My venture into Crypto happened completely by accident
I had heard of Crypto before - but just the main providers such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
It all started when my son was fed up at having a low FPS rate on Fortnite and wanted a dedicated graphics card rather than using the onboard graphics hardware. He selected a choice of three graphics cards and I started to look at costs and specifictions. I couldn't believe how expensive graphics cards were!!!
Why? I asked myself
The answer : Because of all the people wanting to use them for "mining" and not for playing games on.
I thought that I was onto a win-win. I could let my son use the graphics card for gaming during the day, and I could mine crypto by night. So I purchased an RX580 4MB Graphics Card from eBay and set up an account with Nicehash.
Nicehash is an easy-to-use platform for mining that newbies can easily navigate
They might not have the worlds best fee rates, or mining rates, but it is easy to use. There are links below to Nicehash if you want to create your own account.
Nicehash.com Refferal Link
Nicehash.com Non-Refferal Link
Managing your mining "rigs" (or single graphics card in my case) is just a case of setting up the mining software on a computer (via an installation program hosted on GitHub) and pressing the "run" button. You can monitor remotely the efficiency of the "rig" - and even put in the cost of electricity so that you don't end up spending more on electricity than you get in returns! All useful functions for a newbie like me.
I hadn't realised how low the returns on mining would be
Somewhere between £0.45 and £0.68 per 24 hour period. I was only earning £0.20 per night (as my son uses the computer during the day)! Well, it was better than nothing... ... ... or so I thought. One night the computer just stopped working.
My son was rather upset with me to say the least, especially as he had school work due!!! Luckily it was only the PSU - but it cost £40 for a replacement to be priority delivered. At that point I realised that "mining" wasn't for me but luckily the main reason for buying the graphics card was for my son to use.
Yes, you can earn money from casual mining
But it is a low-value return and you have all the hardware setup costs. IF your hardware lasts for 9 months or more without blowing up from being used 24/7 then you might start to turn a small profit after that, but otherwise for the casual miner it isn't really worth it. The big boys, with dedicated rigs costing into the £000's, are more suited for it.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) I was now hooked on Crypto. I have been researching how to take the (miniscule) amount of crypto earnt from Nicehash and turn it into real-life cash that I could put into my bank account. I later learnt that "real-life" cash is called fiat currency. I also started to hear words and phrases such as "exchange", "hashpower", "wallet", and "markets".
I am still on that journey, and I hope that by sharing my experiences it will help others on theirs too!
Note : All of my articles are my own and relate to my own personal experience. My article may also have been published on other websites. Investing is always at your own risk.