Editorial Confessions of a Crypto Miner: The Setup

[R-T-B]

I have a 7.0 LTC wallet somewhere in the ether that I lost a million harddrive formats ago... mined on a Pentium M's single core.

Satoshi should enter the history books as one of the most ridiculously twisted minds we've known.

That's not how I see it. It's also not what his final comments before his vanishing suggest. He seemed at best an idealist, and at worst, a guy who really disliked paypal.

I honestly think he is hiding because he is deeply ashamed of what he has created at this point. He didn't really forsee any of this. Keep in mind he was getting upset at it's exposure level and the mining hashrate exploding at dollar parity times.

IIRC the last confirmed statement from his email was one simple phrase: "I am not involved with bitcoin anymore."

That should say it all.

 

[yotano211]

I have no problem with the premise of your post, but I do become concerned about the messaging that some people might take from this. When I first started mining, it was definitely looked at as a hobby (mining Litecoin). But then I read the whitepaper for Darkcoin and immediately switched all of my hashing power even though it was "Half as profitable." It was a good choice made by someone who made an informed decision.

Right now there are a lot of people acting like it's all luck, or that no one is really making any real money off of this. If all you do is mine the top coin with 2 graphics cards for fun - yeah, you are likely to just make $1000 worth of fun money per year (Not that there is anything wrong with that!). But if you put forth extra time and effort into building a few serious rigs, and you also do the research to mine some emerging coins part of every week: You can seriously make a lot of money. But not everyone will be good at it.



What is your hashing power mining ethereum with your 7 1080's? Don't lie, you have noted they are only using 760w.

about 158mh/s
I dont need to lie to prove myself

 

[Captain_Tom]

about 158mh/s
I dont need to lie to prove myself

7 1080's.... Those are $500 cards! I get about the same with a rig that has 4x380's ($120 each) and 2 x 570's. ($250 each)....


USER BEWARE: Nvida cards really aren't good at mining compared to AMD.

 

[yotano211]

7 1080's.... Those are $500 cards! I get about the same with a rig that has 4x380's ($120 each) and 2 x 570's. ($250 each)....


USER BEWARE: Nvida cards really aren't good at mining compared to AMD.

So what is your point about Nvidia cards. I can mine zcash with any 1080 or Nvidia card and make more but I like ETH. And I have ways to pay less then $500 for the cards but with cards running low in stock it doesnt work anymore but it did 2 months ago.

 

[Ruru]

It's insane that my 980 is worth of 250eur or something. Going for SLI would be insane.

 

[Captain_Tom]

So what is your point about Nvidia cards. I can mine zcash with any 1080 or Nvidia card and make more but I like ETH. And I have ways to pay less then $500 for the cards but with cards running low in stock it doesnt work anymore but it did 2 months ago.

I am not necessarily attacking you. After all it is true that people can only buy what's available.

However I am trying to make sure people remember that AMD cards are by FAR more efficient and cheaper for mining than Nvidia (Yes even with Zcash). I have seen fanboy wars creep into mining in the past year, which is ridiculous lol.

 

[yotano211]

I am not necessarily attacking you. After all it is true that people can only buy what's available.

However I am trying to make sure people remember that AMD cards are by FAR more efficient and cheaper for mining than Nvidia (Yes even with Zcash). I have seen fanboy wars creep into mining in the past year, which is ridiculous lol.

Nvidia likes zcash or the Equihash algorithm more then AMD. With the rx470, the current profit per day is $1.80 with zcash, with the 1070 its $3.12, its $4.04 with the 1080.
I checked on whattomine.com

 

[R-T-B]

USER BEWARE: Nvida cards really aren't good at mining compared to AMD.

At ethereum, yes. At ZCash not so much.
Look into out shapeshift.io @yotano211. As long as your miner pool withdraws to the shapeshift address at something above their minimum deposit, you can use a reusable address to mine zcash and consistently get paid in ethereum...

 

[yotano211]

At ethereum, yes. At ZCash not so much.
Look into out shapeshift.io @yotano211. As long as your miner pool withdraws to the shapeshift address at something above their minimum deposit, you can use a reusable address to mine zcash and consistently get paid in ethereum...

Wow thanks, didnt now something like this exsisted. I knew about exchangers but most are only are 1 time deal.
I'll convert BTG, bitcoin gold, into ETH. BTG seems to always make about 20-40% more than ETH with the Nvidia cards.

 

[R-T-B]

Wow thanks, didnt now something like this exsisted. I knew about exchangers but most are only are 1 time deal.
I'll convert BTG, bitcoin gold, into ETH. BTG seems to always make about 20-40% more than ETH with the Nvidia cards.

Think my exchange practices will be a future article themselves, shapeshift.io is a godsend.

 

[trog100]

my 1070 cards do a fraction over 30 mhs each.. 10 do just over 300 mhs.. i am currently mining eth.. in dollar terms the payout seems to be directly linked to the current price of eth..

during this last week the dollar payout has moved between 30 dollars per day and 50 dollars per day.. in other words its impossible to say whats the most profitable to mine and what isnt..

all crypto has took another unexpected dive during the night currently my mining eth payout is near the 30 dollars per day scale..

currently the price of available 1070 cards in the UK has just shot up £549... which puts 10 of them (the amount i have mining) at £5490..

the current cost to build a mining rig similar to the one i have would be.. 8 x 1070 cards = £4392 plus maybe another £500 for the other bits.. i would say close to £5000..

how many folks in this thread would would pay that kind of money...

i recon we need to stop talking about the past and talk about the present.. we all know what crypto did last year and what hardware cost last year.. what we need to be talking about is what gonna happen this coming year..

trog

ps... these UK prices have just happened.. they might "happen" again next week and to go up to £599..

https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/gpu-nvidia/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070

just to add.. 1070tI cards are at £599 and 1080 cards are at £649.. i expect them to go higher or become unavailable..

 

[xldeane]

Don't come to UK then mate... electricity prices are sky high, so is petrol (Gas) $8.00 a gallon for petrol, $17.00 for a packet of 20 cigarettes..


xl...out

 

[R-T-B]

Don't come to UK then mate... electricity prices are sky high, so is petrol (Gas) $8.00 a gallon for petrol, $17.00 for a packet of 20 cigarettes..


xl...out

We have UK miners too...

 

[trog100]

We have UK miners too...

me for example..

trog

 

[Bytales]

I jus bought 2 Vegas Frintier Editions Liquid Cooled for mining. Setup has taken me probably two to three days to Setup everything in order. It will take some more days to make it final since im switching from two Xeons 2690v3 to one Epyc 32 core CPU. All in all im looking at about 5500 h/s in Cryptonote mining.
I believe it is worth it to have watercooled Setups, especially for mining, and esspecially if you dont want to risk busting up your expensive GPUs. One was 1300 euro, so thats a thing to consider. Didnt mind paying for it, since i got me a premium Vega, the 8gb watercooled Version is getting ridiculously Close to 1200 euros, (crazy miners bought everything), so it wasnt all that bad.
Especially since the yellow VEGAs were always on stock since they lunched (Mindfactory had for half a year the same 5 pieces in stock) and nobody bought them anyway. So i cant be blamed for People not having VIDEO Cards for gaming,

But mining is a fun experience, especially when the mined coin makes 10x, like im hoping it will.

There is one, very large issue I have with mining that I never see mentioned...

That is how much of a massive waste of energy it is to accomplish almost nothing. Now, if the majority of cryptocurrencies created value in furthering science, I may be okay with that, but the simple fact is they don't. Miners, for the most part, are just burning oil/coal/gas to create these 'coins' that have no backing, and can fluctuate in price by more than 20% in a day, which means the 'coins' are not a viable currency and quite obviously are easily manipulated which makes them all but useless for everyday societal needs.

I don't expect miners care or want to think about this issue, because in reality, mining is easy money.

Dont worry, the future is of the coins, that are
INSTANT (regardless how many user are trasnacting per second)
MINELESS
FEELESS

Currently only two coins are like this, or, at least they will be, when they are ready,
IOTA(Still in beta, thats why it is very slow now)
RAIBLOCK - this one actually works now as advertised
EOS, when ready, it is still in ICO, probably the bigggest ICO in the history of ICOs (Initial Coin offering) - it started last year in summer, and going to end this year in summer. Ist market cap is only given by the People who pumped Money in it, and it is not even the real Thing.
This one right here has the potential to dethrone all other coins before it. So get your while you still can.

EOS platform will Support milions of trasnactions per second, compared to bit coin7, and ether under 20.

 

[alganonim]

Monero and zcash are for the criminal elite.

It's not worth for it, hard cash is better for it !

 

[Nate1492]

The solution to the Graphics card issue is to tie the graphics card into some steam purchase.

I'd gladly pay 500+300 for a gfx card and steam wallet. That'd stop crytpo miners from purchasing the cards as you can't move the cash in steam wallet very easily.

 

[Captain_Tom]

The solution to the Graphics card issue is to tie the graphics card into some steam purchase.

I'd gladly pay 500+300 for a gfx card and steam wallet. That'd stop crytpo miners from purchasing the cards as you can't move the cash in steam wallet very easily.

It might help a tiny bit, but not really. Most people don't realize these things:

1) Mining is massively, massively profitable. I was happy to buy those RX Vega cards even with their included Games. I just sold the games on ebay to minimize the mark-up.

2) Most of the scarcity is due to factories in China DIRECTLY selling cards to mega mining groups. Haven't you seen that article that showed miners were renting full cargo jets to get entire airplanes worth of cards to their offices ASAP? Newegg's prices are high because they can't even get ahold of cards to sell!

 

[trog100]

tell me what you mean by "massively profitable" captain.. in money terms if you would... ??

trog

 

[Captain_Tom]

tell me what you mean by "massively profitable" captain.. in money terms if you would... ??

trog

Even buying cards at double their MSRP, they can easily pay for themselves over a few months. Some people are willing to pay $1000 for Vega cards because they will pay themselves off in under a year, and if prices go up at all they will do it much quicker than that.

 

[yotano211]

It's not worth for it, hard cash is better for it !

Kinda hard to move around millions or billions so why not go the monero route

 

[OneMoar]

if you feel the need to clear your conscious send me those 1080's ill provide them a loving forever home where they can slave away ..err I mean play all day... running startcitzen and the hunt

 

[trog100]

Even buying cards at double their MSRP, they can easily pay for themselves over a few months. Some people are willing to pay $1000 for Vega cards because they will pay themselves off in under a year, and if prices go up at all they will do it much quicker than that.

thanks tom.. i dont really see the ability to pay for its self in under a year as "massive profits" for small miners but some may..

trog

 

[R-T-B]

if you feel the need to clear your conscious send me those 1080's ill provide them a loving forever home where they can slave away ..err I mean play all day... running startcitzen and the hunt

They will be sold at half msrp or less like all my items I sell when they are done with the experiment. I will likely post to my notification feed when the time is coming close if they are still "hot" items, as I want everyone to have a fair shot.

I don't feel guilty in the least as I'm doing this for science and honestly, running a 500w miner like I am is not going to burn down the forest anymore than an expensive server hobby. Plus, we all get to learn some.

 

[Mescalamba]

During 2013 to 2015 managed to not make money in crypto. Okaaay...

Reminds me that recent story of dude that went from 3 BTC to 200 BTC to 0.