Lessons Learnt From Mining Part 1

It's been 5 months since I have first started mining with some friends. Throughout these few months, I have poured over countless articles, Reddit Posts and YouTube videos on how to get things set up. It was a rather interesting experience. I have to admit that the first PC that I have built is my rig and that was rather difficult, especially figuring out why the motherboard would only read four cards and not all six cards.

The post that I am writing today is geared towards those who are undecided about mining. It may be for those who have just started off mining. The most obvious reason would be of course money. So, I'll just say this honestly, no, you don't make a lot of money. You're not going to be a millionaire overnight if you start mining. You mine and invest in the potential of the coin that you are mining. Having a rig allows you to be flexible in what coins you can mine. Of course, there are limitations. My rig is exclusively Nvidia cards, so I can only mine GPU supported cryptocurrencies.

After five months of a rather interesting journey, here are a few lesson that I have learnt:

It's a Lot of Work

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While many people would get into mining as a way of making money, the initial startup cost is absolutely crazy. Finding the equipment necessary five months ago was difficult. Now, would be next to impossible. The amount of money needed to build the rig and pay for he monthly electricity bill is not cheap. For me, the bill is approximately 20% and I was lucky to be able to pay off my rigs with my monthly salary.

If that does not put you off, the work to maintain the rig is absolutely crazy. There were a few weeks where I kept getting the famous blue screen of death. I reformatted the rig, reinstalled the drivers and did everything and anything that Reddit suggested. Guess what? I just had to detach and reattach my cards. Not long after that a card failed. I could not find out the reason, no matter how hard I try. In the end, the solution was simple, somehow , a wire burnt and caused the connector to malfunction.

Aside from the technical hiccups, the other issue was going away. I have to travel for work and I had to rely on other people to care for my rig. It is almost like owning a pet that needed to be fed and monitored. My friends were kind enough to take in and care for this hulking, heat-spewing pet of mine.

Mine What Pays The Most

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I know, there are people who mine because they believe in the potential of the coin. I, however, mined the coins that paid the most. That ranges from Zcash, Ethereum and mining on Nicehash (more on that later). I mine coins which prices are stable and are popular to pay off the initial startup cost and the electricity bill. Trust me, it's not going to be cheap, unless you have solar power. That being said, it can be hard to predict which coins would jump despite monitoring the best coins that can be mined using whattomine.

That was why Nicehash became such an interesting option. Before you jump in and suggest Minergate and WinMiner, those don't even come close to how well Nicehash pays and they pay in Bitcoin. But, when some things are too good to be true, they normally are.

Keep it Offline

If you were following the news, you will know that Nicehash was hacked in December 2017 and 60 million dollars were stolen. I was one of those affected but not as badly as those who kept their money in Nicehash's wallet. I only lost a week's worth of mining because I kept everything on an offline wallet.

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Whatever you do, keep your coins offline and keep them safe as best you can. To reiterate what was mentioned above, it is a lot of work and I have even lost coins from a simple Malware. The Malware changed my Ethereum address whenever I copy and pasted it. It resulted in me sending some funds to the hacker's account, pretty smart I must say. While it was not a substantial amount, I look to the fact that these are valuable lessons. The entire journey is a process that is unique to all who start it.

Conclusion

Of course, having friends to journey with you and solve problems together is a great reason to build a rig together with friends. I think us guys bond best over activities. Could be a simple LAN party or building a rig together, the activity itself does help in distracting us from work or the normal daily grind.

Best of all, it was because I started mining that I was introduced to Steemit and to the amazing community on it such as @teammalaysia. Happy mining and happy Steeming!

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