CRYPTOPOSTMAN interviewed the famous miner and consultant Alexey Roshchin, aka MLAB (mining laboratory). Read the full interview in our material.
Hi Aleksey! Please tell us how you got into mining?
Hello! I came to mining… in 2014, I was still working in a large financial company (the name of the company is hidden) trading in shares as a seller (sales specialist). And we naturally had analytics, when we were collected, they gave all the statistics on the fund, the morning market slice, what was happening on the market, and so on. And we had an analyst, his name was Andrey, a cool dude and an analytics guru. And we constantly talked to him, played billiards in Snooker. He told me about funds, about trading, I then started there on m-4 (MetaTrader 4 is a trading platform for Forex, analysis of financial markets and the use of trading advisors. Mobile trading, Trading Signals and the Market are all MetaTrader 4, and all this will be useful to you when working in the Forex market), in my opinion, the terminal, to work, well, in Forex. And then somehow the conversation about the crypt went: “Listen, what is bitcoin?” And he answers me like this: “Yes, it’s some kind of digital garbage, forget it, forget it.” And I thought: what the hell, I’ll go and find out what bitcoin is, despite what my friend says, purely on principle). And that’s where the interest came from. That is, interest in cryptocurrencies in general began from this. And then, probably, already there in the 15th year, I just got to the point that I already bought the first one for myself, in my opinion, I don’t remember which one it was, the S4 or S7 miner, which was then. Well, some kind of ancient Asik. (asic – miner). And at the same time, I began to collect some farms there, including on vidyukhas. Collected for myself and friends. That’s where the passion started. The first stage here was such a technical one to figure it out yourself. Then on, on, on, on. But the very moment of interest was what kind of coin it is, how it all grows, and how else you would get all this for trading on the stock exchange. Although there were few exchanges themselves then, and all this was enough, it was generally a novelty.
What is the business behind mining? How to explain it to an ordinary person?
Yes, it is probably much easier for an ordinary person to explain now than it was even 5 years ago. Why? I can simply call it a new area, a new segment of the business in which you can earn money, it is much better in relation there, when compared with others. It’s the same as if we take the boom of the Internet, yes, IBM and everything else that grew there 20-30 years ago, but, probably, crypto, mining and everything connected with it – in my opinion, this a new niche that has also created around itself, not only mining – here is an example: I bought a device and I mine, a bunch of other related stories with professions arise, with tasks. Someone is engaged in the sale of equipment, someone in repairs, someone in platforms, someone in marketing, someone in advertising, someone in scamming, and so on .. if you are already a little immersed in cryptocurrency, then you understand. Someone else something, that is, very, very, very much already … you can’t just call it “mining” and stop there. There are many other niches and aspects that are associated with it and which are also already working, are on the market, with the help of which people earn, enrich themselves, and so on. That is, this is your opportunity, your benefit to earn where many others do not yet exist.
If a person wants to start mining, what should he do?
There are two ways if you want to mine and you don’t know what to do.
Or you go along the path of “I’m so good myself, I’ll figure everything out” and stuff yourself with bumps, starting from buying equipment, yes, and finding a supplier, and waiting for payment, nervousness there, finding prices, delivery, logistics, if you want to save money, choosing a site or you come to the conclusion that you need a site if you yourself are not ready to service all this equipment. Then you are already engaged in the withdrawal, the search for counterparties, this, that, and other exchangers. You go through this path yourself: you lose time, you lose money, and so on and so forth. Or you come to a specialized company, such as we are, where everyone already knows each other, an established network of market segments from purchase to exchange. And the market is not that big. There are 2-3 thousand people, where everyone knows each other well. And accordingly we communicate for a long time, for a long time, confidently and answer for each other. Everyone knows that it is much better to buy such equipment from this person there. And it is much better for this person to place this equipment on the site. But these guys are good. But you can’t fix these cars here. But these cars cannot be placed on such and such a site, because they have a power outage there and so on. That is, you come to market professionals for support, pay some money, and use the experience of other people. Here are the two paths that are available. Otherwise, probably not.
Tips and tricks for beginner miners.
Just don’t reinvent the wheel. Either take / study information, which is very much, spend time on it. So it’s like in any business. If you are going to open a restaurant and you have not worked in the kitchen, you have not worked as a waiter, in purchasing, as a manager, and you do not know how it works – there is a high probability that you will have some cuts and a joint, and everything will end up draining (a waste of money).. That is, you have to go through this whole story yourself, like a miner, from the assembly, so that you understand how you assemble, what you set up there, what technical tasks there are. How to read the ASIC log so as not to buy a dead one and everything else, everything else, and so on, and so on …
Or you find yourself, as in any business, some kind of mentor, mentor, you learn all this from him. It’s paid, it’s free, it doesn’t matter, it’s already there. But, you must admit, it makes sense to communicate with people who have already passed half or all of this path, and get advice from them, and move along with them.
What do you think about the current situation in general, market forecasts?
We will hang this question with you separately, because this is an analysis that is of no interest to anyone. I will not say that, guys, tomorrow the cue ball will cost this much or that much. Because I don’t know it, and nobody knows it. Evaluate it by technical analysis? Well, yes, let’s try and pretend that we are so smart and well done, and we all know it. Well, then let’s answer my question: why aren’t everyone millionaires and not billionaires, if everyone knows and when everything falls, when everything grows. That’s probably why. Therefore, the answer to this question will be different every day. It depends on the bitcoin rate, on fundamental factors (fundamental analysis), on the situation on the market, on the capital that is currently invested in this or that coin, on the total capitalization and many other aspects that we do not know how to influence which we, as whales or large investors, cannot, and therefore it is foolish to talk about it. It will be nothing but our personal opinion, which you can tell a friend while sitting in the kitchen. But not investment advice ever.
Jumps in the rate of bitcoin and other coins, they affect, well, absolutely directly, because the profitability of the mining itself depends on the rate itself. If I bought one device today and calculated the profitability, which is at today’s rate, let me buy 50 thousand, let it be there in a year and a half, that is, the rate will fly by 20. My profitability is increasing … I will increase the term, well, that is, respectively payback, no matter what the yield will be. If the rate rises, the yield will naturally increase, and the payback period will decrease. That is, we can say that at the best time it can be 4 months there, at the worst time it can be 20 months there, and so on. But in any case, it is not comparable with any other business. When we write a business plan, we are laying it down for 3 years, 5 years, and so on and so forth. Here we clearly understand that, well, we have some kind of minimum profitability, plus we have a tool that allows us to quickly reach the breakeven point, increase profits. But again, these are the aspects that you don’t know when you go into mining, either you go through it yourself, spend time and money on this, or you come for the experience of others. You understand, “ah, I can use this firmware”, “ah, I can trade mined coins there”, “I can stake them”, “I can do something else”, yes, “some tools that are in in general and together will affect my profit and, in fact, my profitability, my profit in general.
As for the legal aspect, everyone (information channels) has already talked about it, everyone has talked about it.
All these articles are in the newspapers, I see no reason to repost all this in our conversation. Everyone just needs to understand that, well, guys, we generally have such a history in the state that we pay fucking taxes all. And they always paid, and we will pay. Well, look, there are two options. Either we work hard and don’t pay them. And we can have problems with the state itself and adventures. Or, as we work, legally. At all sites where we work, we pay for the train, we pay taxes. If they add some other taxes to us, we will also pay them, because, well, guys, why, we have wonderful prices for sockets. Our entire history is absolutely loyal on the part of the authorities – many miners work professionally and officially.
… the situation with the coronavirus happened, 5 countries came up with vaccines, and the rest all depend on them. I think that these 5 countries have a chance in the next historical periods of development and survival. The same thing, let’s now see who will refuse the crypt, here they will also be in the minority, at a slightly longer distance, compared to those who will not refuse. We cannot forbid it, we live with you already in this. This is already a separate direction, it exists in our life, and, that is, it will not be possible to uproot it. For better or worse, welcome to the new world.
Main features of mining
Features of mining – probably, we should immediately share that the first feature is that you do it for yourself there, for the development of a new area and what kind of budget. And the peculiarity of mining is that if you have some kind of minimum amount, there are people who call and write sometimes, you know, like: “I have 1-2k$ or 2-4k$. I want to start mining. Dude, you don’t need mining – buy yourself some coins and stake! And actually, don’t give yourself a headache, or people on the sites there and so on with your stupid questions. $1-2k is a small amount to invest in mining. That is, you must understand that, well, you are investing some money, well, okay, let you invest $20-50k-150k$ there. And it brings you well. Or you simply will not be able to compete in this market. It will just be fun. You can give your son one asik for his birthday, and let him have fun with it. Well, as a gift, it’s cool, I don’t know, for 500, but 700 thousand, for a million. How much they cost on the market now, so much to give.
And so on you go and understand already as with business. I want to put it on stream, as a professional story, I have the funds, I ordered a 40-foot sea container for these miners. I order setup, connection, so that everything is done on a turnkey basis, from one business step to another. Done on time and reliably. The first investment in a container is 50-100k$. For another 300-400k$, I order cars for myself so that this entire container is a kind of mobile data center. And I could bring him where I needed, to the region where the economic situation suits me, where the price of exploration is, and so on. And I understand that I consume, say, a megawatt of energy with this container, but it also brings me $ 20,000 a day there. When there is such a platform that works and a business, there are immediately more investments that arrive every day, they also allow me to deposit funds on the exchange without interest, trade well, and also use tools for using cryptocurrency there. And then I build my entire strategy, economics in general and other things, yes, the fact that I have such volumes, and I earn from them. If at the same time I invested 1000 times less and buy one asec, my profitability will be the same, the payback period will be the same, but the profit that I will receive will be, well, scanty and insignificant compared to the first option. And I determine which option is naturally interesting to me, yes, compared to this. Then I define the hardware I want to mine on. I can buy a miner there on the sha-256 algorithm and mine bitcoin. And I can buy a GPU rig on Nvidia cards or AMD cards, and mine some other alts (coins), and there will be different payback periods, different prices, different technical settings. And all-all-all these moments and aspects in which you, if you start to understand it yourself, understand for a long time, calculate each step, move step by step and carefully, like a tiger on the hunt, and then there is a chance to catch your prey! 🙂
Container installation example.
CRYPTOPOSTMAN talked to MLAB.
The editors of the blog express their gratitude to MLAB for the interview and advice in the field of mining. All information materials are protected by copyright.