Recommend me a cheap USB Miner

[crypto-words]

I am just curious and would like to try out a few things just for the fun of it.
Could you recommend me a USB miner with preferably low energy consumption and a high profit rate?
I am fine with mining any coin really that has high gains and is more or less easy to mine.
Have been thinking of trying this out as an experiment for the duration of 1 month roughly.

Any advice? Thank you!

[wavelengthsf]

There is no USB miner that meets your conditions.

The FutureBit Moonlander 2 is the closest, but the profit isn't "high" in nominal terms. However, it is high in that it not zero like every other USB miner.

[crypto-words]

Thanks for your reply.

Maybe I meant to say the highest 'profit' possible in that category while still meeting my requirements.
I know you can't get rich using 1x USB miner ; )

FutureBit Moonlander 2 looks good. I like the price and it seems like a good gadget to get a glimpse into what mining is all about.

[officebuilding]

I am just curious and would like to try out a few things just for the fun of it.

I was in your position a few weeks ago, crypto-words - I got a Moonlander 2 and it's great if you, like me, want to dip a toe in the contemporary world of ASIC litecoin/altcoin mining. Unfortunately the fan died on mine and I'm still deciding on whether to replace said fan or get a couple more Moonlanders, remove all the USB fans, and cool them externally.

There is no USB miner that meets your conditions.

The FutureBit Moonlander 2 is the closest, but the profit isn't "high" in nominal terms. However, it is high in that it not zero like every other USB miner.

wavelengthsf is right, from the research I've done and from reading this forum the Moonlander 2 is the best for your buck; however I learned pretty quickly that unless you have a very specific goal or coin in mind you're not really going to make any notable profit. There are bigger, better rigs to mine with, both ASIC and GPU, and you can find plenty on those here as well.

[fanatic26]

USB sticks of any kind are good learning tools but are pretty useless if you are trying to mine for profit. Honestly it amazes me that people still waste money on them.

[crypto-words]

@officebuilding @fanatic26

Thanks for your comments, really appreciated! But this is exactly what I want to do: just learn about mining in general
and get the hang of it without having to invest a few k in expensive equipment first. Also, where I'm at, electricity is
anything but cheap, so I'm not sure if mining on a bigger scale would be profitable at all, so I just wanna have a go at it
with a USB miner before I make any 'bigger decisions'.

[QuintLeo]

The Moonlander 2 is the ONLY USB-based miner that has a prayer of achieving ROI at this point - and if your electric cost is high, it's probably the only PROFITABLE USB-based miner.

Everything else is at least 1 generation outdated and not going to even break even unless you have SUPER cheap electric - and very low probability of ever achieving ROI on anything else.

[philipma1957]

I am just curious and would like to try out a few things just for the fun of it.

I was in your position a few weeks ago, crypto-words - I got a Moonlander 2 and it's great if you, like me, want to dip a toe in the contemporary world of ASIC litecoin/altcoin mining. Unfortunately the fan died on mine and I'm still deciding on whether to replace said fan or get a couple more Moonlanders, remove all the USB fans, and cool them externally.

There is no USB miner that meets your conditions.

The FutureBit Moonlander 2 is the closest, but the profit isn't "high" in nominal terms. However, it is high in that it not zero like every other USB miner.

wavelengthsf is right, from the research I've done and from reading this forum the Moonlander 2 is the best for your buck; however I learned pretty quickly that unless you have a very specific goal or coin in mind you're not really going to make any notable profit. There are bigger, better rigs to mine with, both ASIC and GPU, and you can find plenty on those here as well.

I will buy the moonlander 2 from you

my fan died and I did this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-4QqZKMKWA


so I want  to get a total of 6 more sticks .

[officebuilding]

I will buy the moonlander 2 from you

my fan died and I did this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-4QqZKMKWA


so I want  to get a total of 6 more sticks .

Actually you posted that yt video solution in response to my dead fan in the Moonlander 2 Support thread, philipma1957 
I'm going to do what you did, so I'll be keeping this one and hopefully acquiring more soon.

[Plant Power]

Just a suggestion and feel free to ignore but a good way to experiment is to pick up an old dual core machine like a lenovo think centre, or similar, and use a single NVIDIA 1050 or 1060.  It'll let you do most things.. it takes about a week / two to reach the payout required for more pools but it's a cheap way to get a tiny rig going and the 1050 / 1060 shouldn't require any additional power depending on the second hand machine you get.  You could go AMD as well but I'm not sure how much power the low end AMD cards draw.

I started this way and got a $20 machine from my local newspaper and a  new 1060 on sale from Ebay.. I later sold that original machine for $50 ($30 profit) when I upgraded and built more.

[philipma1957]

I will buy the moonlander 2 from you

my fan died and I did this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-4QqZKMKWA


so I want  to get a total of 6 more sticks .

Actually you posted that yt video solution in response to my dead fan in the Moonlander 2 Support thread, philipma1957 
I'm going to do what you did, so I'll be keeping this one and hopefully acquiring more soon.

Yeah  to me I had the stud hubs laying around.

I have sooooo many fans laying around

using  my fans and not using the little ones is good.

I posted a wanted ad in marketplace.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2692164.0

[crypto-words]

Thanks for all your comments, everyone who has contributed on here. I am becoming more and more hyped about mining every day,
just interested in the tech, though, as I doubt that it will be profitable even the long run cause of the high electricity costs. And I like the idea of having a USB-based gadget because it's not bulky and doesn't take up any space.

[officebuilding]

Just a suggestion and feel free to ignore but a good way to experiment is to pick up an old dual core machine like a lenovo think centre, or similar, and use a single NVIDIA 1050 or 1060.  It'll let you do most things.. it takes about a week / two to reach the payout required for more pools but it's a cheap way to get a tiny rig going and the 1050 / 1060 shouldn't require any additional power depending on the second hand machine you get.  You could go AMD as well but I'm not sure how much power the low end AMD cards draw.

I started this way and got a $20 machine from my local newspaper and a  new 1060 on sale from Ebay.. I later sold that original machine for $50 ($30 profit) when I upgraded and built more.

I was thinking of doing something like this earlier, Plant Power - and then I read your post and it summed up my thoughts perfectly. There must be dozens of threads on building cheap rigs, I should dig around some more...

Thanks for all your comments, everyone who has contributed on here. I am becoming more and more hyped about mining every day,
just interested in the tech, though, as I doubt that it will be profitable even the long run cause of the high electricity costs.

I think you and I are in a similar place, crypto-words. Ultimately I think I'll want to have a small rig or two, maybe a MLD2 USB hub & a GPU miner -- because I enjoy the tech, I like mining, and if I'm able to mine an altcoin in the early days whose project I back fully I'd get a lot of satisfaction out of it.