Here’s How Students Are Mining Cryptos In Their Dorm

Just recently, an official report surfaced and revealed details about a crypto mining research performed by a tech conglomerate called Cisco. Basically, it talks about college kids utilizing campus electricity in an attempt to mine digital currencies.

The ‘Free’ Electricity

In reality, there is no need for students to worry about paying power bills. This is simply due to the fact that it is part of their university housing contract, which already covers their electricity expenses. Interestingly, this “free” power enables them to host a variety of cost-effective mining rigs and the only thing they have to spend on is the actual hardware.

As trivial as it may sound, but this indeed is the narrative. Mining students are capable of receiving passive income, allowing them to cover school-related expenses like textbooks. What is more, they can use the revenue to pay for an entire semester.

However, there is a huge catch to this. According to the aforementioned report, “free” electricity does not necessarily exist. In one way or another, someone will be responsible for paying the price.

The Popularity of Mining Among Students

The security researchers at Cisco investigated crypto mining activity across different industry verticals. The research was made possible through the firm’s very own cloud security platform called Umbrella. The latter is specifically designed to monitor a client’s network connections in an attempt to screen any malicious activity. Apparently, it can also unveil incidents relating to cryptocurrency mining.

According to the findings, university campuses appear to be the second largest when it comes to mining cryptos at 22 percent. They are just second when compared to the energy and utility sector, which reached around 34 percent.

As previously reported, miner revenues started to wane back in 2018 and this was simply due to the so-called crypto winter. Also, during that year, the attendant price reportedly dropped. Overall, this forced mining to become less profitable. However, hash rates have never failed in increasing, suggesting that there is growth in the global mining pool – and this despite miners tend to come and go.

According to Austin McBride, the threat researcher at Cisco, when students leave their mining rigs in their dorm room for about four years, they can walk out of college with a huge chunk of change. And while they keep running these machines, they purportedly steer clear all electricity costs related to crypto mining profitability.