In a moment of weakness and a heightened sense of FOMO, I decided to buy a CyptoTab Pool Miner. It didn't hurt that there is currently a 50% seasonal sale going on as well. At least, at the time of this writing.
From what I've seen on YouTube about these pool miners, you don't really make a lot of money. But, at least you make back what you paid for it, plus a little extra. I want to see how much extra, and if it's actually worth the effort, and there is a bit of effort, as I'll clarify a bit later.
Their pool miner offerings range from 3 KH/s to 560 KH/s of mining power. I choose one in the middle, that provides 210 KH/s hashrate. The reason I choose this one is because it was the most powerful one that still offers an extra multi-month discount. It seems that if you purchase too much power, then you only have the option to purchase it for a single month - which means no extra discount.
So, for a pool minor with a hashrate of 210 KH/s on a 3 month subscription, here is the pricing.
Please note: all dollar values shown in this article are in Canadian dollars, because, well, I live in Canada :-)
I bought the one in bold with all the discounts. All the links I've placed in here offer you that extra discount. I figure this gives me the best chance of making a profit. In all reality, you'd expect the minor to at least be able to return enough to cover the regular price. Otherwise, it would never be worth it. Unless you only ever buy it when it's on sale. With that logic, since I only paid $232 for the 3 months and the regular price is $546. I stand to make at least $313 by the end of the 3 months. We'll see what happens :)
This is my shiny new minor after a little over 4 hours.
A Bit of Effort
This is the "bit of effort" I mentioned earlier. As it turns out, these purchased miners don't just stay on at full speed the whole period of your subscription. They actually turn off on a regularly scheduled basis, and you are required to manually turn them back on. I read somewhere that it was every 12 hours, but I haven't been able to find any information about that on the CryptoTab site. I have already had to turn mine back on, and it was within the first 4 hours after I purchased it, so maybe it's a certain time of day.
Update: So, it looks like this auto-shutoff happens every 4 hours! That is a little more than "a bit of effort" in my opinion. It's definitely a pain. I'll try to keep up with as best I can, but I'm pretty sure it'll impact my profits. I guess we'll see by how much.
Free Miner
When you purchase your first miner, you actually also have to purchase a "slot" subscription. Slots are where you place miners that aren't your own personal devices. At least that's how I understand them. Slot subscriptions start at $2.10/mo for 2 slots, and get a little cheaper if you purchase more slots at a time. One cool thing about this initial slot subscription is that you get a free pool minor to go with it.
The interesting thing is that it says it expires in 7 days. I guess that makes sense, because when I purchased the slots it came with a 7 day trial. So, I don't actually start paying for the slots until day 8. We'll see if the "free" miner sticks around after that as well :)
Update: This miner did end up sticking around after the trial period. So I guess I get to keep it so long as I keep my "slot" subscription active.
If you were to purchase this miner on a 3 month subscription, this would be the pricing.
Other CryptoTab Features
CryptoTab Farm Local Miners
You can also add your own computers to mine crypto instead of purchasing pool miners. First, you'll have to install the CryptoTab Farm app on your phone or a computer. That's where you manage your "farm", whether it's your own computers, or pool miners. Then install the CryptoTab Miner software on your PC or Mac, and connect it to your farm app on your phone. I found the phone to be more convenient when it comes to linking your local miner with your farm.
One super cool thing about local miners is that you can setup some pretty complex schedules for your computers so they don't interfere with work, or times when they are regularly used. Below are a couple pictures of an old desktop and a new laptop as miners, as well as the awesome scheduler.
CryptoTab Browser
They also has their own browser, which pays you crypto to use it. I used it for a while a few years ago, and it was just a small amount of crypto that I earned, but it was free. I just installed it again, and I turned on all the options - default browser, default search, and whatever else there was. I'm curious to see how it goes.
CryptoTab NFT
I don't actually know anything about this one yet. I'm a little scared of NFTs :) I'll probably look into it at some point.
Regular Progress Updates Here
Alright, that's it for now. I'll post updates of the miner progress on a regular basis. Leave a comment of whether or not you'd prefer a weekly progress update or a daily one.
- Day 1, Sept 23: Paid mining 0.00006622 BTC, free mining 0.00000286 BTC, 1 BTC = $26.6K USD or $35.8K CAD
- Day 2, Sept 24: Paid mining 0.00013688 BTC, free mining 0.00000590 BTC
- Day 3, Sept 25: Paid mining 0.00018595 BTC, free mining 0.00000800 BTC
- Day 6, Sept 28: Paid mining 0.00038826 BTC, free mining 0.00001504 BTC
- Day 7, Sept 29: Paid mining 0.00040439 BTC, free mining 0.00001741 BTC
- Day 10, Oct 2: Paid mining 0.00057732 BTC, free mining 0.00002481 BTC
- Day 14, Oct 6: Paid mining 0.00080574 BTC, free mining 0.00003459 BTC
- Day 20, Oct 12: Paid mining 0.00112154 BTC, free mining 0.00004815 BTC
- Day 26, Oct 18: Paid mining 0.00143705 BTC, free mining 0.00006173 BTC
- Day 35, Oct 27: Paid mining 0.00207259 BTC, free mining 0.00008180 BTC, 1BTC = $34K USD or $47.1K CAD
It has officially been over a month. Let's see if I'm on track to make my required $77.53 CAD / mo.
0.00207259 BTC @ $47.1K CAD / BTC = $97.61 So, that looks good. But, what if BTC had remained at the same price.
0.00207259 BTC @ $35.8K CAD / BTC = $74.19 Just made it, but this is just a bit over a month, so, it's pretty close.
Thanks for reading,
Lyle
