Editorial Department Shikanai's FX and Occasionally Bitcoin: Apprentice Miner’s Cryptocurrency Mining Journal | 8th Episode Ethereum’s Predicament

This article has been reprinted and edited from FX攻略.com’s November 2018 issue. Please note that the market information written in the main text may differ from current market conditions.

Do not panic at the current rate

As I write this on September 6, 2018, the entire cryptocurrency market is experiencing a sharp drop. In particular, Ethereum has fallen to around 25,000 yen against the yen, down to the level seen in September 2017.

As someone who is focused on mining Ethereum, this decline hurts, of course. With my current mining setup, I typically mine about 0.5 Ethereum per month, which means a monthly income of about 12,500 yen. However, electricity costs are around 18,000 yen per month, so I’m operating at a clear loss.

Even so, I continue to mine. It’s not a time to panic yet. As I always say, mining rewards are pooled into my wallet and are not immediately exchanged into Japanese yen each time. In FX terms, I am holding the assets but not settling them at the moment.

Therefore, if the overall cryptocurrency market rises in the future, the value of all accumulated coins and the daily mining rewards will also rise.