I’ve gotten sick enough of my god-damned job and the whole nine-to-five shit-show that I’m looking for better ways to make some ca$h. Bitcoin mining is something I’ve been vaguely interested in for a while so I took the plunge, bought a video-card and taught myself how to mine. I made a few expensive mistakes along the way so I wrote this tutorial to save you some ass-pain. If you want to say “thank-you” then send me some bitcoins after you’ve made a few. My address is at the bottom of this post.

What the fuck is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a made-up digital currency that exists only on the internet. It runs on a decentralized, peer 2 peer network. There is no central authority that issues Bitcoins (BTC) into circulation. Rather, individuals all over the internet compete to issue BTC into circulation by using their computers to solve complex mathematical problems that require brute-force processing power. Whoever solves the problem first, a.k.a. “solving a block”, is rewarded with a certain number of BTC. This is called “mining”. If you want more specifics then read about it on wikipedia.

Bitcoin was the first of a number of crypto-currencies. If you want an idea of how many other competing currencies now exist, check out coinchoose.com, coinwarz.com and wheretomine.com.

Because Bitcoin was the first crypto-currency it is also the most well-established crypto-currency. Bitcoins currently have a US exchange rate of $125.00. They have been as high as $260.00. There are also a large number of online stores and services that accept BTC as payment.

Because Bitcoin is the most well established, and is practically synonymous with the phrase “crypto-currency”, I’ll start by showing you how to mine Bitcoins and then expand into how to mine other crypto-currencies, referred to as “altcoins”.

Source: smackedsalmon.wordpress.com