Prospector Phil's Scrypt Mining Update - 3D Printed Shroud for Gridseed Orbs

Here's one of the projects I'm currently working on... 3D printed shrouds for Gridseed Orbs.

Profitability of a GPU Mining Rig for X11 Altcoins Using Outdated Hardware

I've been itching to do this post for a while now but haven't been able to because, well, I didn't have a GPU mining rig running... that is, until now.  The mining rig is old and out of date and doesn't hold a candle to what's available but it's made up entirely of parts that were already laying around and hey, something's better than nothing.

The rig consists of not much more than a motherboard/cpu/ram combo, an old ATI Radeon 5850 video card, and an ancient network card.  There's no hard drive, the Linux based operating system runs on a bootable USB thumb drive.  Notice the motherboard has several PCI-e slots... this is so I can (hopefully) run more than one GPU in the future.

The miner is slow and ugly but chugs along just fine mining altcoins for me... just my type of beast.

I know the 5850 video card is old and there are way better options for mining but with all the new algorithms out there and improvements in mining software, I was curious to see just how much money an old single GPU miner could make.

As it turns out, mining X11 coins at NiceHash.com or a few profit switching pools I tried, this setup only makes about 1.5 cents per day.  Yuck!

Keep in mind, that's when mining X11 altcoins.  I'm going to play around with mining some other algorithms to see what sort of profits (if any) can be had.  This video card came from a time when GPU mining scrypt coins was still profitable and before the scrypt ASICs entered the scene.  So nowadays it'd be completely worthless trying to mine scrypt coins unless I happen upon one that somehow magically explodes in price (to da moon!).

But I don't want to rely on luck...

For now I'll start messing with other algorithms to see if there are coins out there that can be mined profitably on shoddy old computer hardware.  mining X13 coins seems to make slightly less than X11 coins, so I'll start messing with some newer and/or more obscure algos.

Bookmark and check back often and I'll update the site with my findings.

Keep on & have fun!

Free Bitcoin Site Offers Auto-Sharing of Referral Commissions with Those You Refer

I've been collecting free Satoshi from FreeBitco.in for a while and never even noticed until now some of the cool extra features they've recently added to the site.  Of course, you can refer people to the site and earn commissions but one new feature in particular allows you to automatically share a percentage of your referral commissions with the people you've referred.  What's more, you can set it to split the shared payouts based on user activity, keeping leechers to a minimum.

So that's exactly what I've done... If you create a free account and collect free Satoshi using my referral link, 50% of the commissions I receive will go back to my peeps.

The site has some other interesting features including a weekly lottery and a Hi-Lo dice roll betting game.  The weekly lottery is pretty sweet since you earn more entries every time you collect free Bitcoins and the payouts are very nice...

You can collect free Satoshi every hour and while the amount fluctuates slightly, it's currently been over 300 Satoshi every time I've collected.  Automatic (weekly) payouts are free but the minimum is 32,000 Satoshi.  So far I've had one successful payout of almost 50k Satoshi and am working towards another.

This site has a lot of cool stuff going on and quite a few ways to earn or win free Satoshi -- I'll definitely be writing more about it in the near future.

So check out FreeBitco.in and start earning some free Satoshi with me!

Passive Income Bitcoin Mining Hardware for Small-Time Miners -- "Set It and Forget It"

It wasn't long ago that I started my quest to become a Bitcoin Billionaire and one of the first things I did was to dig up some old Gridseed (Scrypt) mining hardware to get something mining any form of crypto-currency as quickly as possible.  My mining rig includes a Gridseed Blade and a handful of Gridseed Orbs (or "Mini's"), and since I was lazy and had other stuff on my plate, the whole mess of Scrypt miners got pointed at the first thing that came to mind... www.LitecoinPool.org.  If you don't already know, there are much more profitable scrypt-based coins to mine besides Litecoin... but again, I was lazy and just wanted something going.

Fast forward to months later where I've all but forgotten about my little Gridseed mining rig.  Surprisingly, they're all still chugging along, happy as can be, slowly earning a small pittance of Litecoins.  But... that small pittance now totals 4.3 Litecoins as I write this (about $17.20 US).  It took about an hour to get the mining rig going and I haven't had to do anything since.  This is exactly why I wanted "something, anything" mining when I very first started... Do it once and keep collecting the rewards.

Ok, so this is a simplified form of passive income, and I'm not including the cost of the hardware nor electricity to run it.  But it is the concept I'd like to share and hope you'll remember... Do it once and keep collecting the rewards indefinitely.

Perhaps time will help get the point across as well... I'll revisit this post in a year with an update to see how much the small pittance of Litecoins has grown.

If you're looking to create a huge abundance of wealth, as I am, Passive Income is an essential key.  In the case of my Gridseed mining rig, I spent the time up front to get it running and now it requires almost no effort on my part to continually generate income for the foreseeable future.  More tradition examples of passive income include royalties from books and other intellectual property, licenses on patents, subscription based content, etc, etc.  Anything you can do once and get paid for multiple times qualifies as passive income and will help us both create wealth much more readily than simply trading our working hours for a set wage.  After all, there are only so many hours in the day...

So while my little mining rig isn't really passive income when you factor in cost, it is something I can "set and forget" and at least have one small stream of continual income.  Now I just need to find about a thousand more little streams and then we can create a massive torrent of wealth.

Keep on keepin' on!

Earn Free Bitcoins Playing Casual Games Online

Recently I've come to the conclusion that most Bitcoin faucets and free Bitcoin websites aren't worth the time it takes to visit them.  If your goal is to earn Bitcoins, spending time collecting a few Satoshi's from a faucets is a poor way to do it.  Even if you're a master level ninja at collecting from Bitcoin faucets, it currently takes 40,000 satoshi to equal 25 cents US.  I usually can't even collect half of that in a full hour of clicking on Bitcoin faucet sites.  So to me, visiting websites for the sole purpose of making perhaps 6-12 cents per hour is quite unappealing.

On the flip side, I still love playing online games... especially the mindless ones that are good time wasters.  And, since I'm going to play these type of games from time to time anyway, I might as well search out games where you earn free Bitcoins while you play.
In this case, the amount of free Bitcoins you can earn per hour is not as big a deal because it is not the main focus... it's more of a bonus for doing something you're gonna do anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still on a quest to Bitcoin Billions and am not above spending mind-numbing hours doing captcha's for a few Satoshi's.  But that's so I've got a nest egg to grow into something larger, and if I can build the nest egg by playing games instead of clicking pictures of mountains, then why not?

Free Bitcoin websites have gradually evolved over the past several years as webmasters compete to attract (and keep) visitors.  Part of this evolution is gaming websites that give free Bitcoins for playing games.  I'm not talking about the gambling or betting websites, rather, the free-to-play "casual" game sites, where you truly can earn free Bitcoins for playing games and risk nothing at all because they won't even accept deposits.

One such website is GameFaucet.com.  This site offers several silly little flash games that you can play and win free Bitcoins.  Most of the games are dumb, one or two are completely worthless (Flap Cat), but I've found the Bubble Shooter game is actually quite addicting.  It's the type of game I'll play whether or not I'm earning free Bitcoins, and that is precisely why I'm writing about this site now.
I don't even play the other games unless I'm really bored, but I'll play Bubble Shooter and gladly earn free Bitcoins while playing.

The site has another aspect which is addicting and annoying at the same time... You can upgrade to higher levels by spending Satoshi from your account.  Higher levels means an increased bonus payout for each game played and a decreased waiting time limit between playing games.  It's nice to get a bonus payout each time you play a game but each Satoshi spent upgrading your account is one less Satoshi you can put in your pocket now.  Upgrading to higher levels is definitely a long-term strategy as it will take a dump-load-o-time to break even.

In any case, if you're interested in a really easy way to earn free Bitcoins and like to play games online, check out GameFaucet.  And yes, the site is (seems) legit.  I haven't been playing on there long but so far they've paid out 50,000 Satoshi and it went straight to my FaucetBox.com account.  I'll do a better review on the site in a future post.

Stay tuned and keep earning Bitcoins!

AdSense Bans Bitcoin Faucet Websites - Deathblow to Faucet Owners' Revenue

It appears as though Google AdSense is cleaning house, banning many free Bitcoin faucet websites for violating their terms of service.  While I haven't looked into the matter fully, I assume it has something to do with not allowing websites that reward visitors (whether or not it is an incentive to click ads).

Whatever the reasons, many Bitcoin faucets are running dry as their owners scramble to find other ways to monetize their websites, offer free Bitcoins, and stay profitable.  For many faucets, AdSense was their main (or only) source of income, and to lose it is a deathblow.

One faucet that's already closed the doors is Donaldcoin.com, mentioned in a previous post on this blog.  It's too bad, I've earned thousands of satoshi's from that site, but I think they might have had more shady ad violations than other sites and either way, the owners have shut it down.

Another site recently banned from AdSense is FaucetGame.com (and their sister site, GameFaucet.com).  FaucetGame.com has removed their faucet and drastically reduced payouts on the games.  GameFaucet.com has taken similar measures.  While both sites continue to operate for now, it'll be interesting to see if they can survive without revenue from AdSense.

So I think Google has made it clear that free Bitcoin faucets aren't allowed on the AdSense network.  This will mean lots of changes for existing faucets and Bitcoin faucets in the future, although it's tough to say to what extent it will go.

Only time will tell but it will be interesting to watch and see.

Top Five Ways to Make Money and Earn Bitcoins with Pokemon Go

It’s a worldwide phenomenon that nobody heard of a week ago. Heck, even after hearing about Pokemon Go multiple times from many people over several days, I still didn’t know what it was. I had to Google it. :-)

By now you’ve at least heard about Pokemon Go, even if you’re like me and don’t know what all the fuss is about. In a nutshell, Pokemon Go is an App. It’s a game for your cell phone. You wander around looking for funny little creatures (Pokemon) to capture so you can level up and find more funny little creatures so you can level up again. Yup, that’s what all the fuss is about.

But this game has a clever twist… it uses the cell phone’s GPS to find your location and map your surroundings within the game then places game objectives, random Pokemon, etc on the map so you are forced to traverse the real world if you want to go anywhere in the game. You can play while going about your everyday activities, or plan a real world activity to a destination that corresponds with an objective in the game. The phone will even vibrate when you are near a Pokemon or game objective, constantly reminding you there’s no need to pay attention to driving or other real world activities.

People old and young love the game, they can’t get enough of it. You have the challenge of collecting Pokemon mixed with friendly competition, in-game rewards, and a playful sense of treasure hunting and adventure.

The popularity of Pokemon Go has soared so fast that droves of entrepreneurial types are taking advantage of all the hype and earning real cash (and/or Bitcoins) in the process. Here are a few of the ways I’ve seen people making money with the Pokemon craze…

• Pokemon Go Drivers – I’ve seen more than a handful of people offering to drive others around (for an hourly fee) so the passengers can play the game in the real world without having to deal with silly real world stuff. Typical Wage: $10-20/hr.

• Pokemon Go Players – So you want to play the game, but don’t want to play it? Why not pay someone else to play it for you? Now you can and YES, this is a real thing! People are paying others $10 per hour or more to play the game for them. The players will log into your account and wander around their own town, collecting Pokemon for you and increasing your character’s level. I’ve seen more than one parent eagerly hire Pokemon Go Players to help boost their son or daughter along.

• Make posts on new Pokemon Websites, Get Paid in Bitcoin! – Bitcointalk.org is a great place to find a few webmasters looking to pay people to join their new Pokemon Forums and post relevant topics. If you like to post to forums and wanna talk Poke-whateves, this is an easy way to make some Bitcoin.

• Make Pokemon Go Related Videos and Monetize Them – One way to ride the coattail of this gravy train is make a video even remotely related to Pokemon Go then monetize it on YouTube. A quick search there will show the popularity is at a fever pitch, meaning it should be pretty easy to hop along for the ride.

• Write a Pokemon Go Related Blog Post and Monetize It – Um… kinda like the blog post you’re reading right now… except I haven’t really figured out the whole money thing yet. But seriously, it’s a huge craze and if you want traffic to your blog (like I want traffic to my blog), then maybe posting about Pokemon is worth a shot…

So now that you’re “in the know” on Pokemon Go, I’m not sure if you should thank me or curse me.

I’m sorry and you’re welcome.