Before we start i would like to thank Wang for the welcome and helpful links!
I understand this is well overdue but i would like to share my entry into crypto currencies and hopefully bring back some memories for anyone in the space back in early 2014.
Please forgive me for not providing my photo as it may cause a conflict of interest in my workplace; In my defence you can tell i am not a fly by night karma whore from the hours if not days invested into creating content on Steemit already and my 370 odd posts to date.
Me, Myself and Jim
As i said in the title, my name is Jim my mates call me Jimmy; and Steemit calls me Steempower! i live in Australia -- G'day Mate!.
This is not me.
but i think he fits the stereotype and made me smile.
i have also included a couple more pictures below showing some of the sights of Australia and some of our wild life.
I have a normal day job as Systems administrator (today is S.A.D so wish me a Happy Sys Admin's Day!!) providing services to my companies offices, sister companies and occasionally listening to the odd end users complaint and over exaggeration of the issue at hand. My nights and early mornings are spent in the crypto currency space learning as much as i can about anything that's happening.
I have been in the digital currencies space long enough to be obsessed but not longer enough to get hit by the Mt Gox debacle. The guy that introduced me to the space is a colleague i work with and one day in December of 2013 he came to me with the biggest smile i have ever seen; JOIN THE REVOLUTION he screamed at me; Bitcoin bro! its the future!!. I could not ignore his excitement and together we jumped head first into crypto currencies.
I think we messed the first train by a few month but we made our entry into the space when Bitcoins was at it's' all time high...Sad story huh?.... no; its not so bad i don't regret it at all; it is actually my most treasure memory of digital currencies.. but we will get into that soon.
Bessy, My Entry into the crypto currency space
My first entry into the space was not to rush out and take out a loan and buy a boot load of BTC only to watch the price fall over time. It was mining; i dubbed my rig Bessy.
Bessy started her life as prototype, 1 single card powerful PSU and room for expansion.
Once Bessy was successful; i went out and bought a bunch of mid-high end graphics cards; not the super bleeding edge at a hefty price tag just a few with a nice balance of Hash per seconds and price; the sweet spot. i bought 3x R9 280x DC2T's (Direct CU II TOP) and bought 3x secondhand Radeon 7950; coupled that with my old media centre pc and a low spec'd machine i built from cheap parts and a few left overs. 6x PCIe risers!!($150 worth - that is highway robbery!), two 1000+ Watt high efficiency PSUs, a couple of pieces of ply wood, crap load of cable ties and a shelving unit. Bessy was born!... in the middle of Summer; AMATEUR!!
The R9 280x were actually quite cool and had no problems staying between 60-65 degrees with a relatively quiet fan speed; but the 7950 would make a hell of a lot of noise just to stay under 80 degrees. the weather outside was hot and i was very concerned that my babies would cook so i placed them in prime position under the air conditioner as a fail safe encase the fan that i had dispersing heat could not cope. it is quite hot here in summer so during the peak the air conditioner would be on to keep things chugging away! this consumed a lot of power which i am not proud of and i was defiantly not the most popular person in the house as anytime you turned on the kettle, toaster or microwave if the air-con and Bessy were running would blow the fuse in the circuit box! didn't take long to get a smart fuse that i could just quickly flick back on to get everything firing again.
By the time the first power bill rolled in i was even less popular! $778 for 2 months :( granted my rigs was earning ~ $25 per day on average in those first 2 months solo mining the most profitable coins. but with the cost of power and my initial outlay for hardware it was going to take many months to pay off my initial expense and get into the black; not to mention i knew everybody else was jumping into mining and the difficulty was increasing. i had act fast, i needed a new energy plan and a cooler climate!... i decided to leave the climate as it was but found a 20% cheaper energy plan and continue on my way.
As the months went on the cooler weather rolled in and my popularity started to grow as the house was not so cold when first getting out of bed in the morning; problem was the difficulty had increased and the BTC i was exchanging to was worth less and less. nearly 1 year later when summer began to roll in again Bessy sadly got shut down she was barely if at all making a daily profit.
Out of sight but not out of mind
She moved to the computer room and dust started to settle in; i knew i should sell her components but couldn't bring my self to dismantle her; the next coin is right around the corner i told myself.. Later that year in 2015 i got a phone call from a guy trying to push me into an energy deal with my initial provider; no i told him not interested thank you; i was just about to end the call and he said the magic word.. you get FREE POWER for 1 month (in that moment the roof opened up and sun started shining in at my feet with a holy sound filling the room).. WHAT - FREE POWER?, yes for 1 month he said; i asked him about terms and condition, acceptable use policies, cancellation policies and any other caveats; i even told him about Bessy. no questions asked, no early termination fees and free power for 1 months he said. Great, sign me up!; why didn't you lead with this information. Bessy was Back!!
Bessy spent the next 1 month mining for BitUSD via DataSecurityNodes multi pool, non stops; the profits were no where near as good as in her early days but it was still a very acceptable $250-300 worth for the effort. the month passed quickly and Bessy retired again. i started listing her Graphics cards for sale 7950 fetched me between $120-150 each (paid $260 each 7950 and about $420 each R9 280x) and i am using one of the R9 280x's; i sold one to my neighbour for mates rates at about $200 and one went to an Ethereum miner; he paid quite a high price ($320) as by that time the R9 280x was not for sale and the replacement was relatively expensive compared to the hash rate; the USD/AUD exchange rate also made the new cards more expensive than i paid for the previous model.
Bessy remained in tact with no graphics cards attached until 2 weeks ago when she was finally deconstructed.
Memories of Litecoin, Fastcoin, Grandcoin, Frankos, MEME coin, TAG all come flooding back in a flurry of emotion - That's a sad story!.
All in all i am not sure how much i made off the mining over all; i think it would have been slightly in profit but the experience of Solo mining back in the day is more valuable than any profits derived from the operation, the excitement of switching on the screen after a hard day's work and seeing the transaction I had verified and coinbase transaction that had been awarded to me as freshly minted currency was a joy that i may never experience again.
@Bessy - it has been a pleasure working with you, but you have been displaced by modern mining farms running in countries with more suitable climates and lower cost power - Thank god for DPOS!.