Monthly Archives: February 2018

Bitcoin (BTC), Blog, Cryptocurrency, Mining

Cryptocurrency Mining course

Following on the heels of January’s very sociable Milton Keynes Cryptocurrency Meetup, those who attended were invited to a Cryptocurrency Mining Course last weekend in Witney.

System & Solutions Cryptocurrency Mining Course (Image: BIUK)
System & Solutions Cryptocurrency Mining Course (Image: BIUK)

It was kindly put on, for free, by Kevin Ackland, owner of Systems & Solutions. He and Richard Owen, IT Manager, gave a broad and very interesting presentation covering cryptocurrency and Bitcoin in general, and mining on PC hardware in particular.

System & Solutions Cryptocurrency Mining Rig (Image: BIUK)
System & Solutions Cryptocurrency Mining Rig (Image: BIUK)

This was followed by a wide ranging discussion on cryptocurrency and mining. I found this particularly interesting as I am new to mining, having just dabbled in a little GPU and CPU mining. Some of the attendees have extensive experience so I learned a lot.

System & Solutions Cryptocurrency Mining Rig (Image: BIUK)
System & Solutions Cryptocurrency Mining Rig (Image: BIUK)

We then had a look at a mining rig in operation, including going through the processes of starting it up and operating it. This included monitoring the operation, and power usage, via smartphone apps. I was surprised, and impressed, at how quiet it ran (having seen YouTube videos of very noise dedicated Bitcoin miners).

System & Solutions Cryptocurrency Mining Rig (Image: BIUK)
System & Solutions Cryptocurrency Mining Rig (Image: BIUK)

My thanks go to Kevin and Richard for putting on the course and for being such good hosts. If you’re considering getting a mining rig, and you’d like one made to your specification, do consider Systems & Solutions.

Bitcoin (BTC), News

Bitcoin investors warned they could unknowingly owe tax

Bitcoin investors who made huge gains when the cryptocurrency’s value rocketed last year have been warned that they could unknowingly owe tax to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

Bitcoin Electronic Money (Image: MaxPixel)
Bitcoin Electronic Money (Image: MaxPixel)

However, there is some confusion around the issue, as Ed Molyneux, the boss and co-founder of cloud accounting software provider FreeAgent, explains:

“HMRC sees bitcoin profits being subject to capital gains tax, but there does not appear to be a definitive answer on the issue yet, which could cause confusion among investors.”

It comes down to whether bitcoin is classified as an investment or a currency. Currencies are exempt from capital gains tax, but investments and commodities are not.

Read More: CityAM

Aeon (AEON), Blog, Experiments, Mining

Experiments in Crypto Mining 2: Cryptocurrency Mining with a Home PC

After my initial rather disappointing first foray into mining cryptocurrency (specifically the Bitcore coin using my PC’s graphics card) I didn’t pursue the idea further. It hadn’t been a great surprise as my graphics card was old and looking rather underpowered compared to the latest GPUs.

However, last week I heard about someone profitably CPU mining the Aeon coin and I decided to take another look. I followed the same process, starting by downloading the Minergate software.

I installed it (despite lots of warnings, presumably false alarms, about viruses), created an account and kicked it off. You need to create an account on the MinerGate.com website, and you then link to this from the MinerGate app.

Mining XMR using the MinerGate app (Image: BIUK)
Mining XMR using the MinerGate app (Image: BIUK)

The process began with running a benchmark. The result of this was a score for my PC of 927 – four stars! That sounded encouraging. However it then said “You can make an extra 50 USD per year with only this computer” which rather brought things down to earth.

Anyway, after running it overnight the results were that I made a few tens of pence in Monero/XMR in parallel with FantomCoin/FCN (the software chooses what it believes is the most profitable coins for you) but spent about 50p in electricity. So overall it was not profitable.

My conclusion therefore is not just that my old PC isn’t any good for GPU mining of cryptocurrency, it’s no use for CPU mining either!

My cunning plan now is to use a new, powerful gaming PC for mining that I ordered recently. Watch this space to see how I get on.

Experiments in Crypto Mining 3: Mid-range Graphics Card