一YouTube博主自創便攜式比特幣礦機並在星巴克挖礦

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據CNBC報導，YouTube博主和 Bitcoin Merch首席執行官Idan Abada在TikTok上發布的影音迅速走紅，觀看次數達到約270萬。在影音中，Abada在星巴克展示了手工製作的便攜式比特幣挖礦平台。據悉，該平台花了他875 美元。他使用了一台筆記本電腦，連接了一個多端口USB集線器，並添加了一個迷你風扇，風扇上有10個USB棒，每個USB棒上有兩個比特大陸生產的ASIC晶片。該設備運行時的聲音很小，耗電也很少，但每天可賺取的比特幣僅值3.58 美元。（U.Today）

The owner of this tiny $875 rig mines bitcoin using free electricity at Starbucks

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Idan Abada

Idan Abada is on a mission to democratize bitcoin mining. As far as he’s concerned, minting new coin isn’t just for the pros. His message appears to be resonating with the masses. Abada, who lives in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, posted a video of himself using free Starbucks electricity to run an $875 mini bitcoin mining rig. The post has since gone viral on TikTok, with 2.6 million views and counting. The rig looks a whole lot different than a warehouse packed with rows of whirling ASICs – an image which has come to be synonymous with crypto mining. Instead, Abada’s miner is relatively simple: it consists of a multi-port USB hub, a mounted mini fan, and ten USB-sticks, each containing two Bitmain-manufactured ASIC mining chips. “It’s one of the easiest miners to set up and run, because all you need is a computer or a laptop,” explained Abada. “It’s powered by USB, and that’s pretty much it. Everyone can become a miner and be a part of the crypto world.”

Computers in a warehouse near one in Iceland where Bitcoin-mining machines were stolen. Iceland’s cheap electricity and chilly weather, which helps keep the computers cool, have made it a premier location for cryptocurrency mining. Egill Bjarnason | The New York Times

An $875 mining rig

Abada started mining bitcoin in his room in a shared house in 2015 – where he agreed with roommates to pay extra for electricity – and in 2017, he opened up his own shop. “I noticed it was really hard to buy equipment for mining bitcoin, so I created BitcoinMerch.com,” said Abada. “At first, it was just me selling some cables and very basic equipment.” The company now offers customers all the hardware you would need to get into mining. Research firm Technavio expects the overall market for global crypto mining hardware to grow by $2.8 billion from 2020 to 2024. Abada says his business has grown exponentially in the last four years, as interest in crypto has ballooned. Abada says Bitcoin Merch sales have hit $428,000 so far this year, up 355% from 2020. One of the top sellers on Bitcoin Merch is the NewPac – the main component of the rig featured in Abada’s viral TikTok video. “We have sold thousands, and when we get more, they run out quick,” he said. Abada says that Missouri-based GekkoScience took apart a big miner from China and re-purposed the parts for the NewPac. Each of the mini-USB rigs has two ASIC chips, so all in, the $875 rig has 20 chips. However, even though this consumer-grade rig was made from parts harvested from a Chinese miner, Abada says the two are fundamentally different. For one, his budget rig is a lot quieter than the industrial-grade bitcoin miners. “It’s not loud, so you can run it next to your desk. That’s a huge benefit,” explained Abada. “With industrial miners, you need a warehouse, you need power lines, you need the cooling, it’s a whole thing. If you try to run one out of your house, it’s going to be so loud you won’t be able to sleep in that house anymore,” he said. But his rig is also a lot less powerful.

Idan Abada

Two important factors when determining the output of a rig are how much power it consumes and how much hashing power it produces. Hashing power, or hashrate, is an industry term used to quantify the amount of computing power a rig contributes to the overall bitcoin network. “The downside is that this rig has a very low hashrate,” said Abada. That means this machine will trend toward producing less bitcoin than competing rigs. “These USB miners tend to be much less energy efficient than a traditional ASIC,” explained bitcoin mining engineer Brandon Arvanaghi.

Not worth it

SteveWillDoIt reveals hacker stole his crypto wallet: “I lost a lot of money”

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Nelk Boys member Stephen ‘SteveWillDoIt’ Deleonardis revealed that a hacker stole “a lot of money” from his cryptocurrency wallet and shut down claims that he’s lying about it to sell merch.

Cryptocurrencies have been all the rage for a while now. Like the stock market, you can make a lot of money with a good amount of research and a bit of luck. But at the same time, you can lose it all if the market dips and crashes.

Bitcoin is the oldest, most popular, and most valuable cryptocurrency.

SteveWillDoIt had a lot, but it appears to be all gone, with the star claiming a hacker gained access to his cryptocurrency wallet and seized the account.

“I got an email on my phone [saying] someone was in my blockchain, my crypto wallet. You guys know I’m into Bitcoin,” he said. “I got hacked. I just lost a weird amount of money, and it doesn’t feel good. It’s a weird thing.

“Some nerd hacker took a lot of money, and I’ll be honest with you, it’s not looking so good right now. I don’t know what’s going to happen. We still are going to sell merch. But now I need your support more than ever.”

Related segment begins at 3:46 in video below.

However, some fans thought the timing was suspicious and accused him of making up the story in a bid to sell merch. He shut down those claims during an Instagram story, saying, “If you think I need to make up lies right now when I’m the biggest that I’ve ever been to sell merch, then you’re a f**king idiot.”

“All I know today was that I got an email. Someone has my email and password to my blockchain. I can’t log in. I can’t reset my password. I don’t have access to the funds. My email is no longer attached to that wallet.

“I’m assuming I got hacked… so, if you think I’m lying, f**k you.”

The Nelk Boys reportedly make $70 million a year from selling merchandise , which supports the notion that SteveWillDoIt doesn’t need to come up with disingenuous tactics to sell more. However, some fans still aren’t convinced that he’s telling the truth about the hacker.

Read More: SteveWillDoIt unbanned on Twitch after 6ix9ine stream

But assuming he is, it sounds like he’s lost a lot of money and has a very serious issue on his hands. Considering one Bitcoin is worth almost $40,000, he could be down hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions.

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