Don t Get Lost in Your Own Room Ever Again

best stock trend indicator|Confessions of a Miner: How Much I Made in a Few Years of Mining

The miner decided to share his story anonymously.

Contents

• Mining Epidemic
• First Mining Rig
• Ethereum Wallet
• Too Late to Kickoff Mining
• Mining Equipment Room
• Kickoff ASIC Miner
• More Mining Equipment. Transition to Linux Bone
• How Much Money I Could Have Made with Mining
  • Error One. I wasn't selling cryptocurrency.
  • Fault 2. I started investing.
  • Error Three. I was mining shitcoins.
  • Mistake Iv. I was greedy and careless.
  • Fault Five. I kept money on crypto exchanges.
  • Mistake 6. I lost control over my hardware.
  • Mistake Seven. I didn't know how to choose mining hardware.
• Stop of Mining
• Time to come of Mining
• Mining from Home

Mining Epidemic

Today we are in the heart of the coronavirus outbreak, and one time there was a mining epidemic. Mining epidemics, to be precise. The biggest one happened in 2017. What provokes such epidemics? Of form, it's the growth of cryptocurrencies in value. 2022 was no exception. In leap 2022 Bitcoin grew from $1,000 to $3,000, and Ethereum grew even more. It leaped from $ten to $300.

Suddenly, mining became an extremely profitable business. Everybody talked about it. Literally every one. The Internet was exploding.

What is mining? How to mine? I didn't know anything. I called my friends and they didn't know anything either. So I decided to try mining on my own.

For those who are far from the mining industry, I will specify that in 2022 it was already impossible to mine Bitcoin using anything but special ASIC miners. At the same time, y'all could and still can mine Ethereum using GPUs. That's right, the aforementioned graphics cards that you use to play League of Legends, One thousand Theft Auto Five or Fortnite.

Kickoff Mining Rig

ASICs were hard to choose. I had no idea how they work and was not convinced by the photos on the Internet. They looked like those typical "Fabricated in China" devices of poor quality. I decided to opt for GPU mining. Several graphics cards, usually six or eight, are combined to form a single computer/rig. And you are proficient to go. Here comes the first problem. Graphics cards toll way too much. The mining epidemic caused an increase in prices by at least two times.

I somehow managed to get eight Nvidia 1070 graphics cards, paying $400 for each, and began to build my offset rig. What a nightmare information technology was. Now there are more resources, like 2Miners Weblog 🙂 only in the past, you had to read those awful forums and get together information bit by flake.

Luckily, I knew how to build a computer, so I didn't have problems with installing a processor into a motherboard or installing Windows Os. And then I finished my first rig. I just had to setup BIOS, irresolute settings this and that way, until Windows finally detected all of my viii graphics cards. I should say that changing BIOS settings to make eight graphics cards work on Windows was a real adventure. I downloaded the mining software. Now I had to get a wallet.

Ethereum Wallet

What would any sane person do? Google "Ethereum", go to the official website and download a cryptocurrency wallet. That'due south what I did. I launched the wallet and was asked to wait. It said that I needed to synchronize blocks. Then I did that.

By the fashion, the rig wasn't working, because I didn't have a wallet yet.

I went to work, and when I came dorsum in the evening, the synchronization wasn't over nevertheless. The wallet took up the enormous amount of my computer memory. I found a way to close the sync window, and only then I found out that I could merely copy my wallet address without waiting for the whole blockchain to load. So I copied the address. I added the wallet address to the mining plan, and the process started. I put the rig in the hall then that it didn't disturb my slumber.

When I woke upwardly, I checked the wallet and saw that the synchronization was still going on. I decided to Google the problem. They said that a regular hard disc wouldn't do and you needed an SSD. Forums advised getting Jaxx, a multi-token wallet. Instead of storing a blockchain on the computer, the wallet stores it somewhere on its ain server. Paranoid as I am, I didn't like it. But I had no choice. I wanted those precious coins on my wallet so bad. I downloaded and installed the wallet, copied the address, reconfigured the miner. And then I went out. When I came back in the evening and opened the wallet, I saw something. Success!

I was and then excited. Then I said to my wife: "Open that canteen of cerise vino from the birthday party. Let'southward celebrate!" "What an idiot," she thought, "Keeps this damn noisy thing in our flat and is and so happy almost information technology!"

Too Belatedly to Get-go Mining

One week passed without whatever problem. I was regularly getting Ether on my wallet. I calculated expenses on electricity and discovered that the rig was bringing me $10 per twenty-four hour period. And then it was supposed to pay off in one year. I knew well that cryptocurrency substitution rates are extremely unstable, but at that signal, I couldn't exist stopped.

I was making money out of air. Every single day. And well-nigh importantly, a pay-off period was just one year. Where else could y'all find anything like this?

Now, sorry if I say something stupid in terms of economics, but who would offer you a 100% almanac interest rate? I was convinced that nobody would. On the Internet people were proverb that shortly it would be over, it was also late to start mining, only those who started a year ago were making money, etc. But I was unstoppable.

I started looking for inexpensive graphics cards considering I didn't desire to overpay. Motherboards, PSUs and other parts were easier to find because they were ever available in regular shops. Sometimes risers that I wanted were out of stock, and then I had to buy poor-quality models. A calendar month after, I already had v mining rigs in my flat, and I was making $60 per mean solar day. At that point, there were rigs non just in the hall simply literally everywhere.

For the night I put them in the hall and in the kitchen with the window broad open. Otherwise, information technology was impossible to sleep considering of the oestrus and the noise.

One twenty-four hours I woke upwardly at nighttime to get to the bath, merely so I stopped in the hall. I smelled something electrical called-for. I thought they were my rigs, but then I realized that the problem was somewhere else. The wire going into my apartment was hot equally hell, and the plastic effectually it was melting off. I quickly turned off the rigs. I was glad I didn't burn anything. Just I couldn't go on like this. It was time to notice a place for my rigs.

Mining Equipment Room

Yes, I needed to build an equipment room. What other choice did I accept? I couldn't say to a landlord that I wanted to mine cryptocurrency. So I called factories and industrial areas explaining that I needed infinite for a small data center (server room). Preferably with a window and 20 kW of power. I opted for old factories because I thought they would have fewer problems with power.

A week subsequently I institute the infinite and relocated my rigs in that location. The room was pocket-size, xv–20 foursquare meters, simply with two large windows that I had to open correct away to cool down my rigs. Otherwise, everything was heating up badly, and keeping the door open was not an selection. What if someone would steal my cards?

That'south how I started a large-scale mining business organization. Simply joking. People put the billions worth of equipment right adjacent to power stations. And I was non even shut.

First ASIC Miner

I built a couple of new rigs, only I wanted more than. I was really curious to try ASIC mining. Besides, information technology'south all-time to diversify. What if Ethereum mining died? Bitcoin, on the other hand, had been effectually for almost ten years. I decided to try.

I bought my first ASIC and launched it. I can't even describe how much noise it was making. Good matter I didn't keep it at home. It would accept been unbearable for me and my neighbors. ASIC setup was super easy. I just added the mining pool address, my wallet, and that was it. Much easier than with rigs. A pay-off menstruation was less than a year.

"Wow, this thing really works," I idea, "I need to get more than."

More than Mining Equipment. Transition to Linux Bone

I built a few more than rigs and ordered dissimilar ASICs from People's republic of china. Antminer L3+ to mine Litecoin, Antminer S9 to mine Bitcoin, and Antminer D3 to mine Nuance. I also bought Antminer A3 for SIA, simply it happened a year after.

At that point, I had both Nvidia and AMD rigs. Sadly, to make AMD cards mine correctly, I had to upgrade each bill of fare separately. Upgrades (timings) were not e'er easy to discover. And even after upgrading I had to spend a lot of time to configure GPU overclocking in Afterburner so that a graphics bill of fare gave out a maximum hash rate. Moreover, AMD cards heated everything ten times as much as Nvidia cards. It depended on the model of grade, just generally, they were super hot. Devil, for example.

I couldn't control my rigs anymore. There were constant errors, GPU bugs, unexpected Windows updates. Then TeamViewer suspected commercial utilize and express my connection time to five minutes. And so I had to wait for ten minutes. Instead of having dinner with my wife, I had to go to my equipment room and reinstall an operating system.

I installed Linux on all of my rigs. The outset installation took me some fourth dimension, but I did the remainder pretty fast. I was sorry I hadn't washed it earlier. It was so simple. Online monitoring for just a couple of dollars a calendar month for each rig.

Okay, at present let'southward end the boring part. Everybody wants juicy details.

How Much Money I Could Accept Made with Mining

I could have fabricated tons of money. Did I make tons of money? Rather no than yes. Because I made a lot of mistakes. Simply they practice say that you lot larn from your mistakes, right?

How much coin did I spend on mining equipment? 200 k dollars. That's right, I could have used that coin to buy a nice apartment.

How much money could I take made? No less than 400 thousand dollars. I could have recouped the price of equipment and earned every bit much on peak.

What mistakes did I make? Why did I earn much less?

Mistake Ane. I wasn't selling cryptocurrency.

What is mining? Mining is the process of getting a reward for calculations. You buy hardware with the purpose of making coin, real dollars. You must make them every twenty-four hours.

I wasn't selling my cryptocurrency considering my living conditions immune me to do so. Exchange rates were constantly going up. So I held my cryptocurrency. My savings were growing by leaps and bounds. I was dreaming of buying one Tesla, then some other one. Suddenly, all went down. In bound 2022 Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fell even more.

A year later I hoped that Bitcoin would go upward, but information technology didn't happen. I was losing money every solar day at the same step I was earning information technology in 2017. I didn't want to sell Bitcoin for $10,000. Not so long ago it was valued at $20,000. Selling for $8,000 was just foolish. I was sure information technology would grow presently. Then it went down to 3 one thousand. At that indicate, at that place was zero left to sell. I was trapped.

Conclusion: One time yous get cryptocurrency, sell information technology.

Mistake Two. I started investing.

I was actively trading my Ether and building my cryptocurrency portfolio. I had never traded in the stock market, and this was a new niche, exciting and unknown. I was researching cryptocurrency projects and buying their cryptocurrency or tokens. I invested in ICOs. I ICO brought me twice as much, another one – three times as much.

Wow, I was born to be an investor!

Later I realized that anyone could be outstanding in the apace growing marketplace. Even the worst investor would gain profit. But then I roughshod so bad.

Afterwards a year and a half of my cryptocurrency take chances, by the terminate of 2018, I realized that there is only one coin that rules. Information technology'due south Bitcoin. Others are just rip-offs. Okay, peradventure Ether is also fine. But that's it.

Conclusion: Mining and investment are non the same things.
You tin't do it all. Yous can either mine or gamble on the exchange. Everyone must do their own thing. In order to run a risk on the commutation, y'all don't have to mine, and vice versa. In order to mine, y'all don't have to be an investor.

Mistake Three. I was mining shitcoins.

Euphoria is a dangerous thing. In 2017–2018 cryptocurrency projects were growing by leaps and premises. I was getting bored, so I was always searching for something new. There were a lot of new coins to choose from. Those who were adept at programming copied Ethereum or Bitcoin, changing a few words in the lawmaking or even leaving it as is.

The same wallet, the aforementioned infrastructure. They inverse only a logo. I mined a lot of coins. WhaleCoin, PegasCoin, Musicoin, only to proper noun a few.

I held everything. Sometimes I waited for an exchange to add together a new coin and sold at once. I was making a good profit. I was happy back and so, but now I realize that I could have fabricated much more than money if I had mined Ethereum.

Conclusion: Mine liquid coins that are easy to sell.
If y'all are willing to mine something new, commutation it for something decent (Bitcoin) at once or sell it for fiat coin (dollars).

Error Four. I was greedy and careless.

Bitcoin difficult forks were happening all the time. Every month there was a new fork – Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, etc. And every time I wanted to get new coins. I was curious.

When Bitcoin Golden (BTG) was launched, at that place was a lot of hype around it. The launch price was $300, if I recall correctly. Anybody was looking forward to it, including myself. I wanted to see how many BTG coins I could become. I only needed to enter the private key to my wallet on the "official" Bitcoin Gilt page. I entered the key. And I saw how much I would get.

Now I realize that I was such a fool, but back so I had no clue. Every bit yous might accept guessed, I didn't run into bitcoins on this wallet ever again. Neither BTG, nor BTC. I was smart enough to use the empty wallet on the BTG website, but later I got a payment on it. And of grade, I didn't see it.

How much did I lose? A whole lot, much more than 1 BTC. I don't remember exactly. I merely try not to retrieve most it.

Decision: Go on the private key to your wallet safety and don't bear witness it to anyone.

Mistake 5. I kept money on crypto exchanges.

This one is obvious. Everybody knows it, from Andreas Antonopoulos to a fifth-grader. Just don't continue your coins on exchanges. Create a wallet, exchange cryptocurrency and transfer your coins out. This is the simply possible mode. An substitution may close sooner or later. Information technology happened to a few exchanges. The case of Cryptopia was the virtually sensational. I didn't lose much on this substitution, I think it was Pirl. I run into that now there are still those who mine information technology. I wonder why.

Aforementioned thing with Nicehash. It is a platform that rents mining power. My ASICs worked through it for a while. The coins were stored on the Bitcoin wallet on Nicehash. Suddenly, Nicehash crashed. The money of all the users was stolen. The company apologized and came upwards with a plan to compensate its clients. They compensated a little over eighty%.

How much did I lose? A whole lot, around 0.5 BTC.

Conclusion: Don't continue money on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Fault Half-dozen. I lost control over my hardware.

I had as many equally two incidents. The first one is as follows. A friend of a friend of a friend offered me to buy mining rigs in the place with cheap electricity. Not just rigs, but hosting as well. They sell you mining rigs and promise to keep them in the special room equipped for mining and maintain them. You pay only for electricity. Because I somewhat knew the seller, I decided to get for it.

For a few months it was going well, then the issues started. At times there was no electricity, then he had to move the rigs to a different place, and so on. And so I told him to return my rigs. I barely managed to go back half of them.

The second incident happened in 2018. ASICs were slowly losing momentum. A friend of a friend offered to continue my rigs. I was supposed to pay $0.01 per kWh. I said yes, because the rigs were non bringing turn a profit at my place. This time I decided to exist smarter. I sent simply Antminer D3 that had no value to me. Why? You'll notice out in the next chapter. I sent my ASICs and never heard from the man e'er again.

Conclusion: Don't trust anybody. This is the harsh reality of life.

Mistake Seven. I didn't know how to choose mining hardware.

Today everybody is smart. Back so I was randomly buying ASICs available on Bitmain. Antminer D3 worked for only a month and a half. Mining difficulty increased instantly. Profitability was close to zilch. Antminer A3 lasted even less. Maybe for a week. At the time when it was delivered, it had already go obsolete. I didn't want to pay the balance of the sum for it, but every bit information technology had already arrived, I felt bad. Also, I already paid the bigger part when placing an order.

You don't necessarily have to buy expensive graphics cards. Nvidia 1060 and 1050Ti perform quite well, and you may also consider getting pre-owned graphics cards or mining rigs, if they can be checked. Many wanted to recoup money by selling their rigs cheaply. I had the risk to make a good bargain, and I did so a couple of times.

Conclusion: Cull mining hardware wisely. Practice your own calculations.
Don't put warranty in the beginning identify. During my years as a miner, I changed simply ii graphics cards on a warranty, and both were defective from the beginning. Graphics cards can piece of work for years without maintenance.

End of Mining

Everything inevitably comes to an end. My mining business organisation is no exception. Sadly, considering current substitution rates, an electricity toll for industrial consumers in my country ($0.06–$0.07 per kWh), associated costs (a rent, equipment maintenance, the replacement of faulty parts), I barely brand whatsoever turn a profit.

I turned off my last ASICs at the beginning of 2019. Antminer S9 devices worked longer than others. Then they were just standing there. I have no idea what to exercise with them. For now, they are just cluttering my garage. I am trying to sell them. ASICs lost 90–95% in value, but I can't sell them even for 5–10% of the original toll. There is no demand.

I turned off my GPU rigs in January 2020. Profitability reached zippo. I was surprised that I managed to sell well-nigh all graphics cards individually at a skilful cost. I think graphics cards lost 50% in value. So you can sell them for half of the original price. I used the cheapest motherboards, RAM and processors, so they were impossible to sell. I was lucky to sell at to the lowest degree some of the parts as a prepare for about $20.

Then how much money exercise I have left?

As I mentioned earlier, I spent $200,000. I recovered around $150,000. I programme to sell $fifty,000 worth of graphics cards. I have around $xl,000 in Bitcoin. I decided to hold this sum in Bitcoin and see what volition happen in five or ten years. Who knows, I may buy a house somewhere in Miami i day. Or I may lose everything.

But I have nothing to worry about. I didn't lose any money. Again, if I had been smarter, I could take hands fabricated ii times more money.

Future of Mining

The King is dead. Long live the King!

Mining is not dead. Today mining is a big-calibration business run by professionals. Objectively, mining is a profitable business. But in 2022 it was profitable for everyone. In 2022 countries with expensive electricity dropped out. In 2022 everybody else dropped out. In 2022 you tin can mine simply if you have cheap electricity. Generally information technology's China and Russia.

Everybody knows that the electricity toll in Irkutsk is $0.013 per kWh. But I don't want to go in that location and organize mining. It won't piece of work without supervision. Some put enormous rigs right next to power stations and use electricity basically for gratuitous, but we are talking about big-scale businesses. Others steal electricity, which is definitely not for me. Miners believe in karma. Bad guys don't get blocks.

Mining from Home

What about mining from home?

Fair question. Mining from home is very much alive. In Russia, for example, the average electricity price is around $0.03–$0.04 per kWh. Yous tin can brand a good profit by keeping a few rigs at habitation. If you build a rig using regular PSUs for desktop computers rather than server PSUs (that'south what miners oftentimes do to save money), rigs won't brand most any noise. Every bit if you had a regular desktop computer running 24/vii. Each rig consumes 1 kWh, that is, a little less than an electric kettle. Wiring in most buildings should hands handle a few extra kilowatts. Simply this is non financial advice so recall with your own caput. If your wiring burns, it won't exist my fault. Make sure to check everything beforehand.

As for me, I could have left a few rigs at home, just honestly, I lost interest. In the by I was always in search of the about assisting coins for mining, there was always something new to explore. And what at present? You but have to setup Ether mining and forget virtually your rigs for a year. Ho-hum. Plus, I have a dog now, and I take no wish to remove fur from the GPU coolers every week. If nobody buys my graphics cards, I volition build a rig and use it to oestrus my garage or my parents' country business firm in winter. I'm sure information technology heats better than a regular radiator.

I would similar to thank everyone who has made it to the end, as well as the 2Miners blog editors for letting me pour information technology all out and for your work. When somebody asks me almost cryptocurrencies, I always share the link to your blog. I also give thanks the 2Miners pool itself. You take the best interface, you taught me how to mine Solo, and your Telegram chat is the best mining chat ever.

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