Is there a realistic way a person having an old computer and cheap (but not free) electricity can actually mine monero equal to some amount which can be used to donate to good service providers or purchase services?
I keep hearing about low reward to effort ration, but can I get a respectable amount in let’s say a year without having to deanonymize myself by going to a Centralised exchange?
Hey I did some actual testing. On an old dual Xeon pc it’s barely worth it. You might get about 2 monero a year output and after paying for the electricity it ran a $100 yearly profit.
This was with a 40 core 80 thread rig set up to be relatively efficient per watt with a fair amount of optimization and some stuff set up that would make it not really useful for other applications.
It was also decently loud and hot.
E: You are really probably better off just laundering your cash and using that to directly pay for stuff or buy monero if you absolutely, positively have to have an immutable ledger.
I can help you figure out how to use cash in a way that keeps you anonymous or private if you will say what keeps you from being able to.