Proof of Stake: Dedicated Box vs Using a PC

Is there a benefit to having a dedicated Proof of Stake Box?

I just recently started to take interest in Proof of Stake coins. I purchased a little pit of NEO (NEO) and with that came some Ontology (ONT) in an Air Drop. But, by holding NEO, I also got some GAS (GAS) just by holding NEO and due to Binance providing the Proof of Stake to NEO.

Without downloading a NEO wallet, I am able to earn money by simply holding coins on an exchange. It is like earning interest on a savings account, which is what people used to have when interest rates on savings accounts actually amounted to something. Right now, the NEO has only return 0.15% in coins as GAS. Or, if we look at it in BitCoin, that's about 0.04%. If we look at in cash with GAS worth $26.40 and NEO worth $88.31, that gives me $0.03 GAS and $70.65 NEO, which is till about 0.04%. Just checking the math While that doesn't seem like much right now, it is only the first GAS payment.

There are a lot of Proof of Stake coins out there and some of them give much better returns than others. Of course, getting a huge return rate on a junk coin doesn't do you any good.

Anyway, the only way I could get that GAS payment is through the Proof of Stake of NEO. And most of the Proof of Stake coins require you to have a wallet that is on-line most of the time, so it can be verified that you own the coin for the period of time to receive the reward. Which brings me to reason for this article, having your wallet available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and your options.

Proof of Stake on Your PC

The obvious method is downloading the the coin wallet onto your PC.

As stated by ALPHA Crypto in his getting started video, you need to make sure you have enough disc space and RAM for each wallet you will be running.

The one issue with loading the wallets on your PC is whether or not you trust the creator of the wallet. Loading any unknown software onto your PC is risky and no amount of virus protection is going to help you, if the virus software doesn't know about a particular virus. So, you could load the wallet onto your PC or you could load it onto a virtual server.

A virtual server is a server that shares hardware and software resources with other operating systems (OS), versus dedicated servers. Because they are cost-effective and provide faster resource control, virtual servers are popular in Web hosting environments.

~ source: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27139/virtual-server

You can also have your virtual server hosted in the cloud, but obviously you would have to assume you will be making more money than it will cost to rent the hosted server. Also, you worry about the risk of the hosting company blocking Proof of Stake mining or going out of business and you lose your wallet. But, I would say that the cost thing is the bigger risk. Which means you would have to ensure that you have a large amount of coins staked in order to earn enough each month to pay for the server.

If you are doing just one or two wallets, using your PC is probably the easiest way to get setup. Even thought it is recommended that the your wallet be connected 24/7, for most coins, it just needs to be on once a day to do the sync with the wallet and the amount of time needed for that depends on your internet connection and your PC hardware.

Proof of Stake on Dedicated Box

The best thing about the Internet and technology is that there is always someone somewhere who has already figured out how to do something better. One of these little better things is small computers used for single tasks. Raspberry Pi is one of those computers. It would probably take 100 articles to go over all the possibilities with using a Raspberry Pi. I personally have tried to use one for home automation, as a DVR and a music player. I would say, that the best thing to do with Raspberry Pi's, unless you have the time and interest, is to let someone else configure it for you the way you want it to be for the job that you want to do.

At one point, you could even mine STEEM on a Raspberry Pi. You can't now, so don't bother.

Which brings us back to Raspberry Pi's and cryptocurrencies.

There are instructables on how to mine cryptocurrency using a Raspberry Pi. The basis here is, the Raspberry Pi is a cheap and efficient way to run a small computer 24/7. But, due to the size limitations, mining cryptos with a Raspberry Pi runs into limitations and more and more CPU power is needed.

However, with Proof of Stake, the Raspberry Pi needs only to make the wallet available for syncing, which doesn't require a lot of CPU usage. The Raspberry Pi can sit nicely and do its thing off to the side with the only worry being the bandwidth it uses to do the sync.

There are even some coins, like NAV(NAV) Coin, that sells there own Raspberry Pi StakeBox. NAV coin is traded on Bittrex and Binance, so I wouldn't consider it a junk coin. It is also under USD$2, which doesn't make it too expensive and currently NAV coin is return 5%. The NAV Coin stake box is USD$100 on their site.

The other pre-built Raspberry Pi stake box, is StakeBox.

StakeBox offers 9 different flavors of staking box. 7 of them are for specific coins; QTUM (QTUM, ReddCoin(RDD), Neblio(NEBL), PinkCoin(PINK), WhiteCoin(XWC, CloakCoin(CLOAK) and Denarius(DNR). As the instructions show above, it is simple as Plug it in, Sync, Add Coin and Start Earning.

Each of the boxes go for around USD$110. So, you will have to balance whether or not it is worth it based on the value of the coin, the interest rate of the coin earned and how much coin you can afford to purchase. Since a regular Raspberry Pi will set you back about $30, the extra cost of having someone else's figure out the details depends on how sure you are on doing it yourself.

One of the other 2 boxes comes integrated with multiple alternate coins

• Bitcoin v0.14
• OKCash v4.0.0.4
• Blackcoin v1.2.4
• Dash v0.12.1.5
• Diamond v2.1.0.4
• Digitalcoin v3
• Einsteinium v0.9.2
• Energycoin v1.5.1
• Europecoin v3.0.2
• Expanse v1.6
• Gamecredits v0.9.4.4
• Kobocoin v2.1.0.3
• Mojo v3.0.0.5
• Monetaryunit v1.0.10.8
• Soil v1.6.1
• Transfercoin v1.2.4

The price is the same, so choosing this one might provide quicker returns than doing one of the single coin boxes. It uses ROKOS software. So, again, StakeBox is just saving you the step of installing the software and packaging it up in a Raspberry Pi.

For me, the convenience of having someone else set up the basics is probably worth the $110. But, I need to do more research into the returns on the coin and if you can add more wallets to the single wallet boxes.

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