AN enterprising Barnard Castle computer shop owner is offering gamers and customers the opportunity to put their machines to work by mining cryptocurrency.
TinkerDog Computers owner Ben Collins has already mined about £500 in the first month that his computer rig has been mining the cryptocurrency Ethereum – a digital money transfer system similar to the Bitcoin.
Now he is inviting computer owners with high performance graphics cards to come onboard and make their own cash.
The system works by using the computing power of the graphics card to mine for cryptocurrency when the computer is not in use.
An entry level gaming computer valued at about £750, he said, can raise up to £450 a year for the owner.
However, the computing power could increase the user’s electrical bill by about £200 a year.
Mr Collins said: “Gaming machines are quite often left on 24 hours anyway – all they are doing is generating heat so it brings down your energy bills.”
An array of several graphics cards linked up to form a mining rig increases the computing power.
Mr Collins said: “It is also possible to purchase mining rigs that we keep in the shop and run and maintain. These start at £4,500 and currently return about £450 a month.”
Under Mr Collins’ scheme, people can use their cryptocurrency earnings to upgrade their computers with TinkerDog. Alternatively people can cash out their earnings and pay a 25 per cent administration cost.
A minimum of £100 must be generated before people can cash out and the administration cost covers support, set-up, warrantee and transaction fees associated with selling cryptocurrencies.
Mr Collins warned that the cryptocurrency values are volatile and the figures quoted were correct at the time of writing.
