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I'm making like nothing off these guys and am looking to use them for something else. I guess these ASICs are designed for SHA-256 hash function based cryptocurrencies.

Try to mine Terracoin?

cryptocurrency list: http://dustcoin.com/

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5 Answers 5

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I use mine in "lottery mode" as I call it.

They don't really consume too much energy, so I just let them solo mine. Big chance will turn out to be nothing, but with some luck they will ever find a block and cash in 25 BTC.

How low the chance may be, it's still a lot higher than winning the ordinary lottery and way cooler :)

EDIT: A quick calculation of your odds.

The current (2014/01/24 23:07) chance of a hash to be a winning hash is 0.0000000000000000001061272725905534506860017351925762341. Then the odds of winning each day are for one block erupter USB of 330MH/s

0.0000000000000000001061272725905534506860017351925762341 * 330*10^6 * 60*60*24 = 1 / 330480.1

So one chance in 330,480 each day or one chance in 905 a year (of course, changing difficulty has to be taken into account).

Let's take the Powerball lottery as a reference as Earlz mentions, it has odds of one in 648,975.96 to win $10,000 one in 5,153,632.65 to win $1,000,000.

So, every day you have double the chance to win 25 BTC than you have to win $10k, which is less and costs you probably a dollar or two to enter.

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  • I computed the probability on something like this once and it is ridiculously low. I used CPU mining as the bitcoin lotto though. Basically, you have a significantly better chance at winning the powerball lottery than mining a single block with less than a few ghash/s
    – Earlz
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 21:47
  • Well, I believe you don't. I'll update the anwer shortly.
    – Steven Roose
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 22:06
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Unfortunately these small asics will eventually be useless unless you want to keep one or two around on the off-chance that you will want to start your own crypto-currency.

However, if you have a pile of 10-20 of them setting around, you could use them as an opportunity to teach people about Bitcoins and how the system operates.

Handing out erupters that you no longer need could be a good way to pique the interest of people who have heard of bitcoin, but have never taken a good look at it.

Other than educational purposes, or seeding new cryptos, I see no long-term use for these low hash power ASICs.

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  • This is good for really getting to know the bitcoin ecosystem, to experience all aspects. They could be passed from newbie to newbie. Maybe for a small fee :-)
    – Jonas Oestman
    Commented Oct 31, 2013 at 11:44
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There's piles of different coins to mine. Figure out which one is most profitable to mine: http://www.coinwarz.com

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Sell them to someone who wants the experience of mining but doesn't have much of a budget for the hardware. These are easy to package up and cheap to ship so this is a valid and worthy endeavor.

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You really should start to mine new alt-coin !!!

Look at my experience. I've mine ppcoin in merge pool for long period in 2012. I've got around 100k ppcoins. And I've sold it for month after mining. Not a big deal, 1-2 BTC for that time.

Now look at the price of ppcoin: 0.005 BTC, I may get 500 BTC today.

There are 100 alt-coins with the same algo sha256.

Another example, from current state: There was price 1 Satoshi 0.0000 0001 for the MOON coin ( scrypt ). It has been added to cryptsy, and now its price is 28 Satoshi. You can buy alt-coin before it will be added to cryptsy and in 100% get profit. In MOON scenario it is 2800 %. It is rocket!

You better take your hands and start to lurking for new potential good alt-coins with sha256 algo.

E.g. You can't get luck in solo with current sha256 alt-coins, check the pools, there is already great amount of asics. 99% of sha256 coins very rapidly come to the market. Because it is very easy to add similar coin to one bin.

  • github.com/zetacoin/zetacoin.git
  • github.com/bryan-mills/bytecoin.git
  • github.com/terracoin/terracoin.git
  • github.com/freicoin/freicoin/
  • github.com/asiccoin/asiccoin.git
  • github.com/Nameshar/Noirbits.git
  • github.com/tigercoin/tigercoin.git
  • github.com/Unthinkingbit/groupcoin
  • github.com/r3wt/OSC
  • github.com/joulecoin/joulecoin.git
  • github.com/maxxine/Tekcoin
  • github.com/thegreatoldone/Unobtanium.git
  • github.com/emarkproject/DEM.git
  • github.com/jmsanto123/NaanaYaM.git
  • github.com/chronokings/huntercoin
  • github.com/snowcoin/snowcoin
  • github.com/Sphere2013/GlobeCrypto
  • github.com/NKAKoin/IncaKoin
  • github.com/chicoin/chicoin

Every this coin you might start to mine with your block erupter.

But! Better, start to lurking for newest one, that have great Idea in the ground:

  • Fast block ( e.g. 30 seconds )
  • Dynamical difficulty ( unkillable alt-coins )
  • Cool name ( e.g. MOON, see like it flew )
  • Not yet added to the crypty ( ! ! ! ) ( it is optional )

Look at this super new alt-coin: Titcoin [TIT]

When you can hold your portfolio for the long period, e.g. half of year, you might meet the same situation that I observe with ppcoin, now. ( 500 BTC ~ half of million USD, just for merge mining. I didn't aim to this alt-coin ever, just mine this alt-coin by the way and sell, and lose this game... )

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