While most kids are playing with their computers, siblings Ishaan and Aanya Thakur are making money with theirs. The bother-sister duo currently makes $32,000 a month from their Ethereum mining operation which they started in their garage.

Ishaan Thakur, 14, and his little sister, Aanya, 9, typically ran a lemonade stand each summer that earnerd them about $100 for their college fund.

But in February, their dad told them a bedtime story about bitcoin prices spiking to over $50,000 and they dreamed up a new money-making idea: mining Ethereum.

“We wanted to invest in it, but we didn’t have the money to buy bitcoin,” Ishaan said. “So instead, we bought the equipment to mine for it instead.”

They had started by mining Ethereum using an old gaming laptop that they had. And in the first month of mining, they had made $1,000 from their small operation. This motivated the pair to take their activities to the next level, given the profits they had acquired using just an old gaming laptop. Crypto mining requires chips to mine and this is where the siblings ran into their first problem.

Chip Shortage Due to COVID-19

Siblings Ishaan and Aanya wanted to expand their mining operations, but due to the pandemic, there has been a chip shortage. Manufacturers had not been able to keep up with demand due to countries going into lockdown and people not being able to go to work. So getting a chip required for mining has become harder than ever. The duo had two options; buy chips from resellers online at a marked-up price or wait for chips to become available. They chose the latter.

9-year-old Aanya and 14-year-old Ishaan signed up for supply updates from retailers like Best Buy and Micro Center. When chips and hardware needed for their mining operations were available, they would get alerted by email. And the siblings would line up outside the retailers before they opened the next day to be able to get the parts.

This strategy has proven to be profitable for them as the duo has been able to expand their mining operations beyond their home garage. Their rigs were generating too much heat to stay in their home garage and so now they have an air-conditioned data center in downtown Dallas where they keep most of their mining rigs. While they still keep about 30 cards in their garage.

“Crypto mining is just like mining for gold or diamond,” Ishaan said. “Instead of using shovels, you mine with computers. Instead of finding a piece of gold or diamond in the mine, you find a piece of cryptocurrency.”

While YouTube videos showed them step-by-step directions, they estimate it takes about 10 hours per rig to set up. But once the rigs are set up, it becomes a passive income maker.

They have 14 rigs comprising 82 processors mining for Ethereum and five small rigs with 12 processors mining for Raven Coin (because those processors weren’t optimized for Ethereum). They’ve ordered four additional rigs from China with built-in processors.

“We want to grow this into a big thing,” Ishaan said.

Saving for College

The siblings save most of their returns from mining. But they have had to sell some portions of their crypto in order to pay for things like electricity and parts to expand their mining operation. Profits from the mining operation, Ishaan explained, go to their college fund. Both siblings have dreams of becoming doctors and want to go to the University of Pennsylvania, in the case of Ishaan, and the University of New York, in the case of Aanya. And they are hoping mining Ethereum will help them fulfill their dreams of going to college.

As for the cost of electricity, their returns far outweigh the power bill they get for mining. For the previous month, they had to pay a total of $2,500 – $850 for their home electric bill and $1,650 for their data center electric bill. This might be a high power bill, but it pales in comparison to the $32,000 that the siblings are bringing in for their mining operation.

Cryptocurrency has grown in popularity this year, leading lawmakers to think more seriously about how to regulate it. Recently, Texas enacted HB 4474, the Virtual Currency Bill, which allows the 216 Texas state-chartered banks to provide safekeeping services for virtual currencies. This week, the U.S. Senate passed the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that requires more tax reporting for cryptocurrency transactions.

Ishaan said he tries to keep up with news on the cryptocurrency world. But neither he nor Aanya have told their friends about their latest venture.

“Most kids like to play games on their computer,” he said. “We like to build them, I guess.”

Source: 9 And 14-Year-Old Siblings Make $32,000 A Month Mining Ethereum – Fintechs.fi