It is official.
I have bought myself a small Nerdminer recently. A cute little thing which brings about a few KH/s (about 20.5 KHashes/s).
It isn’t much when compared to the full-on dedicated ASIC-miners who pump out in the range of a few MHashes/s up to a few THashes/s for Bitcoin mining. These are exponentially more powerful than the cute little thing I have running about.
But why this choice?
There are a few good reason why I urge people to invest in these small mining “gadgets”.
– They are low-cost
– You still help out securing the network a few KHashes/s at a time
– You still have a (very very very very very very) small chance to mine a block
– You get a better feeling on how Bitcoin and Crypto mining works
– DECENTRALIZATION!!
Let us begin by zooming in on these reasons!
1. They are low-cost.
Consider the price of dedicated ASIC-miners.
They range immediately from about 2000 up to 5000 (and more) $USD in purchasing cost.
I.e. without plugging them in, connecting them to the internet and having them running.
Additional costs must be accounted for.
- Electricity use
–> For cooling
–> Running the miner
–> Lights and monitoring
- Internet connection
To give you an idea, for the highlighted BITCOIN MINER S19 PRO+ HYD. you will need a 400V connection and it consumes about 5.252 kWh in energy per hour. To compare, a modern average refrigerator only does 0,013 kWh per hour. This is without accounting for the possible cooling setup you need to foresee that will draw additional energy as well. At the same time do you need an additional display and computer running to monitor the miner and see if no problems arise. You’ll also want to check-up your internet connection. It consumes data as the miner will need to communicate with a miningpool. Depending on the country you live in, special contracts with energy and internet-providers may need to be made.
Taking all of this into account and your initial investment will start to get to 4000-5000 $USD and upwards. With dedicated miners do I try to make clear to all of my students that a profitability calculation is of MAJOR importance when starting to mine. There are plenty of costs to be had which can take the prospective miner by surprise. I highly suggest reading up on my CRYPTO MINING course to get a deeper understanding on the “how-to” side of things.
How does the Nerdminer perform?
5V connection (mine is being powered by the USB-port of my home computer).
Amount of power drawn? A few Watts an hour to the point it becomes negligible.
It can be compared to have one of those night-lamps for children running day and night.
It is NOT going to impact your electricity bills at all. As a matter of fact, you’ll probably need a few (5 to 10) running at the same time before it comes even close to seeing a difference on your electricity bill. As I have mine plugged in on my main home-computer (whom is mining Banano and running an active Ravencoin-node as well) and my internet still being top-notch… no adjustments are needed.
My initial investment?
Almost 70 EUR. Shipment included.
2. You still help out securing the network a few KHashes/s at a time
Currently is the total Bitcoin network secured by several MILLIONS of TerraHashes/s.
Even now is the Bitcoin Network establishing new All-Time-Highs where it concerns security.
This implies that the days of a single miner having the possibility to take-over the network by majority are long over.
The major rebuttal by people who will reject small scale miners such as the Nerdminer (and others alike) is that the hashrate they add to the network is tiny.
… but it is security added none the less.
When big miningpools go offline will this be reflected in the hash-rate of the network.
People will need to redirect their mining rigs elsewhere as they are effectively offline.
Small miners, such as the Nerdminer, still are susceptible to the same flaws (where it concerns mining pools) as the “big ones”.
None the less. You are still adding additional security to the network for a much better price and a much lower cost (see title 1. They are low-cost.) due to their specs and general built.
3. You still have a (very very very very very very) small chance to mine a block
Those who reject Lottery Miners (which is the type of miners that the NERDMINER belongs to) tend to do so on the basis of their very small Hashrate.
What is hashrate?
Keywords here is “How many guesses are made per second”.
ASIC-miners are dedicated. They can do many more guesses per second than our tiny Nerdminer. But at the same time, they are all still guessing.
If you guess more there will be a higher chance of getting the correct answer.
Not guessing will automatically result in NEVER getting the correct answer.
This is the reason that the Nerdminer is to be considered as a “Lottery Miner”.
It participates but its chances are small. Yet we ALL have been in a situation where people were “guessing” a solution only for one guy to suddenly hit it right-on with his first guess.
The Nerdminer allows participation. Other Lottery Miners like it, in the past, have had successes with mining a block and getting all the rewards and transaction fees with it. Sure, even this miner still had a TerraHash in power but it does show that the odds can be beaten. Let’s also not forget that the NERDMINER can be pooled to increase chances and give a small pay-out in the long term.
While the chances to win a block are very very very very small, they are not zero.
To have this little gadget is more of a statement that you support and help decentralize the network than it is one of going for profit.
4. You get a better feeling on how Bitcoin and Crypto mining works
Experience is everything. Many Crypthusiasts ape into coins and tokens without research.
They buy high and sell low.
The same applies to Crypto miners. There are quite a bunch of “amateurs” who buy obsolete Bitcoin miners “on the cheap” and direct it at a mining pool in hopes to get some good profits.
In reality will these miners be operating at a loss (unless activated during a bull-market where some marginal profits can hopefully be made). Many forego doing profitability calculations, create losses and then sell-off or quit mining altogether and exclaim Bitcoin being a scam.
This is not only limited to Bitcoin. Some people will ape into buying hardware “to support the network” of their favourite coin/token and will turn sour when they notice it will take a LONG time before they’ll be seeing returns on their miner (due to bear-markets, depreciation of the coin etc…).
Something like the Nerdminer is a small step-in tool that enables the owner to experience mining. How to do the setup. How to do profitability calculations (without risking to lose 1000s of $USD). How to built, modify and redirect. It is a very cheap alternative that allows people to get more intimate with Bitcoin. As I have posted my invoice with the purchasing price… about 70 $USD as an investment to “learn the ropes” is a lot more sustainable than laying down a few 1000s $USD that I won’t be making back in a long time.
The end result in both instances remains the same.
5. DECENTRALIZATION!!
As mentioned in “2. You still help out securing the network a few KHashes/s at a time” you are still helping out the network with a few KHashes at a time.
What is more important is that you are an ADDITIONAL independent miner to the network.
You help secure it in a small but important way.
Many ASIC and GPU-miners congregate in mining pools.
Many ASIC miners are being rented by individuals from centralized corporations.
This gives rise to the argument that Bitcoin isn’t as decentralized as it claims to be.
Truth is, very few people own an ASIC miner due to the high cost.
More people tend to invest in a mining farm and “rent” hashrate as an investment model.
This makes Bitcoin decentralized still as there are thousands upon thousands of mining farms worldwide. And still thousands upon thousands of individual miners of varying hashrate contributing still.
NERDMINER (and any other Lottery Miner alike) contributes to the total security of the network still. Due to its cheap entry cost and maintenance are you helping, as an individual, to keep the Bitcoin Network as decentralized as possible.
My simple Nerdminer with its 20.5 KHashes/s is not linked to a central corporation or mining farm. It stands on its own and cannot be compromised unlike mining farms.
This is the true power of Nerdminer.
Bit-Block.org 
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