The proliferation of Bitcoin ASICs over the last several months have brought on an incredibly rapid increase in the Bitcoin difficulty factor. If you run the numbers on the currently available Bitcoin ASICs you’ll find that you’re unlikely to make a return on your investment. In fact, purchasing one of these Bitcoin mining machines now is probably more likely to lose you money (with some possible exceptions for next-generation pre-orders). Still there are a number of hobbyists and Bitcoin enthusiasts looking to invest just a small bit in order to contribute to the Bitcoin network’s hashrate.

Bitcoin ASICs

For those new to Bitcoin, an ASIC is an Application Specific Integrated Circuit. Stated in layman’s terms, a small computer built specifically to mine Bitcoin and nothing else. They first came online earlier this year (2013) when Avalon ASIC shipped. Around the same time a company called ASICMiner began hashing away with their private group of Bitcoin miners. Later in the year ASICMiner made some of their ASICs available to the general public by selling two products. This article covers the ASICMiner Block Erupter, a USB device not much larger than your typical thumb drive that hashes at a speed of 330 MH/s on average. ASICMiner also manufactures and sells the ASICMiner Blade with a speed of around 10 GH/s.

Purchasing Block Erupters

ASICMiner only sells its Block Erupters and Blades in bulk which has led to a number of resellers popping up. I purchased my eight Block Erupters a week or so ago from BTCGuild.com for 0.19 BTC a piece. At the time of this writing BTCGuild lists them for 0.15 BTC a piece. There are also a number of individuals selling Block Erupters on Amazon and Ebay for various prices. Before it went down earlier this week, BitcoinTalk had quite a few merchants selling the hardware; it would likely be a good place to look if it comes back online. The best price I’ve found recently is through BitCanary. The BitCanary website lists a price of .17 BTC, but contact them directly through their site as I believe they currently offer a price of .105 BTC through BitcoinTalk or email ().

Setting Up Block Erupters

If you plan on running multiple Block Erupters, as many do, you’ll need a USB hub. Not just any hub will do however. You’ll need a powered USB hub and one that supplies enough power to run the Block Erupters. Cheaper powered hubs won’t provide enough power and will result in errors. Some miners report buying cheap 8-10 port hubs just to find that they can only run 3-4 Block Erupters. For my setup I chose a 9 port powered hub by Anker currently listed on Amazon for $59.99. While it is more expensive than other hubs with the same number of ports, it works well and will likely be used with future USB miners.

Source: cryptojunky.com