In our house, we have 4 desktop computers. One for each of my three kids, plus my own Hackintosh, which I’m using to write this story.

Each computer has a mid-spec graphics card. Nothing fancy, just enough for the kids to play Fortnite with decent settings.

Right now, the kids are asleep, but their computers are still on, quietly working away, slowly mining a cryptocurrency called Ethereum.

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency. This means in order to create (or mine) it, a computer has to do some difficult calculations.

This results in a complicated chunk of data that proves the work was done. In return for the data, the owner of the computer (or miner) gets paid.

How much money can I make?

This depends on how powerful your graphics card is. A more powerful graphics card can mine more quickly and will result in greater payments. My setup is as follows:

• 2 x AMD Radeon RX480
• 2 x NVidia GeForce 1660 Super

The table above shows the machines that are currently mining, their power usage, and their current “hash rate”. It’s the hash rate that determines income.

Ether (ETH) is the currency of Ethereum, and from my setup of 4 machines, I’m currently receiving around 0.08 Ether per month and one ETH is worth around $3000.

This means I’m currently earning around $240 per month from mining.

How do I start mining?

There are lots of ways to get into mining, but the way I mine is through a piece of software called Cudo Miner.

Cudo Miner is incredibly easy to use. It supports Windows, Linux, and Mac, although the Mac version is quite limited and only supports CPU mining.

Using the Cudo installer and desktop software it’s possible to get up and running in just a few minutes.

How does it work?

The neat thing about Cudo is that the crypto you mine is separate from the crypto you get paid in. In addition, the mining software will automatically find the most profitable coin for your hardware.

As an example, you can set up Cudo so you always get paid in Bitcoin. But behind the scenes, it will be mining in ETH. The Cudo web app just does the conversion for you.

If you have older hardware not capable of mining ETH, it will automatically switch to something like Bitcoin Gold.

Basically with Cudo, you can mine something with almost any hardware and operating system, however, ETH is the most profitable.

My approach

There are many people out there who now have whole farms of graphics cards mining all day long. This could be hundreds of cards in a dedicated space just for mining. These professional miners make their entire income from it.

The problem with starting mining now is that at some point in the near future Ethereum will move to what’s called proof-of-stake. This means mining ETH will no longer be possible on graphics cards.

For this reason, I wouldn’t rush out and buy a bunch of new graphics cards just to start mining! To recap:

1. Graphics card prices are close to all-time highs and massively overpriced
2. Over the next 12 months or so, ETH mining will no longer be possible

So, my approach is just to use the graphics cards I already own. I’m making use of something that would otherwise be sitting idle.

What about energy, and tax?

You may have noticed in the screenshot above, the “Energy usage” column. This tells me the approximate energy usage of each machine.

When all my machines are on, the energy consumption is around 440W. Two of the machines are on 24 hours, the other two are on for 12 hours per day.

This gives a monthly energy consumption in kWh of roughly:

((220 × 24 +(220 × 12))/1,000) × 30 = 237 kWh

My electricity is charged at 14p per kWh, so the monthly cost is around £33 (or $46). This means my actual profit is around $200 per month.

In addition, mining revenue counts as income for tax purposes. Everyone’s tax rate will be different, but for me in the UK, after-tax I would be left with around $120 per month.

It’s not a huge amount of money, but considering it takes zero effort I find it worth it. I mine ETH, and just keep the funds as ETH, they then also increase in value over time.

Environmental concerns

Caring for the environment is very important to me. I wouldn’t even consider mining unless I was on a 100% renewable energy tariff.

If you are considering starting a bit of mining, I’d advise investigating a renewable energy option. This can also work out cheaper.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions about mining crypto, I’d love to read them in the comments.