Mostly no, the competition is too great. You can join a mining pool and share on what's mined. But even then it's iffy, if you can't access cheap energy.<p>The pot of gold is waiting for the person who can figure out the killer app for it but mining is mostly a big miner's domain now.<p>I know of a guy who mined 50 coins overnight while playing with the mining software on his machine about 10 years ago. It's now worth over $2.5 mil and he's not done. He's holding it until he retires. His big advantage is that he does not need the money and is not counting on it as a retirement fund so he can hold it thru all the dips without feeling like the world is coming to an end.