14-year-old Ishaan Thakur and his sister, 9-year-old Aanya, spent their summer building a lucrative cryptocurrency mining business.
“We started because we wanted to learn something new about technology – and make some money in the process,” Ishaan told CNBC Make It.
And you have.
Each month, the siblings earn over $ 30,000 by mining three digital coins: Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value; Ether, the second largest; and Ravencoin, an altcoin in the top 100, says Ishaan.
To do this, Ishaan and Aanya, who live in Frisco, Texas, had to learn to mine, which is not an easy task. When mining to earn cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, complex computers are programmed to compete to solve difficult puzzles to validate transactions.
“Crypto mining is like mining gold or diamonds,” says Ishaan. “Instead of using shovels, mine with computers. Instead of finding a piece of gold or a diamond in the mine, find a cryptocurrency.”
After watching videos on YouTube and searching the internet, Ishaan converted his Alienware, a popular type of gaming computer, into an ether mining rig in April. (He did this by using the graphics card, which can do a high volume of calculations for mining.)
His parents supported him: “We could have spent the whole summer playing video games, but instead we used our free time to learn about technology,” says Ishaan.
Ishaan Thakur converted his Alienware gaming computer into an ether mining rig in April.
Courtesy Manish Raj
The siblings started with Ether, because Bitcoin mining can be particularly difficult. With its limited supply and increasing demand, bitcoin mining competition can be more intense.
On her first day, “I made $ 3,” says Ishaan.
To make the business official, Ishaan and Aanya founded
“We liked it so much that we started adding more processors [or chips], and made $ 1,000 in our first month in May, “says Ishaan.
The siblings’ income continued to grow, and in late July they were able to afford to buy devices like the Antminer and Nvidia RTX 3080-Ti graphics cards to start mining Bitcoin and Ravencoin as well. When they decided to mine, they chose Ravencoin because the equipment they had was “optimal” for mining, says Raj.
Overall, based on the equipment currently ordered, they expect to make around $ 36,000 in September, says Raj.
Read more about cryptocurrencies from CNBC Pro
“We can process a little more than 10 billion Ethereum algorithms per second alone,” says Ishaan.
Although Ishaan and Aanya were successful, the process is far from easy.
Besides being very complicated, mining is certainly not cheap because it requires expensive equipment, a lot of energy, and computer power.
Ishaan and Aanya, for example, have over 97 processors that their father, Raj, a former investment banker, financed with a loan.
Raj declined to disclose the exact loan amount. However, the global shortage of computer chips made it difficult to find devices and led to high prices.
Ishaan and Aanya primarily use Nvidia RTX 3090 graphics cards, Ishaan says, and each card alone can cost anywhere from $ 2,500 to $ 3,000.
Although the home siblings say they use “100% renewable energy for our mining” because “we want to be green,” they also rent a data center in Dallas, Texas. Overall, the electricity bill for both her home and data center costs just under $ 3,000 per month, Ishaan says.
“We moved from my desk to the garage because the house was getting too hot and too loud. [W]e grew out of the garage because the heat and noise were too much for the garage, too, ”says Ishaan. “We now only use the garage to build and test mining rigs. When they’re done, we’ll move them to a professional, air-conditioned data center in downtown Dallas. “
Ishaan and Aanya were able to “expand” their school operations over the summer break, but hope to expand their business further and bring it in line with the school.
When her friends ask: “I’m just telling them that we only dismantle in the garage,” says Aanya.
With their profits, they want to reinvest in their business. But “hopefully the profits from our mining business” [also] pay our college fees, “says Ishaan.
Ishaan hopes to attend the University of Pennsylvania, he says. There he would like to study medicine and become a doctor. Aanya also wants to study medicine, but wants to attend New York University instead.
You have a few more years to save, however – after all, Ishaan is just a freshman in high school and Aanya is a fourth grader in elementary school.
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