Electricity, it so happens, is one thing most Venezuelans can afford: Under the socialist regime of President Nicolás Maduro, power is so heavily subsidized that it is practically free. A person running several bitcoin miners can clear $500 a month. That’s a small fortune in Venezuela today, enough to feed a family of four and purchase vital goods—baby diapers, say, or insulin—online. (Most web retailers don’t ship directly to Venezuela, but some Florida-based delivery services do.) “Mining ETH or bitcoin is pretty much the same principle: using free electricity to generate cash,” one Venezuelan miner told me.
“But ETH mining is more affordable - all you need is free software and a PC with a video card. Any police officer is easily fooled into thinking your ETH miner is just a regular computer.”What kind of mining hardware can you possibly get your hands on (cheaply I would assume since we're talking about broke, desperate Venezuelans) that would yield anything like $500 USD per month even if you do have "free" electricity?
I understand it would be different hardware in each case, but can anyone shed any light on either case?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-03/venezuelans-find-new-way-fight-back
