VietNamNet Bridge – One needs to spend at least hundreds of millions of dong to have the machines powerful enough to “dig” bitcoins and tens of millions of dong more every month to run the machines.

The high value of the bitcoin, VND19-20 million in the world and VND18.5-19 million in Vietnam, has made the bitcoin mining become a hot job.

Bitcoin, the kind of virtual currency, can be generated by algorithms and handled by the users’ peer-to-peer computing system. The data processing is called “mining.”

In principle, the computers that join the bitcoin mining must run continuously without interruption, while bitcoint would be created based on the working performance of the users’ machines, measured in Work Unit (WU) and converted into bitcoins.

Therefore, the most important thing bitcoin miners have to have is the system of computers with high capacity, high-end graphics card, high speed Internet transmission line and stable power (national electricity grid and backup generators).

This means that the total investment capital for the bitcoin mining instruments could be up to hundreds of millions of dong.

The machines of a group of three in Hanoi, installed in early 2012, have become well known among the bitcoin miners thanks to the huge investment sum of VND500 million.

The high end graphics card Radeon HD 7990 alone is dedicated to 15 computers, each of which costs VND20 million.

Especially, the bitcoin miners have to use a lot of electric fans to cool the system, put into a large room with air conditioners.

One of the three group members revealed that the electricity needed to run the mining system is worth millions of dong a month.

Nguyen Minh Duc, a senior executive of FPT, the largest Vietnamese technology group, has confirmed that he knows a lot of people who are willing to spend hundreds of millions of dong to buy machines for bitcoin mining.

Mining bitcoins has become a big gamble which is hoped to bring high profits. In theory, one needs to spend VND100 million on a computer system to mine bitcoins. If he is lucky, he can mine one bitcoin every week.

If noting that a bitcoin is valued at $1,000 currently, bitcoin miners would be able to take back the investment capital just after one month and then begin making profit.

N.Nguyen, an information technology engineer, who has been trading bitcoins for the last three years, said only the computers with very strong configurations can solve the algorithms to create the virtual currency.

“The normal computers currently used at offices and by individuals nearly cannot dig any bitcoin,” he said. “In order to make the computers stronger, one needs to equip the computers with a lot of graphics cards to take full advantage of the whole system.”

Nguyen began mining bitcoins in 2011, but he just “tries” to learn about the technology, while he does not spend all his efforts and money on the job, because it requires very heavy investment.

Also according to Nguyen, the majority of the Vietnamese bitcoin miners are not rich enough to buy powerful computers to serve the mining. They just take full advantage of their personal computers or the computers at the office or Internet cafes.

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