I am about as far into it as you can be and still be a 'hobby'. My rigs got to the point where they were overloading the breakers in my house and I am now at the point where I installed separate circuits for them. (4 separate 20a circuits).
I really got into it towards the end of the year, and just got into it at right before the equipment became unavailable. (there is now a worldwide shortage on the AMD cards to mine with). I have had cards backordered since early Jan that at best MAY come in April. Cards (if you can get them), have gone up 40%. But mostly, you can not even buy them.
Litecoin is a scrypt based coin so it requires memory to mine. It is the reason you must still use GPU's. The litecoin network has a lot of improvements over bitcoin and it poised to really take off after it is acceptedon to some Fiat exchanges (which is rumored to be happening soon).
I stopped at 4 rigs which I built myself. I have them all networked in and I run them virtually. I thought about building more, but you just cant get the equipment. Also, if I went bigger, I would run into more electrical issues.
My current rigs generate about 1700/month and use about 330 a month in electricity. What I am really counting on is Litecoin going up in value. Then the payoff will be pretty big. My goal is to have between 800 and 1000 coins by years end, but you never know. I am just over 200 now.
Here are some pics of my setup
LK....think about it. We are now in the information age.
The whole thing is pretty nuts. But if you look at history, some of the things that are the largest innovations, often seem crazy when they first come out.
The idea of a digital currency that govts cant control and manipulate makes it quite a target....but it also makes it very attractive. The power is in the whole....and it cant be manipulated, or cheated. Some BIG names in the finance industry are hopping on board and a quick google search will pull up all kinds of info.
There IS value in the network itself. Using an example of gold having value regardless as it has been a prized commodity for ages. Given it's scarcity and demand, it has value.
Same with bitcoin. The demand comes from what it can do. You can send and exchange currency independent of ANY bank in a 100% secure manner. (no one can ever steal or counterfeit a bitcoin). The ENTIRE network (1,000,000's of computers would have have to be hacked as the network knows where each and every coin should be)
This currency is 100% market driven. No govt intervention, no inflation...etc. In fact, it is the opposite.
So what value is there in a network where you can instantly (in a 100% secure manner) exchange currency over a phone, computer...even an email. This is non traceable and 100% secure.
We live in the information age and are still using a currency system based on mortgage backed securities. (which is manipulated all the time and worth less and less every day).
So although I believe this will be slow to catch on.....I think eventually as time goes on with globalization, a universal secure currency will come to light. Any govt that restricts it, misses out on the economic opportunity of a 8 billion dollar (currently and growing) portion of the economy. In europe's troubled markets, it is catching on MUCH faster. Friends with family in Italy ( a real messed up economy) are flocking to this.
As I said, I am mining 'litecoin' which is the #2 player right now. (Just my gut tells me to and it works for me)
