### Seeing Red

![20211203 12_47_34Window.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmNczYB25ji1igifZwV2puPnQdCucZBg81cvweWKXiWbmo/2021-12-03%2012_47_34-Window.png)

Big dump in the market today.  These suck if you:
1. Have never been through one
2. Look at it the wrong way

If you think this ecosystem will be worth 100 trillion or more in 5-10 years, these dips should be seen as buying opportunities.  My default in these situations is to ask myself 'how I can get my hands on more Bitcoin', and with the current state of things it's doing so without incurring any tax penalties.  That means scrape up some fiat or stable coins.  So as you can see, I BTFD!

*PS.  I'm fucking with you guys, I didn't really buy 75 BTC with money from my couch cushion.  I bought it with the pallet of cash I have in the mini storage.  Okay okay, not 75, but there was a 7 and a 5 somewhere in how much bitcoin I bought.*


![Untitled design.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmXq356zS8yBcygigWGQiXkRK6jCyojRq3GGJmnWth7iSw/Untitled%20design.png)

### Spec Mining FLUX

I started out spec mining Zelcash, then they rebranded to FLUX.  They have 3 tiers of masternodes.  I guess you'd run the larger nodes to save on infrastructure costs, because the ROI gets worse as the nodes get bigger...


![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmTQcpi5Gwf4C7Umav9g6No1bZTbU2rWszeTUJdFJ9Vwkf/image.png)

I mined at a loss enough for 2 Cumulus nodes over a short period of time--about 20k ZEL(now FLUX).  I got one of the nodes up and running on my VPS and forgot about it.  It wasn't up for long due to a network upgrade.  It just sat there for months and I thought nothing about it.  Then at some point this happened:


![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmZ5eei7VnED3TwLHvmUMHhGSGqt55asKt41wzFcmgNdsL/image.png)

I slept through it almost hitting $3 per coin (60K?! Holy Crap!), but discovered I was sitting on a veritable money printer at about $2.  Needless to say, I have two nodes up and running now, and each one is spitting out 5.625 FLUX once or twice per day.  I don't even want to think about how much I missed out on by not having two fully operational nodes.  But give me a break, I've got a lot of irons in the fire.

Judging by what the nodes are spitting out, I'd say the below estimate is about 50% of reality.  I'm thinking there must have been a halving since this was posted on masternodes.online.  But times two I'm still buying 10% of a bitcoin every year at current prices for a small investment in electricity.

![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmR5QzeYDkLY8DKb1X6cdE34JzjSKs5PdsrsreA6ZNxc65/image.png)

Embarrassingly enough, I know little about what FLUX does besides this blurb from their website:
![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmRL6az9EjgjNJe3qNSNiq1qomPKYsYJKKaQQC2asB7eWA/image.png)

That being said, as an IT geek, I know that to run infrastructure, you really don't need to understand what is being run on top of it-- just how to install and maintain it.

![Untitled design.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmXq356zS8yBcygigWGQiXkRK6jCyojRq3GGJmnWth7iSw/Untitled%20design.png)

### What To Spec Mine?

When I'm trying to figure out what to spec mine, I start out by going to whattomine (https://whattomine.com/) to see what's crackalackin.  There's a long list of GPU mineable coins.  You can also plug in your GPU models to figure out how fast you can mine the coins.  

From the list below I know that FLUX fits the bill.  I also know that it's a lot more expensive to mine it now.
![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmbET5tSGuXeumH9K1qDh3jJ9Fmomz5RXvHdQfXrqKdjyE/image.png)



From there you've got to figure out which ones allocate block rewards to stakers and node operators.  It can take a bit of investigation, but you can also sometimes contrast this list with the list on masternodes.online (https://masternodes.online/) and stakingrewards.com (https://www.stakingrewards.com/) to find one.  

Once you find a candidate you've got to figure out the minimum amount you need to stake, then determine it won't take a year to mine the necessary number of coins.  A month or two is usually the maximum for me.  It took me about 6 months off and on to get FIRO up and running though. 

As time goes on, and as my GPUs get older and continue to die off, I probably won't be able to do this forever, but it's been fun.  If and when ETH 2.0 ends mining on ETH, there will be a flood of GPUs hitting the market.  Also if the computer chip supply chain improves it will also increase competition.  For now I can still be active with older GPUs.

![Untitled design.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmXq356zS8yBcygigWGQiXkRK6jCyojRq3GGJmnWth7iSw/Untitled%20design.png)

### A Bit Of Rebalancing

There was a bit of Celsius FUD surrounding BadgerDAO...  

![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmYJgdzQ9io8eypXEuMZzSZjVyjQ9Sw6S58PXgnLBBVV22/image.png)

...which is funny because I had already planned on moving some funds from Celsius to Nexo.  I'm sure lots of people panicked and drained their accounts, that wasn't really what I was up to.  Still, great timing.  I'll bet Celsius had to dip into cold storage today.  I'm still a fan of Celsius, and imagine my funds are as SAFU here as anywhere else, but this fire alarm did remind me how much of a fan I am of custodial diversity.  Nexo seems to be a fine platform being both insured and audited.  I recommend these platforms with the assumption that people are getting rewarded more for risking more.  If you want zero risk, get a dollar savings account that pays a fraction of a percent.  I however don't recommend that you put all of your funds on them either-- a large percentage of your holdings should be in cold storage IMO.


Posted Using [LeoFinance <sup>Beta</sup>](https://leofinance.io/@joshman/crypto-update-12-3-2021)