With Rising Ethereum Price I'm making $5.22 daily by Mining Cryptos - And I Definitely Want MORE!

14 January, 2018 | Crypto | 6 seen

Each time I add some new graphics card to my existing gpu mining rig or some other major happenings happens I make a quick update into the blog. 

There are two major updates since my latest post from cryptocurrency mining experiments - I have installed another gpu card (in total there are 3, with a hash power of about 40 MH/s) and second, in the past day's price for Ethereum are reaching new ATH (All Time High) been set at $1,430 as of writing this (January 13, 2018).

Those of you following my blog lately already know - in December I decided to build 12 GPU mining rig and ordered goodies from Amazon. In total spending about $1,365.  The total investment right now covers just the core minimum - motherboard, power supply, PCI risers, RAM, processor and just 3 graphics cards.

Make sure to check out previous updates:

• I'm Making $0.98 Per Day By Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I want MORE!
• I'm Making $2.44 Per Day By Dual Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I'm NOT HAPPY YET!
• Simple GPU Overclocking Boosts Ethereum Mining Profitability by 20.65% - Now Making $2.66 Daily

The fun fact is - currently I'm mining with 3 different graphics cards - AMD RX 560, GTX 1060 and GTX 1050. As mentioned above - giving hash power of about 40 MH/s (which is about one-third of the planned power for 2018)

I haven't made yet separate reviews for each card, but promise to do that very soon, make sure to check servers section on the blog, not to miss an important update. Also, I have review of AMD RX 560 here: Mining with SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon™ RX 560 4GD5 Review

Also if you are exploring your options into crypto mining, check out these articles:

• Building a 12 GPU Ethereum Mining Rig From Scratch - Part 1: Ordering Details
• Top 14 Best Selling GPU Cards 2018

Now, it has been a couple of days since there are 3 graphics cards spinning, and it's time to see how well do they perform

I find it od, that after adding the third gpu the total mined ETH coins have actually decreased if compared to about 2 weeks ago when with less hashing power (~28MH/s) I actually mined more coins than now. It's either because of difficulty increase for mining ether or there are some problems with reporting. See: Dwarpool.com Review 2018 - Mining Ethereum at 28MH/s

Cryptocompare Ethereum mining calculator

There is a slight error from reported mining profitability from Cryptocompare Ethereum Calculator and actual stats from Dwarfpool. I still have to figure it out why, theoretically I should mine 0.004625 coins per day, but I'm getting just 0.00346924. Seems I should experiment with other mining pools also, to see if there is some glitch or what. Honestly speaking I have no clue. 

Still, 5 bucks per day is nice, it's more than I was making from dividend payments or peer to peer lending in 2017, see: Dividend Income

As I'm using Claymore Dual miner, there is one more coin I'm mining - Siacoin and surprisingly, but this coin have gone up in value a lot lately, helping to boost total profit from mining operations. See: Is It Profitable Mining Siacoin (SC) in 2018?

Also, I should add, that the total ROI has decreased from 430 days to 268 days - a very nice 162 day gain. I still feel a bit worried about of such steep ETH price increase, it has doubled in just two weeks. I don't see there any good reason why Ethereum wouldn't reach $2,000 in 2018.

Alternatively I've been experimenting with cloud contracts from Hashflare, and currently if combined together - both Hashflare and my existing GPU mining rig makes me about $6.50 - $7.00 daily or about $200/mo. 

HashFlare.io (Affiliate link here - if you will click, register and decide to invest, I might earn 10% commission from that) - Estonia based cloud mining company

Please note - I'm not a financial advisor, services mentioned in this article use at your own risk and remember your capital is at risk, you could lose some or all of your money.

See: I Just invested $50.60 in Hashflare.io Cloud Mining and HashFlare Review - I'm Making $0.50 Per day from Bitcoin cloud mining and I want more

Remote and Abandoned Hipster Party Place with Great views of Tbilisi (Hiking near Turtle Lake)

13 January, 2018 | Living in Georgia | 10 seen

It was on a hazy Saturday morning in early January of 2018, we decided to go and visit our favorite hiking trails in Tbilisi, those ones located near Turtle Lake. 

Arriving at the lake with Taxi, see How to Get around in Tbilisi by Taxify (Taxi Mobile Application), noticing our favorite Intelligentsia Coffee Bar is still closed (we arrived before 10 AM) we made a lap of honor around the lake and started to hike towards the Vake Park

Hiking in Tbilisi

Soon we discovered some interesting, seems completely abandoned and pretty remote place, the best I could thought about naming this place - Remote and Abandoned Hipster Party Place with Great views of Tbilisi 

Cool construction

Apparently in Summer months covered and used as a central tent.  We found here a lot of wooden constructions - kind of stuff hipsters love - furniture elements from pallets. Interesting there were a few fridges, seems there is even an electricity cable (still wonder how electricity is calculated and paid then?)

Table with a view

We made a lovely picnic here from the goodies carried from home. Awesome.

Wooden stairs in the middle of nowhere 

Seems some, or more probably group of some peoples have put a lot of energy here to build this all around. The question of what it is hard to get an answer - what the hell is this place? Who is running it and why it was abandoned? Mysterious as who is the Satoshi Nakomoto. 

In fact, at some stage I thought probably this place is run not by some hipsters in the searches for the meaning of life but crypto-anarchists miners, see Learning Crypto Currency Mining The Hard Way

Do you know more about this place? Leave a comment, readers and I would love to hear!

December 2017 Dividend Income Report - $173.64

12 January, 2018 | Investments | 16 seen

Welcome to the eighth (#8) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from dividend-paying stocks, peer to peer lending (both fiat and cryptocurrencies) in December 2017. 

As it was expected, already since the middle of the year, December was the record breaker and generated a dividend income in total of $173.64

See a complete list of things going on behind the scenes and my investment plans for 2018: 2017 in Review and Financial Goals for 2018

As usual, I was doing nothing much, just investing in great companies, playing a little bit with cryptocurrencies and lending out money via peer to peer marketplace. Most of the December was on autopilot, just at the start of the month I deposited some chunk of money to Mintos.com peer to peer lending marketplace, and at the end of the month - purchased additional shares of Talina kaubamaya group on Nasdaq Baltics.

I spent some time in December learning to mine cryptocurrencies, and actually even set up a custom ethereum mining rig, also I started to explore options for investments in cloud mining contracts, but as right now such mining operations don't fit in my philosophy of a true passive income, I'm not planning to add earnings made in crypto mining to these monthly dividend income reports. On the other hand, right now cryptocurrency mining operations make me about $4 - 5$ daily if combined and I want more, way more.

Learn more here:

• I Just invested $50.60 in Hashflare.io Cloud Mining
• HashFlare Review - I'm Making $0.50 Per day from Bitcoin cloud mining and I want more

HashFlare.io (Affiliate link here - if you will click, register and decide to invest, I might earn 10% commission from that) - Estonia based cloud mining company

Please note - I'm not a financial advisor, services mentioned in this article use at your own risk and remember your capital is at risk, you could lose some or all of your money.

• Learning Crypto Currency Mining The Hard Way
• I'm Making $0.98 Per Day By Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I want MORE!
• I'm Making $2.44 Per Day By Dual Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I'm NOT HAPPY YET!
• Simple GPU Overclocking Boosts Ethereum Mining Profitability by 20.65% - Now Making $2.66 Daily

About Portfolio December 2017

At the end of December, I've invested a total of $12,057.41 what greatly exceeds my initial plan for investments in 2017 and equals to 140.84% of total planned investments in 2017. Also, at the end of December, I've reached 1.61% from my ultimate one million dollar goal by the time I will turn 60 (in 2045). 

All final/total currencies are converted to the US dollar, though I've investments in GEL, EUR and USD currencies.

Net Worth December 2017

For the past 12 months, it has been a steady value growth resulting in a total of +33.34% value growth for the entire portfolio at the end of December. Here is the breakdown of positions (year to date growth)

• Mintos.com peer to peer lending: -5.97%
• Stocks: -2.29%
• Mutual funds: +6.12%
• Crypto investments: +348.45%

As you can see from the graph above, most of the value growth happened in December and because of cryptocurrencies. Soaring prices for bitcoin, litcoin, ripple, and ethereum being the main driven force behind.

Affiliate link here: If you are just planning to acquire your first bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum or bitcoin cash, consider to register at coinbase.com with this link, once you buy or sell $100 (€85) of digital currency or more, we will both get $10 (€8) of free bitcoin.

Remember - investments are risky, never invest more you can afford to lose.

For the fifth month in a row the value of my investments on Mintos marketplace has been declining, despite Mintos being the top performer of dividend payments (loan payments), and here is why - Georgian Lari currency continues to lose value against EUR. Be extra cautious when investing in international currencies.

Both individuals and entities can invest through Mintos. Individual investors must be at least 18 years old, have a bank account in the European Union or third countries currently considered to have AML/CFT systems equivalent to the EU, and have their identity successfully verified by Mintos. At the moment, US citizens or taxpayers cannot register as investors at Mintos.

Affiliate link here: Sign up to Mintos.com here. By using this affiliate link for registration both you and I will receive — 1% of your average daily balance which should be paid in 3 installments for the first 90 days.

Also, for the first time, value for my investments in Nasdaq Baltics was with a negative value, decreasing to -2.29%. I believe this is just a correction, and I'm looking very positively on this stock market in 2018.

Top Dividend Paying Stocks In Nasdaq Baltic I'm Planning to Acquire in 2018

Having a diversified portfolio helps, and it definitely helped me last December. Despite negative returns in most of the portfolio positions, the total value growth is with a positive +33.34% sign. Awesome.

Investment portfolio structure December 2017

I keep investing in - stocks, peer-to-peer lending, mutual funds, cash, and cryptocurrencies. Despite Crypto position now is the largest from the portfolio, the vast majority remains invested in Nasdaq Baltics and Mintos.com peer to peer lending loans (in EUR and GEL currencies)

About Investments in December 2017

Last month I invested additional:

• Nasdaq Baltics stock market: EUR 322.7
• Cryptocurrencies: EUR 175 
• Mintos.com: EUR 215.25

Total investments in December: EUR 712.95

From money invested in Baltic equity market I bought following shares:

• Tallina Kaubamaya (TKM1T ) - 35 Shares

This, Estonian company promises dividend payment in April 2018.

Interest income in December 2017

From investments in stocks, peer to peer lending marketplace Mintos.com and from cryptocurrency lending on Poloniex.com I got following income last month:

• Olainfarm: EUR 10.89
• Nordecon: EUR 9
• Latvijas Gāze: EUR 43.56
• SAF Tehnika: EUR 30.15
• Mintos.com: EUR 46.84
• Poloniex.com: EUR 8.51

Total: EUR 147.96 / USD 173.64

Pretty busy month, if compared to the other months this year

Monthly income to the date

During the past 12 months, dividend income from my portfolio has produced  $663.99, or 5.5 % year to the date yield with last December being the top performing month.

Monthly income chart for December 2017

As forecasted many times before, December was the bank breaker. Sure nothing impressive, but right now, reaching dividend income at $170 just 12 months later I started this journey feels awesome. In fact, now there are two months in 2017 with dividend income above $100 levels - July and December.

Investment Goal #1 - $100/mo from Dividend Payments

When looking on 2018, right now it seems that the earliest time to crack $100 milestone again should come in April/May. Following January, February and March seem pretty silent from my dividend portfolio. 

Goals for December 2018 Dividend Income

I'm looking to get about $200 in December 2018 dividend income

Dwarpool.com Review 2018 - Mining Ethereum at 28MH/s

10 January, 2018 | Servers | 15 seen

I've been mining ether since December 16, 2017, the total hash power currently is about 28MH/s. That's about 1/5 from the planned hash power in 2018. 

It all started with a single GPU installed at one of the free office computers, later it has been extended to custom-built GPU mining rig and some optimization done. Past couple of weeks have been a nice learning curve, I have created many articles on mining with GPU, and they are among the most popular in 2018. Without doubts - crypto mining is a hot topic in 2018.

See the complete list of articles for the past developments:

• Building a 12 GPU Ethereum Mining Rig From Scratch - Part 1: Ordering Details
• Learning Crypto Currency Mining The Hard Way
• I'm Making $0.98 Per Day By Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I want MORE!
• I'm Making $2.44 Per Day By Dual Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I'm NOT HAPPY YET!
• Simple GPU Overclocking Boosts Ethereum Mining Profitability by 20.65% - Now Making $2.66 Daily

I opted to use Simple Mining OS, to handle my mining rig and enabled most of the default settings there. Out of the box settings at Simple Mining OS offers mining Ethereum at Dwarfpool.com. Those past couples of weeks ago I didn't even know any other pools, stuck with what I was offered out of the box.

Here is bit background info about Dwarfpool, see: Choosing the Best Ethereum Mining Pool

Once a market leader, Dwarfpool is now smaller with only ~4.3% of the Ethereum network hash rate. Like Ethpool/Ethermine and Nanopool, Dwarfpool charges a 1% fee on block rewards.

Your account balance needs to reach 1.01 Ethereum before payout and the pool pays out 6 times per day. Unless you’re mining with a powerful mining rig or using multiple miners, you may want to join a pool with a lower payout minimum.

Dwarfpool also supports the mining of other coins such as Monero, Zcash, Expanse, and Groestlcoin.

From my side, I should add, that Dwarfpool actually allows 0.05 minimum ether payouts if requested manually. And that's what I actually just did, withdraw: 0.05 ETH from Dwarfpool mining pool to my Ethreum Wallet:

Dwarfpool payout

It took me about 20 days to reach a minimum threshold of 0.05 ETH, but on the other hand, for the first 10 days, I was mining with about 10Mh/s, then for another 7 days with about 24 MH/s and just for the past couple of days at 28MH/s.

With 28MH/s constant, it would ask about 17-18days to reach 0.05 ETH. 

So far everything looks good. I'm fine with 1% mining fee I'm paying to the pool. Also, I plan to increase hashing power to about 38-40 MH/s in next couple of days by adding another Radeon RX 560 graphics card to the mining rig. See: Mining with SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon™ RX 560 4GD5 Review

My Experience with Wirex Visa Card (Virtual/Plastic) Convert BTC/Altcoins to USD/EUR or GBP

9 January, 2018 | Crypto | 63 seen

I first heard about bitcoin Visa cards back in the Summer of 2017, when opted into crypto craze (strong buy and hold here). Back then I discovered Bitpay VISA card and decided to order one at the start of 2018.

Now, as January approached and my existing crypto holdings have grown more by 320%, I decided to take another quick look at Bitcoin Visa card offer before ordering Bitpay card.

Soon I found an interesting article on Steemit: Best Bitcoin Debit Cards! Bitpay vs Wirex vs CryptoPay

As the author of the article concluded that Wirex seems a great option for EU/UK I decided to give it a try.

From Wirex promo materials:

• Immediately after registration, you will have instant access to your first virtual debit card
• Get it in less than five minutes. After you apply for the Wirex virtual Visa card online, it will be issued and delivered to your email inbox instantly
• The Wirex virtual Visa card does not require a verification process before being issued. All we need is your name, date of birth and address
• For just a few cents, you can transfer hundreds of dollars, unlike traditional transfers that cost so much more
• Once you have funds on your virtual Visa card, you can use your funds to buy bitcoin, the digital currency
• Wirex offers a completely free mobile banking app called Wirex app for iOS and Android devices

Register process was smooth, basic stuff

Register with Wirex

After filling out info got a confirmation link in my e-mail and I was ready to explore more.

Wirex offers both virtual and plastic cards, as I haven't had any experience yet with virtual cards, I did find it attractive that Wirex offers one for free. And opted to create one.

Wirex Virtual Visa Card

In couples of minutes it was ready and setup. Awesome. Virtual VISA card, with the card number, CVC code? Are you kidding me? Fantastic.

Now, before applying for a plastic card to be delivered to my postal address, I decided to test Virtual Card in action and decided to deposit some altcoins from Poloniex exchange.

At the start, I wanted to deposit some Monero (XMR) but transaction fees on Poloniex were too high and then I tried with Vertcoin.

Depositing Vertcoin (VTC) on Wirex

Unfortunately, I  didn't notice the part on the screen saying Minimum transaction amount: 6.38 VTC and transferred just 1 VTC from Poloniex.com

When I realized error I have made I just sacrificed this 1 VTC to the learning curve (as of writing this 1 VTC = EUR 5.85 / USD 7.06) and promised to be more careful in the future. Sure, it changed a bit my desire to acquire a real Plastic card from Wirex. As losing money by not yet starting even using a service doesn't seem right to me. I started to google for negative comments regarding Wirex, and holy cow, found a dozen of articles claiming Wirex is a scam. 

See: 

• Wirex scam (Reddit)
• Wirex is Scam and stole my Bitcoin! (Reddit)
• Some crypto enthusiast has even created a website: wirexapp.com is a scam!

Luckily, at least on Reddit forums there are always some member from WirexApp to respond even to the negative claims and at least for me it seems that Wirex is a legit

Currently, Wirex is rated with 7.5 stars (from 10) on Trustpilot

Anyhow, I decided to send my question directly to Wirex and made following request:

Hi guys, Wirexapp seems like a great service and would love to use in the future for everyday BTC/Altcoin EUR transfers!

I was searching for reliable BTC (Altcoin) Visa card and that's how I landed on Wirex - seems interesting enough to explore more.

To test out how it works I deposited 1 VTC from Poloniex exchange, unfortunately, just after the withdrawal from Poloniex I noticed that there is a minimum 6.12 VTC minimum. Reading from Help section - I can see you don't take any responsibility for this, quote:

Please take note of the limits to avoid losing money. We are not responsible for funds sent outside of the specified limits.

Now, I have a question, does it means my funds are lost forever, or maybe they are in some queue and if I will make an additional 5.12 VTC transfer they will sum up and will be transferred to my account on WirexAPP?

Here are details for this transaction:
Sent 1 VTC from Poloniex to:

Address: VdjZv6scatkUSTgtLFfiyjRKRq9k2Y7ob2
Txid: ab8a19457125febb43270839096f0fa096cb86cca91b10d386c19469f70a0a3a

Info from Blockchain explorer
https://bchain.info/VTC/addr/VdjZv6scatkUSTgtLFfiyjRKRq9k2Y7ob2

Thanks for looking into this 
Best,
Reinis Fischer

After some 20 hours, I got the following answer, uncovering some other problems with Wirexapp

Dear Reinis,
Thank you for contacting us.
Kindly note that when you top up your BTC account with another cryptocurrency, first the funds arrive to shapeshift.io. They exchange them into BTC and transfer to your Wirex wallet.

You can submit a ticket via their contact form: https://shapeshift.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new 
 
Besides, please mind that yesterday our card - issuing bank has received direction from Visa to immediately close all accounts of its prepaid Visa debit card programs. As a result, all the Wirex cards were disabled.

Unfortunately, the bank has not updated us in advance about these measures and we were unable to make our users ready for the cards closure.
However, we would like to assure you that you will not lose your funds. The card's balance will be converted into BTC and refunded to your Wirex wallet in full amount.
Moreover, once our new cards are available, we will replace the disabled Visa cards free of charge.

Also, in a couple of hours we will publish our official statement and share all the info we have by now.
Please accept our apologies for the inconveniences caused.
Hoping for your understanding and cooperation.

Best Regards,
Olexandra Konoval
Customer Support Representative

If you have any additional questions, please visit our Help Center: https://help.wirexapp.com

As the reply didn't provide answers on my questions regarding minimum transfer limit but instead was focused on some other much bigger issues Wirex is facing,  I decided to take advice and contact ShapeShift support, little reformatted my previous message to WirexApp and sent following:

Hi there!

I have a question regarding VTC transfer to Wirexapp. I already contacted WirexApp support and was advised to come to the Shapeshift Support.

So here is the problem: 
I was searching for reliable BTC (Altcoin) Visa card and that's how I landed on WirexApp

To test out how it works I deposited 1 VTC from Poloniex exchange, unfortunately, just after the withdrawal from Poloniex I noticed that there is a minimum 6.12 VTC minimum. Reading from Help section on WirexApp- I can see that they don't take any responsibility for this, quote:

Please take note of the limits to avoid losing money. We are not responsible for funds sent outside of the specified limits.

Now, I have a question, does it means my funds are lost forever, or maybe they are in some queue and if I will make an additional 5.12 VTC transfer they will sum up and will be transferred to my account on WirexAPP?

Here are details for this transaction: 
Sent 1 VTC from Poloniex to:

Address: VdjZv6scatkUSTgtLFfiyjRKRq9k2Y7ob2 
Txid: ab8a19457125febb43270839096f0fa096cb86cca91b10d386c19469f70a0a3a

Info from Blockchain explorer 
https://bchain.info/VTC/addr/VdjZv6scatkUSTgtLFfiyjRKRq9k2Y7ob2 (link is external)

Thanks for looking into this 
Best, 
Reinis Fischer

Frankly speaking, this doesn't seem interesting at all to me, contacting few different support desks because of the problem should be solved at one (OK, most probably this is just my fault). At this time I started to explore other VISA BTC cards: Xapo, Uquid e.t.c

Anyhow, at this stage I decided - look if there is some magic and I will get back my 1 VTC I will go with WirexApp. If there will be more support desks to contact or some other football then I'm good to go. Lost 1 VTC and got a valuable lesson.

Unfortunately, I didn't get back a reply from Shapeshit after 72 hours nor I got 1 VTC neither deposited to Wirexapp, nor sent back to the Poloniex exchange.

Filenia Cretan Restaurant near Triopetra

7 January, 2018 | Restaurant reviews | 27 seen

Filenia restaurant was a really nice discovery after we checked in at Triopetra Notos Hotel  - traditional Cretan lamb (and not only) dishes.

We were just driving around the area after caught a very beautiful sunset at the Libyan sea, see: Catching Sunset Photography at The Libyan See (Crete, Greece)

Another lovely roadside restaurant in Crete

Traditional Cretan lamb with pasta

Specialty of house - honey filled pies

Catching Sunset Photography at The Libyan See (Crete, Greece)

6 January, 2018 | | 14 seen

The Libyan Sea is the portion of the Mediterranean Sea north of the African coast of ancient Libya, i.e. Cyrenaica, and Marmarica (the coast of what is now eastern Libya and western Egypt, between Tobruk and Alexandria).This designation was used by ancient geographers describing the southern Mediterranean, but the term is also used by modern travel writers and cartographers.

The southern coastline of Crete which borders the Libyan Sea includes the Asterousia Mountains and Mesara Plain; this area is the locus of considerable ancient Bronze Age settlement including the sites of Kommos, Hagia Triada and Phaistos.

It was in mid-June 2017, we were on about a month long road trip across the island of Crete and were just checked in at Triopetra Notos Hotel, as there were still plenty of time until the super, we decided to explore nearby vicinity driving our rental Opel car. 

Car parked for sunset photography

I just adore evenings like this - see other adventures from Catching the sunset series:

• Chasing Sunset Photography with a Strong Foreground (Pāvilosta / Jūrkalne)
• Crazy, Stupid, Love - Tranquil Rough Adventures in Crete
• Mild Summer Evenings at Agia Marina Beach in Crete
• Khor Virap Monastery Complex in Armenia

Sunset at the Libyan Sea

As usual, I was equipped with a sturdy tripod, extra telephoto lenses and desire to make HDR's

​

Sunset at the Libyan Sea

Sunset at Libyan Sea (telephoto HDR)

Now, what do you think? Did we catch it after all? Leave a comment, readers, and team at  Piece of Life would love to hear!

Triopetra Notos Hotel Review in Crete, Greece

5 January, 2018 | Hotel reviews | 14 seen

Triopetra in Crete is among the most abandoned places I've traveled lately, if they wouldn't have a sea and a lovely beach, I would compare this place to the remote and almost abandoned desert village in Georgia, Udabno.

During our about one-month road trip around the island of Crete, we stayed at Triopetra Notos hotel for one night on June 11, 2017 and spend about EUR 50 for a hotel room. According to Booking.com website, there are not many hotels located in Triopetra, but during our short visit here, I did found a few new construction sites in the area, which might mean - Triopetra could gain some popularity in the future.

See: Top Hotels and Apartments in Triopetra, Crete

It's said that this property is a 1-minute walk from the beach, in fact, I doubt some could actually reach the sea just walking. Situated 1 km away from Triopetra Beach, Triopetra Notos Hotel offers tastefully furnished rooms and studios with views of the Libyan Sea.

Surrounding views at Triopetra Notos Hotel

In the background, you can see the Libyan sea

Featuring a furnished balcony, rooms and studios at Triopetra Notos are bright and decorated in earthy tones. They are all equipped with a TV and air conditioning. Some units also include a kitchenette with dining area, where guests can prepare and enjoy a quick meal.

Room at Triopetra Notos Hotel

At around 1 km, you can find a tavern preparing traditional Cretan specialities. The town of Rethymno is at 48 km. Free Wi-Fi is provided in the common areas and free on-site parking is possible. 

Car parked at Triopetra Notos Hotel

2017 Blog Income & Traffic Review - Goals For 2018

3 January, 2018 | Blogging | 4 seen

Another year has just passed, and it's time to take a look back on previous 2017 year of blogging, and no doubts -  take a quick glimpse at 2018.

In today's article, I will reveal some data behind the blog scenes - both traffic and income for the whole year of 2017. But before we dig into the numbers, here is the brief background - blog now is more than four years old, and for the last four years it has gone a very long way,

Make sure to check out my previous yearly blogging reviews:

• 2016 - Blog Traffic and Income Report 2016 - 635,048 Users / $18,586.41
• 2015 - Blog Traffic and Income Report for 2015 - 347,035 users / $9,819.71
• 2014 - Blog Income Report 2014 - $3,334.20

About blog traffic in 2017

• In total blog have reached 1,049,975 (that's more than a million) users in 2017
• On average it is 87,497 monthly users or
• 2,876 daily visitors

2017 was kind of steady in terms of traffic, there was a growth, but it seems to starts slowing down (if compared to the previous years). It was in the August 2017, when blog's traffic first time cracked 100.000 unique users monthly see: From 0 To Over 100,000 Monthly Website Visitors in 3 Years and 10 Months. Significant traffic boost happened after I implemented AMP see: SEO Results After Implementing Drupal AMP

In total there were four months in 2017 with total traffic more than 100,000. Which is great. 

Blog traffic report 2017 (monthly view). Data source: Google Analytics

About 3 years ago, around July 2014, when the blog was getting about 2,000 users monthly I first set this goal to reach 100K users, back then I thought it could happen in a 5-year term (around 2019). Now, achieving this goal 2 years ahead the schedule feels awesome.

2017 vs 2016

I can proudly report that in 2017 blog have experienced 65.34% traffic gain if compared to 2016

Blog traffic 2017 vs 2016 (monthly view). Data source: Google Analytics

Top 10 most popular articles

In total, I have written 386 articles in 2017, on average that is 1.05 article per day,  which is a slight decrease if compared to the previous years:

• 2016 - 469 articles,
• 2015 - 479 articles
• 2014 - 428 articles. 

I find it just normal, that my blogging schedule has decreased after blogging for more than 4 years. On the other hand, IMHO, in 2017 I had more quality articles, especially starting Summer when I started to cover articles on crypto investments.

Top 10 articles (according to Google Analytics) generated 39.48% from total page views on the blog. It's interesting to note: 5 out of 10 top articles were written back in 2016, 3 articles in 2015, 1 article from 2014 and just one article from 2017 has made to the top 10. Well, that's how Google Search works - the older the content, more chances for it being picked up. 

The pretty similar scene I observed last year when most of the content was from previous years. I believe it's normal, of course, I would love to see more fresh content being the most viewed, but on the other hand, having a massive archive really helps on getting more traffic.

Desktop VS Mobile VS Tablet

For the fourth year, I'm including data about devices users are accessing this blog

Mobile device users (Data Source: Google Analytics)

Nope, the desktop still dominated in 2017, but its dominance is decreasing. I believe 2018 will be the turning point for my blog when mobile will take over the desktop. 

As you can see from the image above - Desktop users still account for most of the visits at this blog making in total 51.36%, followed by mobile devices (43.93%) and tablets (4.71%).

One thing I have noticed here - bounce rates from mobile and tablets are lower than from desktop, and pretty significant lower, the same applies to average time spent the on the blog.

Demographics: Age and Gender

Using Google Analytics Display features I was able to track down demographics for my blog.

Demographics: Age & Gender (Data source: Google Analytics)

According to the Google Analytics primary audience for this blog are males (68.7%) in age between 25-34 (38.57% from total sessions). I'm a male and I fell into this age category as well, so probably it's not a surprise seeing we have some common interests?

The next biggest audience are persons in age group 18-24, making 24.02% of the total session, followed by age group 35-44 with 18.41% from total sessions.

Persons in the age group 18-44 makes about 81% of all sessions. So if you are wondering who is actually reading blogs, now you have some basic idea.

Demographics: Location

If compared to 2016, there are no changes in TOP 3. Visitors from the United States, India, and United Kingdom dominates for the fourth year in a row.

Traffic sources:

Google dominates for the fourth year in a row

Blog Traffic Sources 2017 (Data Source: Google Analytics)

About Blog Income 2017

Combined income streams from affiliate marketing and display ads in 2017 made  $24,920.47, which is a nice 34% increase if compared to 2016

• $24,920.47 is around $2,076.7 per month or
• $68.27 per day

Combined RPM from all revenue channels stands at $16.07.  in 2017. Which unfortunately is about 4 dollar decrease for every 1000 page views if compared to the previous years.

Here is what I told a year ago:

Actually after having average RPM for about $20 makes me feel very good, as I think it's a good value. I wonder will I manage to increase RPM in 2017? As speaking for the previous year (2015) RPM was at $19.27. A slight increase or decrease can make a lot difference at the final earnings. 

And here you go, a 4 dollar drop means pretty significant loses -  if I would manage to keep RPM at previous year levels at $20, then today instead of reporting almost 25K profits I would report...  a drum bell... more drum bell... about 30K. With decreased RPM values in 2017, I have not taken additional 5K profits.

I can see a simple explanation, learn more here: Amazon Associates Decreases Referral Fee Rates in Certain Product Categories, Drops Tier System

About Expenses in 2017

Now, this is the tricky part - as I have a simple philosophy regarding spend, I like to keep it short - to earn some money, you should spend some money.

I stopped counting expense in 2017 after reaching about $870, I believe the final number should be around $1000-$1200

I spent on Linode VPS hosting, Facebook ads, domain renewals, KeyCDN and virtual writers.

Goals / Forecasts for 2018

As usual, I will end report with some thoughts about future plans and forecast. But before that, let's see what I was forecasting a year ago:

I'm looking to cross 1 million user milestone, which makes about 83,3K users monthly. My financial goal is more humble - $22,000 income. 

Both goals were achieved in 2017. Amazing!

Speaking about goals for 2018: As things are starting to slow down, I'm looking for about 30% increase both for traffic and income in 2018. I'm looking to reach 1,3 million user milestone, which makes about 108K users monthly. My financial goal is to reach - $32,500 income. That's about pulling $2,7K each month. From today's perspective - hard but doable!

2017 in Review and Financial Goals for 2018

2 January, 2018 | Investments | 15 seen

I'm 32 now and I have a goal to save one million dollars by the time I will turn 60. That's 28 years to go.

In today's article, I will review the past year and take a quick glimpse at the New Year. 

For me, 2017 was a year of peer to peer lending, dividend-paying stocks and starting with the second part of the year - cryptocurrencies.

Investment Portfolio 2017

At the start of 2017, I planned to invest about 31% of my annual net income, the planned amount for 2017 was $8,561, I made it up to $12,057.41 at the end of the year. Isn't that Awesome? In 2017 I was investing at the pace of about $1,000/mo. 

You know what's even more awesome than that? I ended 2017 with a 33.34% value growth, putting the net value of my investment portfolio at $16,077.05. I should mention that most of the value growth happened in December and because of cryptocurrencies. Soaring prices for bitcoin, litcoin, ripple, and ethereum being the main driven force behind.

Here is what I said a year before:

Now, I believe that I wont make probably any profit at first year, thus it's tempting for me to write down how much possibly I could make if that 12% annually might work out for me. $8,561+12% = $9,588.32, that's more than $1,000. Amazing.

Technically speaking I didn't make more than $1,000 in dividend payments  (more on that below), practically I made $4,019.64 in value growth.

In 2017 dividend yield (on cost) for my investment portfolio was about 5.50%, here is the breakdown by positions:

• Mintos.com peer to peer lending: EUR 311.41 (yield 7.93%)
• Nasdaq Baltics: EUR 264.85 (yield 5.85%)
• Poloniex.com crypto lending: EUR 13.58 (yield 1.27%)

Now, in total in dividend income for 2017 Ir received EUR 589.94 / USD 663.99)

In general, it means that in a true passive income I made about $1.81 daily, by doing nothing much, just keeping stake at great companies and lending out money via peer to peer platforms. On the other hand, I spend about an hour a day to research, analyze,  make future decisions.

Financial Goals for 2018

I'm looking to invest 42% (years + 10%) from income I've made in 2017, that's about $10,700.18. 

For 2018 I plan to invest in stocks, peer to peer lending and cryptocurencies. More or less here is the plan for invested amounts:

• Stocks: $6,400
• Peer to Peer Lending: $1,200
• Crytptocurencies: ~ $3,000

Now, this might change a little bit, as I also have cash and mutual fund positions in the portfolio. I would love to keep at least 5% in cash. Also, I have thought a lot about investments in bonds, but right now they don't look promising to me, if, then most probably in 2019 I will buy some bonds. 

For 2018 I'm looking on $1,200 annual dividend income (about $100/mo or 3.28 daily)

Also, I'm looking to reach 25K net worth value by the end of 2018. 

Let's see if we can apply some math here:

Now let's do some crazy stuff and imagine that in 2018 I would see another 30% year over year value growth:

Holly cow. It's hard to believe in such numbers (and probably there is no need for that), but in general this is how compounding works (ok, it's both compounding and value growth in this case)

If there is even possible such massive value growth for 2 years in a row, then I believe it could happen because of crazy crypto. As a matter of fact, in 2017 investments in cryptocurrencies have generated a jaw-dropping 348.45% growth in my portfolio in just 5 months.

Anyhow, anything could happen (and it will definitely happen in 2018), I could actually lose some (let's hope that not all of my money), and this is my best advice to you - never invest more you can afford to lose!

Can I afford to lose my current 16K? Ouch, I better not!

On the other hand, 16K is just 1.6% from my ultimate one million dollar goal by the time I will turn 60 (2045), and currently compounding seems the one and the only way to reach this magical number in a kind of easy and slow pace.

Happy New Year! Fireworks Photography from Tbilisi 2018

1 January, 2018 | | 4 seen

We wish you a very great and prosperous 2018!

Here at Piece of Life photo series we canceled our planned trip to Sri Lanka and stayed in Tbilisi to capture following firework photography from Tamar Mephe bridge (ahh we have made dozens of great photos from this place).

Just before the midnight left our apartment with a tripod and few spare batteries

Tbilisi just a few minutes before New Year 2018

Fireworks have always been an interesting object for me to photograph, I remember how I prepared for great firework photography 2 years ago in St. Marks Square (Venice, Italy) in 2015/2016 but missed great images because of buildings covering the objective.  I got my first successful firework photos the same year from our balcony in Tbilisi, see: Old New Year's fireworks in Tbilisi

As a lot of time has passed, it was hard to recall how to make a proper fireworks photography tonight

2018 Tbilisi fireworks

Tonight I made about 90 long exposure night photographs, just a few survived final editorial review (you can see them in this article)

Happy New Year - Tbilisi 2018

That said - we wish you a very happy and prosperous 2018, let's have another amazing year together!

Truly yours,

team of Piece of Life!

Simple GPU Overclocking Boosts Ethereum Mining Profitability by 20.65% - Now Making $2.66 Daily

31 December, 2017 | Servers | 12 seen

Welcome to the last post of 2017, and no surprise but today I will speak about increased Ethereum (and Siacoin) mining profitability by overclocking GPU cards.

Those of you following my blog lately already know - in December I decided to build 12 GPU mining rig and ordered goodies from Amazon. In total spending about $1,147.  The total investment right now covers just the core minimum - motherboard, power supply, PCI risers, RAM, processor and just 2 graphics cards.

At the start, I ordered just one graphics card from Amazon, but while still waiting for equipment to arrive I decided to set up a test environment at one of our office spare computers and installed a cheap Radeon RX 560 card. 

Top 14 Best Selling GPU Cards 2018

The first result with RX 560 card gave me about $0.98 profit daily, see: I'm Making $0.98 Per Day By Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I want MORE!

I was pretty happy with results I got from this card, though felt kind of surprised seeing hashing power just about 10 MH/s - it didn't sound good (as I have read that others are getting about 14 MH/s out of this card). Anyhow, as I was (and still am) new to mining, I decided to leave it as it is, not touching clocks, memory size e.t.c. 

Now, I what I was looking for was a decent about 22.5 MH/s hashing power from the EVGA 1060 GTX 6 GB card, but felt very poor seeing just 14MH/s out of the box - I was able to increase daily profit from about a dollar to  two and a half dollars, but this time it seemed wrong, see: I'm Making $2.44 Per Day By Dual Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I'm NOT HAPPY YET!

Both cards combined gave me really modest 24.5 MH/s hashing power (instead of 36 MH/s). I left mining rig to work for a couple of days, meanwhile watching a dozen of YouTube videos, reading countless forum topics on overclocking. And finally yesterday I applied my newly generated knowledge and was able to increase total hashing power to about 29-30MH/s

Now, there are few things I should mention.

• Currency exchange rates - since my previous test price for ETH has dipped from about $770 to $704
• Despite ETH has lost some value against USD in the past couple of days, the total income has increased. 
• I learned that I could get more hashing power with single coin mining, instead of dual coin mining, and the results were actually quite satisfactory, from both cards I was getting about 31 MH/s single mining ETH only.
• For some reason overclocking worked only for GTX 1060 card, RX 560 was not affected at all, probably the reason it is so - I'm running mixed AMD + NVIDIA rig.

From the positive I should add, that the total ROI has decreased from 468 days to 430 days - a very nice 38 day gain with simple overclocking.

Now, the ROI and ETH exchange rates are the things that worry me the most (now) - to be in the safe side I would love to see ROI in 365 days or better 10 months.

With current mining power, that would ask ETH to be valued at $836 to get investment back in 365 days or about $1,025 for ROI in 10 months. 

Now, I don't dare to say it loud, but OK, I will say - I believe Ethereum reaching $2,000 by the end of 2018.

To Mine or Buy Ethereum/Zcash/Monero in 2018

Taverna Plateia in Mirthios, Crete

30 December, 2017 | Restaurant reviews | 27 seen

Ok, this is just another roadside cafeteria, discovered by accident - meet Taverna Plateia in the village of Mirthios, on the island of Crete.

At least I believe it is located in Mirthios village, as we did our trip to Crete back in June 2017, now browsing through the huge photo archive at Adobe Lightroom, I might be wrong. Though it's worth to mention this place as we had a nice dinner here.

Taverna Plateia in Crete

My one and only reference point - signboard - Taverna Plateia. If looking through my Crete discovery map, this might be the right location

Quick dinner at Taverna Plateia

Cretan dolma​

Lake Kournas in Crete

29 December, 2017 | Lakes | 15 seen

Lake Kournas is a lake on the island of Crete, Greece, near the village of Kournas. It is in the Apokoronas municipality of Chania regional unit close to the border with Rethymno regional unit, 47 km from the town of Chania. Kournas is a fairly large village perched on a hill overlooking the lake.

We headed to the Lake Kournas in June 2017, just to spend a nice afternoon here and enjoy a mild swim in the lake water.

It should be noted that Lake Kournas is Crete's only freshwater lake

Lake Kournas in Crete

Lake Kournas, is relatively large, with a perimeter of 3.5 km. Although almost all touristic leaflets say that it is possible to walk around the lake, that is not true. At least not at the end of the rain season (winter). There is a nature preserve on the Southwest of the lake. But there is a rustic road from the North of the lake to the Hills on the West of the lake too.

Catamarans for rent at lake Kournas

Seems a very popular tourist attraction here, as we didn't try one this time I'm not sure about pricing, but it was something like EUR 5 for 1 hour (or at least 30 minutes)

There are two roads that lead to Lake Kournas. As you drive up from the main local road Eparchiaki Odos Georgioupolis-Kournas you will come across road signs posted Lake Kournas Exit 1 and Lake Kournas Exit 2. On Lake Kournas Exit 1 you will come through an area of ten houses and cottages known as Dimitrouliana Metochi(small village) 

A unique feature of Dimitrouliana is a group of stone cottages that were built during the Ottoman rule, during the 1700s and possessing Venetian Architecture. Such houses, can be found in many locations in Crete and have central arches made of thick carved stones and wooden lofts to the left and right sides of the arc. One such cottage with a large central arc is Villa Christiana at the Dimitrouliana Metochi.

Lake Kourna's popularity due to its ecosystem, has always been a tourist attraction and many owners have renovated their cottages and homes during the first decade of the second millennium giving an aesthetic look to the area, while preserving the architecture of the structures. The road off the Metochi leads to the lake within 200 meters. As it continues curving along a stretch of the lake, it will come across several isolated restaurants until it reaches to Exit 2 of Lake Kournas. There you can find a more organized structure of taverns and restaurants overlooking the lake. During the tourist season there are pedalos, canoes and sunbed for enjoyment. Leaving the Lake area up the road of Lake Kournas, Exit 2 it leads to the main Eparchiaki Odos of Georgioupolis-Kournas.

Learning Crypto Currency Mining The Hard Way

28 December, 2017 | Servers | 17 seen

It has been a couple of days since my first GPU mining rig is set up and running, making me a couple of extra dollars every day. In these past couple of days, I have learned a lot, mostly tech stuff how to install different components on a motherboard and to connect to the mining pool.

In today's article, I will share a few photos and notes what helped to get me here.

It all started with ordering details for 12 GPU mining rig from Amazon. It sounds bit insane but I spent about $1,000 just for the core minimum + about $200 additionally for getting these goodies to Tbilisi (transport and cost). As the estimate shipping time for all details from US to Georgia is about 3 weeks (I've received almost all components, except a few) and I had FOMO for crypto mining, I rushed and bought a cheap Radeon graphics card here in Tbilisi to set up and test on one of the free office computers.

Brand new Radeon RX 560 graphics card

The cat seemed very interested in this business. Once I took this card to the computer, I learned the first couple of lessons:

The screwdriver was an easy fix - I borrowed one from local Tbilisi restaurant owner - A nice Armenian guy. Molex cables were kind of problem - I spend a good time of afternoon and just in the next days morning find them at Kidobani market in Tbilisi. Bought two of them.

Molex 6-pin connector

I watched a dozen of YouTube videos on how to install them correctly.

Installing graphics card in PC

As I did a lot of testing, I accidentally damaged existing HDD, probably because of static electricity, who knows. At this stage, HDD is still working though and Windows 10 operating system is running smoothly.

Radeon graphic card drivers for Windows

For some reason I tried to install Radeon graphics card drivers for Windows (PC just refused to recognize this new card installed), then I figured out that I should connect the monitor directly to the graphics card and turned out I cannot do it - as the monitor had an older DVI cable. Spent another good time watching YouTube videos to learn I should buy some DVI - VGA converter. 

It was time to go back to the Kidobani market.

Again, bought a couple of versions of these adapters, just to be sure

DVI to VGA converter

Now it was time to set it up

Monitor connected to graphics card

Almost there, and then it happened HDD died.

I felt poor. Went home - returned to YouTube video's and learned there is Simple Mining OS which could be run from a USB stick.Spend another couple of hours making a bootable USB stick, returned to the office, plugged in the USB stick, configured boot to launch from USB and... VICTORY. I was connected to mining pools and started mining Ethereum and Siacoin. See: I'm Making $0.98 Per Day By Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I want MORE!