Two of the strategies we’ve been playing with in order to augment our crypto income are Trading Bots and Masternodes.
Both of these are tricky in their own way: the trading bot landscape is flooded with bad advice and people looking to scam you. The masternode landscape is a miasma of speculation with no guarantee of good returns.
With both, we’ve found that you’re often wanting to host the bot / masternode on a wallet (hosted on a computer), and to get the best returns you need to make sure that the computer is constantly running and has a static IP. You could build a computer to accomplish this, especially if the masternode requires mining, but we think that’s overkill if your wallet is just staking.
So that’s where you want to use a VPS, or Virtual Private Server.
What’s nice is that they are always online, have a static IP, and they’re inexpensive. Our favorite is Vultr, which has user-freindly UI and low costs. Other good options are Virmach and Contabo.
While these services might charge you extra to run a Windows server, you can easily get around that by buying a cheap Windows ISO from a site like this one: https://iso.quanlyvps.com/
One thing to note is that setting up a VPS and then a trading bot or masternode is something that requires technical skills. In the future, we will be identifying how we can make this process easier through instruction and coaching, but for now we can only say that there are free guides that will walk you the setup process.
For example, here is a fantastic guide that we followed to set up our new ZenCash masternode: https://blockoperations.com/build-zencash-secure-node-part-1-prepare-vps/
& https://blockoperations.com/how-to-build-and-operate-a-zencash-secure-node/
Reading through that documentation, it quickly becomes clear that this requires some knowledge of how to run commands, the basics of Linux, and how to use Github to download repos.
Essentially, it is not for the average user and we don’t recommend attempting this unless you can read through both guides and understand everything required.
If that’s not the case, don’t feel as though you’re inept — these are skills that I acquired and honed during my time as a computer programmer. Most people simply don’t need to touch anything this technical.
Crypto is still very unfriendly to the average user in general. That will improve over the years ahead, but we see that as an opportunity to get in before everyone else.
Always remember: The brick walls exist for a reason. They keep those out who don’t want it bad enough.