Bitcoin mining faces a piranha in this crazy multimonitor home office

Meet Christian, who hails from Quebec. He's a tech consultant, and we first featured his home office in September of 2017, highlighting his many screens and fish tank. 

Since then he's refreshed his setup, added even more screens, upgraded his PC, and, yes, started a bitcoin mining operation. Let's take a look.

This what the setup used to look like. It had "only" 10 screens in the room. He says he uses them to work on numerous projects.

This is the refreshed setup. Previously, he had seven screens around the desk. Now he has 10. Two more elsewhere in the room make an even dozen.

Previously, the center-channel surround speaker used to rest on the glass desk.

Now the speaker sits on top of his desktop PC. The case is taller but is also propped up by a wooden pallet.

Here's the new setup with the screens all showing the same Mercedes sports car.

This is his old PC. It's specs include an Intel Core i7-7700 CPU at 3.360GHz and 24GB RAM, running Windows 10 Pro.

The new PC is housed in a Core P5 Thermaltake box and has a new Maximus IX Formula motherboard. It has the same Intel Core i7-7700 CPU at 3.360GHz, 24GB RAM and runs Windows 10 Pro. 

The biggest improvement? Christian added nine GPUs for advanced Bitcoin mining.

Christian says he's engaged in real (physical) Bitcoin mining and also virtual cloud mining.

Physical: "I'm currently utilizing four Bitmain Antminer S9's (roughly $2,000 each). Its hash power measures roughly 13 to 14 TH per second, which is considerable.  It also only draws 1,300 watts of power, which is significantly less than a lot of the competition. Its all about efficiency."

The yield still isn't good. He estimates that each Bitmain Antminer S9 mines 0.0009804 BTC per day each for a total of 0.003916 from the four machines.

At this rate it takes forever to get a Bitcoin, he says, which is why he has been focusing heavily on cloud mining.

Six months ago Christian created an account on Minerfarm, which is a cloud mining real-life simulator. It allows utilization of smart strategies to maximize earnings, he says.

"Virtual mining provides real BTC exactly as my physical setup without the need to purchase expensive tech," he says.

He can utilize mined BTC or transfer some into the platform. This allows for the purchased addition of power supplies, coolers and even technicians to keep his virtual tech in good order.

He says he's invested roughly $6,000, including some reinvestment. Transaction costs and fees cost him roughly 30 percent. After costs at current Bitcoin values, his take-home mining return is 1 BTC every 45 days.

He says he has no problem transferring his Bitcoins out. There's a minimum threshold of 0.005 BTC.

"I've been converting the BTC into CDN or USD to pay for vacations and luxury items that I normally wouldn't use my regular take-home income on," he says.

OK, enough about Bitcoin. Let's talk about Christian's fish. On the left, you can see the edge of his fish tank.

Here's a better shot of the fish tank in the back of the room from his previous setup.

The aquarium is adjacent to the PC and screen -- the perfect completion to a tech room, Christian says.

And what a tech room it is. "Numerous screens allow me to see everything in real time around me," Christian says.

Most of the screens are connected via USB 3.0 video adapters.

The keyboard's keys are also backlit in red.

Christian says he's big into home automation and can control the majority of functions (lights, heating, doors, security IP cams, pool, etc) via his PC.

No, Christian doesn't think he's Zeke Hawkins from the 1993 film "Sliver" starring Billy Baldwin.

He does have some creative wiring however.

Back to the fish. Christian currently has a small shark, a couple of eels and a piranha in the tank. 

"I purposely only track down interesting fish," Christian says. "Surprisingly enough they complement each other. For the most part they maintain an uneasy peace and balance across the environment. Even the piranha."

He didn't specify the species of this fish, but I'm guessing it's Amazonian?

Christian admits the lighting effects don't have a real purpose. Some of his tech projects are "just plain cool to do!"

You get the idea...

Mr. Piranha says thanks for checking out Christian's Show Us Yours showcase.

If you want to see more showcases, we have plenty more to look at here.  And feel free to submit your photos for a chance to be featured on CNET.