Since the start of April, Ishaan Thakur, 14, and his sister Aanya, 9, have generated nearly $ 160,000 in mining cryptocurrency.
On their first day of mining, the siblings only earned $ 3. But over the past seven months, their exploitation has grown significantly. In October alone, Ishaan and Aanya won $ 64,000. It turned into a lucrative business, which they called Flifer Technologies.
“We configured our computers to constantly search for the most profitable part and automatically switch to that part,” Ishaan told CNBC Make It. “Ether is the dominant coin that we mine, with bitcoin and ravencoin being the second and third. "
The siblings, based in Frisco, Texas, can process 15 to 16 billion ether algorithms per second, according to Ishaan.
‘This Is Just The Beginning’
The way mining works is that every time someone buys or sells cryptocurrency, a new unique digital coin has to be created to ensure security. To do this, computers around the world are trying to solve a complex mathematical problem. The computer that does it first wins and produces the new coin. This computer is then rewarded with a cryptocurrency for itself.
The odds of winning a computer are slim, so having plenty of computer servers is the key. With the help of a loan from their father, the Thakur siblings have invested tens of thousands of dollars in their farm. This included the purchase of 145 graphics cards, each costing over $ 3,000.
Most of their operation is also no longer in their garage. Instead, the majority of their computing platforms are now located in a secure, air-conditioned data center in Dallas.
Ishaan and Aanya first learned to exploit by watching videos on YouTube and searching the Internet. But the mining process is far from easy.
Mining rigs have to compete to solve complex puzzles in order to validate cryptocurrency transactions. This is not only difficult, but it can be very expensive, as it requires a lot of computer power and energy.
The siblings have nearly 200 processors, which their father Manish Raj, a former investment banker, helped finance with a loan. Raj refused to disclose the exact amount of the loan, but the global shortage of computer chips has made it much more difficult to find equipment and set the prices dear.
Ishaan Thakur met billionaire investor Mark Cuban after receiving a major award from the Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation. “The Texas Business Hall of Fame award inspired me to embark on a lifelong entrepreneurial journey,” said Ishaan. “I still want to be a doctor when I grow up, but I will continue to innovate new ideas and build businesses along the way. "
Soon after, at the end of July, they managed to purchase mining equipment such as ASIC Antminers which has SHA256 capabilities, and Nvidia RTX 3080-Ti GPU.
Ishaan and Aanya have around 100 Nvidia RTX 3090, 50 Nvidia RTX 3070Ti, a mix of Nvidia 30-series processors, and 24 specialized bitcoin mining machines. Nvidia RTX 3090 graphics cards, for example, can cost around $ 2,500 to $ 3,000 each.
“We have more cards on order, so we'll be over 200 processors later this month,” Ishaan said.
Ishaan built the majority of computers, he says, which all run in parallel. “Because they're all doing the same job simultaneously, my home computers can process more graphics transactions per second than NASA,” he says. “A lot of my friends like to play games on their computers. Instead, I just like to build computers for fun. "
"Even though we are making a lot of money now, we are just as proud now as we were when we were only making $ 3 a day because our main prize is not money," Ishaan said. “My favorite part of our experience is that we discovered new technology. "
Ishaan and Aanya hope to keep reinvesting in their business, but also use the income to save for college.
Mining Computers Create Heat And Potential Home Hazard
Although their mining started in the garage of their home, they have since moved to a data center in Dallas, Texas. It costs over $ 5,000 per month for the electric bill and about $ 4,000 per month for technicians to monitor the rigs.
“Since our school started, we haven't had time to watch our computers in the garage. So we put all the computers in a data center, ”Aanya explains. “We only use the garage to build computers and then send them to the data center. We also hired technicians to monitor the computers because we have to go to school.
“We only mining in our spare time,” Ishaan says.
Parents, teachers and friends Ishaan and Aanya are in awe of their mining business.
“All of my friends have read about our business on the Internet,” says Aanya. "My friends and teachers couldn't even believe it! The principal wrote my name in our school newsletter. It made me so proud.
“Our original goal was just to save for the university, but now we think we can do more,” she adds.
For them, mining is "just the beginning," Ishaan says. The siblings plan to launch their own cryptocurrency later this year, called Flifercoin. They had developers and a lawyer to help them through the process.
“We believe there are so many opportunities involving crypto and we hope to be pioneers in this space,” Ishaan says. "But I'm only 14, so my schoolwork and my saxophone come first. Therefore, I am not able to work on my business as much as I would like. "
The success of Aanya and Ishaan cannot be separated from the support of their father, Raj, who has helped the two mining businesses continue to function and grow. CNBC reporter Taylor Locke revealed that Raj did not say the amount of the loan to support his two children's mining.
Thakur, who lives in Texas, explained that the crypto mining business uses "100% renewable energy." However, the two did not specify what type of renewable energy was used.
“We moved from my office to the garage, because the house got too hot and noisy,” the Thakur brothers said.
Mining activity cannot be separated from the sound eruptions and thermal power released by crypto mining machines. Therefore, they moved the mining equipment to an air-conditioned data center located in the city of Dallas. Despite this, the garage is still used to test mining rigs before being moved to their new premises.