Off the top of my head you have https://bitmedia.io and https://a-ads.com/ and https://mellowads.com/ it's been years since I have used any of them so I cannot comment on much. But at the time say 2016-17 they all worked well. Keep in mind there is a lot of fraud going on and in terms of these services vs. the google type ones they try but can't keep up. So you will get a lot of bot clicks. They say they fight it, but in the end even Google with billions of dollars of staff and tech can't keep up with click fraud.

Also, back then their targeting was not the best but I don't know if that has improved in the last few years.

-Dave

There are also more and more wallets & services out there that handle lightning and do it fairly well. Blixt wallet or blue wallet and several others now. Just send BTC ones and you are good to go for LN transactions. No more running your own node or jumping though hoops to connect to another node. I think that helps people use it.
I know I have said it about other things but for a large part here on the forum we are more willing to play around and run our own things and do whatever to use stuff.

That is not the rest of the world, they for the most part don't care how it works, don't want to know how it works, they just want it to work. Now that more and more LN does that I see more people getting into it.

-Dave

I guess the question is other then configuring it the way you want and a slightly smaller footprint is there any real benefit to do it this way then getting a RPi and running the Apollo off of that?
Don't get me wrong I spend a lot of time doing things because I can, but I see running everything else while also mining as a way to loose some hash speed while the Pi is doing something else.

But still going to play with it. :-)

-Dave

It was mined by eligius. When you mined there the pool paid you directly from mined blocks: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=441465.0
You would see similar payouts from a few other pools like p2pool and others that paid you from the generated coins.
Not a big deal, was a lot more common 'back in the day' now with most mining it's all ppls / pps and just paid from the pool funds.
Here is a p2pool block: https://mempool.space/block/00000000000000000066a8176c5357a552117224a80d9ee1ef1871d7a3f14eba

-Dave

Since as of last year NY had just under 20% of the total US mining and was growing:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/09/war-to-attract-bitcoin-miners-pits-texas-against-new-york-kentucky.html

There had to come a snag. And that snag was people pushing the boundaries. Starting mining with an old coal fired generator really annoyed some people:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/19/cryptocurrency-mining-blossoms-in-upstate-new-york-but-it-hasnt-been-well-received-00033354

As I posted elsewhere, NY is still throwing a lot of grants at crypro businesses and pushing for more but to meet certain green goals forcing them to use renewables / green power to mine was only a matter of time. Since the larger mines are all hydro anyway and already announced plans to keep growing / building I don't see it as a big deal. Except to make headlines.

-Dave

Some thoughts.
1) Have to create an account & login? Why? Should be able to do this a bit more anonymously.

2) You need to have a 'test call' option. Browser / firewall / whatever compatibility is a thing and there are known issues with webrtc with certain security appliances.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonicwall/comments/94efxq/sonicwall_possibly_blocking_webrtc_traffic/
https://campus.barracuda.com/product/webapplicationfirewall/doc/49054741/how-to-enable-websocket/
and so on....

-Dave

That is part of the issue. As more RPi4 come back into stock and other embedded systems get retired I can see a lot of older slower RPi hitting the market.
Either RPi3 or the 1GB RPi4 that people bought during the shortage.
Even now you are seeing posts about people building a pruned node to fit it into a smaller drive because they don't want to spend the money for a used 1TB drive.

So telling people not to try is worth a mention.
Personally I would like to see them get rid of the pruned node option entirely. It's just not worth it.

-Dave

I know in the past many exchanges had specifically said NOT to mine to your addresses there. If it was because they did not want to deal with it for some reason, or their back end did not handle it properly or for some other reason was never really discussed. Could also be because of the maturity issue that their databases were not set up to handle it.

Whatever the reason(s) the exchanges have, I would not mine to any address I do not control.
Not to mention that if you don't control the address you can't sign a message so things like this can happen if you have to prove who you are: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5389996.0



-Dave

You are credited in green for what you bought not what you received. Since power is fungible so long as 100Mwh of green is going into the grid that you paid for and in theory could be delivered to you it's all good.
As for power from Canada, I don't know. Not sure if all the Niagara Falls power is US or US / Canada mixed. As far as I ever knew the US power grid is separate from the Canadian power grid, but I never really paid attention as to where it comes from so I could be wrong on that.

-Dave

The OP has not returned, but it would be interesting to see if any of the BTC sent to their receiving addresses has moved.
Not that no movement proves anything. But if it did move, that proves it's a scam. If it did not it goes back to probably a scam or just poorly written.

But as others have said no source, no social media, no discussion of it anywhere and so on just screams scam.

-Dave

As I have mentioned a few times before, there has always been a risk with things like this.
My biggest fear has not actually been an attack like this but someone who went out and bought a bunch of coins and found a supplier that would make the same hologram that one of the big names makers that did not supply a list of addresses.


He mentions at about 2:50 in the video it's just denatured alcohol. Does not say if it is 95% or 99% or 99.5%
Would probably start with 95% and work my way up.

-Dave

Would it matter what happens to the paper? Once the hologram is off you can always reprint it.

I mentioned it to someone else in a PM but:

Certain issues have been well known for 9 years
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2013/08/13/defcon-hackers-crack-physical-bitcoin-casascius-coins/

Supposedly they (Casascius) fixed their holograms.
But with everyone else we have to hope they bought their holograms from a quality maker and not just the lowest cost one.

-Dave

Although the video is not related to BTC / crypto collectables everyone should keep this in the back of their head coins go person to person to person.
Some holograms are good others are...well....watch the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUJtqvYDnkg

With no offense to any one particular maker, do we really know how good the holograms really are?

Hint....no we do not.

-Dave

All hearsay but it seems to be as you go above certain levels of trading they want more KYC. But from what people are at least admitting to it seems to be based on amounts, not any particular coins. We can't know the truth of what Gemini is thinking or if what they are posting is true so......



What I have seen several complaints about is people move fiat in and don't trade and then pull the fiat out. And then they close your account.
Once again, posted on the net so you can never know the true story about amounts and other things. But I can see that triggering something.

-Dave

Sent TXID d091a4fae6f7f2419417f7683580503dd100da7eeae4864f30738d7ad80f1360
Please repay to address the funds were sent from: 1HGKWAfhtb79ns77XjtCNrTAkQhVe2CbbG

Sent 0.00532000 which is a touch over $160 at BTC <--> USD at the moment.

-Dave

Gemini does not close accounts as far as I know because of 'taint'. They have closed accounts for many other reasons, some of which are semi-legit and others that are 100% BS and many of them arbitrary but I have never seen a reliable report about them closing for taint.

Fail any form of KYC --> Closed
Don't give them info they request --> Closed
Something changes in your life and you don't tell them --> Closed
Log in from a restricted location even with an account from another part of the world --> Closed
What looks to be moving money without a reason to their security even if you are not --> Closed
And so on.

Not defending them, but there are 1000s of the above type reports, no reports that I trust of 'they did not like my BTC'

-Dave

All you need is your wallet.dat file. Where is is located depends on your OS. Check here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory

Keep in mind that is a file that contains all you BTC. If you save it to a location that others have access to then they have access to all your BTC.

Make sure it's password protected or secure in some other way.
AND MAKE SURE YOU ARE 100% CERTAIN OF THE PASSWORD.
Many people have lost a lot of BTC because of "I'll always remember that password" and sometime later they don't have a clue as to what it is.

-Dave

But that is where it gets tricky.
Mining is a lot more abusive on equipment then being a warehouse.
I don't know what this building has for cooling but most units that were not setup for data center use are not rated for 24/7/365 use that will shorten their life.
Same for transformers. It's usually 75% (IIRC might be a bit lower) of rated for 24/7 above that their lifespan drops.
In most places the building owner is responsible for the bills if the tenant leaves without paying. They bail on 60 days of unpaid power you have to pay it.

And so on. As with everything YMMV and the local rules will vary on location but having people in the family and friends that own commercial property it's not always that simple.
Hell in the building down the block from where I work there was a business leasing space that managed to skip out on close to $150000 of gas and electric. They were using about $40000 a month so it was only a little over 100 days but still a staggering number since the landlord was only collecting $30000+CAM+taxes for rent.

-Dave

AT $150 it's a little expensive but not out of hand. For whatever reason they are not using off the shelf parts so there is a much larger cost then just using a stock RPi zero and an off the shelf display. The rest of it does not look that bad in terms of cost. Now, why they went non 'standard' components instead of something that can be bought everywhere is a valid question. But to design & test & build what is probably going to be a limited production run item does have a cost behind it. And they are building it domestically not in China / someplace cheap so a bit more cost there too.

Kind of like the voltage goat nixie price tickers. The standard parts that make them up are not that much, the custom built items like they do...that will cost you.
Separate non BTC nixie thing but political, if you want a nixie clock order one from here: https://nixieshop.com/store.html

-Dave

I look at it as not making money but spending less money.
Due to only having 1 zone for heat where I live, it's either heat the entire place or use a space / area / room whatever you want to call it heater to keep the bedroom a bit warmer during the night. There are many time that only 1 area needs it. Even at my parents old house that had multiple zones many times they were still larger then needed.
So a couple of ugly old miners tuned for noise instead of speed does work quite well.

Except for the ugly part. I kind of made it work with a few old tower cases and a couple of 1 board S9 units. But their appearance is marginal at best and would probably fit in a lot of aesthetics of homes. So something made to do the job would probably be good if you could keep the cost down. Add the possibility of replaceable hash boards for future upgrades and you could probably move a lot of units.

IF you could keep the cost down.

A cheap room heater that just burns electric can be had for under $50. Make it a better looking one and you are at $99 give or take. And the really nice ones can be a couple of hundred. If you could make one that sells for $500 but makes you $10 a month in BTC it's going to be a hard sell. $400 cost and $20 a month, that is a much easier sell. Obviously as difficulty rises that $20 goes down. But, to start, at least for the 1st winter it takes some of the sting out of the initial cost. Assuming you are running it 1/3 the day every day of the month you are looking at about 17 TH/s at today's price and difficulty for $20 a month.

-Dave