I know that mining is definitely not one of the hottest or most interesting topics to many of you. But I still feel that this is something that you should be made aware of.
What is going on with Nicehash?
There appears to have been a very noticeable upswing in mining profitability for people mining with Nicehash recently. And it is this upswing, or rather the reason for it, that I would like to make you aware of. And the reason for this increased profitability appears to be able to be summed up in one word, gambling. And it is looking like it is filed by crypto influencers as well. As if gambling in itself could not cause enough of a headache for people.
What lottery ticket do you want to buy? Source
What Nicehash has started doing is selling "tickets" with certain odds of winning a big block reward. They then buy the hash power from the miners and use some of the money they get from the ticket sales to be able to pay a premium for the hash power. And on top of this, you have the crypto influencers posting about them winning the big rewards, telling people they can do that too. And hurry to sign up with their affiliate link. This whole thing is done under the label of Teammining.
Exactly how it all works is that you buy a share, and for each share someone buys, hash power is added to the team. There is a 30 min window where people are able to buy shares before the mining starts. After that, it appears that people are not able to join the team. Now the miners do their thing. And for every block that gets found, if any is found that is, you then get a percentage of the block reward equal to your percentage of share in the team. So if you have 1 share out of a total of 10, you get 10% of the block reward.
And all of this is perfectly fine. And I even think it is an interesting way to add a bit of flair and flavor to things. Sort of similar if you and your friend place a bet before watching a game. It can add a bit of flavor to simply watching the game. And as a said this is all fine. But what I have a problem with is that just like with lootboxes this is just gambling dressed up. And while here you can however win something that has actual use, crypto. That does not really change what it is. It is just gambling dressed up called something else because "gambling" has some bad connotations associated with it. And it is this part I have a problem with.
And while reading the "How does TeamMining work?" blog post on Nicehashs website I find no mention of the word gambling. What I do find is the description of what gambling is. And something that is lacking as well is an age restriction. And the only place I where able to find one, sort of, was in the ToS for Nicehash. And that one is only caring about one thing, contract law. As it reads "are at least Minimum Age and have capacity to form a binding contract". And this means that there are some discrepancies in the US, and most likely in other places as well. As the game to enter a legally binding contract can be different from the game you are allowed to drink.
To me, this is looking like a bad thing waiting to happen. But maybe they are small enough that they are able to not get noticed by big brother.
I can also recommend watching Son of a Teck's video about it where he shares his thoughts on it as well as why he switched to mining on Nicehash.
And just to be clear, I am not against gambling or referrals. I just find it annoying that something that clearly is gambling needs to be obfuscated like this. And as it is something that can, have, and will continue to cause major harm for people. Talking about gambling if that was not clear. It is that which I am against. The dressing up, calling something by another name thinking that it will change what it is. And just as William Shakespeare's famous quote about a rose by any other name would still smell like a rose. Well, a big turd has the exact same property, it still smells like shit even if you scale it something else.
But I would love to hear what your thoughts on this are. Do you agree with me that it is gambling? Or is something else, and I am simply overreacting? Feel free to take out and dust off your keyboards and type away in the comment section.
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Picture provided by: https://pixabay.com/, Fair use
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