagged a vertical line through the approximate price at each crossover.  From the chart below, you can see exactly what happen after these crossovers occur (the price moves up).

Nothing in trading or investing is guaranteed, so I urge you to do your own research before risking anything, but by the same token, let's hope this latest crossover will repeat the upward trend.

Chart courtesy of http://bitcoincharts.com.
Additions are my own and released under the same license as the chart.  Info below.

 10-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 2 Hour Intervals

This chart (with my additions) is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Please link back to me and BitcoinCharts.com if you use it.  Thanks!

References:

• Bitcoincharts.com - Source of price chart, pre-modifications
• Coinbase.com - Current Bitcoin price

Using the Power of Compound Interest to Invest and Grow Your Bitcoins

There's a classic thought experiment in the investing world that goes something like this...  If I were to offer you a choice between receiving $1 million dollars today or a single penny that will double in value every day for the next 30 days, which would you choose?  I'd take the million bucks, at least until knowing better.  What about you?

If you took the penny and doubled the value every day for an entire month, the results start out lackluster at best but then quickly become astounding... you would be a millionaire multiple times over within 30 days!  Here's how it breaks down...

That's the power of compound interest!  Of course, this example is insanely exaggerated and the chance of consistently doubling your money every day forever probably willl never happen but there are a couple very noteworthy lessons here.

The first point to remember is that when you choose a profitable investment, your money WILL GROW OVER TIME.  It takes a long, long time, but if left alone, you will end up with quite a bit more money than when you started.

Second, the amount of time this takes can be significantly reduced AND the final dollar value can be significantly increased with one simple principal... by earning some form of cash flow (interest, dividends, etc) from your investment and immediately re-investing those profits.  When this is done, you earn interest on your interest, and the results start compounding as in the example above.  The more often you receive and re-invest profits, the faster your money will grow.

Third, and just as important, is the amount of time it takes before the full effects of compounding interest start to surface.  In the example above, we see that after an entire week of money doubling, we've managed to grow our penny to a whopping 64 cents.  Pocket change, quite literally.  After two weeks, we're still well under $100, and the $10,485 made after week 3 seems a far cry from the $1,000,000 turned down on day 1.  But then something magical starts to happen and in another 4 days our money has increased over 15 fold!  From there it gets a little silly as the money grows so fast we have trouble keeping up with it.
The point is this... the hardest and most time consuming part of growing an investment through compound interest is building up a respectable nest egg in the first place.  Imagine you started the example above with $10,000, instead of starting with a penny.  It would only take 7 days to become a millionaire.  That's over 4 times faster to reach the same goal and the only thing that changed is the amount of money we started with.

I could keep rambling about the benefits (and pitfalls) of compound interest but this article would never get finished.  Instead, let's see how the ideas above can be applied to investing with Bitcoins in order to make your Bitcoins earn more Bitcoins.

There are countless ways to "invest" your Bitcoins, some are legit, quite a few are not.  One method of investing with Bitcoins is to lend your Bitcoins to someone else for a length of time and then earn interest on the loan.  It can be risky, but there are companies that will mediate the loans and help alleviate some (or all) of the risk.
So it's possible to loan out your extra Bitcoins and make money for doing so.  Then, to do it again, only this time you make money on a bigger pile of money.  The next time you make more money on an even bigger pile of money, and on and on and on.  It just takes time, patience, and discipline.

Over the past couple weeks I've been playing with a couple sites that allow you to loan/invest Bitcoins in this way.  Yes, my profits are starting out small, but I am re-investing ALL of them along with the principal, and I'm repeating the process as often as possible, all while protecting the initial investment.

Now that you've got a primer on the power of compound interest and see how it can be applied to generating Bitcoins, the next article will cover some of the Bitcoin lending services I've tried and my thoughts on the best ways to earn compound interest by lending out your Bitcoins.

Until then, keep letting those pennies add up!

How to Make Thousands of Free Satoshi Daily From a Single Website

Earn Thousands of Free Satoshi Daily from this Website

UPDATE: Sept. 6th, 2016
DonaldCoin.com has shut down due to being banned from AdSense.  Please check my newer posts for websites still giving away free Bitcoins.  The original article follows...

In my quest to find ways to make millions and billions of dollars with Bitcoin, one area that interests me is Bitcoin Faucets – websites that give away small amounts of free Bitcoins on a regular basis, usually a set schedule. Sites that frequently give free Bitcoins will often pay very small amounts each time while sites that pay more will usually do so less frequently.

If you want to earn free bitcoins from websites, it's important to use your time wisely and find the websites that will give you the most Satoshi for the least amount of hassle.

I'm putting together a list of high paying free Bitcoin websites and will publish it in the coming weeks but in the meantime, I found a great site that gives away free Bitcoin! It's easy to use and only takes a little time to earn several thousand satoshi every day.

The site is called DonaldCoin.com and offers a self-replenishing Bitcoin faucet along with several links and “games” that allow you to collect free Satoshi just by logging in and clicking on a few things. There is also a Daily Bonus with a semi-random payout of around 230-350 Satoshi that can be collected every 24 hours. The site also lets you earn/find “gold coins” that can be spent on account upgrades like increased faucet capacity and decreased wait time, or they can even be traded for bundles of free Satoshi.

All Satoshi/Bitcoin earned on the site are stored in a Scrooge McDuck style vault, waiting to be withdrawn to your account on Faucetbox.com or directly to a Bitcoin Address/Wallet. So far I have withdrawn just over 20,000 Satoshi to Faucetbox and they came through quickly and easily and have since been deposited on a Bitcoin paper wallet that I'll use to help fund new projects in the near future.

How Much Money Will I Make?

That depends on how much time you want to spend on the site and how many times you want to visit in a day. If you spend more time clicking links and visit more often, you will earn more Bitcoin, it's that simple.

But that's not a very good answer so here's a breakdown of potential earnings...

The free Bitcoin faucet generates a set amount of Bitcoin every hour, up to a pre-determined capacity. For my free account, they pay 240 Satoshi every hour, up to a maximum of 400 Satoshi each time I visit and collect free coins. This means that if I visit the site once every two hours, I can collect 400 Satoshi on each visit. If I was able to do this 24 hours a day, I would earn over 4,800 free Satoshi every day from the Bitcoin faucet alone.

But that's not really possible, most of us have to sleep at some point and we've also got other stuff to do throughout the day. A more realistic earnings projection is provided below.

Daily Bonus = Free Bitcoins Every Day

Once every 24 hours, DonaldCoin gives you a Daily Bonus in the range of 230-350 Satoshi. For simplicity, we will say the Daily Bonus averages to 275 Satoshi/day, I don't think this is far from the real average. So along with the 400 free Satoshi earned from every visit (mentioned above), you can also get a couple hundred extra Satoshi every day.

Explore/Free “Gold Coins”

Along with the Daily Bonus, DonaldCoin also offers an “Explore” section. This is just a treasure map image with hidden links that you click on. Click 3-4 links and earn a “gold coin”. The gold coins are also awarded randomly when you collect from the free faucet or daily bonus. Coins can be spent to upgrade your account or get even more free Satoshi. For the sake of this article, we will assume you can earn 5 gold coins in 4 days (1 coin each day plus a random one from the daily bonus or Bitcoin faucet. The 5 gold coins can be traded at the DonaldCoin store for 800 Satoshi (among other items), meaning that this is an extra 200 or so Satoshi every day.

There are more ways to earn even more Bitcoin on the site but I'll save that for a full write-up and review that will be posted soon. For this article, let's focus on quickly making a couple thousand extra Satoshi every day, and be happy with that (for now).

How to Earn Free Satoshi/Bitcoin – Step by Step

Now that you've got a brief overview, here's a step-by-step process to earn extra Bitcoin every day along with approximate earnings expectations...

Step 1

Action: Visit DonaldCoin.com 3-5 times per day to collect Satoshi from the free faucet. You can visit once in the morning, once before bedtime, and then one or more times during the day when you are bored and have nothing better to do. If you stagger the visits throughout the day, you can collect 400 Satoshi from the faucet with each visit and will see that it adds up quickly for very little effort.

Time Involved: 1-2 minutes per visit (including time to log in), most likely less ~ 10 minutes/day

Rewards/Payout: 400 Satoshi per visit x 3 to 5 visits = 1,200 to 2,000 Satoshi per Day

Step 2

Action: During one of your daily visits from Step 1, you will be able to collect the Daily Bonus by clicking a link once you're logged in. Just watch the Daily Bonus banner at the top of your account page and collect it every time it is active.

Time Involved: Less than 1 minute if done in conjunction with Step 1

Rewards/Payout: ~230-350 Satoshi = 275 Satoshi Average per Day

Step 3

Action: A “gold coin” can be collected every 24 hours, just like the Daily Bonus. When you collect the Daily Bonus from Step 2, it's a good idea to collect a gold coin if you can. It doesn't take much extra time and the coins can be traded for Satoshi on the site.

Time Involved: Less than 2 minutes when done in conjunction with Step 1 & Step 2 above

Rewards/Payout: Varies. I collect 5 coins and trade them for 800 Satoshi, which takes 3-5 days and equates to about 200 free Satoshi per day.

Step 4 - (Optional)

Action: Click other links on the site when you're bored. Steps 1-3 just cover the quick and easy ways to earn the most Bitcoins from DonaldCoin on a consistent daily basis but there are several other ways to get extra Satoshi if you want to click links and spend more time on the site. These will be covered in more detail in a future article.

Step 5 - (Optional)

Action: Promote DonaldCoin using the Affiliate/Referral system. This doesn't really fall into the “quick and easy” theme of this article but it is worth mentioning because passive income is a key component to becoming wealthy and is my all-time favorite way to make money. It takes a lot of time and effort up-front to build up referrals and start making money from your efforts but it can prove very profitable. Put in the effort once, earn money time and time again with no further commitments.

The referral system at DonaldCoin pays you every time one of your referrals collects free Bitcoin from the site. Once you've referred someone, you're done... You just sit back and hope they keep collecting free money because every time they earn Bitcoin, you do too. Referral/Affiliate programs aren't all roses and gravy but it is definitely worth mentioning and passive income should be a long term goal of everyone looking to make insane amounts of money.

Total Expected Earnings: ~1,675 to 2,475 Satoshi Daily - Potentially More

If we leave out Step 4 and 5 and just focus on Steps 1-3 (collecting free Satoshi), we can expect to make somewhere around 1,700 – 2,500 Satoshi per day for only a few minutes of time. Spend less time, make less. Spend more time, make more. Sure, it's not a fortune, but it is consistent and free and anyone with a couple minutes and an internet connection can do it.

Since finding the site, I've been visiting and collecting free Bitcoin every day and I definitely don't spend much time there but the money is definitely real. I just collect the free coins when I'm bored or think about it and so far I've made around 25,000 Satoshi for very little effort.

Sure, that's not much (currently about 16 cents, US) but it is something for (almost) nothing and the real key for me is this helps build up a bankroll which I can invest and grow my bitcoins and eventually get rich in the process. I wish the same for you.

Until next time, Happy Bitcoin Hunting!

Bitcoin Price Charts - July 2016, 3 Days After Block Reward Halving

The Bitcoin price has been in a sideways squeeze for a few weeks now, trading in a comparatively tight range.  With the hype over the block reward halving dying down, we may be set for a move in the Bitcoin price.  Here are the current 10-day and 5-day Bitcoin price charts along with the usual technical indicators and my own markups for support and resistance levels.  It looks like we could see a minor bounce upward in the week ahead, although overhead resistance is not far from the current support level (and they are converging quickly).

The 10-day chart does show a few good bullish signs, including a shift in the support slope, moving average crossover and improvement, and two recoveries after breaking support.  Also, StochRSI (an indicator of relative strength) shows that the market is likely oversold in the short-term which could mean the price will move upward to test resistance levels.

This week is tough to gauge as there is no definite trading pattern that I see and the price is still just kinda bouncing sideways.  So please look the charts over and form your own opinion.  My recommendation for this week... watch the support and resistance levels, look for the price to test upper resistance, and otherwise sit on the sidelines and wait for the market to decide where it's going.

Charts courtesy of http://bitcoincharts.com with my own personal additions.  License info below.

5-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 1 Hour Intervals

 10-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 2 Hour Intervals

These charts (with my additions) are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Please link back to me and BitcoinCharts.com if you use them.  Thanks!

Bitcoin Mining Reward Cut in Half – July 9th, 2016 – What this Means for Bitcoin's Future

The virtual currency Bitcoin hit another milestone a couple days ago when the reward for generating new Bitcoins was cut in half. Previously, when a new block was generated, the miner (or mining pool) responsible for generating the new block was awarded 25 Bitcoins for the efforts. Now with the reward halving come and gone, the same amount of effort produces only half the rewards, 12.5 Bitcoins (it actually takes more effort now as the difficulty for solving a block increased at the same time the reward decreased).

All of this and the Bitcoin price remains relatively flat, trading around $650 USD per Bitcoin as of this writing.

Many expected the price of Bitcoin to double when the reward was cut in half, and in many aspects, this makes a lot of sense. After all, the electricity cost and maintenance/upkeep of mining equipment hasn't changed – it still costs roughly the same to generate a new Bitcoin block, but since the reward is less, the price should be more to compensate, right? Well, maybe, maybe not.

Let's rewind to the end of last year when talk of the Summer 2016 Bitcoin halving first started hitting a fever pitch. At the time, Bitcoin was trading at $300-350 each and mining enthusiasts were snatching up and setting up Bitmain's Antminer S7 just as fast as they could.

Since then, the price HAS doubled. And for the last several weeks the price of Bitcoin seems stuck at approximately double the price of Q3-Q4 just last year.

So has the doubling in price already happened and we just missed it because it was slow and gradual and happened over months instead of overnight? Or is the price increase of the previous months just a glimpse of what is to come? At this point it is still too early to say, and the Bitcoin markets appear indecisive with most traders still sitting on the sidelines.

As mentioned in my previous posts, the Bitcoin price is being squeezed sideways. It'll move up a little or down a little, there's some panic selling here and some fickle buying efforts there, but overall the price is just kinda bouncing along in a sideways trading range with signs of trepidation and indecision. I don't know what the market is doing and I don't think it knows yet either. Hopefully a better trading pattern will emerge soon.

Is Now a Good Time to Invest in Bitcoin?

One recurring theme that has been popping up along with the reward halving chatter, is whether or not now is a good time to buy and/or invest in Bitcoin. Those bullish on Bitcoin say that it is now more rare than ever and more difficult to earn new Bitcoins. Those who are bearish on Bitcoin say the market is in a bubble, is too fickle/volatile, and that whales are waiting to dump their Bitcoin hoards and beat the price down.

Both Bitcoin bears and bulls have valid arguments, but the Bitcoin markets and price are on the fence so until that changes, I'm on the fence and undecided as well.

Points to Consider Before Buying or Selling Bitcoin in Today's Market

Before dumping your life savings into Bitcoin or trading your hard earned coins for cash, here are a few points to consider:

• In the last several years, the price of Bitcoin has been much higher than it is today, with a stretch of time in the $1,000+ range.
• In the last several years, the price of Bitcoin has been much lower than it is today, substantially lower. The market is volatile, offering high risks and high rewards. Don't invest more in Bitcoin than you can afford to lose.
• With recent events, Bitcoin markets remain undecided in a sideways holding pattern. Indecisive markets can mean big swings up or down... Making an investment decision right now means significantly higher risks, but also potentially huge rewards.
• It will take time for the full effects of the reward halving to be felt. New blocks (and Bitcoins) are generated approximately every 10 minutes while maintenance and electricity bills are usually paid on a bi-monthly or monthly basis.
• If the Bitcoin price doesn't go up soon, entire hordes of mining equipment will either be operating at a loss or taken offline due to an inability to run profitably. This would lead to a DECREASE in the difficulty of generating a new Bitcoin block, or at least keep the difficulty relatively flat for one or more adjustment periods.
• Antminer recently released their newest SHA-256 ASIC miner, the S9. This miner offers a huge leap in efficiency and mining power and is being unleashed in bulk on the mining community. As more S9's come online (as well as next gen miners from other companies), more Bitcoins will be generated quicker until the difficulty rises to slow them down. Yet another factor playing on the Bitcoin price.

At this point it's tough to say exactly what will happen with Bitcoin's future but one thing's for certain, Bitcoin use is increasing worldwide and it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Bitcoin Price Charts - 5 Days Before Reward Halving

With most of us groggily heading back to work after a long weekend of celebrating America's independence, it's anybody's guess what may or may not happen in the Bitcoin markets in the week ahead.  Tuesday may be a bog of indecision as we fight relentless hangovers and struggle to get back to "the daily grind".  Or tomorrow may prove explosive, the Markets never seem to leave any possibility out.

According to BitcoinBlockHalf.com, we have just under 5 days until the dreaded "Bitcoin Halving" occurs.  That is, the reward for successfully generating a new block will be cut in half from 25 Bitcoins to 12.5 Bitcoins per block once another ~600 new blocks are generated.  The estimated date of the reward halving is July 9th, 10:50 AM Eastern time, but this will change depending on how quickly the next six hundred blocks get mined.

Sometimes it'd be wonderful (and profitable) to see the future: Where's Marty McFly and the Doc when you need them?  Unfortunately, nobody knows for sure what's going to happen to the price of Bitcoin leading up to (and after) the reward halving.  But to help you make an informed decision, I've generated a few prices charts and posted them below.  It's interesting to note the similarities and differences between the 2-day, 5-day, and 10-day charts, showing possible trends in the coming hours and days.

Charts courtesy of http://bitcoincharts.com with my own personal additions.  License info below.

2-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 30-Minute Intervals

5-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 1 Hour Intervals

 10-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 2 Hour Intervals

These charts (with my additions) are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Please link back to me and BitcoinCharts.com if you use them.  Thanks!

Bitcoin Price Chart w/Technical Indicators - June 2016

With about 3 weeks left before Bitcoin block rewards are cut in half, the price of Bitcoin is slowly getting squeezed into a wedge, possibly forcing something big (up or down) in the near future.

If you've followed crypto-currencies for any length of time, you already know the Bitcoin community has been livid over the decreasing block rewards for months now, even before last Christmas.  The community as a whole has been scrambling to mine and hoard as many Bitcoin as possible leading up to the halving a few weeks from now.

This hoarding has helped drive the price of Bitcoin upwards from ~$350-450 levels, more than doubling the price until the recent pullback to the $650 range.

What happens next is anybody's guess.  I personally thought the hype alone would keep pushing the price higher, longer but it seems the calm before the storm is already here.

The question on my mind now is this: Which side will have the most influence on the BTC price in the coming weeks... The hype surrounding the pending reward halving and scramble to gather more Bitcoin?  Or those on the sidelines who have been collecting Bitcoin for months now and will be looking to cash in (and possibly hammer the price) in the near future?  I guess we'll find out soon enough.

In the meantime, here's a current Bitcoin price chart for the past 30 days, along with my own markups to show approximate support and resistance levels and a few useful technical indicators.

Chart courtesy of http://bitcoincharts.com with my own personal additions

This chart is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

One thing to keep in mind when looking at price charts is your investment time frame.   The chart above doesn't do you much good if you're a day trader.  On the same lines, the 6-month chart looks quite a bit different (with it's own set of buy/sell indicators), as does the 10-day, 5-day, hourly charts, etc.

Bookmark this site and check back often as more charts, indicators, and analysis will be posted shortly.


References:

• Coinbase.com - Current BTC Price (USD)
• Bitcoincharts.com - Bitcoin Price Charts

MinerGate.com Review – Mine the Most Profitable Altcoins with this CPU and GPU Mining Pool

Since my computing power and money resources are limited, I’ve been searching for a profitable way to cpu mine altcoins and haven’t had much luck until now.

MinerGate.com is a cross-platform, profit switching mining pool that allows you to CPU mine or GPU mine the most profitable altcoins easier than ever no matter which computer operating system you are using.  The MinerGate mining software is available for Windows PCs, MacOS, Linux, and Unix, and they even have a CPU mining app for Android smart phones in the Google Play store.  With MinerGate, you don’t have to worry about which mining software to use or getting the settings right for each separate coin, they do this all for you… automatically.

The multi-pool allows you to mine popular altcoins like Ethereum, Monero, Bytecoin, Dashcoin, etc.  You can even mine Bitcoin or Litecoin if you like, although chances are they won’t be nearly as profitable to mine as the other crypto-currencies.  So what, you say?  There’s a ton of profit switching mining pools out there, you say?  Yes, I absolutely agree and have tried them myself and have to conclude that MinerGate.com shines beautifully where other CPU mining multi-pools have failed.

In a nutshell, MinerGate is easier to use and more profitable than all of the other CPU mining pools I’ve tried.  It only takes a couple minutes from the time you first visit their site to the time you’re mining away, and starting to make money!  It really is that quick and easy.
Usually, when you want to CPU or GPU mine any crypto-coin at most any pool, they only offer minimal help when it comes to installing and using mining software to work with their pool (and for the type of crypto-coin you want to mine).  MinerGate flips this concept on its head by offering their own mining software for free that is already configured and set to start mining altcoins as soon as its installed.

Smart Mining
The mining software has a nice feature called “Smart Mining” where it will automatically mine the most profitable cryptocurrency at any given time (from the list of coins that they support).  When mining in this mode, the software will automatically switch mining to whichever altcoin can be converted into the most Bitcoins at the current exchange rate.

Single Coin Mining
This is great for those of us who want an easy way to CPU or GPU mine our favorite coin and aren’t so concerned with always switching to whatever coin can be sold for the most at that minute in time.
A lot of people interested in Monero (XMR) or Etherium (ETH) choose this option and mine only that coin.  Single coin mining is especially useful for anyone new to Cryptocurrencies who wants to give it a shot on a cool new coin without much investment or risk.

Benchmark Your Mining Rig
Whether you’re CPU or GPU mining, there are several little interesting features including a Benchmark area where you can test your computer’s hardware to see how it compares with others.  I knew my laptop was old and decrepit but my benchmark results kinda feel like rubbing salt in a wound.   https://minergate.com/b/1bf71646bd70eaf30baff0b852092be435747ff8

Achievements
Just to keep things entertaining and provide little rewards for using the mining software, there is an Achievements area where badges are earned for completing challenges.  The software claims that you get a “MinerGate prize” after unlocking all achievements but I haven’t got this far yet so I don’t know what the prize is or if it is any good.

Integrated Wallets
Each altcoin that you mine (or fractions of coins) will show up in the Wallets area.  This section definitely needs work (at least the Linux version).  If you show too many coins here at once, they just run off the bottom of the screen and you have no idea what those coins are or if you have mined any.  You can select which coins to show in the “View” menu but it is a cumbersome process, especially if you want to view balances for more than 5 or 6 coins at a time.
The work-around… use the mining software for mining, and the website for analyzing account balances, wallets, and other stats.

MinerGate also offers a sort of auto-exchange called Changelly where you can easily convert one crypto-currency into another.  There is a 0.5% fee for doing this and I haven’t cross-checked their exchange rates with other altcoin exchanges so can’t say a whole lot more yet.

Withdraws
From the website you can withdraw/send any of the altcoins you’ve mined to another address (instead of leaving them in the pool’s wallet or converting directly to Bitcoins).  I’ve talked to many others who’ve had successful withdraws here and reputable members who recommend the site but again I can’t post my thoughts until my account has built up enough where cashing out is an option.

That’s all for now but please check back often as I’m adding more and more to this site and will update this post with anything new.

Feel free to post in the comments if you’ve had success (or problems) with MinerGate.com

How to Earn Free Bitcoins by Playing Games Online

With the Bitcoin price hovering above $650 ($667.02 as I write this), there’s a renewed interest in Bitcoins and ways to earn more of them. And for many people, Bitcoin faucets (sites that give away small amounts of free bitcoins) are becoming more and more of a viable option. I plan on devoting an entire section of this site to Bitcoin faucets including FAQs and guides on how to collect free Bitcoins from them. But for now the goal is to start earning Bitcoins right away and the quickest and easiest way I know of to do that is by visiting the best paying Bitcoin faucets.

This article covers the highest paying free Bitcoin website that I’ve come across so far, and it happens to be quite addicting as well.

It’s called FaucetGame.com. You can collect up to 250 free Satoshi every 15 minutes and play games to win credits (which can be converted to Bitcoins later). There is no cost to join but you do have to register an account which requires an email, Bitcoin address for payouts, and a username and password. Once registered, you can start collecting free Satoshi right away. They have a faucet that will give you Satoshi every 15 minutes, along with several casino type games where credits can be wagered, lost, and won.

Free Bitcoin Faucet

The first place you’ll want to go is the free Bitcoin faucet. This faucet pays very well when compared to other sites and the site layout is clean and easy to navigate so trying to collect free coins isn’t a chore. Banner ads are present but not obnoxious or invasive and collecting free Satoshi requires little more than clicking to verify you’re human. The faucet gives you a set amount, up to 250 free Satoshi every 15 minutes (the payout increases as you level up and increases even more on the weekends).

Here’s the catch…

The faucet payouts are rewarded as credits to your account, but no worries, the credits can be converted back to Satoshi and paid out in Bitcoins as soon as you reach the minimum payout (currently 50,000 Satoshi).

I believe the reason they convert payouts to credits is so that you can play the casino games with these credits, win (or lose) more credits, convert what’s left into Bitcoins, and it’s still not a gambling website and doesn’t fall under any online gambling laws. It’s completely free to play and costs nothing more than your time. And hey, you get to earn free Bitcoins by playing games.

Earn Free Satoshi by Playing Games

FaucetGame claims that the majority of their games are rigged in the player’s favor and after spending some (a good deal of) time on the site, I’ll agree that most of the games are rigged to let you win. Check back in the near future for a full guide on the games and ways to increase your payouts and earn more money.

If you’re brand new, “Falling Fortunes” has the lowest risk of losing credits so you might want to play it first. Wheel of Wealth and Slot Machines are other good ones to play when starting. Also, be very careful playing Roll of Chance (ROC) since changing the payout multiplier changes the odds and the allure of high payouts has caused many players to go broke.

Free Bonus Satoshi!

We’re not done yet. You can earn thousands of bonus Satoshi every single day and this is the number one reason FaucetGame ranks in the top free Bitcoin sites on the web. Let me repeat that… THOUSANDS of bonus Satoshi every single day. And it’s easy to do.

Daily Bonus

Play 5 of the games a set number of times (210 plays total) and collect the Daily Bonus Bitcoins. The bonus is multiplied by your player level so it starts off just ok but quickly becomes lucrative as you play the games and level up. You can easily start earning 1,000-1,500 Satoshi every day from this bonus alone.

Make it Rain!

While playing games you have the option of chatting with other players who are on at the same time. Each chat message you send costs 100 credits that goes into a Rain Pool. Every hour this pool rains free money on randomly selected chat participants. You won’t be rained on every time this happens, but it’ll happen enough to make it worthwhile and make you want to keep coming back for more.

Weekend Bonus

Payouts from the free Bitcoin faucet and the Daily Bonus are increased on the weekends for even more earning potential.

Refer Other Players

The site has a referral program that will pay you free Satoshi every time one of your referrals collects from the faucet. The person you referred still gets the same payout as everyone else, but you collect a small bonus in addition to the amount they receive. And this happens every time they collect from the free faucet. Refer more people and/or active players and this could be a nice little source of passive Bitcoin income.

VIP

It costs money to become a VIP player but some of the perks include increased payouts and the ability to auto-play the casino games. The full list of perks is available at the site and while it might be tempting to upgrade right away, higher level members agree that it is best to wait until you are a higher level before upgrading… otherwise the out of pocket cost is not worth the rewards.

I don’t have further info on VIP because I am still a low level and only considering it. If I do upgrade to VIP, I’ll post here with the juicy details.

There’s plenty more to do and say regarding FaucetGame but hopefully this overview gave you a good starting point for earning free Bitcoins right away.

References

1. FaucetGame.com – Earn free Bitcoins playing games online

2. Coinbase.com – Used for current BTC price