Hey all,
My go by name here, discord, youtube, twitter all that jazz is something between CosmosTV/CosmosOnBlockchain.
I have considered posting somewhere about documenting my crypto journey where I am surrounded by like-minded folks.
So in October 2019 I was medically separated from the Army after a 13.5 year career due to issues sustained in 2007 in Iraq, so I was offered a job in Michigan and decided to take it. I have a wife, four children and one on the way.
Life moves fast, and I have to say that things have been really smooth for my transition and that all things have been working better than I expected. Since I was 18 I have been in the Army, so civilian life is really scary when you make the transition because your day to day life is no longer…pre-planned.
Fast-Forward to 2020, in mid-late March we all know the Covid-19 pandemic came screaming through and I was furloughed. I had always known about crypto currency, but there was a lot I didn’t understand about it. I found VoskCoin on YouTube and I was really intrigued by his honesty and lack of bias towards the aspects of it. He wasn’t appearing to be your average YouTuber who is trying to beg for views by overtly screaming how great everything is and pushing products that are absolutely trash so he can get a paycheck. He never seems to abuse his user base and I respect that about his channel, and that is why I am choosing to start the subject here.
So I decided to start mining on my desktop using his nicehash guide (as most of us do) then soon he published a video about how to mine RavenCoin. I have to say I was super excited that he posted the download links and the discord community, as trollish as it can be, was super helpful in pointing me in the right direction.
I was hooked, I decided to start doing more, and I bought a P104-090 x 9 rig on ebay for like $700 in May for my birthday.
From there, I was super addicted, and started trying to join more communities and reading and learning about not just mining, but crypto in general. I wanted to understand it more than just…it makes money.
I met a guy on Facebook, and we all talk everyday now and share ideas, thoughts and opinions…etc.
A local auction was happening near me, and my buddy was interested in the items, of course i didn’t have the funds to purchase anything due to still be furloughed and not collecting unemployment, so I offered to drive out there and pick up his stuff and ship it for him.
Well this is how our little chat has now evolved into a fairly larger group of friends, I met another guy via my friend who won a rather substantial portion of the auction.
I offered to help him out as he was driving in from out-of-state to help him tear it down, I believe it was close to around 300 or more GPUs and all of the gear that goes a long with it…plus many numerous other things.
Seeing the farm near me, was inspiring. As it was not the biggest farm we have seen via YouTube, it was really awesome to just be around like minded guys, and seeing what people were doing with the technology in general.
Two days later (I took vacation time off work) to help him break everything down, he offered me a small rig for helping out (which I didn’t ask for any payment of any sorts from him for helping out, just wanted to talk crypto with other people). So now I was growing my little project in my garage and finally had the pieces to tear apart…clean…and dust and see if I could get it running.
Basically…I had a lot of issues personally after I got everything cleaned, because as I do love computers, I had never flashed a thumb drive…worked on linux or anything of the sorts. 6 hours into it, I finally got it running up and away and I learned a lot from that experience alone.
I decided that I now wanted to buy all the parts, and build one all on my own. So I purchased everything for a 6x 5700 (non-XT) rig and built it myself. This time everything went a lot smoother, and I was sourcing components primarily from Facebook Marketplace and suggestions by other YouTubers like RedPandaMining and VoskCoin, and my little crypto chat for their suggestions.
Well I soon realized that power was going to be an issue, so I contacted my rental company (yes I rent my residence) to see if I was able to install a subpanel for 240V. With consent I found a local electrician (licensed and insured) who has now helped all of my projects (and wants me to help him set up something!)
So I took the rabbit hole, developed very complete project documents, I keep track of my daily profit, power cost…etc like most miners do or should. I was able approached by a friend and his business partner to take this to a larger scale.
So now I currently run 60 GPUs in my garage on a 100 amp panel. Definitely not optimal and we want to expand again. I contacted my electrician and my rental company to see if I was able to install a shed in the backyard, and upgrade the service. My rental company has been really awesome and has given me written permission for both upgrades.
So I found a local carpenter on facebook, and I have driven around 8 hours to and from his place dropping off exhaust fans, and vents and reviewing design plans with him and I commissioned a shed with him.
With the local city permit, and the electrical company blessing, it is underway, I have my shed coming in around 5 days now, the electric service is to be upgraded (using the same electrician) and I have a fairly large amount of equipment coming. When all is said and done I will be running around 160 cards, around 85 amps.
I just wanted to share my journey with some folks, possibly considering a vlog since video editing is not my thing and I really do not have the time to do it.
Thanks for the read!
