My Experience with a Leo Mega Miner and Mining Tokens

Leo is a Steem-Engine-based token on the Steem blockchain. Like some of the more prominent Steem tokens it has miner tokens available. For those not familiar, miner tokens on the Steem blockchain are based on a proof-of-stake system. You buy a miner token and then stake it. Then, every hour, a certain number of random winners are drawn and if your account is one of the ones that’s drawn, you get a part of the prize pool. The more tokens you have staked, the more chances you have of winning, including being able to win multiple times from one drawing.

Many of the mineable Steem tokens have two varieties available: A regular miner, and a mega miner. A regular miner gives you one chance per drawing while a mega miner gives you four chances per drawing. Four regular miners and one mega miner give you the same chances of winning, but you often save a little bit by buying one mega miner instead of buying four individual miners.

So then the question becomes, is it worth it to buy any miners, especially the more expensive mega miners.

Leo is a reasonably popular token on the Steem blockchain. At the time of this writing one Leo token is worth about $0.03, a regular Leo miner costs about $0.49, and a Leo mega miner costs about $1.47. Considering the relative popularity and decent value of Leo, a little over a week ago I decided to experiment by buying a Lego mega miner.

So far, in over a week, with my one Leo mega miner representing four chances to win every hour, I haven’t earned a single thing from it. I imagine if someone was going to invest a substantial amount of money in miner tokens they may win enough times to where eventually the miner would pay for itself, but if you’re only buying a few miners, or even a mega miner, it doesn’t seem to be worth the expense.

I think the idea of mining tokens in general is interesting. You don’t waste electricity and resources calculating hashes that don’t really do anything and you don’t even have to run a node for the network. You just buy the tokens and stake them. This is an idea that can be further polished and built upon. But as for now the payout looks to be so small that investing in such tokens may not be worth it.

If you have any experience with mining tokens on the Steem blockchain please do share your experience in the comments below, especially if you’ve been able to have some success with them.