I've been wanting to try running a masternode for a while and finally pulled the trigger and fired one up today. Overall the process went smoothly and now I just sit back and wait for the coins to roll in.
I didn't want to put much stake in since I don't really know what I'm doing quite yet, so I went and found a cheaper cost masternode through MasterNodes.Pro. I ended up trying out Condominium a coin that allegedly merges blockchain and travel. I'll be honest, I didn't do much research and went solely off start up costs and current return rates. According to MasterNodes.Pro Condominium currently has a 890% annual ROI and a buy in cost of $445. I figured I could divert some funds away from my trading bot and try out the masternode.
I'm using a VPS which I got through Vultr and I was quite impressed with how easy setting the serve up was. A few clicks and I had a Ubuntu server running that I can connect to from my laptop. Server will cost me $5 a month so as long as the masternode can earn me that much profit, I will keep it running.
After that I had to input a bunch of commands in the ubuntu terminal, which were laid out simply in a guide from the Condominium website. I did make a few small errors during this portion of the setup but they were easily corrected. I think the whole process took me less than an hour.
My guess is that the whole masternode will have diminishing returns but I should be able to leave it alone for some passive income. If this works out I will definitely be trying out some more masternodes. Right now the masternode is projected to earn me $10/day and I think the majority of the effort is done on my part. I've made a spread sheet to keep track of my earnings and I'm excited to see if masternodes are a profitable endeavour.