One of the best jobs of this decade...
Cryptocurrency mining is an ever changing landscape. As the popularity of Bitcoin has grown over the years, so has the interest in mining operations. It all started off with CPU mining (ie. your computer processor), then people figured out that graphic cards are actually better at hashing and so GPU mining took over. At that point you could have run a very successful Bitcoin mining operation from your bedroom.
Later on, a new generation of mining equipment came out in the form of ASICs, a specialized, powerful chip designed for one thing: getting those Bitcoins! The actual manufacturers of the equipment figured out that they can get a slice of the pie and so they began building big farms of those specialised mining rigs.
Running own Bitcoin mining operation today is probably going to lose you money. If anything, you should consider purchasing a pool in a specialised cloud mining operation. This can be very profitable, as you will earn actual bitcoins and an investment of around $3,500 can yield around 1 -1.5 Bitcoins a year. With today’s price of Bitcoin ($6,497) the math is simple. These pools come at a scarce supply and you will be lucky to get one. Lots of people have also got scammed by fake ‘Cloud Mining Companies’ and have lost their money. Therefore, you want to ensure you join a trusted company that has a good, verifiable track record.
GPU Mining
This year we can see that the interest is back to GPU mining. GPU stock shelves are empty and there are long back order lists. This is nothing to do with a release of the new Call of Duty…well, maybe a little bit, but certainly it is not the main reason. Why is GPU mining popular again? This year has been phenomenal across the whole crypto space. Lots of coins have gone from dollars to literally hundreds of dollars. Think Etherum, Dash, Zcash. With the majority of hashing power aimed at the mighty Bitcoin, all of these other rising stars are a great opportunity for GPU mining.
I see mining as a long term investment. The crypto market is only going one way and it has a long way to go. Very long… see my post about crypto potential. It would be really sensible to position yourself in this space and start a steady return to your investments over the years to come. I have outlined some options below. Hopefully, this will show that there are some good alternatives.
Home Mining
You can find lots of resources online on setting up your own GPU operation at home. You will need to get hold of a decent GPU first, then work out the technical details and organise your setup to run your mining operation 24/7. There are a few great websites that will help you calculate the most profitable currency to mine and the estimated daily return (https://www.coinwarz.com/calculators). I think that’s a great thing to do if you’re really passionate and have the technical skill. Sadly I’m not one of those people so I’ve found other options that are a bit more manageable.
An example of home GPU home mining
Mining in cloud
As with Bitcoin, you can get a stake in the GPU mining pool that will take the hassle of managing the whole infrastructure yourself. The advantage of taking a stake in a pool is that you will leave the logistics for the experts whilst you will enjoy clean profits. Surely, you will earn less than if you have done it yourself but you have to decide whether dedicating your life to mining at home is something you really want to do.
Another advantage of participating in a pool is that it is likely to support several major coins. As we know, when the mining difficulty increases, it leaves miners with less profit. Being able to instantly switch GPU power to another currency with less difficulty is a good alternative. This is where the real benefit is. As we observed the events of last weekend (ie. Bitcoin Cash attack), the miners are really simple creatures. They go where the profit is. It’s much easier for a miner to re-direct their hashing power to another crypto, than it is for you to sell that falling coin…I’m just sayin…
What about profitability? It isn’t easy to give accurate numbers when it comes to mining, due to the fluctuating factors such as network difficulty or the price of the coin itself. The mining pool that I reference below yields about 40% profits each year, over the duration of the pool lifetime. This is on an average day… If you’re at the right place at the right time, this can be much more. Also, re-investing your earnings make it compound very quickly and will see you multiplying the number of GPUs with no additional investment. This is something that you should explore in more depth. I will soon write a post about the power of compounding.
BitClubNetwork
If you’re curious about exploring the subject of cloud mining I can recommend BitClubNetwork who are one of the biggest cloud mining companies in the world. They have been operating since 2014 and are transparent to their users by publicly disclosing the data on company performance (unlike some of the pools that hide this information from their users, for instance AntPool). You can see a full history of mined Bitcoin blocks on blockchain.info. According to this data, just in the last 24hours BitClubNetwork has successfully mined 3 blocks, which is equal to 37.5 Bitcoins. If we extrapolate it to one month, it will give $1,125 Bitcoins or $7,309,125 at today’s price. This is just Bitcoin mining, excluding GPU.
BitClubNetwork offers a variety of pools, including both Bitcoin and GPU. GPU pools cover major currencies such as Etherum, Etherum Classic, ZCash and Monero and are dynamically managed by the user. There are 2 size options, either a $1,000 or $5,000, both running for a total of 2000 days. Your mining earnings are paid out daily and can be withdrawn or re-invested to build bigger mining shares. I will cover Bitcoin pools in another post.
BitClubNetwork utilizes the affiliate marketing development model, which can be considered contentious by people who had previous negative experiences with other business that also run this model. Hopefully you can understand the massive benefits of affiliate marketing, some of which are an evergreen growth with next to none marketing expenses. The company does not make anyone to build their network, it’s purely down to you and your preference.
You can find out more about BitClubNetwork directly from the source by opening a free account by following the link below.
Please note, there is a one off membership fee of $99, should you wish to be able to purchase the mining pools.
This will enable you to read through the FAQ section for in depth information. Feel free to leave comments below if you’d like any more information.
Thanks for staying with me this long! I hope you enjoyed this read and that it has given you a bit of a setting around the current mining landscape and the available options. Let me know any comments or questions below. Have a great day!