1. A post on Bitcoin Miner blog (@BitcoinMiner) describes how landlords are unwittingly becoming an integral part of a mining operation. Excerpts:

    “Never before has there been a cottage industry that simply monetizes electricity. Mining consumes power in a manner in which it can nearly directly be converted to cash.”
    “There is still a healthy market for this used GPU hardware from those operators whose electric costs are much lower and from those whose power consumption is included in their residential or commercial lease.”
    “This in effect transfers much of the cost of mining to the landlords who receive none of the benefit except, perhaps, in the greater likelihood that the mining operator pays the rent on time.”
    “While smart meters provide landlords with the technical ability to do utility submetering, rent controls and housing regulations often prohibit the use of submetering.”
    “Because Bitcoin mining is a 24/7 operation, it can easily represent half or more of a residence’s power consumption.”

    http://www.bitcoinminer.com/post/25945886269

    All News - Twitter: @BitcoinNews

     
  2. A post on Hack A Day features the first commercially available FGPA Bitcoin mining hardware.  An excerpt:

    “The board requires only 6.8 watts for 100 Mhashes/second, but [li_gangyi]‘s blog says the team expects to hit 150-200 Mhashes with some improvements”.

    A post on Bitcoin Miner further shares the details on this development.  An excerpt:

    “This board just brought FPGA mining one step closer to becoming a significant competitor to GPU mining.”

    http://www.bitcoinminer.com/post/9268040136
    http://bit.ly/qPMvZt (Post on Hack A Day)

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  3. A post on Bitcoin Miner blog describes a chart from BitcoinX showing the revenue that is produced each day per 100 MHash/s of mining capacity.  Excerpts:

    “Those hoping to pay off their rigs after a few months are going to be frustrated”.
    “Those who are more efficient or pay a low amount for electricity are still adding enough capacity to offset all those calling it quits”.
    “AMD has beefed up the production line for [the Radeon 6990] graphics cards and stocks of these cards will likely be getting replenished soon”.

    http://www.bitcoinminer.com/post/8772622463
    - http://bitcoinx.com/charts

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  4. Following an earlier article comparing various GPU hardware for Bitcoin mining, Ryan Shrout (@RyanShrout) of PC Perspective put out a power usage costs comparison:

    http://bit.ly/peoIMU (PC Perspective Power Usage article)
    http://bit.ly/qJDy9B (PC Perspective GPU mining comparison article)
    http://www.bitcoinminer.com/post/7596643656 (Additional commentary) 

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  5. Bitcoin News - Monday, May 23, 2011

    Monday, May 23rd, 2011

    • Article / Blog post:
      Bitcoin miners busted? by Darlene Storm in ComputerWorld blog
      “DEA Agent: We thought it was a major grow operation … but this guy had some kind of business involving computers”.
      http://bit.ly/l8hhRP
    • New site: TheBitcoin.US
      Provides a general overview of Bitcoin with links to the more popular components in several categories.
      http://thebitcoin.us
      http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/TheBitcoin.us
    • Video: 
      Twenty four rigs, 130 amps, custom exhaust hood - represents about 1% of the entire total of all mining occuring today.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5f_e4P6gMA
    • Article / Blog post:
      Report: Police Confuse Bitcoin Miner’s Power Use for Growing Weed by Jerry Brito (@JerryBrito) in TIME TechLand blog
      “Ubiquitous prosumer computing could well lead to false positives, not just for Bitcoin miners, but for hardcore gamers, [and others]”.
      - http://ti.me/iD8oIQ
    • Article / Blog post:
      Bit Players in The Daily online e-paper
      “It’s going to be somewhat difficult to convince people to leave ‘the dollar ecosystem’”.
      http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/05/23/052311-apps-technews-bitcoins-1-2/ 
    • New site and service: BTCRate.com
      Provides currency conversion between Bitcoin and other world currencies.
      - http://www.btcrate.com
      http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BTCRate.com 
    • Article / Blog post:
      Upcoming Changes For Mt. Gox in Bitcoin Money
      “Development and testing effort has been underway at Mt. Gox. An update is targeted for being rolled out at the beginning of June”.
      What’s coming: New currencies EUR, JPY. Iceberg orders. Full decimal trading. & More.
      http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/5765886176
    • New feature: YouTipIt
      YouTipIt escrow tipits to any Facebook User.
      - http://www.youtipit.org
      http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/YouTipIt#Escrow_Tipit
    • New website: Bitcoin Prices
      Provides exchange rates for bitcoins versus multiple foreign currencies.
      Choose from any of several exchange markets.
      - http://bitcoinprices.com
      http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Prices
    • Magazine: The Bitcoin Sun (2nd edition)
      ‘Specupreneurs’ and the Bitcoin Economy by Matt Crop
      “We [Bitcoin business entrepreneurs] double as speculators, since we willingly expose ourselves to the risk of the erosion of those profits by a decline in the value of Bitcoin in exchange for the opportunity to realize large gains should the currency appreciate.”
      The Bitcoin Island by Ploum
      The forum is full of people asking why they do not get any bitcoins. Sadly, most of the answers they receive explained them how to build mining rigs with expensive hardware, how to join pools”.
      Bitcoin, The Darknet Economy, And the Low Over-Head Revolution by Kevin Carson
      Despite my reservations, I consider Bit-coin to be grounds for enormous excitement”.
      Rain Droplet Interview by Matt Cropp
      “Our biggest accounts and most involved participants are Bitcoin users, and much of our feedback and new traffic come from the Bitcoin community”.
      - http://www.bitcoinservice.co.uk/files/877 (click reload page after visiting to get download)
    • Article / Blog Post
      Will Mining Bring The Police? in Bitcoin Miner
      “Looking only at the electric usage for the residence the consumption will look not much unlike the usage for a marijuana grow-op”.
      “[A Mission, BC bylaw allows police to] search people’s homes for grow ops if they are using more than 93 kWh of electricity per day”.
      -  http://www.bitcoinminer.com/post/5762837023

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  6. Bitcoin News - Friday, May 20, 2011

    Friday, May 20th, 2011

    • Bitcoin Economy Snapshot:
      1 BTC = $6.55 USD, Size: 6.27M BTC, Last 24h: 0.35M BTC in 4.8K trx, Difficulty: 244K, Forum posts/day: 2,018 Nodes: 1.9K
      - http://twitter.com/bitcoineconomy
    • Article / Blog post:
      Open Source FGPA Bitcoin Miner on Bitcoin Miner
      “The cost of the equipment and not the cost of electricity continues to be the primary concern affecting miner’s decision on whether or not to add capacity.”
      “When power consumption limits are a constraint, then the FPGA with its significantly higher power efficiency might be the only method to increase mining hashing capacity.”
      http://www.bitcoinminer.com/post/5672391181

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