Blog Archive: January 2018
Bākūži Winter 2018
| | 7 seen
Made a couple of HDR's back at Bākūži, the country house where for the last couple of years we have done some home remodeling.
In today's Piece of Life series, simple winter mood from Latvian winter (January 2018)
Fishpond
A decent level of water, not to say more, see: Waiting For The Water Level To Rise In The Pond
Back view of the house
Apple orchard
For those of you interested how it all started, see: Home Remodelling - How It All Starts
Lost Siacoins after Depositing to Poloniex.com Exchange (Probably because of Wallet Maintenance)
| Crypto | 13 seen
Hmm, this is not nice, but that what happened to me, Siacoins I had mined using GPU mining rig,got lost somewhere in Poloniex.com
A brief background - since I started to experiment with gpu mining rig, I opted for Claymore's dual mining Ethereum and Siacoin, mining Siacoin didn't seem very profitable (see: Is It Profitable Mining Siacoin (SC) in 2018? ), but I decided to keep mining just in case Siacoin goes to the moon (like many other altcoins) and maybe someday my Siacoins would be worth millions of dollars? He he. For Siacoin Withdrawal address I entered the one I have on Poloniex.com exchange.
In total, I had mined 131.61 SC. And everything seemed nice. It would take me a couple of months to reach minimum 500SC withdrawal limit, but it all happened suddenly. I had a flight and obviously, I was not checking what's happening with SC or ETH withdrawals - why would I? There are still plenty of time to reach that 500 SC minimum threshold. Before boarding my plane I last time checked my e-mail and read following comment regarding Siacoin mining:
SIAcoin is no longer profitable to…
Mining Ethereum With Asus Geforce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB ROG Strix OC Edition Review
| Servers | 46 seen
Asus Geforce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB ROG Strix OC Edition is the latest addition to my Ethereum mining rig, which currently consists of 4 GPU.
Bought back in Tbilisi, and I believe that I just overpaid about $100 for this card, in total spending $296 for this card. Not very cost effective. A couple of weeks ago I bought Zotac Geforce GTX1050Ti card for about $220. And in fact, this time I visited a store I was looking to purchase another Zotac, but unfortunately some had reserved all cards already and I was left either to purchase SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon™ RX 560 4GD5 or search for another store.
I choose the second option, and that's how I acquired Asus Geforce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB ROG Strix OC Edition for about $300. It seems this card is sold on Amazon for the same ~ $300, see: ASUS Geforce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB ROG STRIX HDMI 2.0 DP 1.4 Gaming Graphics Card (STRIX-GTX1050TI-4G-GAMING) Graphic Cards
Check out this article, if you are building your mining rig in Tbilisi (Georgia) - Buying Graphic Cards (GPU) and Computer Parts in Tbilisi,…
Mintos.com Review After 12 Month of Investing in Peer to Peer Lending
| Peer to Peer Lending | 50 seen
I've been investing in Mintos.com peer to peer lending marketplace since the beginning of 2017, or it has been already 12 months or one year since I've been exposing my funds to this Latvian fintech platform.
In the past 12 months I've made a nice revenue of EUR 311.42 (before tax) and in today's article, I decided to share a quick overview for the past 2017 and also make a quick glimpse for my plans for 2018.
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.
Remember - investments are risky, never invest more you can afford to lose.
Background…
Mining Ethereum @ ~53 MH/s and Siacoin @ ~310 MH/s Earns me $5.53 Daily - And It's Time to take a Pause
| Crypto | 41 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 already 4, giving a hash power of about 53 MH/s) and second, Ethereum price has dropped by about 40% in the last days (from $1,430 in January 13, 2018, to $1,007.41 in January 23). Both things heavily affect daily payouts when mining Ethereum (or any other altcoin)
The mining rig has been up and operating little more than 30 days, base core system has been extended to 4 GPU's and the current investment for this rig is $1,661.
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
- …
Mining Ethereum With ZOTAC GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti OC Edition Review
| Servers | 21 seen
ZOTAC GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti OC Edition is the third graphics card installed on my mining rig.
Bought back in Tbilisi and paid about $220 for this card, see: Buying Graphic Cards (GPU) and Computer Parts in Tbilisi, Georgia. Currently sold on Amazon for about $260 - ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1050 Ti OC Edition 4GB GDDR5 Super Compact Gaming Graphics Card (ZT-P10510B-10L)
Out of the box, this card gives ~12 MH/s in Dual mining mode on SimpleMining OS. I believe with solo mining and little overclocking this card has a potential of 15MH/s for Ethereum mining.
Currently, this card is installed on a mining rig and I noticed following measurements for temperature and fan speed
- 76 Celsius
- 47% Fan speed
In general, I would love to get the temperature below 70 Celsius, as I believe lower temperatures and slower fan speeds extends the total lifetime for graphics cards. On the other hand, the ventilation in the room I'm storing this rig could be much better and in fact, the next big thing I'm planning to add to this rig - a rig frame, probably a…
Learning To Programm Ethereum Smart Contracts
| Servers | 12 seen
From simple crypto investments (buy & hold), speculative day trades, investments in cloud mining contracts, to building a custom 12 GPU ethereum mining rig. Sound enough? Not for me, it was yesterday I decided to get my hands dirty and understand this blockchain economy better and building a few test ethereum smart contracts.
There is one simple explanation I can find for my desire to explore more - just to understand how this blockchain economy works from the technical point of view. You see - setting up a mining rig is one thing - giving a direct benefit to me as a miner in a form of block rewards. I fact I don't like the name mining or miner - I better prefer transaction verifier or something.
Now, back to the subject -
Learning to code Ethereum Smart ContractsA great starting place to learn more and code your first ethereum smart contract in Ethereum's official guide ( Building a smart contract using the command line)
Smart contracts are account holding objects on the ethereum blockchain. They contain code functions and can interact with other contracts, make decisions, store data, and send ether to others. Contracts…
HashFlare.io Review After 1 month Bitcoin Cloud Mining Experiment
| Crypto | 13 seen
A month ago (on December 21, 2017) I decided to explore bitcoin cloud mining contracts and decided to give it a try for HashFlare.io
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.
At the start it took me to spend a good amount of the afternoon, to collect both good and negative reviews about HashFlare.io before taking a final decision and developing plan - kind of dollar cost averaging by investing in additional hash power once in a month.
Here is what I told a month ago: I Just invested $50.60 in Hashflare.io Cloud Mining
Dude, this has been one crazy cryptocurrency investment year - at least for me. Starting simple buy and hold operations on Coinbase.com, extending to swing trades, crypto lending and now at the end of December 2017 ordering details for 12 GPU…
Homemade Lasagna (Filling from Minced Meat + Bechamel Sauce)
| Food blogger | 11 seen
Welcome to just another food blogger series - today I'll share one of my favorite recipes - homemade lasagna.
To make a lasagna you will need for filling: carrots, onions, minced meat (I prefer mixed lamb and pork), for bechamel sauce: butter, milk, flour, nutmeg, and cheese. To stick it all together we will need lasagna plates - there are two options - to use ready-made or make your owns. In today's recipe, I will use ready-made lasagna plates from the shop.
For making homemade lasagna plates you would need to have the so-called macaroni machine, see: How To Make Fresh Egg Pasta Noodles Using Macaroni machine
Let' s start by peeling an onion (s) and carrots.
Carrots and Onions
Next - chop onions and grate carrots.
Put on the cooking pan, let them brown.
Browning carrots and onions on a pan
Add minced meat.
Preparing filling for lasagna
Cook for a while and then take a kettle, pour in water and put goodies from the pan into the kettle, add spices (salt and pepper) and cook slowly for 40 minutes.
Bechamel sauce…
Lazy Day Trip to Tianeti in Winter (via Mtskheta)
| Travel guides | 36 seen
It was on Friday morning, which was a public holiday in Georgia, as it turned out, there is a good reason not to visit the office today, we started to figure it out, maybe go and visit Batumi by train for a couple of days.
On the other hand, we didn't want to spend 3 days absent from home and decided to limit our impromptu trip just as an easy day trip, and agreed to visit Tianeti.
Tianeti has been on my travel list since the end of 2016, the region is not yet very popular among tourists, and that's one of the reasons I love this region. On the other hand, day trips to Tianeti (region of Mtsketa-Mtianeti) are quite possible and really easy doable. See: Day Trip to Tianeti in Georgia
Said done! A quick call to the driver and after 40 minutes we are on the way to Tianeti.
View towards Mtskheta town from Jvari monastery
First stop - Jvari monastery - a scenic place with great views towards Mtskheta town and Mtkvari / Aragvi delta. Next stop Mtskheta, with quick khachapuri and Turkish coffee at Kartuli Ezo, a short visit to Svetiskhoveli cathedral. If…
Mining Ethereum With EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 (Single Fan), 6GB GDDR5 Review
| Servers | 59 seen
This EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC GAMING, ACX 2.0 (Single Fan), 6GB GDDR5 is the second graphics card I've put on test for mining Ethereum.
Bought from Amazon, together with the rest of mining rig equipment at the end of December, paid about $275 for this card.
At the start using default out of the box settings, I was able to get out just about 14MH/S, which felt wrong, as I was hoping to get at least 22 MH/s with this card.
Unboxing EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC GAMING, ACX 2.0 (Single Fan), 6GB GDDR5
As it was Christmas time when I added this card to the mining rig, I decided to leave it as it is for a couple of days. In combination with Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 560 4GB graphics card I was able to get about 25 MH/s hashing power, which back at the day combined produced about $2.44 from dual mining Ethereum and Siacon, see: I'm Making $2.44 Per Day By Dual Mining Ethereum and Siacoin, and I'm NOT HAPPY YET!
Shortly before the New Year's Eve I decided to experiment with overclocking settings and was able to get this card up to ~ 19MH/s…
Would I invest $2,000 in Cryptos (Buying / Trading / Mining) in 2018
| Crypto | 9 seen
I got a phone call from a friend, pretty strange phone call - friend was asking what would I do if I had spare $2,000, where would I invest them to make about $300/mo
After the $300/monthly figure for me, it was clear - a friend is most probably talking about cryptos, and more probably about crypto mining. As I've been covering many articles on cryptocurrency investment lately, the phone call didn't come as a surprise.
See:
- Should You Invest in Hashflare Ethereum Cloud Mining Contract or Build Your Own GPU Mining Rig
- With Rising Ethereum Price I'm making $5.22 daily by Mining Cryptos - And I Definitely Want MORE!
- HashFlare Review - I'm Making $0.50 Per day from Bitcoin cloud mining and I want more
I decided to see, what if we would put $2,200 into HashFlare.io cloud mining how much hash power we would get, right now as of writing this $2,200 would give 10TH/s.
HashFlare.io (Affiliate link here - if you will click, register and decide to invest, I might earn 10% commission from that)
Please, be extra careful when investing in cloud contracts or …
About Setting Up Virtual Trade Zone in Georgia (And Free Industrial Zones)
| Living in Georgia | 50 seen
A couple of years ago (in 2012) I met an American entrepreneur John Keogh here in Georgia. Back in these days, office coworking spaces were kind of popular and just obliviously popped up also in Georgia.
John had a business in Tbilisi, and in his blog (www.upsoni.com) he published some cool stuff about his vision of possible coop both for local and expat entrepreneurs - I contacted him and we had a lovely dinner at one of the lovely Tbilisi Restaurants (Capadoccia, more precisely)
A lot has changed since then, long are the days with office coworking spaces, the World has gone mad because of the cryptos (including me and many here in Georgia), but the question I first heard from John - Setting up the Virtual Free Trade zones in Georgia have remained.
It was in the middle of January, when a question from another blog reader, pointed to me via John Keogh, asked the magical question once more:
Hi Reinis,
I'm planning to relocate to Georgia in order to work there, I'm planning to set up a small company. I contacted John Keogh and he pointed me to your blog and advised me to get in touch with you.
First of all, nice…
Should You Invest in Hashflare Ethereum Cloud Mining Contract or Build Your Own GPU Mining Rig
| Crypto | 22 seen
The idea and inspiration for this article come out since after about a month ago I started to invest both in cloud mining and building my very own GPU mining rig. I decided to compare - what's more profitable - doing all by yourself or just throwing money into cloud mining contracts.
Make sure to read out my previous article on similar topic: To Mine or Buy Ethereum/Zcash/Monero in 2018
For a prelude, back in December 2017, I decided to build up to 12 GPU mining rig, using kind of dollar cost averaging - installing a new graphics card once in a month. Now, about 30 days later I have a 3 graphics card mining rig, and I'm dual mining Ether and Siacoin, These 3 cards combined gives me about 41 MH/s hashing power - which translates into some $5-$6 per day (not counting in fee for electricity)
With Rising Ethereum Price I'm making $5.22 daily by Mining Cryptos - And I Definitely Want MORE!
Shortly before the Christmas time I decided to experiment with cloud mining contracts and opted for Bitcoin Cloud Mining contract from Hashflare.io - again the same approach - dollar cost averaging, and investing…
With Rising Ethereum Price I'm making $5.22 daily by Mining Cryptos - And I Definitely Want MORE!
| 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…