In my old day job, I drilled for oil. On one of those floating platforms armed with a glorified hyped-up robotic tool that broke the rock on the ocean floor and released oil. When oil busted, I wonder what was the best approach to transfer my skills.
I had this one year once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in private equity from chatting with someone at a Houston Texans game. Joining was the best decision I made. In that year, I worked closely with the Texans owner managing his personal portfolio. I helped him weather the storm with oil and gas and diversify with wind, solar, and alternative options. Aggregating data, creating analysis, forming valuations, and compiling it all in one handy report — I was hooked.
As someone who analyzed new technology day in and day out, I wondered what was next. Enter blockchain and the crypto curious craze. For most of my career, I’ve been in one the largest, volatile commodity markets. I’ve analyzed oil trends and forecasted prices through bear and bull markets.
Cryptocurrency will become the forefront of global commodities within due time. I believe so passionately about the internet money and blockchain that I taught myself how to mine for alternative coins on my laptop. (Though my CPU wasn’t too happy with me — more on that to come).
So I began to mine. Naturally, I gravitated towards to easiest coin that has relatively high value, Monero. Monero is a crypto coin centered around the idea of private, censorship-resistant transactions. To put it simply, Monero uses cryptography (the new morse code) to shield sending and receiving addresses and transaction amounts.
Crypto mining is essentially the checks and balance system for blockchain. Miners solve complex computer problem to allow them to validate and secure transactions and subsequently add them to the blockchain. When their task is complete, they are rewarded with the newly created coin. These rewards could be quite lucrative. To put things in perspective, Bitcoin miners who successfully validate and add to the blockchain are compensated with 12.5 bitcoins. If 1 BTC is roughly $8000 USD, that would be $100,000.
Time to enter the mining game. I had lofty, realistic goals to mine about $25 worth in Monero. Why? Cause it’s an experiment and us engineers like experiments. I needed to set a tangible goal that wouldn’t consume me but I’d see a full cycle like I did with drilling for oil.
Similar to being an drilling engineer as a crypto mining engineer I would source my resource (geological analysis), create my plan (reservoir & well planning), select my tools (rig selection, drilling configuration), mine for virtual commodities (drill, drill, drill), transfer the currency to my wallet (oil pipelines), adopt the currency to BTC through (refining crude to gasoline), and finally sell to the market (oil/gas traders).
Step 1: Make a “drilling” plan. Simple enough. I wanted to mine with the minimal number of moving parts. Monero mining can be done with your CPU meaning personal laptops are okay to use. Define parameters to measure (laptop utility, energy consumed, time lapsed, Monero price).
Step 2: Source a mining rig. I chose Minergate for this because 1) it offered a two-week free trial and 2) you simply install and go.
Step 3: Implement tools. All I needed to do was create an account with Minergate and install the software. Minergate automatically detects which drivers are needed to install for your mining rig.
Step 4: Start Mining. Honestly, all you had to do was open the app, log into your account, and then click which altcoin you wanted to mine. Easy, peasy. Minergate offers a variety of options for coins but I stuck with Monero.
From here on out, I will be conducting this mining experiment. I will let you know about all my measured parameters. Naturally, the one I am most curious about is the energy consumption/efficiency. Only time and my electricity bill will tell what my little, old MacBook can handle.
