Cloud mining services remain an interesting topic as the Bitcoin price makes up its mind on whether to move horizontally or vertically. Several cloud mining providers have halted their services for the time being, while others are fighting tooth and nail to remain (somewhat) profitable. Cointellect on the other hand, does not seem to be too affected by the Bitcoin price changes, although they are battling different issues of their own.
Note from the author : I am a paying Cointellect customer myself. The review of this service does not condone the services provided by Cointellect, as we are not telling you to “invest and get rich”. These are my personal experiences from using their service, and should not influence your decision making at any point.
Cointellect : A Brief Introduction
Ever since the inception of Cointellect in 2014, a lot has been said and stated regarding the company and how they operate. There is a huge camp of happy customers who have no issues whatsoever, and there is an equally sized camp of customers who are complaining about payment issues and not getting the mining software to work. None of that has influenced my decision to become a Cointellect customer though.
Cointellect has a simple mission : making cloud mining easy and profitable for all of their customers, regardless of their technological expertise in regards to cryptocurrency mining. In order to do so, Cointellect brings two different options to the table : mine yourself with their custom created software, or buy one of their mining contracts. Both of these topics will be covered in-depth in a few minutes.
The team behind Cointellect, according to their website, comprises of experienced industry professionals with extensive backgrounds in computer science, network security and finance. Three very important factors when it comes to creating and managing a successful (cryptocurrency cloud mining) business. None of their team member’s profiles are made public on the website, but more on that in a bit.
Regular payouts can make or break a successful digital currency cloud mining operation. If users are not paid on time, they will complain, which creates bad publicity for your company. Cointellect is struggling in that regard, but I personally do not see a reason to panic yet. I will explain why later on.
How I Became a Paying Cointellect Customer
In October of 2014, both Serge and myself attended Belgium’s first Bitcoin conference, called BC2B. One of the exhibitors at that conference was Cointellect, which was a new name to me at that moment. I did like their banners though, as it seemed to revolve around Dogecoin mining. I made a mental note to check out their website soon and see what they had to offer.
However, I did not become a paying customer until a few weeks ago, after going through a stack of business cards collected while attending various Bitcoin conferences in 2014. After opening up the website, and reading up on some of the feedback posted on BitcoinTalk (which is far from positive), I decided to purchase a Demo Contract, which was only 14.95 EURO. After all, never spend more money than you afford to lose, and I can spare 15 EURO just fine.
A Cointellect Demo Contracts lets you mine with 5MH/s of Scrypt mining hashpower for 10 days. During each day, Cointellect guarantees you will earn 1.64 EUR (or more), which is quite profitable considering the minimal amount of hashpower. The bottom line : you would make about 1.5 euro profit on your investment, which is roughly 10%. Not bad at all, and for me it was well worth the risk.
Once I made my purchase (during which you have a time limit of 2 hours to send over the amount in Bitcoin to the address provided and get at least 1 confirmation on it), my 5 MH/s was put to work immediately, and the earnings started accumulating in my statistics page. Nothing to set up, everything is done for you automatically. The easy way to mine cryptocurrency indeed.
This process continued over the course of 10 days, and at the end of each day my earnings were 1.64EUR or slightly above that, depending on the pool’s “luck”. My contract was purchased in the afternoon of January 15th, so the earnings were lower for that day. That also explains why on January 25th, I have little over half a day’s worth of mining left as a final payout. Very tidy so far, and I’m really enjoying this service.
When you look at the provided screenshot, you will notice there are two days of “mining earnings” as well. These earnings came from running the custom Cointellect mining software a few times, and even though I did get a “connection error”, I did manage to earn a little bit of cash. We will get to the mining software in just a bit though.
Different Types of Cointellect Contracts
Even though I purchased the Cointellect demo Contract to give the service a try, I have purchased a brand new contract about a week ago : Pilot Contract. Cointellect offers several “tiers” of contracts, each with increasing hashpower, increasing price and also increasing contract payouts, as you can see in the table below.
Cointellect’s Pilot Contract is vastly more expensive compared to the Demo Contract, but it also pays out a lot more money. Even though 300 EUR might not seem like a major investment to some of our readers, not all of us have a massive cash flow when it comes to reviewing services for our audience. Plus, I did not want to ask Cointellect to give me a free contract just so I could review the service, as I do not want nor expect special treatment.
So far, my contract has been paying out the amount exactly as planned, except for January 26th when I made my purchase, due to me purchasing it early in the morning. However, all other payments are spot on, at slightly over 5.50 EUR per day. A pretty nice passive income if you ask me, as my contract will ROI in just two months, and I will keep earning profits for 4 months after that.
Establishing a Presence at Bitcoin Conferences
You might be wondering why I upgraded my contract all of a sudden, as I never even withdrew my earnings from the Demo Contract. During the Bitcoin Expo 2015 in London, Cointellect had an exhibitor booth on the show floor, and I decided to ask their representative some question in regards to their current payout structure. You can read more on that interview in this article.
The answers I received were professional and to the point, which put my mind at ease. However, the trick that did it for me was the fact that you could actually meet these people in person, talk to them about Cointellect, and even have a drink with them at the bar after the day’s events. Putting your faith in a faceless company is one thing, but once you get to meet some of the people behind it, the story becomes quite different.
There is something about meeting up with people in person that instills some sort of trust. And the Cointellect people are all very friendly, open, professional, and they can even reassure a skeptic like myself, which is not an easy thing to do. I’m not saying Cointellect does not have its own issues to sort out, but after talking with them in person, I felt confident enough to trust them with my 300 EUR in Bitcoin for a new mining contract.
Cointellect’s Issues : Payouts & The Mining Software
Speaking of ongoing issues with Cointellect, there are two main elements that will come up in nearly every discussion : getting a payout, and getting their custom mining software to work. However, don’t be mistaken in thinking either of these issues mean Cointellect is not paying or helping out their customers at, they are just nagging growing pains which take time to sort out.
Cointellect Payouts
While my Demo Contract was happily mining away, there were three available withdrawal methods for Cointellect customers : Paypal , Dogecoin and CryptoPay. As I am not a fan of Paypal, nor do I own an account there, that payout option is none of my concerns. Cointellelt has put certain Paypal payout limits in place however, as a withdrawal has to be for the minimum amount of 100 EUR, and can not exceed 1,500 EUR. Paypal tends to flag accounts with a ton of “micro-transactions” , so that seems like a smart decision in my opinion.
The Dogecoin payout option is always available to anyone, but due to the volume of “small” payouts being requested, Cointellect has put a 20% commission fee on any withdrawal for the time being. Minimum withdrawal for a DOGE payout is 0.1 EUR, and the maximum is 100 EUR.
Last but not least, there is the option to get your payout from CryptoPay, a third party payment processor. Unfortunately, that option is only available to customers who own a contract of the “Basic” type and higher. A simple explanation is in order here as well : Cointellect has a weekly payout limit of 100,000 EUR when using CryptoPay, thus it is “reserved” for their “bigger clients” at this point in time. Plans are set in motion to work around this issue in the near future, as referenced to in the interview we did a few days ago.
Needless to say, a lot of people are requesting tiny payouts on a daily basis, and the payout queues get longer and longer every day. Customers are very impatient to withdraw their earnings, and Cointellect advises users to only make “bigger” withdrawals compared to these micro transactions. The team is working through the queue as fast as possible though.
Cointellect Mining Software
The Cointellect custom mining software is compatible with most major graphics cards, and require no set up or tweaking by the user themselves. Simply install the software, enter your activation key obtained from your Cointellect dashboard, and let it run. A very simple process, and it does all the work for you.
Unfortunately, every now and then users will receive a “cannot connect to pool” error message, which happened to me several times as well. However, in their latest version, everything seems to be running a lot smoother, but I only let it run for a few minutes, so your experience may be different.
The one issue I have with the Cointellect custom mining software is the reported hashrate from solo mining. According to the statistics, I mine at 64.37 kilohash with a Radeon 7970 and mining load at 85%. To me, it looks like the software is only CPU mining, even though my GPU temperatures are at the usual “mining level”. Then again, I’m not planning to mine with my computer, so it doesn’t affect me too much. The software does need some work though.
Cointellect’s Affiliate Program
In order to attract more customers, Cointellect offers their customers a chance to refer friends and earn a bonus once they either start solo mining or purchase a mining contract. You will earn 10% of your referred friend’s earnings or expenses on top of your other earnings. For example, I have 1 referral, who has earned me 0.2095 EUR so far by just solo mining.
Many people will see the affiliate program as another layer of a “ponzi scheme”. More users signing up means more money flowing in, and with the payouts queueing up each and every day, it may appear as if very little money is coming out. From what we have been told by their representatives, money is flowing out as fast as it comes in, but little withdrawal amounts only lengthen the queue for other people as well.
Conclusion
At this point in time, Cointellect has some issues to work out in regards to the mining software, and more importantly, their payout system. Given the fact this company has over 70,000 paying customers, you have to take into account their business is overwhelmed with success, and they are doing everything they can to please their customers.
Personally, I have not experienced any issues with my mining contracts so far, as everything seems to be in order. Then again, I have not yet attempted to withdraw any of my earnings, as I am saving up my balance to purchase an additional contract. Whether this is a wise decision or not, only time will tell. But I have confidence in Cointellect right now,
The pressing questions is : “is Cointellect a scam or not”? My answer to that question would be ” no, it isn’t”. Granted, they have some shortcomings, but that is to expected from a brand new cloud mining company.
Website (non-referral) : https://cointellect.com
Digiconomist’s Cointellect Assessment : http://digiconomist.net/fraud-risk-assessment-cointellect
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