Winter Coming - Crypto Coin Mining For Some Freaky Heating

Crypto Coin Mining always fascinates me again. A computer running unattended, making money.

I just started crypto coin mining again for the winter. Without AC its rather hot to have a mining rig running during the summer where I live (on Ibiza, Balearic Islands, Spain). The past two years I spent as much time abroad as I could in the summer season, because I can't stand the madhouse Ibiza turns into during the summer anymore. For the rest of the year its still a pretty and peaceful place to live. The climate in the winter is just right for my taste. Temperatures rarely fall below 10° C and could reach 25° C during the day even in the winter. Theres moderate rain and everything is juicy and green. I live in an old farmhouse in a remote rural area. Theres just one huge fireplace in the hall. The rooms have no heating. People used to sleep in the kitchen when it got too cold in the winter, with some of their animals close by, not so very long ago.

I have a system with 2 Sapphire Radeon R9 290 TRI-X GPUs. Its not very profitable, but before I blow the expensive electricity with an electric heater I'd put up the mining rig again, which is 3 years old in the meantime.
It would currently create ~ 65 € worth of coins a month if I mined Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum is the second biggest crypto currency, after Bitcoin, and currently the most profitable to mine, with a moderate investment in off-the shelf computer parts.

Find an overview of the top Crypto Coin Market Caps here.

The system consumes about 700 Watts and produces enough heat to keep my bedroom cosy. For this year I chose the funky looking fruit cradle form factor again, which won't win a price for design, but it is a cheap and very efficient setup with optimal airflow. The temperature of the air blowing out is about 40-50° C and it sure makes some noise. It has a WiFi client attached, so I could move it around the house. At night it goes into the kitchen. Last year I assembled it in a bookshelf, but one day a cat came in and decided to spray piss at a power supply, it died shortly after (the power supply, the cat is still doing fine). To my surprise it was running again when I re-assembled the system this year.

I'd enjoy to build more rigs like that, with up-to-date hardware. It is a trend among the wealthy people on Ibiza to be off-grid autonomous and many property owners spend a fortune on huge PV systems and battery packs, with capacities reaching 50 kW. They could run such rigs to burn their excess power and make some money on the sideline.

A modern rig with 4 more efficient GPUs would cost about 1.500 € to make and would earn about 135 € per month, when mining Ethereum 24/7. It would consume ~1kW. A single rig could hold up to 6 cards, obviously needs more power then and produces more coins, of course. But the price proportion of the additional parts needed to run 6 cards is unfavourable, I would keep it at 4 GPUs. Much Cheaper motherboards, processors and power supplies could be used. These are the GPUs I would choose for a new system
Sapphire Radeon Nitro Plus RX 480 4GB GDDR5

I would offer to build a complete rig with 4 cards for 2.000 € including the installation and a crash course in crypto currencies, if interested.

Here's a mining calculator, which roughly displays the results to be expected, according to the hash rate the system is able to produce, and the current exchange rates for the coins - I zeroed out everything not interesting - What to mine

Vcash (XVC - former Vanillacoin) is my personal favourite coin. The crew developed some amazing innovations, unique in the whole landscape of more than 2.000 known crypto currencies. I expect a rise in price and popularity with the release of their next software generation. It will include a new revolutionary method to load a completely functional wallet application in less than 10 seconds. It is currently being tested. So far, everything they announced and released works as promised and came without any hype, or pump and dump campaigns. Instead it was constantly flamed and mocked by other teams, which are well known for frequent big time pumps and dumps. I think the continuity, the quality of the code and the overall features of the coin will make this project a success.
I started mining XVC about 2 years ago and made ~2.300 coins. I also bought some coins on dips.

https://twitter.com/cryptomorph_eus/status/789231204914429952
http://coremedia.info/index.php/blockchain-news/item/335-vcash-a-cryptocurrency-never-seen-before
https://v.cash/
https://vcash.slack.com

I'm currently mining XVC, this is how it looks like. But I'll switch over to mine Ethereum today, because it is more than twice as profitable. Although I'm not an enthusiastic fan of the Ethereum project at all, but it is backed by a lot of money and will probably prevail.

Most of the property owners surely don't want to be bothered with the very technical details involved with mining, storing and transferring crypto coins, or exchanging the coins for a fiat currency.

The operation of the rigs could be completely remote controlled, thru a safe VPN network. The systems are running very stable.

For a fee I would take care of the exchange and transfer of the funds, either in the currencies mined, or in Bitcoin, or in €.
If you're really freaking out it could be looking like this

Have a nice day!