Should i buy new pc for mining?

xFre4kl0rd

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So i'm starting to try mining but i dont have a rig and its hard to find gpu's for a reasonable price but i've found a pc with i5-10400 16gb ram and rtx 3060 ti for 1100€. Is it logical to buy this pc and mine for a year or more to break even and keep mining or should i just skip?
 
i think the price with a PC that has a 3060
No.

Take the money you would of spent on a rig / power and just buy coins on an exchange.

You can not assume you will break even in a year, mining difficult goes up, your rig becomes less and less useful.
This. Unless you will get into new coins and hold, its not worth it to mine established coins.
 
i think the price with a PC that has a 3060

This. Unless you will get into new coins and hold, its not worth it to mine established coins.
I was thinking to mine ETH to have passive income for 2-3 years and if i coudnt breake even or start losing i can sell the rig for 100-200€ less as it is hard to find pc parts for now.
 
No one can give you an answer. The variables depend on your location, hardware costs and power costs. Besides the possibility that mining difficulty will go up.

When I tested out my new rig (in sig) using Nicehash - it was making about 8 bucks a day GROSS. So subtract power costs, parts costs opportunity costs (PC is mining so I'm not using it to do other things). It was a loser all the way around.

Its a great way to test / burn in a new PC build but taking the money and buying the coins outright and stashing them (or selling off unused PC parts and buying coins outright and stashing them) - both work best if investment is your goal.

Of course if you're sitting on top of geothermal or a solar farm or something (say a goernment power subsidy) and getting electricity cheap / free - that may make the numbers more attractive in your favor.

My info is based upon my location in the USA and its power costs so YMMV.
 
No one can give you an answer. The variables depend on your location, hardware costs and power costs. Besides the possibility that mining difficulty will go up.

When I tested out my new rig (in sig) using Nicehash - it was making about 8 bucks a day GROSS. So subtract power costs, parts costs opportunity costs (PC is mining so I'm not using it to do other things). It was a loser all the way around.

Its a great way to test / burn in a new PC build but taking the money and buying the coins outright and stashing them (or selling off unused PC parts and buying coins outright and stashing them) - both work best if investment is your goal.

Of course if you're sitting on top of geothermal or a solar farm or something (say a goernment power subsidy) and getting electricity cheap / free - that may make the numbers more attractive in your favor.

My info is based upon my location in the USA and its power costs so YMMV.
I'm not looking for a "yes" or "no" answer, i'm looking more for opinions from experienced miners.For profitability nicehash calculated my profit(minus electricity cost) as 3.82€ a day and 109.32€ as a month and i was thinking if this goes to 50€ a month after half a year of mining i can still sell the pc for at least 800€ and keep the coins.
 
Do you think you can sell that rig for 100-200€ less 2-3 years down the road? TBH I think it's kinda stupid to buy a prebuilt like that with one card just for mining. Sure if you can grab a 3060 Ti to add in to your existing rig or dedicated mining rig then of course but buying a whole computer with one card just to get like 60MH/s really isn't worth it. Just use that money to buy your coins.
 
Do you think you can sell that rig for 100-200€ less 2-3 years down the road? TBH I think it's kinda stupid to buy a prebuilt like that with one card just for mining. Sure if you can grab a 3060 Ti to add in to your existing rig or dedicated mining rig then of course but buying a whole computer with one card just to get like 60MH/s really isn't worth it. Just use that money to buy your coins.
Not selling for 100-200€ less 2-3years down but 2-3 months down if my profit gets really bad and buying graphics card is no option because there is only 3090 for 2300€ other than that i can only find gtx 1050ti-1060 second hand and that woudnt be profitable for mining.
 
Not selling for 100-200€ less 2-3years down but 2-3 months down if my profit gets really bad and buying graphics card is no option because there is only 3090 for 2300€ other than that i can only find gtx 1050ti-1060 second hand and that woudnt be profitable for mining.

I do not know much so they are just food for thought of a no-nothing:

1) If mining profit goes down a lot, I imagine it is somewhat possible that the first and second market suddenly get much better and the value of GPUs drop ? Not sure, maybe looking at the pricing when the last mining craze calmed down.

2) Is in part to learn about crypto mining and doing it ? If so maybe spending 1,000 euros buying coins if you think they are possibly going up and the rest on a raspberry pi small farm (that you turn after in plex server/player/music hub)

Otherwise it seem (if you numbers are good) that your plan do make sense at first glance, one day change that 16 for 32 gig of ram and it could be a nice machine for a good price if it work and if not it is a nice machine at a bad price (if the pre-build is not all around terrible, PSU/mobo wise), not the end of the world.
 
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I do not know much so they are just food for thought of a no-nothing:

1) If mining profit goes down a lot, I imagine it is somewhat possible that the first and second market suddenly get much better and the value of GPUs drop ? Not sure, maybe looking at the pricing when the last mining craze calmed down.

2) Is in part to learn about crypto mining and doing it ? If so maybe spending 1,000 euros buying coins if you think they are possibly going up and the rest on a raspberry pi small farm (that you turn after in plex server/player/music hub)

Otherwise it seem (if you numbers are good) that your plan do make sense at first glance, one day change that 16 for 32 and it could be a nice machine for a good price if it work and if not it is a nice machine at a bad price (if the pre-build is not all around terrible, PSU/mobo wise), not the end of the world.
To clarify i know the question is stupid and big risk but buying coins is bigger risk for me because i'm not into crypto and other than buying eth and btc i have no idea what to buy or will be profitable.About market getting much better where i live it's always expensive and other than 2 or 3 pre build which gets bought about 2-3days everything in a price range of 1000-1200€ has 1600ti or 1660 super so i think i can handle selling pc if mining fails me so thats my holding point that i can sell for a little loss.
 
If you're getting the hardware anyway, then there's no harm in mining it if you got it. If you're trying to make an "investment" into the computer in order to turn a "profit".. well.. I addressed this very topic last year over in this thread - https://hardforum.com/threads/how-profitable-is-mining-really.1994303/post-1044595420

Currently, we are in the "major run up" phase that I described over there. ROI on GPUs, even at inflated prices, are in the 2-3 month range. They will stay here until either 1. Sufficient GPU supply exists to increase difficulty to the point where ROI returns to 1+ years OR 2. Crypto prices crater. Given the pandemic, 2 is far more likely to happen. In the history of crypto, these manic periods do not last forever, and once you're obviously in one, it's probably too late to get a decent return on whatever you invest. Mining is most profitable when you mine through the valleys and HODL until it moons again, not mining when it moons. This guy listened and purchased crypto based on the thread.

To clarify i know the question is stupid and big risk but buying coins is bigger risk for me because i'm not into crypto and other than buying eth and btc i have no idea what to buy or will be profitable.About market getting much better where i live it's always expensive and other than 2 or 3 pre build which gets bought about 2-3days everything in a price range of 1000-1200€ has 1600ti or 1660 super so i think i can handle selling pc if mining fails me so thats my holding point that i can sell for a little loss.

It shouldn't be that much of a risk if you buy the major players - specifically BTC and ETH. BTC has done a bit better than ETH (i.e. ETH only recently reclaimed its all time high, whereas BTC is trading well above on this run up). If I was buying for "investment" I wouldn't venture much further than that.

If/when crypto prices crater, used GPUs will flood the market and it will become a buyers market. You'll lose just as much on the video card as you will on the crypto cratering.
 
If you're getting the hardware anyway, then there's no harm in mining it if you got it. If you're trying to make an "investment" into the computer in order to turn a "profit".. well.. I addressed this very topic last year over in this thread - https://hardforum.com/threads/how-profitable-is-mining-really.1994303/post-1044595420

Currently, we are in the "major run up" phase that I described over there. ROI on GPUs, even at inflated prices, are in the 2-3 month range. They will stay here until either 1. Sufficient GPU supply exists to increase difficulty to the point where ROI returns to 1+ years OR 2. Crypto prices crater. Given the pandemic, 2 is far more likely to happen. In the history of crypto, these manic periods do not last forever, and once you're obviously in one, it's probably too late to get a decent return on whatever you invest. Mining is most profitable when you mine through the valleys and HODL until it moons again, not mining when it moons. This guy listened and purchased crypto based on the thread.



It shouldn't be that much of a risk if you buy the major players - specifically BTC and ETH. BTC has done a bit better than ETH (i.e. ETH only recently reclaimed its all time high, whereas BTC is trading well above on this run up). If I was buying for "investment" I wouldn't venture much further than that.

If/when crypto prices crater, used GPUs will flood the market and it will become a buyers market. You'll lose just as much on the video card as you will on the crypto cratering.
So what you say is basically buy coin or do nothing?
 
So what you say is basically buy coin or do nothing?

No, not necessarily. It depends on what your expectations/desires are more than anything. I'm both a crypto enthusiast and cynic at the same time - I've been at this for close to 10 years now, so I've seen this cycle play out several times already. I started mining when BTC was on its moonshot from sub $1 up to $30 to watch it fall back to $2 or so.

If your goals are to mine on that stuff for years and HODL until the next exponential jump in value.. then you might be on to something. Though, the reason the buying is pointed out is that for all of crypto's history, you'll get more crypto if you just buy it than if you buy hardware and mine it with the same amount of money.

The other thing that's odd.. is that I have mined a TON of coins. I have NOT purchased hardware explicitly for mining - I've mined with what I have had anyway. I have also NOT purchased any crypto, nor do I recommend anyone to do so as an investment (unless they spell the word investment as "gamble"). I probably contradict myself there a bit, but every time there's a boom cycle like this all the folks wanting to "get rich quick" come out of the woodwork asking these same questions when the reality is that the money is made in crypto when you buy/mine when everyone else isn't and HODL for better or worse.
 
No, not necessarily. It depends on what your expectations/desires are more than anything. I'm both a crypto enthusiast and cynic at the same time - I've been at this for close to 10 years now, so I've seen this cycle play out several times already. I started mining when BTC was on its moonshot from sub $1 up to $30 to watch it fall back to $2 or so.

If your goals are to mine on that stuff for years and HODL until the next exponential jump in value.. then you might be on to something. Though, the reason the buying is pointed out is that for all of crypto's history, you'll get more crypto if you just buy it than if you buy hardware and mine it with the same amount of money.

The other thing that's odd.. is that I have mined a TON of coins. I have NOT purchased hardware explicitly for mining - I've mined with what I have had anyway. I have also NOT purchased any crypto, nor do I recommend anyone to do so as an investment (unless they spell the word investment as "gamble"). I probably contradict myself there a bit, but every time there's a boom cycle like this all the folks wanting to "get rich quick" come out of the woodwork asking these same questions when the reality is that the money is made in crypto when you buy/mine when everyone else isn't and HODL for better or worse.
My desire is to do the right thing after my mistake of not buying btc when it was 80$ and to mine enough to pay the rig which after that i dont need to sell or trade coins i can hold coins and to have some money on the side i can count on it.
 
It is always cheaper to just buy the damn coins instead of the mining equipment + electricity.
 
It is always cheaper to just buy the damn coins instead of the mining equipment + electricity.
Yes it is but being 20 years old and living with parents that have no idea about crypto its hard to explain that spending 1000€ on virtual money is a good idea.
 
Yes it is but being 20 years old and living with parents that have no idea about crypto its hard to explain that spending 1000€ on virtual money is a good idea.
Tell them its an investment for your future. Show them the charts. Explain its the fastest appreciating asset of the last 10 years. Explain Bitcoin is up 3,500,000x

Tell them you understand the internet better then them, and this is a huge opportunity.
 
Tell them its an investment for your future. Show them the charts. Explain its the fastest appreciating asset of the last 10 years. Explain Bitcoin is up 3,500,000x

Tell them you understand the internet better then them, and this is a huge opportunity.
By the questions he’s asking here, he doesn’t. And the advice you guys are giving here is generally foolish. (At least from a timeline perspective). If he buys $1000 USD in Crypto right now at a bit of a historic peak, does it go up or down from here? (For the next 2-3 years?). Don’t buy at peaks. Buy low sell high.

Nothing wrong with buying a pc to mine. It can help ease you into your knowledge on cryoto. It’s like learning to invest or find your comfortable spot in the space vs. putting all your money on red on the roulette table. However, if you want to enter cryoto mining you’d be better off to start with the right gear instead of buying a single full “gaming” computer, you should buy a mining motherboard, and PSU setup so you can stand to make more profit, have better hash, buy and install more cards as opportunity allows. Parallel Miner has good starter kits for newbs for power supplies

https://www.parallelminer.com/

Search for Crypto mining motherboard to find good motherboard. My favorite I’ve had so far is the Asus B250 Mining Expert. The asus H370 Mining Master motherboard is a step up, but I can’t source one. ASRock H110 Pro BTC+ is another I’m familiar with that works okay. I prefer Biostar TB250 BTC Pro to the ASRock though for the PCI-E slot spacing.
 
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By the questions he’s asking here, he doesn’t. And the advice you guys are giving here is generally foolish. (At least from a timeline perspective). If he buys $1000 USD in Crypto right now at a bit of a historic peak, does it go up or down from here? (For the next 2-3 years?). Don’t buy at peaks. Buy low sell high.

Nothing wrong with buying a pc to mine. It can help ease you into your knowledge on cryoto. It’s like learning to invest or find your comfortable spot in the space vs. putting all your money on red on the roulette table. However, if you want to enter cryoto mining you’d be better off to start with the right gear instead of buying a single full “gaming” computer, you should buy a mining motherboard, and PSU setup so you can stand to make more profit, have better hash, buy and install more cards as opportunity allows. Parallel Miner has good starter kits for newbs.
If i had budget to buy multiple gpus and could find them in the market i would be asking about that not a "gaming" computer.
 
If i had budget to buy multiple gpus and could find them in the market i would be asking about that not a "gaming" computer.
You buy them as you go. You never will have more than 1 video card?
A lot of people who got into mining use some of their mining profits to buy the next round of equipment, rinse and repeat until you’ve built a nice little farm.

Is your intention first to crypto mine for profit? Or is your intention to play games on a gaming PC and mine on the side? The answer to this question drives very different paths. You don’t buy a gaming PC to ramp up a mining effort. They will typically only run 2-3 cards. Whereas a mining motherboard will let you run 6 to 20 cards depending on the board you buy. The mining motherboards also have custom apps, drivers, and interfaces that are geared towards making mining with multiple cards more successful. Like the startup BIOS screen that gives you a card by card diagnostic, that isn’t available on any gaming board. They also will have built in support from some of the Linux distros that are built specifically for miners that gaming motherboard may or may not work with.

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You buy them as you go. You never will have more than 1 video card?
A lot of people who got into mining use some of their mining profits to buy the next round of equipment, rinse and repeat until you’ve built a nice little farm.

Is your intention first to cryoto mine for profit? Or is your intention to play games on a gaming PC and mine on the side? The answer to this question drives different paths.
My intention is to crpyto mine for profit and game sometimes on the side but other than gaming pc with 3060ti i can buy only 3090 for 2300€ or used 1050ti or 1060 other than that i have no gpu options to buy.
 
My intention is to crpyto mine for profit and game sometimes on the side but other than gaming pc with 3060ti i can buy only 3090 for 2300€ or used 1050ti or 1060 other than that i have no gpu options to buy.
Sounds like you want to game first and mine second.

Then buy the gaming computer enjoy gaming and hobby mining. The hobby mining will very likely pay off your whole machine within a year or two if you sell the crypto on the side. Though, it might pay off far more than that if you hold onto the BTC you earn for say five years.
 
Sounds like you want to game first and mine second.

Then buy the gaming computer enjoy gaming and hobby mining. The hobby mining will very likely pay off your whole machine within a year or two if you sell the crypto on the side. Though, it might pay off far more than that if you hold onto the BTC you earn for say five years.
It's gonna be 22 hours mining 2 hours gaming because i have a laptop that i can game but i cant mine.
 
To add a little bit more to my question instead of 3060ti getting a pc with 2x 2060super is this resonable on long term?
 
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Sorry i didnt write 2x 2060 super.And it doesnt have sli so can i make it work while mining?
no you would have to disconnect the SLI bridge while mining (at least I had to in 2017 when I tried the same idea with a pair of 1080TI).
What I did in that situation with my primary gaming PC was run the two 1080TI without SLI (since I'd have to pull the bridge to mine and put it back in for gaming - that was never going to be acceptable) and I could mine with 1080TI while gaming (and it didn't make any deragatory performance difference over a single card) and when I wasn't gaming I could mine with both 1080TI. I had two different mining client installers. One configured for one card, one configured for two cards. IIRC I used nicehash for that. I just launched the appropriately configured miner install for the gaming or mining use case, and swapped the Afterburner undervolt/overclock profile to match what I was doing.
 
no you would have to disconnect the SLI bridge while mining (at least I had to in 2017 when I tried the same idea with a pair of 1080TI).
What I did in that situation with my primary gaming PC was run the two 1080TI without SLI (since I'd have to pull the bridge to mine and put it back in for gaming - that was never going to be acceptable) and I could mine with 1080TI while gaming (and it didn't make any deragatory performance difference over a single card) and when I wasn't gaming I could mine with both 1080TI. I had two different mining client installers. One configured for one card, one configured for two cards. IIRC I used nicehash for that. I just launched the appropriately configured miner install for the gaming or mining use case, and swapped the Afterburner undervolt/overclock profile to match what I was doing.
So if i did math correctly its almost %30 more profit with 2x 2060 super and if i can buy it for 1000-1200€ range and can just install nice hash and press mine to make them both mine i think im gonna stick with this.
 
So if i did math correctly its almost %30 more profit with 2x 2060 super and if i can buy it for 1000-1200€ range and can just install nice hash and press mine to make them both mine i think im gonna stick with this.
Don't forget to calculate electricity cost and heat. The card's heat output for running 24/7 is significantly higher than just a couple hour gaming session. A/C in the summer costs about an additional 1/3 of the electricity cost the card pulls (as a generally quoted rule of thumb). Two 130 watt cards = 260watts, (mining) - + 40-60 watts for your system (or somewhere in that range, and you're at 300+ watts. Think of this build as a 300 watt space heater. If you are mining in your bedroom, it will get warm. At one point I was mining with a couple of Fury X cards in my primary gaming PC (2017), and it was enough heat to make my home theater basement room uncomfortably warm. (just two cards) -- granted those were pulling about 300 watts each. So figure it was a 650 watt space heater running 24/7 in my case. But my basement HT room is pretty large. 18' x23' ish. 300 watts running continuously will likely be a little noticeable on your folks electric bill - so you should probably have that discussion too. You can figure out your KW/H charge for electricity and use a calculator like on the nicehash profitability calc to determine how much electricity will cost for the month, and then maybe just sell enough crypto to pay that amount to your folks each month -- if they care.
 
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Don't forget to calculate electricity cost and heat. The card's heat output for running 24/7 is significantly higher than just a couple hour gaming session. A/C in the summer costs about an additional 1/3 of the electricity cost the card pulls (as a generally quoted rule of thumb). Two 130 watt cards = 260watts, (mining) - + 40-60 watts for your system (or somewhere in that range, and you're at 300+ watts. Think of this build as a 300 watt space heater. If you are mining in your bedroom, it will get warm. At one point I was mining with a couple of Fury X cards in my primary gaming PC (2017), and it was enough heat to make my home theater basement room uncomfortably warm. (just two cards) -- granted those were pulling about 300 watts each. So figure it was a 650 watt space heater running 24/7 in my case. But my basement HT room is pretty large. 18' x23' ish. 300 watts running continuously will likely be a little noticeable on your folks electric bill - so you should probably have that discussion too. You can figure out your KW/H charge for electricity and use a calculator like on the nicehash profitability calc to determine how much electricity will cost for the month, and then maybe just sell enough crypto to pay that amount to your folks each month -- if they care.
With electricity my profit is still 6.50€+ daily and about heat my room gets sun all day so i'll try some diy crazy stuff to cool it or put it on another spare room that is coldest room in the house and thats the max i can do without buying a cooler to have it on side of the case.
 
With electricity my profit is still 6.50€+ daily and about heat my room gets sun all day so i'll try some diy crazy stuff to cool it or put it on another spare room that is coldest room in the house and thats the max i can do without buying a cooler to have it on side of the case.
Damn it sold out and they have only 1660s and i dont wanna pay around 1000€ to them because i think its not gonna be profitable after summer.
 
No.

Take the money you would of spent on a rig / power and just buy coins on an exchange.

You can not assume you will break even in a year, mining difficult goes up, your rig becomes less and less useful.
This I did mining early. But at the end i realized if would have spent that 10k on coins I would have been much richer rofl! This year after learning my lesson from 2016-2017 I just bought cons with 3k in march-april and threw another 1k this year on some DEFI coins and about to throw another 1k at it. So far its grown to 21k lol. No bills no nothing. Yea if its your gaming rig you already have and wanna mine with it all power to you. But its just easier to buy and buy more when the dip comes and just hold. I guess if you are going big and depends on where you are at it might make sense but I wouldn't spend too much on it. its good on the side though if you have a gaming PC and want to make some profit on the side.
 
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This I did mining early. But at the end i realized if would have spent that 10k on coins I would have been much richer rofl! This year after learning my lesson from 2016-2017 I just bought cons with 3k in march-april and threw another 1k this year on some DEFI coins and about to throw another 1k at it. So far its grown to 21k lol. No bills no nothing. Yea if its your gaming rig you already have and wanna mine with it all power to you. But its just easier to buy and buy more when the dip comes and just hold. I guess if you are going big and depends on where you are at it might make sense but I wouldn't spend too much on it. its good on the side though if you have a gaming PC and want to make some profit on the side.
I'm gonna try to get a pc until monday and it that doesnt work i'll wait for a dip and buy coins.
 
By the questions he’s asking here, he doesn’t. And the advice you guys are giving here is generally foolish. (At least from a timeline perspective). If he buys $1000 USD in Crypto right now at a bit of a historic peak, does it go up or down from here? (For the next 2-3 years?). Don’t buy at peaks. Buy low sell high.
If you look at the 2019 peak, someone trying to time a better time to buy at a lower price could have easily missed it.

If he buys $1000 USD in crypto now has a 20 year's old (and $1000 next year and after that $250 every month for the rest of is life), when the crypto value become relevant (if it ever does) in 2062 for him calculating if he can retire, the movement is maybe not that important, at least for buying at the stock market simply buying the 1 of every month as soon has you the money to do so versus buying at the lowest point of every year is not that different at the end.

Timing is hard and possible to simply miss it.
 
If you look at the 2019 peak, someone trying to time a better time to buy at a lower price could have easily missed it.

If he buys $1000 USD in crypto now has a 20 year's old (and $1000 next year and after that $250 every month for the rest of is life), when the crypto value become relevant (if it ever does) in 2062 for him calculating if he can retire, the movement is maybe not that important, at least for buying at the stock market simply buying the 1 of every month as soon has you the money to do so versus buying at the lowest point of every year is not that different at the end.

Timing is hard and possible to simply miss it.
Thats the highest risk for me because its only 1 opportunity. Where i live wages are 250-300€ for now so if i buy coins 1000€ god knows when i'll be able to buy again and if btc value decreases over time it means i threw 1000€ to garbage.
 
Got my 3090 in October, I've mined $525 worth of btc in that time. Actual profit is 2/3 of that. It's winter so it offsets the heating cost.
 
Thats the highest risk for me because its only 1 opportunity. Where i live wages are 250-300€ for now so if i buy coins 1000€ god knows when i'll be able to buy again and if btc value decreases over time it means i threw 1000€ to garbage.
But if it goes up then you made money... it is all about what you want? Short term day trading, or long term almost guaranteed gains the way BTC has been...If you always think you will lose money cause it will go down, then dont ever invest.
 
But if it goes up then you made money... it is all about what you want? Short term day trading, or long term almost guaranteed gains the way BTC has been...If you always think you will lose money cause it will go down, then dont ever invest.
I want long term gains, like i said i'll try to buy pc if that doesnt work need to figure out if i go all in to btc or btc and other coins.
 
70% BTC , followed by ETH then followed by ALT coins. Find some good people to follow on twitter, not the hype machines who claim every coins is TO THE MOOON! having no idea about supply and market cap. Like people who think XRP will hit $100 this year.....which means a larger market cap than BTC, by ALOT!
 
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