Ishaan Thakur, 14, and his sister Aanya, 9, spent the summer developing a successful cryptocurrency mining business. Ishaan tells CNBC Make It, “We started out because we wanted to learn something new about technology—and also make a few bucks along the way.
According to Ishaan, the siblings generate over $30,000 each month mining three different digital currencies: ravencoin, a top 100 altcoin; ether, which is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value; and bitcoin, which has the highest market value.
Ishaan and Aanya, who are headquartered in Frisco, Texas, had to figure out how to mine in order to accomplish this, which is no simple task. Complicated computer systems are programmed to compete when mining to earn cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether, which are used to validate transactions.
Ishaan claims that cryptocurrency mining is comparable to mining for gold or diamonds. “You mine using computer systems rather than shovels. In the mine, you find a cryptocurrency rather than a nugget of gold or a diamond.”
Ishaan converted his Alienware, a renowned gaming machine, into an ether mining setup in April after watching YouTube movies and conducting online research. (He used the graphics card, which could perform an exorbitant number of calculations for mining, to accomplish this.)
His mother and father had been supportive. “We should have spent the entire summer playing video games, but, as an alternative, we used our spare time to discover more about technology,” Ishaan adds.
While mining bitcoin can be exceptionally difficult, the siblings began with ether. There may be more competition to mine bitcoins because there aren’t many of them and demand for them is growing. Ishaan claims that she earned $3 on their first day. On April 30, Ishaan and Aanya helped their father, Manish Raj, set up their very own mining firm, Flifer Technologies, to make the venture legitimate.
We like it so much that we began to add additional processors (or chips), and we made $1,000 in May, according to Ishaan. The siblings’ income continued to grow, and by the end of July they might have enough money to buy equipment to start mining bitcoin and ravencoin as well, like Antminers and Nvidia RTX 3080-Ti graphics cards. According to Raj, when deciding which to mine, they decided on Ravencoin because their system was “ideal” for mining it.
According to Raj, they expect to make about $36,000 in total in September, mostly because of the equipment that is currently on order. Ishaan claims that we can process slightly more than 10 billion Ethereum algorithms every second. Ishaan and Aanya have succeeded, but the system is far from simple.
Mining is not only extremely difficult, but it is also unquestionably no longer inexpensive due to the need for pricey systems, lots of power, and powerful computers. For example, Ishaan and Aanya have more than 97 processors, which their famous investment banker father Raj helped them pay for by getting rid of a mortgage.
Raj opted not to disclose the specific mortgage balance. But the global PC chip shortage made it much harder to find equipment and drove up prices. Generally speaking, Ishaan and Aanya use Nvidia RTX 3090 graphics cards, each of which can cost between $2,500 and $3,000 to purchase.
Although they use “100% renewable power for our mining” at home, the siblings claim that they do so because “we want to be environmentally friendly.” They also lease a data centre in Dallas, Texas. Ishaan estimates that the monthly cost of the power bill for each residence plus the data centre is just around $3,000 in total.
“The house was getting way too hot and noisy, so we moved from my table to the garage. Given that the heat and loudness were also too much for the garage, we outgrew it,” says Ishaan.
“The garage is now just used by us to build and test mining machines. When they’re prepared, we circulate them to a reputable, cool data centre in the heart of Dallas.” Looking ahead, Ishaan and Aanya want to continue growing their business while balancing it with school. During their school’s summer break, they were able to “scale up” their operation.
When her friends ask, Aanya says, “I just tell them we’re just mining in the garage.”They intend to reinvest their income into their company. Ishaan said, “Maybe revenue from our mining business will help pay for our university costs.
Ishaan declares his intention to enrol at the University of Pennsylvania. There, he hopes to pursue a career as a doctor by studying medicine. Aanya also plans to pursue a career in medicine, but she prefers to enrol at New York University.
Yet, they still have time to save since Aanya is still in fourth grade in elementary school and Ishaan is only a freshman in high school.