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How I turned $3500 into $15000 mining Cryptocurreny during the 2017 boom at 17 years old
First let's start at my first interaction with Bitcoin. Back in 2016, I was trading Minecraft accounts, you could find my story about that in one of my previous post. Long story short, a buyer had offered to buy one of my accounts for a fair amount of Bitcoin. I declined not knowing what that is and not caring. Fast forward a little over a year, May 2017, I find out that you could actually mine cryptocurrency and profit from it. I talk to my techy uncle about it, he looks into it, decides to build a rig. This was easy for him since he had built computers before. Meanwhile summer, I am currently in New Zealand enjoying a vacation. When I come back, I look for ways to get this thing started. My uncle lives hundreds of miles away from me but luckily my mother knows someone who had mined crypto for a while. His name was CryptoNinja. Crypto Ninja was a cool guy, he was a security analyst for a contracting firm. Knew lots about computers and programming. This was easy for him to grasp. When I met him, he had 2 rigs, one consisting of 6 1080ti's and the other with 4 1070's. If you don't know what these are, a 1080ti is or was the top of the line mining graphics card that you could get. Best of the best. Each costed about $550 at the time. 1070's market value were around $300-400 which at the time made mining extremely and easily profitable. This guy taught me how to do everything and when I say everything I mean it all. We started off with ordering the parts, He told me which parts were good for what and bad for this. We ordered from all over the place, Amazon, Newegg, and Microcenter. I gathered a list of parts, SSD, HD, GPU, CPU, MOTHERBOARD, RAM, ETC. All totaling out to about 3.5k. I had 6 1080's that I bought for around 500 each. This was the first time I've built a computer. I was a complete noob. He guided me through the process of starting with software, finding a mining pool, starting up your operating system, and taught me how to manage and maintain the mining program, hardware, and external factors. The whole process of ordering/shipping was about a week, building the computer took about 3 days, setting up programs took about a day. After that, boom. I'm running the mining program with a pool on Zcash. A pool is pretty much a group of miners collectively putting their computing force to get more results. Meanwhile, I'm a senior in High School, bringing my macbook to school everyday to check up on the rig through Remote Desktop after every class. All of this was occuring around Sept. 2017 where BTC was going up up. And I'm talking around 10k. Boy was I racking in a ton of Zcash. Everytime after I'd rack in a good amount, I'd transfer my Zcash directly into my Bittrex account which then I traded for bitcoin and altcoins like OMG, OmiseGO, NEM, ETC. But there was this one time when I got on Bittrex at school and I saw Zcash had mysteriously went up to $400 in 10-15 minutes, the timing had never been better. Guess what I did? Sell all my Zcash yep. Made a good amount of money off of that. Every coin was going up. I continuously made successful trades because prices were going up. I felt like the man. By the time December came around, I had 10k worth of crypto in my exchange account. I know, dumb to keep it in the exchange account but hey I did it. I was the only one mining crypto at my school and people knew me for that but they didn't know how much I made, I joined the investment club. They talked about investing in crypto, what is it? is it safe? they wanted me to speak, i didn't out of fear. They all thought it was a fad. These were traditional stock trader type kids. It was hard for them to understand the concept but by the time they wanted in it was too late. I already cashed out $12.2k. Bitcoin was like 18k at the time and I needed somewhere else to put my money. I decided to buy a whole new gaming setup. Which costed me around 2.5k and a new desk and cool random stuff for my room which costed a few hundred. I spent a lil more money than I wanted to but it was okay. then it came time to sell my mining rig, Bitcoin was falling. People were freaking out. I was out already. The prices of GPU's multiplied by 2. This was insane. I sold my gpu's on ebay for 3k and gave the rest of parts to either friends and kept RAM for myself. At the time, I was still 17. People would look at my computer and say what is that? Oh Bitcoin? That's Stupid. Welp. Not anymore words. What am I doing now? Well I invested in some Quantum Computer Stocks, put some back into Crypto, and put some money into OG accounts which I have a whole story on on a previous reddit post. I learned a lot from this and look back smiling.
Have you read the sidebar and rules? (Please do) Yes. What is your intended use for this build? The more details the better. Primary: Scientific Workstation Software includes - -> computationally expensive MATLAB - CUDA-enabled GPU computing for MATLAB -> computationally expensive quantum chemistry/DFT software - Examples of software - I want to be able to do GPU-assisted simulations as well - VASP - has GPU support -> computationally expensive FDTD software - Lumerical FDTD Solver - commercial software (I have a license) that apparently does not support GPU support; seems the main bottleneck is memory bandwidth and not processing power gsvit - open source FDTD with GPU support Secondary: Gaming, Cryptocurrency (Etherium, Bitcoin mining) I figure the workstation specifications will more than cover the computer's ability to do these, but I wanted to mention these all for completeness sake. If gaming, what kind of performance are you looking for? (Screen resolution, framerate, game settings) 1080p 60fps on high/ultra is good, but if the performance is possible wouldn't mind getting into 4k down the road. I mainly play Blizzard games and Minecraft right now, but may get into Destiny 2. What is your budget (ballpark is okay)? $1500-$2000, but variable. In what country are you purchasing your parts? United States Post a draft of your potential build here (specific parts please). Consider formatting your parts list. Don't ask to be spoonfed a build (read the rules!). PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
Total (before mail-in rebates)
$1530.81
Mail-in rebates
-$20.00
Total
$1510.81
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-28 13:43 EDT-0400
Provide any additional details you wish below. As I mentioned, the primary purpose of this computer will be as a scientific workstation. I don't intend for it to be servecluster quality, but rather a strong desktop computer (duel Windows/Linux boot) that can run some relatively small, computationally expensive simulations and software in a reasonable amount of time, before larger projects/assignments are created for running on a computing cluster. My main concerns are reducing bottleneck - I want to be able to run both CPU and GPU-intensive software in a balanced way, meaning I'm not skimping on the GPU for a better CPU and vice versa. I realize it could be difficult to compare Some specific questions I have: 1) According to Intel's site, the max RAM speed supported by the i7-7700k is DDR4-2400. How does one use RAM with a higher speed? Do you need a Xeon processor? Also, I'm looking at 32 GB RAM. 2) For my purpose, should I definitely get a Z270? I read somewhere that it has a better memory controller than the Z170, but not sure about this. 3) How does the 1080 compare to 2x 1070? Or a 1080 Ti? For CUDA and for cryptocurrencies? I don't know too much about these from a computer hardware perspective, but am interested in learning more. Thank you!
First Post: (You are here.) Part Two: Filesystems and Data Protection Part Three: Networking and Security (Pending) So, I've got my Pi (Model B, 512 RAM) sitting in my homemade LEGO case with detachable 5 watt fan. Power supply is a solid 2.1 amp outlet-to-USB adapter. My SD is a Sandisk micro SDHC in an adapter; 16 gigabytes. The NOOBS installer works fine. All of the ported distros work fine. I bought both codecs. I have a 32 GB USB stick, a WIFI adapter, and everything is working perfectly. Everything runs off the one 5 volt, 2 amp adapter in the wall. No powered hubs, no stack of boxes next to it, nothing. It's a clean and compact setup. So what's the problem? Well... The project that I had in mind when I bought the thing was a simple one. I wanted (and want) to use the Pi to make a modest podcast downloader and NAS/samba server. I've gotten both working. All is well. So, what's the problem if the project is already done? Storage space. I checked my main computer's drive, and discovered that I have well over 100 GB of nothing but podcasts. Music is another 40 or so. Television shows and movies are about 50 GB. Artwork is about 70 GB. Other documents and images aren't that much. Remember my 32 GB flash drive? Don't even ask me how big my entire Humble Bundle collection would be, or Steam games and backups. Yeah... that's not going to work. So my options are to either get an external drive that (A) won't suck all the power and kill my Pi, (B) is reliable to both stay on 24/7 and keep my data safe for years, and (C) doesn't cost a billion dollars; -OR- I can find another project for my Raspberry Pi. I've looked into USB SSDs, but they're very pricy, don't have much storage space, and all full size external drives seem to require more power than the Pi would put out. They make 128 gigabyte flash drives, but those tend to be very expensive and are generally reviewed as failing often. If anyone has experience running an external USB SSD on their Pi without a powered hub, let me know. I'll get a hub if I need one, but I really do not want to. So below is an improvised list of the ideas I've had, and why I haven't done them. I'm hoping that if, at the very least I don't get any good suggestions from you fine folks, that you will get a few good ideas from me. If anyone wants me to re-write this list into an organized and more complete format, then just ask. Maybe we could make a giant list of project ideas. Anyway, I tossed around some projects in my head: (edited for readability)
So I thought about an emulation station. But, no. I already have an ollllld PSP (phat 1001) that I can lay in bed with and play all my old games on.
I thought about a wireless speaker for my computer, or a random Internet radio box. Neither of those are very useful to me though. I have this thing called a MP3 player with FM radio, plus a slow Internet connection.
Then I thought I could make a media center with OpenELEC, but since I don't have any networked media storage, and can watch everything I want from my computer, that's not very useful either.
Next on the list could be an IRC server, but I've no one to chat with on my network, and random strangers getting past my router and firewall is less than comfortable to me.
How about a Minecraft server! Offload some of the work to my Pi and enjoy a slightly better framerate on my main machine! Plus it's always on, so it's like the world is real in a sense. But the FPS boost wouldn't be that great, the chunks would load slower, and I don't play much Minecraft anymore anyway.
An automatic backup server? Again, no large storage for the Pi.
A general downloader? So no room for my music, no podcasts, no games (all legal). What exactly would I be downloading? Say I'm on my main computer, go to gutenberg.org, see a book I want to read, copy the URL, SSH into my Pi and 'wget' it. Then I use samba to connect my main machine to my Pi so I can re-download the book that I downloaded? Even if it was all automatic, what's the point when I ultimately want the copy on my main machine, have no reason to share the books across my home network, and don't need tons of disk space to store it?
A dedicated firewall box? That's an interesting idea, but I'm afraid I don't know much about how that would work, am in another room as the modem, and I already have a DD-WRT router taking care of things.
A dedicated social media thingy? I don't use any social media. I suppose reddit might count, but no chat programs, no G+ or facebook, no Twitter or StumbleUpon.
A feed aggregator? Most of my RSS feeds are web comics that would be better suited to viewing on my main machine. Besides, it really doesn't take that long to update them.
An educational platform? Learn python perhaps? My geek cred would go through the roof, certainly, but if I may quote... "Ain't nobody got time for that!". Anyway, my computer would serve equally well, I'd think.
Home automation? I live in a small apartment and have no knowledge of wiring, much less of complex electronics and custom coding. This should be a fun, cheap, and a small project for me, not a DIY renovation 'just because'.
Build a robot? See above.
Groovy homemade alarm clock? Now that's a great 'Plan C' for me. Simple, fun, and unless the power goes out, reliable. One power outage and my Pi's clock gets reset; not a great alarm clock. I suppose I could set a script to sync the time via NTP, but that assumes the modem and wireless router are both working and connected to the Internet after the power cuts back on.
Security cam? Cool, but I don't need anything like that.
Boodler box? This could be really nice to fall asleep to. I hear that the Boodler software makes very good artificial ambient sounds. But that seems like a waste of a perfectly good Pi, to only use it for an hour each day, if that. I know it could do other things during the daytime, but what? Finding something useful for it is the whole point here.
A text-to-speech book reader? My Kindle does that quite nicely, and is easier to carry around.
Some sort of tricky pseudo-URL setup that redirects traffic for example.com to a server on the Pi? Another interesting idea, but I have no use for that sort of thing. Who am I going to practical joke on my network? Me? Now, I suppose there's an application for extreme security. You set the outgoing URLs and IP addresses that you will allow on your network, and everything else gets sent to a black hole. It would make it hard for malware on any device on your network to call home, or even for a hacker to get feedback from your machines. But it would be a pain in the ass for normal household Internet usage.
Similarly, a Tor router or personal email server? No need.
Anything mobile or battery powered? No mobile applications needed or wanted; no batteries required.
A SMS forwarder? My phone doesn't get decent Internet connections, or have an email application, or a sane data plan, so getting emails or chat logs via SMS would be cool. But again, I do no chatting, and emails over SMS would be painful come bill day.
A personal web server? Don't want one.
An OwnCloud equivalent of Firefox's sync? Basically I would copy my Firefox profile to the Pi, set it in a samba share, and have all of my machines softlink to it. A very cool idea, but kind of flawed. There wouldn't be any protection from multiple computers writing to the profile at the same time. Also, I only have one computer. Well, I have a laptop, but that's a separated thing.
Maybe an index? It wouldn't actually hold any files, but it could keep an automatic inventory of what music, movies, and games I have. Neat, but not very useful.
A key? I configure my main machine to check the local network for any computer named "raspi" or something, and make it automatically shut down if there isn't one? I'm not that tin-foily yet. It also assumes that wifi works on all devices involved. If a storm fries the router, then my main machine is locked down until I get a new router and set it up...without a computer.
A purely essentials backup? Nothing but my important documents, browser profiles, and the like? What, is my Pi reduced to a glorified USB stick now? Use it once every two months and have it gather dust the rest of the time?
A local network VOIP? Our phones have built-in intercom functions.
A Internet-connected VOIP system? Now that would be interesting. I have no one techie enough to be able to call me on it though.
Bitcoin miner? Surely you jest.
A Tripwire log storage thing? An intrusion detection module for the entire network? I'm not knowledgeable enough to set that up properly. Nor would I know what to do if I caught a malicious hacker. If I was and did, I still don't really have a need for it.
An entropy generator? Use things like a USB microphone, network traffic, the GPU traffic, etc., to make random numbers that are extremely hard to predict. Cool, but I don't need that sort of thing.
Voice automation. There's nothing I want to automate vocally. Plus, even commercial voice automation systems aren't that good. I certainly don't want to use Google's service for my always on, personal, home usage.
A virtual pet? No monitor and keyboard, just some sort of critter 'lives' on my Pi, and I talk to it with a USB microphone and stuff? That sounds like a fun idea, but it would probably get stale really quickly. Besides, I know of no software that would do that. I could see a market in the future where small devices run pet AIs that people can interact with. Maybe I could make that happen and be a gazillionare. Maybe you could make that happen and just send me a nice check for giving you the idea. Seriously though. That sounds like a cool concept, but I know even less of programing, electronics, and AI theory, than I of quantum horse breeding.
Wardriv... Um, Warsitting? Log things like wifi spots, encryption schemes used, signal strength and clarity, etc.. I could even sniff signals to figure out people's encryption keys. Why would I want to do any of that though?
Give CPU cycles to some project like protein folding research? The Pi wouldn't be very valuable for that, I don't think. Also, my slow Internet connection.
Learn electrical engineering and play with the GPIO? Make something with LEDs? That's something I would enjoy doing, but I don't have the money or time to mess with that right now. Call this "Plan H".
Have a sensitive information (bank, email, online shopping) machine that I don't need to worry about? Another very good idea. Boring, but good. I'd rather find something fun to work on first though.
A guest computer? That wouldn't be very fun for me. I'd set it up once, then store it away until someone comes over to play on the Internet? That's boring.
A seeding torrent box for Linux ISOs? Good, geeky, and kind of fun. The problem is that I have 30 KB (max) upload, and AT&T as my ISP.
Anything? A porn machine? While tempting, and probably a good idea for separating work and play... I'm fine, thanks. Besides: "Hey, neat little box. Is that a computer? What does it do?" Yeah...
So, as you can see, I'm having trouble coming up with a fun project to do. I'm not just getting a Pi without any idea and begging for an instruction book. I had a goal and even got it set up. I just kind of forgot to check how much storage I needed. So, if anyone has any ideas of things to do with a single Raspberry Pi, please share. I'm at a loss. I'm just been goofing around and trying out different operating systems on it. I'd hate for this thing to go to waste.
UPDATE:
Well, I finally just bit the bullet and got an external HDD for my Pi. I figured that I needed to get one anyway, since I'm running out of room on my main machine. So I might as well put my hundreds of gigs of audio on the Pi's drive once it arrives. Then I'll be able to go with my original idea of a podcast/music/video/torrent downloader. (Again, all legal stuff.) For those interested, I ordered a Western Digital 1 TB NAS drive and a StarTech.com drive enclosure with a built-in fan. I already have one of those enclosures, and it works great. The fan helps keep the drive cool, and it comes with its own power adapter. Hopefully, that paired with a NAS drive designed for 24/7 operation should offer some reliable performance and a long drive life. If anyone's interested, the enclosure I already have houses my Linux drive for my main computer. Linux being my main OS means that this drive is on for hours and hours at a time, and being written to and read from constantly. Besides a slight speed reduction due to my having USB 2 ports, I haven't had any problems running my main OS off an external HDD. That's why I ordered another one for my Pi. I just hope that the HDD I bought will work as well as the case does.
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