Cryptocurrency Mining Methods

Once upon a time, a gaming PC was enough for a good income from mining. 

Every year the complexity of block mining is growing, and now for a good plus of 20-30 thousand rubles, you have to buy additional equipment specifically for mining. 

Collect rigs (sets of devices connected to the network) and farms (sets of rigs). In the last article, we learned how cryptocurrency mining works. Today we will look at various ways to mine cryptocurrencies at the choice of a server.

Solo mining 

Cryptocurrency mining began with this method. When the difficulty was not so great, PCs or small rigs acted as solo miners. The first 50 bitcoins were mined in solo mining. Now very large players with their data centers are entering solo mining, capable of coping with the complexity of the block alone. Of course, the entire block reward in the form of cryptocurrency assets goes directly to the miner. However, it should be borne in mind that the probability of finding a block is far from 100%, and the farm can run idle for periods.

Distinctive features

– high entry threshold (huge capacities are needed, for example, for an Ethereum coin – from 3000 m / h for the probability of solving one block per month)

– huge power consumption, for example, video cards with a hash rate of 100 m / h and consumption of 250W, to achieve power, you need 30 pieces – 7500W (+ other equipment for operating the operating system) multiplied by the cost of electricity in your city.

– the highest income of all presented methods

Solo mining is not easy, but with the right approach, it is rewarded in full. Of course, preliminary preparations and market analysis, along with the cost of energy, play a key role in locating a farm for solo mining. In solo mining, there are high risks of working without exhaust, but it all depends on the size of the farm. 

Mining pools

The most popular way to mine cryptocurrency. Appeared at a time when the block difficulty became too high for solo miners on small farms. Participants share the complexity of the block by connecting to special servers. The income from the blockchain is divided in proportion to the work of the miner. The method is used in almost all cryptocurrencies that support the PoW algorithm.

Distinctive features

– The entry threshold is low, one video card with more than 6 GB of memory is enough (we recommend taking cards with video memory 1.5 times higher than the mining difficulty), at the time of writing the DAG file size has passed the 5 GB mark. However, there are other cryptocurrencies with DAG file complexity of both 3 GB (ETC) and 2.5 (Ergo).

– relatively low power consumption

-possibility to get a good income without having a whole building with farms.

-if the power is located at home, then you can forget about the heaters.

In the case of pool mining, we recommend that you thoroughly study the cryptocurrency market. Choose the best equipment option, and calculate all possible costs, incl. mining equipment resources. It may be that the cost of electricity will be higher than the income of the farm. 

cloud mining

The easiest way to both enter the mining and donate your money. This method does not involve the use of its capacities. The user purchases a subscription to a certain number of service capacities, receiving income from them. However, the landlord, represented by the company, withholds a commission, and the income may not always be worthwhile. Among the services offering cloud mining technology, there are:

-HashShiny

-ECOS

-IQ Mining

-BeMine

-CryptoUniverse

-LetMeCloud

-Genesis Mining

-Hashing24

Distinctive features

– No need for equipment with all the costs

– Lots of scammers

– Usually low income

Before starting, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the terms of the resource, take your time with investments, and analyze the services by rating. There are a lot of fraudulent resources in the field of cloud mining.

If you have an unlimited budget and have the opportunity to invest a sufficient amount for mining, then the path is open for you to solo mining. If there are not so many funds, and there is free space at home, pools will do. And if you don’t want to once again understand the technical part, just by investing money, cloud mining is open for you.