Question Mining... is like a drug addiction... euphoria... and dispair...

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,340
10,044
126
It's kind of like trying (*I imagine, have never done it) a "hard drug" for the first time.

You see your video card, your CPU (less so), etc., MAKING MONEY, just RUNNING. It's kind of crazy, when you stop to think about it.

I'm getting paid, for my computer time, remunerated, for investing in computer hardware, and effectively (when using Nicehash) renting it out.

Kind of like, AirBnB for PCs and gaming rigs.

Only, not quite as risky, but on the whole, also quite profitable.

The thing about it too, is, once you learn how, you realize... it SCALES!

Then, you want MORE, and MORE, and MORE. More Satoshi's, which means MORE GPUs, MORE CPUs, MORE RIGS, soon, you've got an entire neighborhood power sub-station dedicated to your premesis.

You start checking on your rigs, making sure that they're running, their hashrates are up to snuff, the right algos, checking your earnings, every hour, every half-hour, when and where does it end?

In some ways, it's an addiction, much like "Mobile Gaming". In another way, it's a sickness, a sort of twisted version of the childhood "Lemonade Stand", turned hard-core franchise opportunity, raw pure capitalism in it's finest, being able to buy machines that essentially, print money out of "thin air" (algorithms).

On the other hand, it's a very democratizing system, a sort of "power to the people" transaction-processing system, where, instead of a super-computer center run by Visa or Mastercard, it's YOU, the average Joe Sixpack down the street, using YOUR computer, as part of their grand decentralized transaction-processing network for crypto-currency, making a difference, participating in technology, and most importantly, PROFITING FROM IT.

And then there are the highs, when BTC and the altcoin of the day/month/year (ETH) hitting highs as well. EUPHORIA! MAKING *BIG BUCKS*.

And then there are the lows, which even though they are a "low", seem to reach higher and higher in the sky always anyways, so they're not as bad as the last time. But when profitability tanks, sometimes there is even a sell-off of mining gear, especially GPUs. ("Raining GPUs" - for gamers.)

And then the glorious cycle repeats again! And again! And again!

And the whole rest of the world gets to experience the boom/bust cycles of crypto-currency, and collectively, gamers feel the pain of miners too, not able to "get GPUs".


Edit: My post was in part inspired by this Reddit:

Edit: This one kind of captures "the despair" aspect:

Edit: Here's an expression of "The addiction" in a meme pic:

Edit: Actually, it's even more like an addiction. Due to increasing network difficulty levels, and block reward halvings (doesn't apply to ETH), the more time progresses, and the more hashrate gets added to the network, then your "slice of the pie" (your revenue "high") gets less and less, over time, UNLESS, you "increase your dose", by buying MORE AND MORE hashrate, via more and more GPUs, and/or trading them in for newer, more powerful (higher hashrate) GPUs.
 
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Accord99

Platinum Member
Jul 2, 2001
2,259
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It's kind of like trying (*I imagine, have never done it) a "hard drug" for the first time.
I've been watching Aussie Gold Hunters and it's actually remarkable how similar gold prospecting and mining is to crypto mining. You see the same amateurs start off small, catch the fever and addiction and scale up with bigger and bigger equipment. And you even have higher highs and lower lows as many are doing the equivalent of solo mining. There's nothing in crypto mining that matches the immediate thrill of finding a large nugget but also nothing quite as low as burning hundreds of dollars of diesel and dozens of hours of labor in the hot sun to find nothing.
 

pj-

Senior member
May 5, 2015
481
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Idk I think mining is kinda dumb. Started doing eth on my 3090 and the rate at which I earn money does not feel significant, even though on a monthly timescale it's hundreds of dollars.

Doesn't help that the eth numbers are so small. Mine for 24h and get 0.01 eth. Coooool...

Then there's the worries about wear on the hw and the environmental impact. I will stop once I earn enough that my 3090 will have "cost" me a less embarrassing figure.
 
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CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,511
588
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I used to love mining back in the day but agree that the return is way too small now on just a single card. I can make way more trading/investing and would rather spend time with that.
 

ozzy702

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2011
1,151
530
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Idk I think mining is kinda dumb. Started doing eth on my 3090 and the rate at which I earn money does not feel significant, even though on a monthly timescale it's hundreds of dollars.

Doesn't help that the eth numbers are so small. Mine for 24h and get 0.01 eth. Coooool...

Then there's the worries about wear on the hw and the environmental impact. I will stop once I earn enough that my 3090 will have "cost" me a less embarrassing figure.

Yeah, I get that. My 3090 still nets around $10 a day at current prices and if ETH goes to 5k that's almost $30 a day. Not too shabby for something that has little effort. Mining has been super good to me, life changing in fact, but the end is neigh and I'm ok with that as well. What worries me is I see a ton of people who are spending insane amounts of money on hardware that will barely ROI once EIP-1559 and the merge to ETH2.0 occur. Yeah, they'll probably more than break even and have some profits, but it's a huge pain, tons of time and energy and they'd be better off just buying crypto directly.

The new roadmap shows the merge being prioritized, and we don't know what that transition will look like. Miners will likely get a few free months of mining after the merge to give them incentive not to attack the network. That said, I fully expect to only be mining for another year or so, not another two to three years like the road map before the youtube miner idiocy.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,135
2,445
126
Unless you have a bunch of high-end video cards (which are practically impossible to get a hold of a reasonable price right now), mining seems like a waste of time. I think that I was averaging about $5 a day on my GeForce 2060 Super and 1060 about two months ago. That sounds good in theory, until you realize that you need to babysit the mining software to make sure that it keeps running after installing patches and that it's not overheating your equipment.

Once I factored in my time and electricity costs, I figured that I was making about $6 an hour doing this. Not worth it.
 
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Mopetar

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2011
7,837
5,992
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It's probably more like gambling than drugs, but those share some similarities anyways.

Get some sleep and go spend some time outside after you wake up. Like drugs or gambling I'm sure that mining can be bad for your health if you let it consume your life.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,340
10,044
126
I'm sure that mining can be bad for your health if you let it consume your life.
Yeah, "Mining OCD" is a real thing.

Edit: I should elaborate. To people who have an "addictive personality", or are prone to OCD-type behaviors and emotions, mining can be a sort of "triggering" thing.

Constantly checking your earnings, if the mining rigs are running correctly, not overheating, not going to burn your house down / afraid to leave the house, etc.

That's not to say it's all bad, though.

"Mining OCD" got me to invest a semi-significant effort, to get one of my multi-GPU rigs that was erroring out and not running correctly / up-to-capacity, properly "fixed up" with regards to riser power, citing current "best practices". (No SATA / SATA-to-PCI-E power adapters, using only PCI-E power leads from PSU, and then using high-quality PCI-E splitters, to power card and riser, off of the same lead from PSU.)

Now it's working strong again, making between $12 and $17 / day, for 5x GTX 1660 ti 6GB GDDR6 cards. 146MH/sec for ETH. (Among others.)

I have a nearly total MH/sec of 695MH/sec for ETH, according to NH control panel. Not sure how it is counting the KAWPOW that my 4GB GTX 1650 cards are running.
 
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aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
20,846
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lol i just reciently got lucky on the eVGA wait queue.
Got my cousin a RTX 3070.
Told him if he wanted to piss off his gamer friends really fast, just make a post along with picture of it with it saying "i got my mining card in today"!

Then i told him get ready to get lynched by said gamer friends.
 
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VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,340
10,044
126
lol i just reciently got lucky on the eVGA wait queue.
Got my cousin a RTX 3070.
Told him if he wanted to piss off his gamer friends really fast, just make a post along with picture of it with it saying "i got my mining card in today"!

Then i told him get ready to get lynched by said gamer friends.
LOL. They're not missing out on much, if they're still on Skylake or older, in fact, an RX 5700(XT) is faster than an RTX 3070 on those platforms, haven't you heard.
 

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
7,407
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It can be fun, and profitable, but like all things, should be in moderation. Be sure to take care of yourself, Larry. And you can turn off one of the miners once in a while to play some games on a card.
 

GrumpyMan

Diamond Member
May 14, 2001
5,778
262
136
Just buy a brick of coke and make 1000 times the money you paid for it in a couple of days if you want to get rich quick? Saves the planet too. And that way I can get a new vid card by 2025 if I can find one.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,135
2,445
126
Yeah, an addiction that's also destroying the planet, just like any other form of pollution.

Honestly, I think that I could make more money picking up cans on the side of the highway and recycling them for the bottle deposit. Messier work, but at least you would be improving the environment by doing that.
 
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Roger Wilco

Diamond Member
Mar 20, 2017
3,874
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My undervolted 2060 Super is getting about $4/day on nicehash. It's really not hard to offset that energy usage elsewhere in life.

For the most part, though, I am buying and holding crypto for the very long term.
 
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_Rick_

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2012
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I haven't found any cloud-like service for paid grid computing yet, which would at least allow you to be paid for creating something of value, as opposed to just heating a pyramid scheme. I shall have to look into that market.
 
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maddogmcgee

Senior member
Apr 20, 2015
384
303
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I started recently and it is fun. My Wife and I have money from our budget allocated for us to blow on our personal expenses. So as long as I only spend that money I know the risks are pretty minor.

Not sure the environmental impacts are any worse than the people on here who buy new hardware when their old stuff is more than sufficient for their needs.

If nothing else it gives me an excuse to tinker. Since I built my wife's gaming PC I have not really had a reason....and CPU overclocking is pretty dead, so I can't even do that.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,340
10,044
126
I haven't found any cloud-like service for paid grid computing yet, which would at least allow you to be paid for creating something of value, as opposed to just heating a pyramid scheme. I shall have to look into that market.
There's some sort of "Asus Quantum Grid" thingy. Kind of nebulous, you get paid in QG tokens or whatnot, but they aren't strictly a crypto-currency.
 

Insomniator

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2002
6,294
171
106
Thinking about trying it with my 3090FE but eh... 10 bucks a day isn't really worth the trouble to me. If anything happened to my system I'd be out a lot more time and money, probably more than I've made mining in 6 months.