Key Takeaways
- Ishaan Thakur, 14, and his sister Aanya, 9, have generated about $160,000 mining cryptocurrency since April.
- The pair of brother and sister have made their money through mining cryptocurrency.
- They made the money by using a computer to solve a mathematical problem with a 64-digit solution.
- The brother-sister duo is now making $35,000 a month mining mainly for the cryptocurrency Ethereum, all from their home in Frisco, Texas.
- Ishaan set up the computers himself which he boasts. According to him, the computers he set up can process more graphics transactions per second than NASA can.
Ishaan Thakur, 14, and his nine-year-old sister Aanya started with just $3 and have transformed it into a tiny fortune because of their love for mathematics and computers. The duo made their money by mining bitcoin. It requires using a computer to solve a 64-digit mathematical puzzle. The machine that completes the task first wins and creates a new coin. The miner then is rewarded with cryptocurrency.
Ishaan and Aanya are currently earning $35,000 a month mining cryptocurrencies, primarily Ethereum, from their Frisco, Texas home. Aanya told CBS local that “At first, we didn’t know anything about it. But our dad told us stories about how much the prices were going up so we wanted to find out about it. That’s how we got started.”
Ishaan and Aanya originally learned how to mine by watching YouTube videos and doing online searches. However, mining is a difficult process that necessitates massive computational power capable of processing 15 to 16 billion ether algorithms each second.
Ishaan and Aanya have generated about $160,000 mining cryptocurrency since April. The siblings only made $3 on their first day of mining. However, in the previous seven months, their business has expanded significantly. Flifer Technologies, as they’ve dubbed it, has grown into a profitable venture.
Ishaan told CNBC that “We have configured our computers to constantly scan for the most profitable coin and switch to that coin automatically. Ether is the dominant coin we mine, with bitcoin and ravencoin being the second and third.” Bitcoin is the most valuable cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization. The second-largest cryptocurrency is Ether, which is unique to the Ethereum network. Ravencoin is one of the top 100 altcoins.
Ishaan also says that “Even though we are now making a lot of money, we are just as proud now as we were when we only made $3 per day since our main prize is not the money. My favorite part about our experience is that we learned about new technology.” But, despite the fact that the two are generating a modest fortune, Ishaan says it’s not about the money. Ishaan and Aanya plan to keep reinvesting in their business while also putting money aside for their college.
Ishaan says that “We think there are so many opportunities that involve crypto and we hope to be pioneers in this space”. He even said, “But I am just a 14-year-old, so my school work and saxophone take priority. Therefore, I am not able to work on my business as much as I would like to.”
Their father, Manish Raj, a former investment banker, helped fund the processors by taking out a loan. Raj wouldn’t say how much the loan was for, but a global shortage of computer chips made locating equipment much more difficult and drove up prices.
According to Ishaan, the majority of the machines, which all function in parallel, were created by him. “Because they are all concurrently processing the same job, my homemade computers can process more graphics transactions per second than NASA can,” he says. “Many of my friends like to play games on their computers. Instead, I just like to build computers for fun.” Despite the fact that their mining enterprise began in the garage of their home, they have subsequently relocated to a data center in Dallas, Texas.
Aanya says that “Since our school has started, we don’t have time to monitor our computers in the garage. So we put all the computers at a data center. We use the garage only to build computers and then we send them to the data center. We have also hired technicians to monitor the computers because we have to go to school.”
Ishaan says that for them, mining is “just the beginning”. The siblings plan to launch their own cryptocurrency. They might launch it later this year called Flifercoin. They’ve had developers and an attorney to help them out during the process.
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