Mining in your work/home computer has some side effects, namely:
- Heat - could damage your hardware if you don't handle it properly
- Noise
- Slowdowns - if you use your computer while you mine you should reduce the miner's load
- Power consumption - if you don't pay for electricity this may not be an issue
So I would say that there is a point in casual mining as long as your earnings compensate for these disadvantages. It is really up to you to decide if you want to stress your hardware to earn a few coins.
Speaking of a more concrete scenario, casual miners usually fall into two categories:
- You have a good GPU for mining in your PC - a recent medium/high end ATI card.
- You don't have a good GPU so you want to mine with your CPU/low end GPU.
Check this question to find out where do you stand. If you have a good GPU, you might get around 8 bitcoins per month at current difficulty. If you don't, you will probably not earn more than 1 or 2 coins per month.
My personal opinion is that if you fit into the first category, you could give it a shot. If not, I wouldn't do it just for a few dollars (and I do not recommend mining with your CPU at all).
As a final note, bear in mind that these numbers are always changing: new hardware is coming out all the time and new miners are joining while others are leaving. This influences the amount of bitcoins you will earn with your hardware so be sure to check an updated hardware list for your calculations.
In general stack exchange practice I tried to make my question general: However I'm on a Core i5 M 540 @ 2.53 GHz (1.8 MHashes/s) with a NVIDIA NVS 3100M graphics card (3.6 MHashes/s) according to the wiki: So it would take me 2 months running all the time to get the 0.1 Bitcoins for one of the stupid uses on the trading sights, longer with pool fees? Longer if I only am running it a few hours a day? – Canageek – 2011-10-01T19:24:46.923
I edited my answer to give you a scale of how inefficient CPU mining. – Serith – 2011-10-01T20:36:02.650
1Interesting, though I don't pay for power currently. Not good for the environment to use a CPU though. Think I'm not going to do it then, the heat would probably wear out my laptop faster anyway. – Canageek – 2011-10-01T21:07:30.403
Regarding your comment: yes to all questions. I wouldn't mine with that hardware. If you want a few bitcoins you should buy them. – nmat – 2011-10-02T02:03:45.927
It is always worthwhile to learn about new technologies, thus it is 100% worthwhile to casually mine bitcoin. The only counter argument centers around a premise that the reason you mine is for profit, but naturally, just as with any pursuit, whether coding for freeBSD, being a website Ruby developer, or a computer hardware repair-person, there are those projects you do for profit, and those you do for learning and fun. As long as one approaches the endeavor realistically, i.e., not expecting to make billions with an Ant Miner at home, then of course it is worthwhile @Canageek – oemb1905 – 2016-04-27T21:30:15.730