Kid siblings earn $160,000 in 7 months mining crypto

• Since April, siblings Ishaan Thakur, 14, and Aanya, 9, have made approximately $160,000 mining cryptocurrency.

  

On the day they started mining, the brother and sister made a meager $3. However, in the past seven months, their venture has surged significantly. For instance, Ishaan and Aanya made $64,000 in October alone. It has thrived into a profitable business, which they've named Flifer Technologies.

During an interview with CNBC Make It, Ishaan said, "We have configured our computers to constantly scan for the most profitable coin and switch to that coin automatically." He disclosed that "Ether is the dominant coin we mine, with Bitcoin and ravencoin being the second and third."

Bitcoin is the leading crypto by market value. Ether is the second-largest cryptocurrency and operates on the Ethereum blockchain. Ravencoin is an altcoin that tops 100 leading digital coins.

Ishaan Thakur and Aanya are based in Frisco, Texas, and can process around 15 to 16 billion ether algorithms per second, says Ishaan.

Ishaan says, "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." He adds, "My favorite part about our experience is that we learned about a new technology."

The siblings hope to pursue reinvesting their business, but also utilize the profits to save for college education.

The two young crypto miners first learned about crypto mining by observing videos on YouTube and exploring the internet. Still, the process of mining is demanding.

Mining rigs need to be complete to handle sophisticated puzzles to verify cryptocurrency transactions. It's not only challenging, but it can be costly since it consumes a lot of energy and computer power.

Ishaan and Aanya have around 200 processors, which they acquired through a bank loan, thanks to their father Manish Raj, a former investment banker. Raj preferred not to share the exact loan amount, but the global shortage of computer chips made securing equipment much more challenging and set the cost at a premium.

The siblings have approximately 100 Nvidia RTX 3090s, 50 of Nvidia RTX 3070Ti, a mix of Nvidia 30-series processors, and 24 dedicated bitcoin mining machines. For instance, Nvidia RTX 3090 graphics cards can cost about $2,500 to $3,000 each.

Ishaan says, "We have additional cards on order, so we will be over 200 processors later this month."

Ishaan says that he created the majority of the computers, which all operate in parallel. He says, "Because they are all concurrently processing the same job, my homemade computers can process more graphics transactions per second than NASA can." He discloses that while most of his friends prefer to play games on their computers, he likes to create computers for fun.

Even though their mining operation began in their home's garage, they've since relocated to a data center in Dallas, Texas. The process costs more than $5,000 monthly for the electricity bill and approximately $4,000 monthly for technicians to manage the rigs.

His sister says, "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." Aanya adds, "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, "We only mine in our free time."

Their parents, teachers, and friends are fascinated with their mining pursuit.

Aanya says, "All of my friends read about our business on the internet." She says, "My friends and teachers couldn't even believe it! The principal wrote my name in our school newsletter. It made me so proud."

"Our initial goal was just to save for college, but now we think we can do more," adds Aanya.

For the siblings, mining is "just the beginning," says the brother. Ishaan and Aanya plan to create their own crypto later this year known as Flifercoin. They have already engaged with developers and an attorney to assist them during the process.

Ishaan says, "We think there are so many opportunities that involve crypto and we hope to be pioneers in this space." He says, "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."