This post is mostly meant as a "thinking out loud" demonstration of how one could purchase a bitcoin miner while maintaining privacy, or at least as most privacy as possible.
For starters, mining has always interested me, though I've never had the time to really dig into it. Nowadays, it's pretty much common knowledge that mining at home is really just for enthusiasts, and should not be considered to be a money-making venture. In all likelihood, it's actually a money-losing venture.
However, many people do advocate for home mining as a good way to get KYC-free bitcoin. I think that's a reasonable justification to explore my options.
Given that I live in a residential community and don't have access to a commercial location, buying a miner like an Antminer is not super reasonable, given the noise. So, I have found the Apollo BTC from FutureBit as a potential alternative. I won't "run the numbers" here, I know it would take a long time, if ever, for it to become profitable, given the quoted hashing rate, initial cost, power costs, etc. I am not posting this to discuss the economic feasibility of this miner.
I am, however, posting this to discuss the feasibility of acquiring this miner in a private way. The way I see it, these are the steps I'd need to take:
- Use a fake name when purchasing the miner, so my actual name isn't in the company's records - in case they ever get hacked.
- The miner can be purchased with bitcoin (for a discount, which is nice). Getting some bitcoin that can't be traced back to me or my addresses would be required. I haven't dabbled in KYC-free bitcoin yet, so I'd need to explore some options here. I could buy it at an ATM, but that might require several trips to avoid KYC thresholds, plus there's the surcharge of using an ATM. I could also explore CoinJoin, something I've yet to try. That seems like a viable solution.
- Once I have the KYC-free bitcoin to make the purchase, I need to have the miner shipped to me. Obviously, giving the company my actual address would defeat the goal of privacy. So how do I do this? My first thought is to get a PO Box at a local post office, and have the miner shipped there. This is not bullet-proof, since PO Boxes require KYC at the post office, but at least my real address wouldn't be in the company's records. Realistically, I can't think of any other alternatives.
This is what I've come up with so far. Have others gone through a similar mental exercise? Anyone put it into action? Anyone come up with alternatives? I would love to hear your input.
Thanks for reading!