I have updated my guidance on using Cryptotab. Before installing it, check out my update here.
Original Article:
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Today we have an update on my bitcoin mining article from last week and I must admit a bit of a change of heart. If you saw my previous article, you may recall I was a little bit suspicious of Cryptotab due to it's multi-level-marketing tactics and their claim that you could probably earn enough within the first 24 hours to reach the threshold for a payout and the way the hashing speed seemed to dip without their being a correlating dip in processor usage.
You may recall, I left my PC running for a couple of days to see how long it would take to reach that magic 0.00001 BTC to trigger the payment. The result was about three days (although after two nights I decided I didn't want to leave my PC running 24/7). Well due to the suspicions I've voiced before, I decided to take another look at NiceHash (non-affiliate link).
Although this PC is getting on a bit, it is my main machine and has a nice sized monitor. That means I have most of my data on it and I'm wary of installing random downloaded programs from the internet for obvious reasons. That's why I was quite interested in testing out NiceHash O/S - essentially a linux installation which you install on a flash-drive. Using this meant I could disable my drives in EUFI/Bios when booting and just use the flash-drive to boot into their linux install. This is a good solution as it keeps my data safe while utilising the hardware to earn bitcoin. Nicehash also has a profitability calculator on their website so when it appeared to have higher earnings potential than Cryptotab, I felt I needed to give it a go to see if Cryptotab was as bad as I thought.
So this is where it gets interesting. Last Saturday I got to the earnings threshold for Cryptotab and applied for the payout. I then set-up my NiceHash O/S flash drive and ran it for the rest of the day. Unfortunately I didn't note down the exact details of when I started and stopped mining and there might have been a small amount of balance left in the account from a previous mining session. I will therefor have another go at this later to confirm the details tomorrow. Here's the thing though. My dashboard currently looks like this:
I reckon that balance is mostly derived from the session on Saturday and I'm pretty confident I had it running from 11:30 until 8:30 (so a total of 9 hours). I'm going to be a bit generous and say lets call it 8 hours. If so, 24 hours of running NiceHash would net me three times 0.00000371 or 0.00001113 BTC in 24 hours. This is good as just like Cryptotab, NiceHash has a threshold you have to reach before you can apply for a pay-out. It also happens to be the exact same amount... 0.00001 BTC.
I've just suggested that NiceHash has the potential ability to earn three times faster than Cryptotab, so why does this article suggest I'd prefer to endorse Cryptotab which is so much slower and possibly quite dubious? That requires a bit more insight into how I spent my time on Saturday.
So while I spent a few hours in the garden, it was fine to leave my PC running NiceHash O/S. I could even log into the web-site from my laptop and watch what it was doing. I could see that my BTC was going up by what appeared to be one pence per hour. Now if you've been following these articles, you'll know that I understand my systems here are not making as much money as the electricity costs. However I'm using the fuel payment system which I would be paying anyway, so I don't have to put card-details into any financial sites and make a minimum investment. I have no interest in becoming a crypto-trader only interested in using crypto to make money. Instead, I've been using mining to generate heat in my small office. This means I don't need to pay to heat the whole house using gas central heating, especially if I'm the only one home. My heating is a by-product of earning rather than just trading money for fossil fuel usage so by earning crypto I'm actually getting discounted fuel - as long as the crypto really does end up in my own wallet.
While I was watching that NiceHash earning counter slowly rise, I was very aware of how not having access to my main PC was affecting me. I could have used my time to post here, to play with Blender, surf the web, check my email, use social media etc. I know I can do a lot of that on other devices, but it feels more comfortable on my main desktop PC. Not having this meant I was not playing Alien Worlds, earning NFT's and trillium while simultaneously earning bitcoin with Cryptotab (at a 33% slower rate). Remember that earnings prediction from NiceHash (0.76 GBP)? How does that compare to my actual 8 hour session... well if I've earned 0.15 GBP that suggests my daily rate will be 0.45 GBP. So while I'm not denying that on the whole NiceHash appears to be the more profitable, you also have to take into account the loss of PC usage for other things.
Suppose I had dropped a standard drill NFT in Alien Worlds on Saturday. At the current time they are for sale on the AtomicHub market for 45 wax (currently around $12 or approximately 8.64 GBP). Of course there is no guarantee of this but it is something to be factored in. As I already have this card, it must have dropped in the last four weeks and therefore have the potential to be awarded once per four weeks. If I drop another, I could sell it at this (admittedly currently-inflated) price. What about other rarer NFT drops which I haven't had yet? Also due to the banter-bag crew currently telling their followers to buy TLM, there is the potential to earn more Wax by trading this too using Alcor. This is something which has to be factored in and that's why I'm currently favouring CryptoTab over NiceHash. To add the icing on the cake, my first payout from CryptoTab has now arrived in my own Atomic wallet. It took about a day, and while it's a trivial amount it does prove that CryptoTab are good on their word and DO pay once you reach the earnings threshold. Here is your proof:
I don't plan to completely ditch NiceHash. I think I still have a use for it yet. As my PS4 is also linked to this monitor, next time I go through a gaming spell it could be something I run on my PC in the background. I would like to test if they're also good on their payout threshold as you never know when Cryptotab might collapse or get called out as a Ponzi scheme due to all that MLM malarkey. At the moment though I have lots of webby stuff to get on with (like this blog) so for me Cryptotab is currently the tortoise that's winning the race while the hare sleeps.
Hope you're enjoying the articles; usual disclaimers apply (now at the top of the articles). This is for entertainment and education and your experience might differ as my results are no doubt influenced by luck, the timing at which I started playing crypto-games and the moves by big financial institutions to allow their investors to syphon earnings potential from anything possible; yes it's easier to gamble on whether or not the price of any crypto will increase by tenfold in six-months time than it is for gamers to swap a few wax tokens for Enjin coins. I will get there eventually
