this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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Mullvad gives you a discount if you pay with crypto, and monero is supposed to be the private crypto. What is the best way to get Monero? I'm in Canada

https://mullvad.net/en/pricing

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Mining isn’t economically worth it and it’s also bad for your components' health as well as the environment

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Exchanging money is also not economically worth it. And if you only pay for renewable electricity it isn't bad for the environment either, at least on paper.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

You know that both of your statements are false in a specific way

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 minutes ago (1 children)

As are yours. So it balances out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 minutes ago* (last edited 7 minutes ago)

The components health section is probably nearly void, it seems like the lifespan of a CPU isn’t impacted if it doesn’t overheat. You’re probably right on that, I’m not a hardware expert though.

Mining seems not worth it imo, based on my experience, but someone told me otherwise 🤷

It is most certainly bad for the environment. Even if you use green energy, the infrastructure used to deliver the energy isn’t green when initially created and has a limited lifespan. Also, you probably remove green energy from people that didn’t care at the same time, so it ends up having a negative impact. If the green energy production % doesn’t change, then someone uses more non-green energy if you start using green.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Mining on a cpu is much less taxing than a gpu, and if you do it intermittently and do not run all cores there’s no additional strain on hardware.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

Not sure that's true. And mining on a CPU is even less efficient. Your hash rate will be way lower unless you've got a really high-end system with a really low latency bus and RAM. And if your hashrate is too low, it would take months for you to find a single block unless you're pooling with a bunch of others and splitting the profit. It's quite variable, but very, very few people can make profit on any popular coins. Too many people to compete with to find a block.

Oh and don't forget cooling cost. The fans in the computer, the fans in your house, and your air conditioner in your house need to disipate the heat and there's a lot more generated per clock cycle from a CPU than a GPU using comperably old technologies. If you live somewhere that you're producing more electricity with solar than you consume, then it's probably not a cold climate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

I thought Monero was designed to be mined on CPU.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

20€ worth of XMR will still be more than 20€ worth of electricity. It ends up the same.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

$20 of xmr is no where near $20 of electricity in the states, and having solar helps that number even more.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

solar helps that number even more

Wouldn't that assume you are not using all the electricity coming from your panels?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago

Correct, it does assume you took that power usage into consideration

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

I believe if it was worth it to mine, everyone would do it until it is not anymore, especially in countries where electricity is extra cheap

After testing on my machine, I ended up losing more than 10x the amount I paid in electricity in France. I’m not sure it’ll be better elsewhere. This was at 0.20€/kWh

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago

Not everyone knows it’s worth it to do it. Fully understand where you are coming from, it’s not viable in some countries right now.