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- Hey guys, this is Austin.
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This computer is making me money right now.
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While that might sound like some scummy pop-up ad,
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in reality, it's all thanks to Cryptomining.
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You've probably heard of cryptocurrency,
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such as Bitcoin and Litecoin.
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These are digital currencies that are worth
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real world money.
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For example, a single bitcoin goes for about $2400
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right now.
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This has become a really big industry.
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Not only has Bitcoin been recognized as legal currency
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in places like Japan, but you can spend Bitcoin
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at a lot of online retailers, such as Microsoft,
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buying games on Steam.
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You could even purchase things with PayPal
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using Bitcoin.
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It is a big deal.
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For example, if you fire up a mining program
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on your computer, it'll immediately start
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crunching the numbers on different transactions
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that come it's way.
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As a reward for doing all that hard work,
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you'll gain tiny, tiny amounts of cryptocurrency.
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Typically, this doesn't really equal much.
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However, as things like Bitcoin become
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more and more valuable, it can actually add up.
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There are two different ways of getting your hands
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on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
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The first is really straightforward.
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You can buy and sell them just like anything else.
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So, the market will go up and down and it does that a lot,
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but the theory is, you buy 'em for cheap, sell 'em
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for more and you make a profit just like the stock market.
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The other is by mining.
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So, every transaction is public.
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So what that means is that some computer has to do
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the work of deciding that hey, someone has money,
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it needs to go to the other person.
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Make sure that's a legit transaction.
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In the early days, you could use an ordinary gaming PC
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to mine Bitcoin, but as it's gotten more popular
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and more importantly, there's more and more competition
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for mining, it is pretty crazy to use
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a standard gaming PC to mine Bitcoin today.
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There has been other cryptocurrencies that have sprung up
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over the years.
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So, back in 2013, I had a few different Litecoin
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mining rigs set up and generally speaking,
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if you have a PC with a solid GPU, you can make that work.
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However, the issue is, as things get more and more popular,
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people design what are called ASICs, which are literally
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custom-designed chips that are purely made
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to destroy a PC at mining.
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Today though, cryptomining has seen a major resurgence
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and a lot of that is thanks to a new option called Ethereum.
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Now, this is something that actually does make sense
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to mine on a standard gaming PC.
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So, we've been using this CyberPower PC that we did
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a video on recently which actually is now down to $650,
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which is kind of funny because thanks to cryptomining,
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even the graphics card itself sometimes will go for $650.
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Generally speaking, higher end AMD cards
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like the RX 580 that's inside is going to be your
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best bet for cryptomining.
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NVIDIA options also do work pretty well too.
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If you have a lower end card that's maybe a little bit
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older that's gonna draw a lot of power,
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you wanna try mining on the CPU, it's generally not
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going to be worth it.
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Cryptomining really is all about the GPU.
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The actual setup for mining is surprisingly straightforward,
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a lot better than it used to be.
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So you just need three things, a PC to do your mining,
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a Bitcoin wallet and a mining program.
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There are lots of options for creating a wallet,
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but I use Coinbase.
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Not only is it fairly simple as they do pretty much
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all the work for you, but not only can you buy Bitcoin,
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but more importantly, you can sell them or just spend them.
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For the mining program, a really easy option
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is to use Nicehash.
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So, this runs as a normal Windows app
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and all you need to do is let it do it's initial setup,
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give it your Bitcoin wallet address
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and it handles everything else from there.
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Nicehash does take three percent of everything that you mine
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but in return, it's a completely automatic setup,
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so if you're not super familiar with this stuff,
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it works pretty well and it's even smart enough
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to automatically pick between different algorithms
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based on what's going to be most profitable.
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The cool thing is, since this is just a normal
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Windows program, you can mine whenever you want.
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So, say you wanna actually play some games on your game PC,
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just stop mining for a few minutes.
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Once you're done, turn it back on.
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So I'm about to throw some numbers at you guys,
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but please take all these with a giant grain of salt.
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This can go way up and way down pretty much at any point.
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So right now, with this setup over the last few days,
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it's averaged making about $2.10 a day.
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So, of course, you do have to keep the electricity bill
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in mind.
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So with this system and the electricity rates here,
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it's pulling about 25 cents worth of power a day.
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That might not sound like much, but when you add it up,
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that's about $57 a month or about $690 a year,
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which is actually enough to pay for the entire system.
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But, and there's a giant but,
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this changes all the time, seriously.
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So, just today, as we've been filming this video,
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prices have changed a lot.
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So, earlier this morning, we were making about
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$1.90 a day.
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However, right now, we're doing about $2.31 in mining.
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It really does change on an almost hourly basis.
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All of this is just an example with this single graphics
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card inside this system.
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So if you have a really beefy system
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with say, a pair of 1080 Ti's, you can be making
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a lot more money.
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On the other hand, if you have an older graphics card,
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it might not even make sense to mine in the first place.
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So, there is a cool calculator.
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I have that linked into the description
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where you can plug in what your hardware is.
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It'll tell you roughly about how much
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you would make per day.
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What doesn't really make sense is going out and buying
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a bunch of hardware just to start mining.
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So, this has actually made graphic cards
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not only out of stock in a lot of places,
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almost more important than that, really, really expensive.
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One things that makes a little bit more sense
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is if you already have a gaming PC and you just wanna
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give this a try.
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It is kinda fun.
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The thing you need to keep in mind though
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is that this is going to be essentially running
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your GPU at 100% 24/7.
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It's not necessarily going to immediately break
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or anything, but it will definitely shorten
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the lifespan of your card.
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This definitely isn't for everyone,
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but as a nerd, there's actually something kind of fun
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about this.
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So, what do you guys think about mining cryptocurrencies?
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Let me know in the comments below and I will catch you
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in the next one.