You wished in the comments,
do something about bitcoins. That's why I 'm starting an experiment now. I want to find out:
Can I make money with Bitcoins myself? So not with the trade, but
by producing them myself , preferably with my own computer. That would
be great if it was worth it, because the Bitcoin price has gone through the roof in the last few months
. Within 24 hours it went up by around 4,000 euros.
Sometimes you feel the need to buckle up. The accolade was probably the commitment
of Tesla boss Elon Musk. He bought Bitcoin for $1.5 billion.
One Bitcoin currently costs almost 50,000 euros. So I ask myself, wouldn't it
be worth mining bitcoins yourself? Something is happening.
I mine. I
'm definitely already digging. I know that this uses a lot of energy and costs a lot of
money. We currently have an annual electricity consumption that is comparable to Sweden.
First of all I would like to know, how is it technically possible
to produce bitcoins with your own computer? Because I have no idea about it, I'm going to meet a
computer expert who knows about it. So you're teaching me how to mine
bitcoin? I agree. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you! Bene is 22 and an editor
at a computer magazine, has mined Bitcoin himself
and reported on it. So I can definitely learn something from him.
Yes, let's get started then.
So, this is my calculator. Yes. Now of course I'm wondering
, is that thing technically possible that I can mine bitcoins? I think that
makes little sense. It's not as new as it looks now. He is five years old.
You could have started doing this a few years ago. There are now people who
have specialized in it. Basically, when you say that hardware like
this doesn't work, you can mine bitcoins yourself. What do I basically need for a setup,
for a computer so that it would technically work at all ? Well, what you really need for
Bitcoin mining is a so-called ASIC miner. This is hardware that is specially
designed to be used for mining. Way too expensive. That's out of the
question for me.
I want to find out whether I can mine with my normal computer at the same time
. But if you want to buy hardware that you can use to do something else
, basically a PC with a graphics card, then it's ultimately important that
the graphics card is one of the newest and then also one of the strongest in comparison. Because if
everyone else has better graphics cards than you, then they just earn the money and not you.
Tip from Bene: The older the graphics card, the less profitable mining is. But even with
a suitable graphics card, it's not worth mining bitcoins. Bene recommends other
cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Monero or Raven. Mining is worthwhile even with a
good graphics card. And Bene has one. What would such a computer do now if I put it together
myself in roughly this form, how much does it cost? So around 1,000 euros
. Ah okay. Because the graphics cards alone usually cost a few hundred.
By the way: These graphics cards are really hard to come by right now. The reason:
You need the graphics cards for both mining and gaming.
That drives up the prices.
We agree that I can't do it with this. How can you help me there?
fence post! Oh I see. Because you are, you can have my computer too. How long can you
do without it? As long as you need it, you've earned something with it.
One week? Depends on. Maybe after a week you already… Are you already a millionaire?
We will see. So, if so, Bene will of course get a hefty commission for all his
tips. Anyway, I'm excited. OK, bye! It didn't all sound that
difficult. I hope that I can get all of that installed now. First, of
course, the computer has to be set up and connected to the internet
and stuff like that. But I'll do it! It's already on.
So, he's
fast. Now find the right software. There are really a lot of them, for
example MinerGate, Salad or NiceHash. Bene recommended NiceHash to me as a beginner.
Apparently you can't go wrong there. OK! Well, I still don't know my way around at all
. And because of that, I think it's best if I use this NiceHash,
which I know is supposed to be simple. With NiceHash, I automatically mine
the cryptocurrency that is most lucrative with my graphics card. At the end
I can then be paid out in Bitcoin. Well, it's possible that I've already installed the whole thing with three
clicks and what feels like four and a half seconds.
It's not that fast. Now it really starts downloading
after I've logged in. It's all OK. OK. Well, I could really start mining right now
. But before that I would like to do a power check first, because this
huge part certainly consumes a lot of power, especially when I start mining.
I want to find out exactly how much.
So quickly switch off the PC again, unplug the power meter
and plug it in and start the PC again. The way I see it, the computer
now levels off at a power consumption of 42/43 watts when it's doing absolutely nothing.
Alright folks! Now comes the spectacular moment. I start mining.
Something's happening! I mine. I 'm definitely already digging. And it also looks so
hacker-like, I think, this other window that opened up there. And do you hear?
The computer accelerates.
He has to step on the gas. A moment ago, when the computer
was doing almost nothing, we were around 42/43. Now we're already at 360. I'm going to use an
electricity price calculator to see how much it will cost me if the computer here is running 24/7.
Now I take the 360 watts that the computer has settled on when it is
in mining mode. Then comes out: Attention! 2.61 euros per day.
If I do this for a week now
, the electricity costs will be 18.27 euros. If I calculate that now for the
month, if I pay 73 euros here for the computer for the mining alone…
Normally I pay 40. Then I would almost triple my monthly electricity costs.
But now from a purely financial point of view: I mean, a bitcoin is worth almost 50,000 euros. What if
the computer really accelerates here and digs up a bitcoin for me?
From now on, Bene's computer automatically earns money for me. Let's
see what comes out of it in the end! People! A very crucial problem here
on Meini's Bitcoin farm. The sound! I have to get this under control,
otherwise I can't stand it here! Thanks to a groundbreaking design, I was
actually able to solve the problem. Listening times! And how? I put some cork plates underneath here
.
Interestingly only three. Not here. So, the computer is now at an angle and
no longer vibrates as lopsided as it is. Welcome back to Meini's bitcoin farm.
It's been going on for a while now. Oh, I don't know what I've earned so far.
The software shows that relatively easily somewhere . But I don't look at it. I
don't force myself to look at it. I just want to keep the tension going.
I have the total beginner bitcoin farm here. That's why I made an appointment with the professional
, Dominik. He is an entrepreneur in Austria and
started mining Bitcoin on a large scale a few years ago. And he has also
thought of something clever for this immense power consumption. Servus to Austria! Servus, howdy,
hello! Now please tell me again briefly: What exactly did you do there? Yes,
I started mining bitcoins and cryptocurrencies relatively young, in 2013, at the end of 2013, actually just
for fun . And then a couple of
years later we decided, let's scale that up a little bit, and
then in our hometown we decided that we'd go to the power plant owner and say hey,
hello! We would like to connect bio-energy to you.
And so I came to the point
that we had many hundreds of devices that mined cryptocurrencies at the peak.
Hundreds of Asic miners in a warehouse directly connected to a hydroelectric power plant.
A million investment! With that, Dominik mined bitcoin day and night
and used quite a lot of electricity! What kind of electricity price did you
actually pay per kilowatt hour? 6 cents. But that was already including the tax
and of course including the additional profit that the power plant owner then received.
Because of course he had more work with us , in contrast to the public network,
where he already had his contracts.
And of course he
wanted to earn more because otherwise he wouldn't do it. I pay 30 cents per kilowatt hour, which means
you only got a fifth of it, so to speak. What is the current situation? Do you
still have this farm? No, we stopped that. With Bitcoin, every four years,
the reward for mining is halved. That was in May 2020 and about half a
year before that point in time, mostly new hardware is published by all the
producers. And that would mean investing millions in new hardware again. And
it just wasn't worth it to us anymore. This entire phase, where you did it so big
, with these many hundreds of calculations , was it
worth it in the end? It's a pastime that also made money on the side. Now
not infinitely much. When you hear that, I'm mine here at 30 cents a kilowatt-hour…
You're throwing your hands over your head. Can this work? It can
work.
Yes, that can indeed work. Dominik, thank you very much
! That was very exciting. Gladly, gladly! I upgraded and got an
energy cost meter. The difference to my meter down there
is that it only shows actual consumption , doesn't record it. With this thing and an
app, I can record my electricity consumption. So, now pit stop like in Formula 1:
stop mining, shut down the PC, change measuring devices, start up the PC again and do it all as quickly
as possible! You know: time is money! Good, so now my power consumption is
tracked and recorded exactly. So now I know exactly what I'm consuming.
What I don't know exactly yet is what this calculator really means for the climate
and what all this mining of cryptocurrencies means for the climate.
And I will take care of this aspect now .
And here: At the Technical
University of Munich. I have an appointment with the computer scientist Ulrich Gallersdörfer. He researches and
teaches as a PhD student on blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is considered the blatant power
guzzler, bitcoin mining. I see it in myself too. I also track my power
consumption and see what the computer draws. So is it true that bitcoin mining is
such an environmental and climate sin? So, the bitcoin is the most
energy consuming currency, the most energy consuming cryptocurrency.
We currently have an annual electricity consumption that is comparable to Sweden.
So, we
have very, very high energy requirements. Such a simple transaction, how much
energy consumption does it cause? Invoicing for individual transactions is always very simple.
We simply take the total energy consumption, divide that by the number of transactions in the
same period, and you have a bill! I did the math this morning: It
was somehow 800 kilowatt hours, that's kind of a US household for about 25 days.
800 kilowatt hours for a transaction? Yes. Awesome! So much power for, for example, ONE
bitcoin transfer! Why does this bitcoin use so much energy anyway?
The stream actually protects the network against attacks. This means that an attacker who
would attack the network in any way, would somehow try to manipulate something,
would have to muster just as much power as the rest of the network.
Because that's just so much
energy, the bitcoin is very, very secure and just protects all that bitcoin and
all the value that's stored in that system. So, now an attempt to explain the network
: As a bitcoin miner, I am a member of a decentralized network. In
theory, anyone can take part. The miners are responsible for verifying and
executing Bitcoin transactions. The miners' computers are the witnesses
that transactions from person A to person B are actually taking place. Miners collect these
bitcoin transactions in blocks from anywhere in the world . That's why the whole thing is called a blockchain
, which translates to German: blockchain.
The transactions are stored in these blocks
. In order to protect the blockchain from manipulation, the blocks must be
secured by complex calculations. The miners' computers take care of this:
All miners count, but only one actually manages to solve the calculation for
one block at a time. The successful miners receive a small share of bitcoins as a reward
. This is called "mines" or "digging". When the blocks are secured and
distributed across the network, the transactions are approved and completed.
Since there are always a large number of
miners calculating at the same time, this consumes a lot of energy, because only one makes it to the
goal at a time. But that's also what makes it so safe. Not everything is easy to understand!
Thank you for sure. I want to press stop here after exactly seven days, i.e.
after 168 hours. That will be the case in a good hour . I also invited Bene
and then I want to go through with him what really came out of it.
In the meantime, you can answer my question: do you already have
experience with cryptomining? Or would you now like to try it yourself?
Write that in the comments. Have a seat. You're almost on time to the minute
. Before we practically press stop here , we can calculate the power I actually used,
because that is what matters afterwards .
On average, your computer has used almost 353 watts per hour for the last seven
days. That's a total of almost 60,000 watts , i.e.
60 kilowatt hours. With my
electricity tariff of 0.3021 euros, this means: 17.89 euros. Yes, so I had electricity costs of around 18 euros
in one week. That's a lot more than I usually spend on electricity for the whole place, isn't it?
Hope it was worth it! Like, hopefully it was worth it at all?
Yes, maybe you paid extra? Yes, wait a minute! So you think it's possible
that I didn't even earn the 18 euros? I dont know. It may be.
How is
the course? Did the course fall? Yes, he fell a bit.
It was now at 45,000 euros. But when I started, it was around 50,000 euros.
OK, come! Let's press on the head. Let's stop. Celebration moment! We're
ending it now. What have I actually earned? And now I'll click here.
Is that all now? That's now, that's all? That's not what I
deserved today? Well, I think that's all! I don't think you're a millionaire yet!
OK. I tell you now. Oh awesome! That's really less than I thought. 23.41 euros.
I have to draw my power from that. Well, we were just at around 18 euros for
electricity. That leaves a good 5 euros left. Yes. Oh [ __ ]! Were you hoping
for more? Yes.
Yes? Yes. And from my 23.41 euros, I would have to pay
around 2 euros to NiceHash to pay out in Bitcoin. But pretty far away
from my bitcoin million! I wanted to know: Can I mine Bitcoins
or cryptocurrency myself, for example with something like this here. This question seems surprisingly
naive to me, so the answer is "yes". It doesn't work with that. With the right computer
, it's possible. But hey! You saw for yourself what comes out of it. Should you
participate now, i.e. mine or invest? Everyone should
really decide for themselves whether they think this energy consumption
is justified. If you want to see such reports more often
, then leave a subscription here, with a bell if you like!
I also recommend my self-experiment here, where I bought shares
.
Obviously money is my issue! And we also have good music
here in the PULS Reportage Playlist..
