ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf government can facilitate more than one million youngsters, especially students to start mining of cryptocurrency to enable them to earn their livelihood with minimum investment and generate at least one billion dollars worth foreign exchange every year.
At present, thousands of young students are already carrying out mining of Ethereum, the most important cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. The mining of Bitcoin is very expensive as it involved millions of rupees investment.
However, with less than 200,000 rupees (around $1000), any person can launch the mining of Ethereum. At this time, Ether is trading above $4,200 level and its mining rate is much better than the time when this cryptocurrency was trading around $2000 a few months ago.
Individuals need a desktop computer with high quality digital graphic card. The most effective graphic card for mining of Ethereum/other cryptos is available in the range of 70,000 to 85,000 rupees these days because of devaluation of rupee and increase import tariffs.
How the govt can support youngsters?
The government can facilitate youngsters especially students to obtain soft loans from banks to buy required desktop computers for mining and other purposes. The PTI government can also offer grants through Ehsaas programme to the youngsters are don’t want to obtain loans from banks because of mark-up which is ‘Haraam’ in Shariah.
The Truth International talked to a few youngsters who are already involved in cryptocurrency mining for the last couple of years.
“I am earning more or less three to four dollars a day (in 24 hours cycle) through mining of Ether,” said a young student of university, who requested not to be named in the story. I am doing it since 2020 and today I have increased my cryptocurrency portfolio close to one thousand dollars without making any investment. I already had a computer game with high-quality digital graphic card, so I started mining of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin mining cannot be carried out with desktop computer and a special mining machinery is used for Bitcoin. Nonetheless, mining of Ether can be managed with desktop computer. Constant power supply and interruptible internet are essential for mining. Many of my friends are also mining this cryptocurrency. I am no more a burden for my parents from the day I started mining of cryptocurrency and I am managing my pocket money and buy necessary items from the money that I earn through mining.”
Cost of Ether Mining
Another miner said that desktop computer remains operational constantly for mining and it hardly consumes 100 units of electricity in a month while cost of internet (on shared basis with family members) is also less than 1000 rupees for a person doing mining of cryptocurrency. One time investment of Rs150,000 to Rs175,000 is required to buy CPU (Complete Processing Unit with fine quality graphic card, motherboard, high-speed RAM, etc), he said.
“When Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies crashed in June/July 2021, we gave up mining as the rate of mining fell to one dollar per day. In recent months, we have again resumed full-scale mining of Ethereum and generating crypto points worth 80-95 dollars in a month. For a student this amount is enough for his/her monthly pocket money,” he said.
Details gathered by TTI revealed that one million crypto-miners can generate up to $1 billion in a year with average $85 million mining in a month. This amount will further increase when more and more youngsters join the cryptocurrency mining in the country.
Cryptocurrency miners said that in winter season, consumption of electricity drops around 40 to 50 percent in the country and this is the best time to empower millions of students and unemployed youngsters to generate their pocket money/livelihood from mining of digital gold.
They said the government should pace up legislation to promote cryptocurrency mining and the more people explore the digital gold, the more foreign exchange will be earned. By supporting millions of youngsters, the government can also exceed its target of providing employment opportunities to unemployed youth in Pakistan, they added.
Increased consumption of electricity, internet, and imports of desktop computers/graphic cards will increase tax/non-tax revenues of the government. The government is charging 17 percent GST on internet, while multiple taxes are being charged on electricity consumption and import of electronic items.
In the large-scale mining of cryptocurrency, neither the government nor the miners will lose anything and instead all the stakeholders will be getting their share of money. For feedback and further info, you can send an email to this writer at [email protected]
