I had mined my first Bitcoin about a decade ago. I vaguely remember buying a fancy video card and putting it in a secondary PC I had laying around. I then kept it on 24/7 for an entire month and was able to mine a single Bitcoin. I then sold it for something like $150. The PC generated too much heat and the increased electricity cost wasn’t worth it, so I sold the video card and ended the Bitcoin mining phase of my life.
Fast forward to earlier this week when I was able to score an Nvidia 3060TI card from Best Buy for $400, which right now is the best value card to mine crypto (performance of a 3070 for $100 less.) A bunch of other Slack members scored cards as well and so we all went down the rabbit hole of mining for crypto. Luckily we had a few experts who were already mining who helped us out.
First off it seems, NiceHash.com is the easiest way to get started these days. Create your account, download a program, and you should be up and running in 5 minutes. With NiceHash, you’re not mining for a specific crypto. You’re renting out your GPU and being paid back in Bitcoin.
For reference, my new 3060TI will met me about $5 a day in Bitcoin. This means $150 a month, so about 3 months to break even on the card [minus electricity costs.] Of course I could just resell the card for about $800 and so really my break even is about 6 months. So why even mine vs resell? I’m not really sure about this. The logical answer is to resell but what’s the fun in that?
Anyway I already keep my PC on 24/7 and the incremental electricity cost should be minimal over my current video card. Plus I can resell my current older video card (a Radeon Vega that I got in a trade for $275 last month that’s going for about $600 on EBay now.) Since I also upgraded my computer last month. I realized my older PC had a GeForce 1070 in it that’ll met me about $90 a month in Bitcoin (and it’ll also be used as a heater too.)
I’m not sure how long this new Bitcoin mining phase will last but it’ll be interesting nevertheless.
The biggest challenge right now is finding the damn GPUs.
Congrats on getting one from BBY
Very true
Why don’t you just buy btc? It’s the greatest invention since the internet and literally the best asymmetric bet you can make. Nicehash doesnt have the best reputation. Is $5 a day guarenteed? What happens if the difficulty adjustment increases?
I’m doing this more for fun than the investment part of it. The $5/day isn’t guaranteed because the difficulty does increase as well as the price of bitcoin.
Vin do your research again. Mining on anything other than multiple professional rigs like the mining companies will cost you a lot more money than you earn by mining.
I suggest you look at strike global, an app that allows you to send money to anyone using the bitcoin lightning network. With the right card, it can be be used for manufacture spending……
The variable cost is electricity. I don’t know other costs you’re talking about besides the opportunity cost of selling the video card.
exactly electricity will cost you more than you will net, even if your computer is always on 24/7. Not even sure based on what you determine that you will gain $150 a month
My electricity is $.11 and my GPU uses up like 100 watts, so yes I’ll be net positive.
How much extra electricity does mining take? Is it really noticeable where it cuts into your projected $150/month?
It depends on a lot of factors – what video card you’re using, is your PC already on, the total watts of the PC, and electricity rate in your area.
About 15 years ago at my first job I had my Ubuntu work computer mining for SETI or the breast cancer one 24/7. Had I been doing BTC I’d be rich now if I held. Thinking about doing this at the next place since we’re not paying for utilities.
Many lost their password from the good old days. ~20% of all Bitcoins are estimated to be in “stranded” wallets. Fun!
Have a plan or two for ur spouse or relative to access the wallet when your time is up.