Bitcoins

[Falstaff]

Ever had any issues (security or otherwise) allowing your PC to mine BC?

[ibanezfoo]

Ever had any issues (security or otherwise) allowing your PC to mine BC?

No but nowdays its SSSLLLOOOWWW to get anything. For your average computer you pay more in electricity than the bitcoins are worth...

[billofrights]

I tried setting it up once and it confused the hell out of me, so I gave up. I do network support for a university so it's not like I don't know anything about computers. Eventually I decided why bother.

[Nyanman]

Now, you need a dedicated (and expensive) computer to mine bitcoins.
At first, basic CPU based computers could mine, then it moved to GPU based computing systems (lots of video cards workign together, much like a supercomputer) and now, they are moving these specialized dedicated mining computers.
yes, they can mine even faster, but once the mining ends, the dedicated computer is useless. The GPU and CPU based ones can be sold as parts to gamers and other computer users, but the dedicated ones just mine bitcoins.
http://www.butterflylabs.com/products/ is examples of the new mining units, prices go from $149 to $29,899
Sadly, with bitcoins, to have made any money, you needed to start really early.
And then there is the reputation for what bitcoins get used for (drugs, etc.)

[cycle61]

So with bitcoin prices having gone from ~$14 at the beginning of the year to over $60 now, I'm glad I have my computer running a mining program whenever I'm not using it. Seriously considering one of those mining ASIC's, but they still seem to be mostly vaporware.

[billofrights]

I have a couple of boxes at work set up running the webpage based miner but I just haven't wrapped my head around how to set up my rig at home to do it. Downloaded the stuff but the settings all seem weird and esoteric.