[adossi]

You could say I’m “wasting energy” for “monopoly money”, but that monopoly money gets converted to fiat dollars, which I use to pay taxes and feed my family passively while I’m at my actual job, or sleeping. If instead of mining I were to work a labour intensive job as a side-gig, moonlighting, driving there, how much more or less energy would that “waste” on gas? At least I’m recycling my exhaust heat into heat for my home and not using the natural gas line of my house in the winter.

You’re not wrong, and I’m not saying other actual side jobs waste more energy necessarily, but the gap may not be as large as you think.

[coffeecat]

I'm curious if you've ever worked out a ballpark "hourly pay" for your crypto mining operations. By that, I mean:

(hours spent on research, hardware acquisition, setup, and maintenance) / (net profit, after accounting for hardware depreciation and obsolescence)

[adossi]

Oh I’m sure I’ve spent a non-trivial amount of time total on maintenance, trial and error, watching videos, reading, etc. The thing is it’s my hobby, I have fun doing that stuff. I work with my hands and use my brain, and the output is money. It’s pretty great!