Crypto Mining with no investment

Alright, this is entirely theoretical, but based in some fact.  A colleague tipped me off to this, something that he had been researching as well.  He wanted to figure out if it's possible to build out a bitcoin mining enterprise starting with free bitcoins from one of the myriad of faucets out there.  I think we've found a solution that will work, provided you're willing to invest the time to make it happen.

Full disclosure: The links contained herein are almost all affiliate links.  In joining these sites, you will also help me as well.

We're going to start with some terminology and abbreviations:

-Cryptocurrency:  A virtual currency not backed by any government.  Its decentralized nature makes it volatile, but worthwhile if you do it right.  Cryptocurrencies include BTC, LTC, ETH, DGC, DSH, and others.

-BTC: Bitcoin

-LTC: Litecoin

-ETH: Etherium

-DGC: Dogecoin

-DSH: Dashcoin

-Wallet: A storage location for bitcoin and other cryptocurrency.  There's plenty of sites out there, we're using a couple specific ones.

-Faucet: A website that will give out free cyrptocurrency in exchange for viewing a myriad of banner ads.

-Mining: There are a finite number of "coins" of each cryptocurrency that enter the markets each month.  Mining is the act of algorithm calculation that generates a part of these coins.  Miners are given a portion of the coinage gained in exchange for their computational power.

-GHS: Giga-Hashes per second. This is the rate of calculation used in Mining.  The higher the number, the more you'll be making.

WARNING!!! Cryptocurrencies are volatile.  Their values can take a swing of $800 or more in either direction on a whim.  If you want to play that game, that's your prerogative.  Do all of this at your own risk!

The plan here is to use the faucets to gain fractions of a penny at first, then pool those little "drips" into enough currency to hire a more robust mining outfit to mine for us.  We take the proceeds from that, reinvest most, and withdraw the profits as desired.  It's kind of like that Adventure Capitalist game, but you're working with real money.

To start, you'll need to set up your wallets.  We're using a couple of wallets.  Not just because we'll be doing currency conversion, but also because certain wallets work for payouts.  Start with the following:

Coinpot: This is the wallet that will handle receiving currency from the main faucets we use.  Since we're going to be taking drips from BTC, DGC, LTC, and DSH, we need to use Coinpot to convert them all into bitcoin or whatever you prefer.

Coinbase: This is the wallet that will pay out to your bank account.  Also one of the largest wallets for cryptocurrency out there.  This will be the "vault" that will hold all of the excess currency.

With the wallets set up, we need to get coins into them.  Use the following links for the faucets I'm using (yes, your use of them will help me down the line):

MoonBitcoin: This is the BTC faucet. (Threat Assessment)

MoonLitecoin: This is the LTC faucet. (Threat Assessment)

MoonDogecoin: This is the DGC faucet. (Threat Assessment)

MoonDashcoin: This is the DSH faucet. (Threat Assessment)

When you connect to these faucets, punch in the email address associated with your Coinpot account.  This will be the first dropoff point for the coinage you take in.  This is going to be the slowest part of the whole operation, but the one that will springboard to everything else.

And what do you do with this newfound coinage?  You'll want to convert to Bitcoin Core, most likely.  That's going to be the de-facto standard for pretty much every mining outfit out there.   Then it's time to mine!

Mining can be done several different ways.  You can increase your bitcoin core amounts in Coinpot by mining through your web browser.  It'll use CPU power, so plan accordingly.  This is a good thing to be doing while you sleep.  You're not using your computer, might as well put it to work...

All the work in mining is through processing hashes.  This is measured in GHs, and the more, the better.  In my case, I'm just getting started, but have already started mining with the free balances to get myself off the ground.  Here's the two I've worked with thus far:

E&E Mining Club: This one lets you mine a lot of different cryptocurrencies, as well as mine extra GHs.  Spend your first 30 days mining extra GHs, as the payout at the end will be well worth it.  They give you 100GHs for the first 30 days, so use that to mine extra.  You can also transfer your cryptocurrency into E&E to purchase extra GHs if you like.  This will be one of the targets for the faucet funds.

5Star Mining: This site is new, so tread lightly.  I'm working with 200GHs for free for the first few months, and I'm on track to mine about $150/yr, according to their estimates.  I don't believe it for a moment, but the user interface is easy to intuit.  I'm going to use it for mining for the time being, and see how the payout works.  This will be another target for your faucet funds.

There's a third mining site, known as EoBot.  This is probably the oldest of the mining sites, and it's reputation is the best thing it has going for it of the three.  From what I've found, you're going to have less freebies, but the reputation of the site more than makes up for it.  A colleague of mine jumped into bitcoin years ago and has paid out from EoBot in the past year.  He's done very well with his mining, so I know this one works.  I don't have enough invested to be able to start mining with them, but they're the one I'm looking forward to using.  I've used their internal faucet on a few occasions, so I know they pay out a wee bit at a time, too.

Once you are satisfied with the amount of cryptocurrency you have mined, send it to your coinbase wallet and transfer the funds to your bank account.  In the United States, any income over $600 in one year must be reported to the IRS.  If you're a law abiding citizen, there's nothing wrong with this, it's just like any other stock or future.  No big deal, right?

As of the time of this writing, I've been at this for just shy of 24 hours.  My total return on investment is about $0.50.  I'm not in this for making a big buck quick, I'm waiting on the small flake of snow to clump together and eventually become an avalanche.  In theory, this should work.  If you like what I've got here, if this seems like something you'd want to try out, give it a go.  My goal is do this without investing any cash at all.  If this gives me any semblance of sustainable income, I'll be sure to let you guys know.