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Mining monero on old devices. (programming.dev)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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Is there a realistic way a person having an old computer and cheap (but not free) electricity can actually mine monero equal to some amount which can be used to donate to good service providers or purchase services?

I keep hearing about low reward to effort ration, but can I get a respectable amount in let's say a year without having to deanonymize myself by going to a Centralised exchange?

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[–] 7 points 1 month ago (1 child)

Of you want to donate to providers or purchase services you are better off just paying cash, or anonymous through those prepaid visa cards. Mining (if even possibel) on that PC is just going to run up your electricity bill.

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  • [–] [S] -4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Cash withdrawal / Prepaid cards can be traced back to me and I would like to avoid them if possible. As I said electricity is cheap but I would like to know the reward to effort ration for a PC like https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=578a7e4ccf

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    How is cash traced back to you? And you can pay cash for a prepaid card so the transaction is pretty anonymous.

    I haven't followed the coin you may be using but recently bitcoin were hitting the reward is not with the cost of gear and electricity, causing miners to move to something else. I think that is by design of how cryptoworks, you eventually reach a stasis of mined coins

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Cash withdrawal / Prepaid cards can be traced back to me

    IDK... I get cash from my bank. I watch teller grab bills, hand them to me. She doesn't scan serials. I suppose it might happen for very large transactions. Or if they have a criminial investigation going and are using bait bills. But I've never seen it when I get cash.

    Plus, say serials WERE logged. Take bills, buy lunch at local food truck for cash, get change from the nice Mexican lady who makes the badass green chili sauce. Thank lady, enjoy burrito. Bada bing, untracked serials! Burrito truck is not scanning shit.

    Seems like in theory it can trace your purcahses, sort of, if both sides of the transaction record the serials. But in practice, it's astronomically unlikely. It feels like robust and easy anonymity for buying things. Even more than most cryptocurrency, with how easy opsec failures are, and every transaction being on a permanent blockchain.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Yeah agreed. Even if cashiers had a tracker for bills you still have general population chaos. Like I take 20 out of bank (tracked). Say I paid a friend and they bought something (tracked) then you have some rudimentary contact tracing/location, however: I could take out 20 (tracked) and ask a homeless guy if he'd give me $18 in change, bills and coins for a $20.
    Now my transactions just disappeared, if the homeless guy immediately buys something you have some tracing and location, but you know how life is: money slips from his pocket, the wind blows it a few blocks away, a guy from out of town finds it and maybe mails it to a relative as part of a birthday card, that sits in a kids piggy bank for a year. Spends it and it's tracked...but that data connection is a mess to try to work backwards to the withdrawal

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    withdrawal can be traced.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    They don't know who you gave cash to if you take cash out of bank and then send via mail, money order etc

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    Cash has unique id to reach bill, which can be logged on withdrawal, final point of reentry system can be logged. Of course, everything in between is unclear. But with enough re-entries at various points in time, a fuzzy picture is possible. Especially with multiple sources of withdrawals going through a common mid point.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago*

    Sure, but nobody is checking that, and if you were such high profile that you thought somebody would be, you just stop a few stranger and ask for change for a 20 etc and the numbers tracking will dissolve quickly.

    If you /OP are that paranoid about cash, crypto is worse, its a full ledger of every transaction.

    And mining it is not anonymity because the proof you mined it has to be checked in the entire system.

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