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Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate and from what?

27 points by djshah ↗ HN
It’s always interesting to know the (side) hustles people are running that, in their opinion, provides recurring revenue that is either a good source or passive income or their main source of income.

32 comments

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Trias11
Lately getting excited about crypto mining.

Current project is to complete the rig that generates profits equal to my monthly mortgage payments.

Well on a way. And it's lots of fun - i never assembled computer before :)

To summarise: Currently $10k investment in crypto mining generates about $1k/mo profit. You can proportionally scale it to desired outcome.

rcavezza
I'm very unfamiliar with this, but is there additional ongoing costs in terms of extra energy consumption? Do you know if this rig is changing your monthly energy costs?
Trias11
Yes, and my calculations are after electricity costs of about $0.12 kW/h
strongvigilance
What kind of depreciation do you get on crypto mining hardware though? Will that setup still be profitable in x months, when better performing hardware exists?
Trias11
The hardware pays for itself with current conditions remain constant (which is never the case!) in about 8 months.

It uses high end graphics cards RTX 3060Ti and RTX 3080 that shouldn't go to zero resale value even in a year or two.

Mining for the same coin typically produces less and less of that coin due to difficulty increase.

However difficulty increase for the same coin typically associated with it's price increase as well.

So to derive most benefits from mining it's better to mine solid coins (like ETH right now) and hold them.

I currently mining non-ETH coin that increased in price 30% in a week by itself.

So this helps to make this venture more beneficial.

And then I use dedicated mining OS (HiveOS) that allows to control the whole thing fully remotely and in fact switch mining to more profitable coins dynamically.

jp42
Curious to know where you are running your mining rig? in your house/apartment or you rented some other place? Also is there any limit on how much electricity you can use in apartment/House?
Trias11
Single family house. In fact i don't have any space to put rig but in a dining room. It's quiet though so after short fight with wife, I won.

Total power consumption ~3-5 kW

adamhp
I ask this passing no value judgment myself: how do you feel about the ethics of crypto mining?
Trias11
Crypto mining is solving math equations.

Just like AI.

Lots of fud aroud this is spread by entities who has way more commercial interest than "doing good".

I have absolutely no reservations about it.

I'm all for making energy sources more efficient and green and whatnot.

ctvo
Say a possible way to extract gold is to run a hose outside your window and let it wash away the dirt. Sometimes flakes of gold are found after enough dirt has washed away.

It's true that many other people use water in other ways. I'm sure industry uses a lot of water.

Are you comfortable with this approach yourself?

Trias11
I'm comfortable with crypto mining.
ctvo
I got that already.

Is it only the use of energy that's OK or is it other natural resources like fresh water too? Fresh water is much more renewable than some forms of energy so it's a curious distinction.

Trias11
Sorry, not sure I understand your question. What about fresh water?
meiraleal
You use the electricity, you pay for it. Why are you implying an ethics issue with that? Someone wasting the same amount of electricity to play games 10 hours a day is doing anything better?
Trias11
Exactly.

Musk and others spread fud about energy usage and I'm sure that made lots of people to guilt trip themselves when they turn on the light in their bedrooms or use computer.

I'm pretty immune to fuds and clickbaits, thus mining never was an issue for me.

adamhp
As I said, I'm not placing any value judgment myself. There has been some debate around the energy consumption of crypto mining. Some are arguing that there is some environmental impact to that. I'm simply asking what this person's thoughts on it are.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/21/the-debate-about-cryptocur...

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952

https://hbr.org/2021/05/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-actuall...

Trias11
My thoughts are that any complaints about negative effects of mining on environment is a fud and clickbait.

This is actually driven by financial firms and politicians who have their own agenda in this game.

And no one from that list is going to prioritize care for environment higher than their own profits and powers.

coralreef
IMO the source of electricity matters. Generally we should aim to reduce carbon emissions, so if your electricity comes from a coal power plant, then there is greater consequence for the usage compared to renewable energy usage.
Trias11
I agree. But consumers has nothing to do with the source of electricity. They're consumers, not producers.

You cannot blame consumer for turning on the light in his place because the source of electricity is not too green.

If we need to change the source of anything from bad to good - that the conversation with the respective governments and politicians.

coralreef
Its true you may not get to choose your household electricity source. But that doesn't give you free pass to start consuming as many kilowatts as you want. We make choices with what we consume. You don't get to buy clothes made from slave labour and claim you had nothing to do with it.

I don't get to leave my car idling 24/7, burning gasoline and spitting out toxic fumes. It can't be morally justified with "well I paid for it, mind your own business, go lobby the government to make a law against leaving my car on 24/7".

Trias11
To answer again - I don't think crypto mining is in any way a question of ethics.

No different from datacenters or cloud computing business.

relaunched
Crypto mining also bolsters an economy for criminals - I'd argue that speculation and criminal enterprises are the only two real use cases for cryptocurrency.

Anyone who thinks the environmental impact of crypto is the only ethical problem hasn't dug deep enough.

coralreef
Technology bolsters an economy for criminals. The internet created a whole new class of fraudsters, thieves, and extortionists.

They existed before the internet, after the internet, before crypto, and will continue to be around after crypto.

imhoguy
I think crypto mining can be ethically and ecologically balanced:

- in summer make sure to use solar power, and pump waste heat into pool or hot water tank

- in winter just heat your house, even better if you utilise co2 emission free source

- autumn/spring - mix both

Recuperation of crypto mining waste heat can be a real household saving.

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djshah
Where are you based that it allows you to generate this profit? These days, it’s pretty hard to get hands on crypto mining hardware as well!
Trias11
The are sites that pre-estimate your profits given specific hardware.

GPU's are hard to get indeed - but everyone has it's own ways. If you're willing to pay 50-100% above retail - you can get powerful GPU's from eBay at any time.

kleer001
about 250$ / mo

mining crypto on the home machine

randomopining
How? That's like $8 a day. Can a 3080 even do that?
kleer001
I've got two cards, a beefy one that only does crypto all the time and an older one that does display and crypto at night.

The biggest learning bump has been temperature and air flow control. But winter's coming so that should be pretty easy.