In 2017, mining seemed to be of interest to every second user who learned about cryptocurrencies. Now, at the time of a protracted correction in the price of cryptocurrencies, this type of earnings has become much more difficult.

Choose equipment for mining

First of all, starting to select equipment for mining, you need to pay close attention to the manufacturer. Among the many brands on the market there are several brands that have already proven themselves: in the class of ACIS — Bitmain and Bitfury.

However, you should be prepared for the fact that the equipment supplied is not always fully operational.

No mining income will be able to recoup the money spent on the marriage, so it is recommended to take this fact into account and evaluate the economic effect of the activity at the end of the full cycle, and not to consider it as an investment in equipment.

On the market of video cards also happen "punctures". For example, previously were popular graphics card series 470/480, but at some point under the names of well-known brands began to sell products frankly low quality. Therefore, in addition to the brand, it is important to take into account other factors: if you want to "squeeze" the maximum performance from the equipment, then you should consider its maximum characteristics when overclocking. This information can not be found on the manufacturer's website, but it is easily accessible on the forums of overclockers and miners. Remember that overclocking always shortens the life of the card and you need to do it wisely — it's a separate and long conversation.

Pay attention not to the price of the product, but to its performance: many "green" cards (Nvidia) for mining most currencies are unreasonably expensive, the exception is Zcash.

It is important to take into account not the hashrate (the unit by which the computing power of the equipment for the production of cryptocurrency is measured), but the conditions of your planned operation. It happens that the average card and not the most powerful ASIC-and when used correctly in the medium term give more income than their "older brothers" who use what is called the full.

Pros and cons of cloud mining

It is difficult to talk about any advantages, as cloud mining to make completely transparent so no one could. In addition, cloud mining is always a simplification, and the crypto — currency market and simplification is a completely broken link. To be more precise, in the cloud mining you will not be able to accurately determine the overall performance or the number of working machines or other indicators at the same time.

There is an opinion that there is no cloud mining in the global sense. The only effective approach to solving this problem is the inspection of equipment by the investor on the spot, but this solution requires a lot of time and money costs, which means it is not so profitable and popular.

Mining at home

There are at least three possibilities for home mining:

GPU-mining.
CPU-mining, and file storage.
Mining without mining.

Buy a farm worth $ 3000 and above, consisting of five (or more) graphics cards and a normal set of PCs, and start mining your favorite cryptocurrency. The disadvantage of this type of cryptocurrency mining is obvious — the high cost. In plus write the ability to mine the most profitable coins and buy any other. It is possible to distribute the extracted funds in the following way: 25% — to leave in the already mined cryptocurrency (for example, in ETH, BTC, ZEC, ETC), 25% — to withdraw in Fiat currencies (it is better not in rubles), 25% to invest in the purchase of new equipment, and from the remaining 25% to form a cryptocurrency portfolio by investing them in ICO and other coins.

Today, it is not very popular, but there are still coins that can be experimented with to understand the structure and essence of mining. It does not need a large investment in equipment, any modern personal computer and current graphics card. Minus this type of mining in its non-profit, and plus-in the rapid entry and training.

To unpromising types of earnings can also be attributed to the lease of disk space: if you do not have free access to tens and hundreds of terabytes, then you will not be able to make a profit. You will certainly learn a new kind of mining, but it is not recommended to do it on SSD-drives. Now the most common is the story of Storj, on the way — Filecoin.

Mining without mining

Finally mining without mining. This is the purchase of masternodes, fully synchronized with the blockchain wallets that are connected to the network. Their function is to serve the network: starting from the transactions and ending with additional services, such as providing complete anonymity of transactions, etc., depending on the technology of individual masters. This type of cryptocurrency mining will require you to make a one-time investment to buy equipment, instead of the cost of expensive and difficult to operate "iron", as in the case of ASIC.

Differences in mining on standard and special equipment

Home mining does not require a special room with ventilation and maintain a certain level of cleanliness, sound insulation and other conditions necessary for the mining hosting "in industrial conditions", although fans and mosquito nets have not been canceled.

It involves small problems that can be addressed in various forums. The industrial approach requires the calculation of equipment failure at a certain stage, the involvement of experts not only to repair the equipment, but also to protect the premises. In addition, in the second case, you will need a sensible administrator, who you trust, because it is about big money.

Finally, home mining is entirely your responsibility, whereas industrial mining requires differentiation of responsibility and much more accurate approaches to its definition. ASIC-mining is always more risky, as the risks associated with its purchase and operation of specialized equipment, it is difficult to predict and calculate.

Why farm out graphics cards still relevant

Because cryptocurrencies are our future. For example, our coin rating looks like this:

Zcash for. The most interesting of the three most secure anonymous amount of cryptocoins. In its favor says a good community and a great team of developers. This coin is easily mined, as it does not require complex equipment (ASIC) and is one of the few that can be mined without failures on "green" video cards. It has a decent reputation, unlike the coins used in Darknet. In addition, Zcash is a good alternative to ETH mining: it happened in today's market because of the profitability and popularity of these coins.
ETC. In fact, this is the same Ethereum, with the same features, but cheaper, and most importantly, actively supported by miners.
Do not forget about the mining of the near future. Today, supercomputers began to appear on the market to analyze a large amount of homogeneous information. For example, SONM and Golem are products that have not yet been perfected, but are already working. Research (foldingcoin) and other — all this has not been canceled. Generally speaking, the mining of the future is not a meaningless work on sorting out hashes, but payment for various useful actions, for which the end user does not receive money in the classical economy: from running (HealthCoin, Bitwalking), to storing data.

To sum up, the idea is simple: PoW is not dying yet, he is looking for new forms that will develop over time in the most unexpected guises, which we are not even aware of yet.

About models ASIC

In our work we use Bitmine, Bitfury, Ibelink equipment. All models have pros and cons, I can not say that I found a universal solution. It seems to me that when choosing a miner, it is more important to consider the following factors:

Any new product (miner) always includes the risks of possible defects, fraud in power and service life.
Very often the equipment is sold at a high price (e.g. Bitfury), in terms of tanahashi is quite acceptable and economically viable.
With the release of the new miner, it is important to take into account the growth of complexity and evaluate it through the prism of the entire network, not your personal dreams and needs.

Prices for different models of miners, first of all, are formed depending on their hashrate. Then from the power: with the same hashrate and different power always wins a more economical option (electricity consumption in a number of regions can be not 5-10%, and 20-25%, and will have a significant impact on the cost of the project).

Beginners are advised to choose the classic: model ASIC S9. But remember, no one in the world, even the manufacturer, will not guarantee that this model in the coming months, or right after the article, will pay off in dollars (in bitcoins — just not).

Choose a place for ASIC

Miner will take up some space: model S9 has a very modest dimensions: length — 350 mm width — 135 mm height — 158 mm. it is more important to consider sound and temperature characteristics of the equipment. ASIC is very loud and if it works without fan cooling then such operation can lead to problems. There are solutions, but they always need to be tested in practice and sometimes it is non-standard approaches that ruin the equipment in in inept hands.

The room can serve as a free floor in a private house, garage or industrial premises — it all depends on the capacity and capabilities. Of course, industrial premises — the best option: first, the output power of the transformer is distributed correctly and stably due to the wiring and the original capabilities; secondly, the room can be converted virtually anything: say, put asiki and video cards under the canopy, providing in a particular space the desired level of purity, temperature, purge, and so on, and thus create a modular solution for scaling; third, there are no those who are all hindered — the inhabitants of the house, neighbors and so on.

And yet it is for advanced, beginners, I would advise to start small — mine at home.

We consider profitability and payback of the equipment

Usually, ASIC miners are difficult to recoup in bitcoins. Where more profitable-just buy crypto-coins and wait for the medium-term prospects of their development.

If we talk about dollars, rubles and other Fiat, the payback can be different: it all depends on at least three factors: the complexity of the network, the purchase price of equipment and the actual produced hashrate. But there are other nuances: the dependence on what pool is used, what are the operating conditions, how diversified the hired package and so on. In our work, we take into account about a dozen factors, including: the percentage of equipment failure, downtime, electricity cost, exchange conditions and so on.

At the moment, the machine S9 in the day gives indicators in the range from 7.5 to 10 dollars. With an average price of $ 3000 (at the moment) and a yield of $ 10 per day, the payback is easy to calculate: 300 days, that is less than a year. Do not forget that in addition, you will pay for kilowatts of electricity and Commission costs, spend your own time on setting up and repairing equipment.

Among the miners a nine-month return on investment is considered tolerant, semi-annual — normal, and three months is good. The rest is within the limits of the allowed opportunities and errors. I had a period when the miner paid off in the cache for a month: lucky.

What can be extracted Ethereum

On anything: on the GeForce 570/580 series, green series 1080 and other cards. Not suitable except that ASIC. The choice of equipment depends on how much money you have in stock and what you plan to get in the end: a workhorse that will generate income, or a herd of high-class horses, the power of which is able to give a more significant result.

Remember the times when computer game lovers competed in iron? Someone bought heavy-duty equipment and fought for the realism of the drawing, while others chose a good product and played at high, but not maximum settings. This is a matter of taste-no more.

Combine GPU into farms

Our recommended set consists of the following elements: Linux platform and good six-slot boards. I would also advise using a server power supply (for smooth operation) and "red" graphics cards (as more universal). You will need a good riser (their quality can vary from series to series) and, very importantly, a good stabilizer to regulate the jumps of network electricity.

Everything else is a standard set for PC: motherboard, RAM, processor, hard drive. However, it would be nice to add a thoughtful external ventilation system with outlets and air flow (preferably without overtaking, with natural mode). Without ventilation, you will not ensure the normal operation of the equipment, especially at maximum values. Another factor debugged operating — clean.

About the disadvantages of ASIC and GPU

The lack of ASIC miners in their narrow specialization, and the disadvantage of the GPU-in a lower yield. ASIC, in my opinion, is more suitable for those who decided to invest seriously in mining, while GPU is the choice of industrial miners. The great flexibility of the system requires the GPU user to carefully consider the moment of switching, the choice of coins for mining (including dual) and so on.

About ready-made solutions for bitcoin mining

Any existing solutions in the market of cryptocurrencies is the unwillingness to learn or simplificate. There is nothing good in this, because if a person does not try and do, he will not be able to earn anything. Mining business in its pure form; you need to know which coin is more profitable now, which model of equipment is more advantageous (it does not have to be expensive), which pool is more interesting and so on.

Included and forgot-this is the slogan of consumers, miners - creators, though not at the highest, but strong base level.

How to choose the right equipment for mining