Okay, I'm not jumping into the craze, but was just curious about what it takes to setup Bitcoin mining nowadays. Apparently you can only mine with Bitcoin machines now? You can't setup a bunch of old computers and let them run? One of the websites I hit showed Bitcoin mining machines on Amazon running from $400 to $1200, with the $1200 machine estimated at mining only 0.3 coins/mo* while running at an electricity sucking 1500 watts.
Anyway, the only reason I was curious is because I have a couple of nettops laying around and this solar panel/battery kit I recently bought to experiment with. I thought one of the experiments could be running a couple of old, low wattage computers on solar as Bitcoin miners, even if they only mined 0.05 coins a month or something. They'd be running on free power, so it would be a cost free experiment. There's no way to do that with a Bitcoin machine without investing in a ton of solar panels and batteries.
It looks though, like there's no way to do that anymore. The last time I looked into it was years ago, when I think it was AZRedhawk who had setup some old servers to mine coins. That was probably five or more years ago though.
Though I thought this was an interesting article, in which the miner was more into heating his home than mining Bitcoins.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-miner-havent-paid-heat-three-years-143714695.html* Which I think is a very high estimate. From other sites, it appears mining on your own will get you way, way less coin per month. Apparently there are some kind of "mining conglomerates" where you group mine with a bunch of other people to actually have a chance at getting anything.
