Can you earn money by renting out your computing rig?

March 9, 2016 10:24 AM

We can use our computing rigs for bitcoin mining. But are there other programs/projects where one could use their computing power to earn money? For example, we know prime numbers are rare and are useful (e.g. cryptography). Is there a market for finding prime numbers? There is considerable computing investment required to find a prime number. I guess someone has to pay for that.

I know there are free programs like seti@home or folding@home etc , but given that protein folding programs, at least, can lead to possible medical discoveries, are there people who would shell out actual cash, however little it might be, for helping them do this?

posted by TheLittlePrince to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search will pay you $3000 if your computer happens to be the one that discovers a new prime. However, if you don't discover one, you get absolutely nothing.
posted by zsazsa at 10:26 AM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

How powerful are these computers? I ask because it'll help scope the answers, and also to briefly mention that unless you're talking about datacenter-sized it's unlikely you'll earn enough Bitcoin to offset the electrical cost. The days of individual general-purpose miners are past.
posted by aramaic at 10:27 AM on March 9, 2016

Response by poster: Typical laptops available with a generic computer user. Nothing fancy. Also, I know about bitcoins. I am looking for other such programs.
posted by TheLittlePrince at 10:31 AM on March 9, 2016

I'm really skeptical about this overall as a concept, but you could see how many of the things from this 2014 article are still around. It's likely a significant chunk of any of the money you make is going to be paid right back out in electricity, if you're paying the bill for your electricity. It's going to be hard to get much money because:

* Processing sucks up electricity, which costs money
* Your home desktop hardware is likely not geared towards doing any serious computational work
* You can see from the hourly processing on Digital Ocean and the like how cheap renting computer power already is
posted by foxfirefey at 10:32 AM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wait, you want to do this with a laptop? Then the stuff I caveated above goes triple, most laptop hardware is downright anemic, you probably don't even have a decent graphics card to pillage for additional computing power, and you factor in the cost of having to replace anything like a fan on your laptop much faster than if you did not do this. It's the same equation as when people think they're going to make liveable money via Uber but forget to calculate in paying 1009 taxes and wear and tear on their car.

Between the depreciation on your laptop and the extra (yes, it'll be slight, but so will the payment) on your electric bill and the fact that it's cheaper/more efficient to rent by the hour from many stable, reputable server farms, this is unlikely to actually net you a positive return in the long run.
posted by foxfirefey at 10:40 AM on March 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's possible that the OP doesn't pay extra for more electricity.
posted by Jahaza at 12:59 PM on March 9, 2016

I agree that the raw computational value of your laptop is so close to zero it's not even worth considering. There may be some value, however, in your network bandwidth. I can't remember any specific ones, but I've definitely seen some subscription services that offer your discounts if you're willing to use your computer as a distribution node.
posted by mkultra at 1:35 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]