TL;DR: Don't quit your day job unless/until you've stashed a few thousand into crypto and are earning enough interest to replace/rival your salary. Trust my lived experience here or burn your fingers and/or bridges (as I have).
The reason for everyone who talks/writes about mining suggesting that ASICs are the way to go (and even then, maybe you'll break even if you're lucky) is that that's the truth of the matter. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll find a really new coin (less than a year old) that's worth mining (like I did with RVN when it was a few months old), but with the more established ones (BTC, ETH, LTC, XMR, etc.), you haven't got a hope in Hell (even if they change their algorithms/functions to be ASIC resistant a few years down the line).
There's a myth going around that making/mining crypto is easy money. It isn't (as I've written elsewhere). Maybe it was six months or more ago. But here's the thing: Crypto moves and morphs almost as fast as the transactions themselves. What was true two, three (or more) months ago probably isn't true today. Making money with/from crypto is hard work, if my efforts/experience/research is anything to go by (and believe me, I am very much about "do your own research"). In my opinion, doing it successfully is probably about as hard as (if not harder than) holding down a high-paying, high-stress job for a tech MNC (which I did for five years before [almost fatally] succumbing to burnout and suicidal tendencies).
Yes, I write a blog here on Publish0x (which requires at least a post a day, every day in the hopes of getting several cents per post, at most). Yes, I mined RVN for a few months in its infancy and have looked at the viability of purchasing better hardware for mining other cryptocurrencies. Yes, I'm using Netbox and Presearch (which has earned me maybe 212 NBX and 60 PRE, which are miniscule amounts compared to the ~3500 each that I need). I'm also hitting multiple free faucet sites, on multiple occasions during the day. (I even bought a kitchen/egg timer to remind me to cycle through them every half hour, for sixteen hours). So far, I've earned peanuts and got nowhere other than into the red (because my Internet connection is capped and out-of-bundle data is expensive). The faucets are the most effective approach, too. However, I make about $1 USD per day from them, on a good day. I need to make at least $3.50 a day to sustain myself ($4.5 to live well and $6 to $8 to be able to put money aside/into crypto). There's no way I'm going to be able to make $3 800 (which I need to if I want to go full crypto) in the next month or two. On Publish0x, I've made $6 in nearly a month. On Fire Faucet and Dutchy Corp, I've made about $3 in a little over as many days. I have yet to investigate Bucksify, but it comes recommended by one of the moderators on FF (who earns most of his living from faucets, making up to $10 a day).
Cryptocurrencies are going to be Plan B, at least for a year or so after I find a conventional job and pretend to be what George Carlin called "a soul-dead conformist to consumer culture, [a corporate schill monkey-boy] stripped of my individuality". That really cooks my goose and causes me a great deal of anxiety/PTSD (working with/for people who conflate violence with motivation will do that to a person who has a history of being physically assaulted). However, I don't see any other option at this point. Certainly, begging doesn't work any more (at least not here).
If, for some reason, you take pity on me and would like to send me a little crypto (over and above what Pub0x will give me when you tip) to ease my troubles (instead of leaving an unhelpful and inaccurate comment about me being a lazy commie who should get a job in construction), my cryptocurrency wallet addresses are as below:
- 0x (ZRX)/Augur (REP)/Binance USD (BUSD)/Civic (CVC)/Compound (COMP)/Digix DAO (DGD)/Funfair (FUN)/Gnosis (GNO)/Golem (GO)/Loopring (LRC)/Metal (MTL)/Salt (SALT)/Shiba Inu (SHIB)/SpaceChain V1/2 (SPC)/Omise Go (OMG)/Ten X (PAY)/True USD (TUSD)/USD Coin (USDC)/Stable USD (USDS): 0xc1ce4e062192f1bB9209b6079F501946634A6171
- 1ST/BAT/DAI/ETH/STORJ/UNI/USDC: 0x72Fd90b1F30C97Dc4615Af268A0ff67C659a715d
- Aeternity (AE): ak_UVLXGnz6NMRoTgVP1M4NknJFBBXdoTZTMWEEuhZm1Rdqezf8T
- Algorand (ALGO): TFEYLR6MQEVKKWWRU75AN7V3OJNHGMFCZRTS7LBVZCOGSAIEZ2WSCEJSCI
- Ark (ARK): AbnD7PhV6ArQmFxM88s5zRxqicYE7ZK5Dk
- Axie Infinity/Ronin (AXS/ETH): ronin:7e34d99d4efd9cbfda379790da9122ad2b10cfbd
- Bitcoin (BTC): bc1q7wyu9gzfm3aw3pkwjzz7kej2sc6z3tjcmmdkuk
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH): qrdt46w8j9jytym0y0dda2ln5xp7k4z7fqhrwwfvm8
- Cardano (ADA): addr1q9q9l7qu99q74wkctk5xa5gjr733gc959yz98s4fuxt0jd6qtlupc22pa2adshdgdmg3y8arz3stg2gy20p2ncvklymsdwpfgp
- Chainlink (LINK): 0x72Fd90b1F30C97Dc4615Af268A0ff67C659a715d
- Cosmos (ATOM): cosmos1vha05tt2w3w7zr8d26z5x72jsu6zrl5ldw8f4w
- Decentralised Credit (DCR): Dsjnfqky5xtZBnFaoWjQKW4xHwduAuLJkYz
- Digibyte (DGB): DC7GmNWdyb46owxDe5TbJRr9ESMCdaRBWS
- Digital Cash (DASH): Xo3nJ3FT38rvd6bydvHJoVhxtsKZWczu2J
- Doge (DOGE): DN5zeaNdt6BMvwzZNUpTh6NMBmDKqmuFJ8
- Hedera (HBAR): 0.0.326593
- Groestlcoin (GRS): FkXDy9PjUEmnpimkid5BYef7aYYrRyuxBU
- Kin (KIN): GBIRNG6ZB7WEAZT4WZV62QHEFM3Q6WUTCRACGQZ7L6IFUFYVMFL2LBDL // Not to be confused with Kinbaku
- Icon (ICX): hxe9e99565661b9f8d729ccfe47529c47ac368ea22
- Lisk (LSK): 11663960826915535474L
- Litecoin (LTC): LZXS7p29fG3MvZUpJXqMDhKzD8ssMRQhqc
- Monero (XMR): 45d2NafB9e6G6Wokv4oUUgCMMyY7zZdtTWwhHsuTZJjqRqnJgBoVQ8uCPT2kXE8XAPaExmDkFQiffhsCmUQvNbx2Rs7ZRpH
- Nano (NANO): nano_3zko4ni45swbgr9sgdrhg61xrejostnuxd71y3f1yrhuzyt4ri7czxqticdk
- Nem (XEM): NAOL3QXQAUJZZITP2OWSQHOT4WCYX6IDPZSTYBTF
- Neo (NEO): AWtqw5j1Lo7VMUUkvaeP3Kfk69RdPu5XoH
- Netbox (NBX): NiuCrrAe4AxuD4LJE4VNjfLFqdZBwEsRBq
- Ontology (ONT): AJxptJEB8W2y3B1pf5ZQR1rY85pUBaYpfq
- Polkadot (DOT): 146WhhMFGJjtMH5WHUQSo84MG4TxydwUh8y9z73xR7kn6D3M
- Quantum (QTUM): QcsMEfT4waJ5nxz3xirJMsDNDhTFtY1EdF
- Raven Coin (RVN): RMaBqLwA2bDjKLNvMgcTNcEKHSbtLeDhLY
- Ripple (XRP): rsoVzppnyjqPiXEEwUjnn9bBHcko8ej5sy
- Solana (SOL): EziKpSuw15jDeip8o7H1uYD7vREiyTHs7tXWEX3PwTHM
- Stellar Lumens (XLM): GAO5IZSH434XINL4O5A3VOZRSSR72PUMVKDEA7DRZARM2543EUAJNYB4
- Tezos (XTZ): tz1aXasADoVZrCVMbhMewja9gPJS9jnFUbF1
- Tron (TRX): TST6qL21eDpJZD953CSatVP5pJwdfGigjm
- VeChain (VET): 0x271d9adD2d885484c6e652Dc32aFBE776261fD50
- Verge (XVG): DEuiqJ4k8z7HGrZV7RDwnHdaHL9JnbFxWQ
- Waves (WAVES): 3P3aHM7WXVhTvQ8rcFoAPr8SiokAmGKSg3S
- Z Cash (ZEC): t1RnZacv4hP5SHgyCbxSWUHM4Xb6KofaPxn
- Zilliqa (ZIL): zil1wr527xcje7jpx2vcsz6ahn2gxv0h8geryc2pss
While I'd prefer ATOM, BTC, ETH (or ERC-20 tokens), stablecoin (USD Coin, True USD), ONT, XMR or XTZ, I understand that not everyone is inclined to give out denominations from their main crypto assets.
With humility and many thanks,
The Snark
Thumbnail image: "Sex with miners: What's the problem?"
