When people think of Cryptocurrency mining, they immediately think of big server farms in remote locations churning away hundreds of thousands of bitcoins or other altcoins. Although that is true, in reality, cryptocurrency mining is a lot simpler, so simple that even my grandma can get started. That might be a slight exaggeration but you get the gist.

All you need is a powerful gaming PC with a graphics card having 4 to 8 GB of video memory. The high memory requirement is not a pre-requisite, but it helps if you have more of it.

So here’s a noob’s guide to mining cryptocurrency.

Every one of us knows the buzzwords like Cryptocurrency, mining, bitcoin etc., but what do they actually mean. Understanding them is crucial, so we don’t mess up in our process.

In Cryptocurrency mining, a person lends out the GPU power of their PC online to solve algorithms, equations etc. Their PC is used to validate certain metric, and upon success, They’re rewarded with cryptocurrencies that they can use to exchange for real-world money.

That’s the simplest explanation of what crypto mining is. You give your PC to the cloud for some work and get rewarded in crypto coins. That’s the entire process of cryptocurrency mining.

The difficulty, time-taken and resources required for online mining depend upon the cryptocurrency. For example, it is relatively easier to mine Ethereum as compared to Bitcoin.

There are several different types of cryptocurrencies, but today we will be looking at the second most popular one – Ethereum – and how to mine it.

Ethereum mining is on the rise. Mainly because of the jump in the price of Ether and the rise in popularity of NFT or Non-Fungible Tokens that use Ethereum blockchain for transactions.

If you always wondered about “how To Mine Ethereum” or about “how difficult it must be to mine Ethereum?” then don’t worry, You’re not alone. Before writing this article, I had no idea either. But I learned a ton about Ethereum mining in a span of few days.

Here’s what you need to mine Ethereum cryptocurrency:

Assuming you have the first two things, here’s what you need to do to get your Ethereum wallet.

You’ve successfully created your Metamask account, but to make your online wallet completely safe, Metamask will give you your unique phrase. I’d advise you to take a photo of it, write it down and save it offline in a Pendrive because it will help you backup and restore your account in the future.

After you’ve done all three things mentioned above, the Metamask will ask you to enter your secret phrase in the next step by selecting them in an orderly fashion.

Enter the phrase, and your sign up process for Metamask online wallet is complete. With the wallet, you’ll have your address which you can use to store Ethereum coins. Metamask also allows for currency swap, meaning if you’ve Ethereum, you can exchange it for other cryptocurrencies as well. You can keep your wallet address public and store it anywhere you like because it is how you accept payment from the outside world. Think of it as the QR code which shopkeepers use.

To mine Ethereum, you’ll need a mining software. The easiest one to use is “Lolminer.” You can install it from this Github link. I recommend that you install “Lolminer” only from Github. Mainly because Windows OS and Google chrome consider mining software as malicious. Downloading them from an official link is always the best choice.

Download the Zip file, and if Google Chrome tries to block it manually, force it to download. Once done, go into the folder where the Zip file is present. Extract the contents of the zip file outside in any folder you like. I like to keep it on the desktop for easier access.

After extraction, you’ll see a bunch of pre-configured batch files. Usually, these files have an extension, but if it is not visible, don’t worry. You only need to consider yourself with the file “mine_eth.”

Now we need to find a “mine pool,” a place where different groups of cryptocurrency miners use their computational resources to mine crypto. Simply put, we are now searching for a place to mine Ethereum.

Head on over to Ethermine and click on the start mining option. Here is where you’ll find a place to mine. The window will display different servers in Asia, Europe, US East and West. You’ll need to copy the URL of the region where you live.

We will take this URL and modify a pre-configured batch file within the mining software. Don’t worry, it sounds scary, but it isn’t.

Refer to the images above for an easier explanation.

Wait for at least half an hour, then copy your Metamask wallet address and paste it on the Ethermine website in the “Miner Address” option to check on your mining progress.

Now you can sit back and relax while your PC works hard to make money. But hold on, mining cryptocurrency is only half the battle. You’ll have to withdraw it and exchange it with fiat currency like US dollar or Indian Rupees.

On the Ethermine website, you can choose when you wish to receive a payout of the cryptocurrency. You’ll need to follow these steps –

Here, enter your e-mail address, payment threshold and your unique IP address. You can find out your current IP address by Googling, “How to find my IP address and following the instructions given.”

In my case, the minimum threshold limit was 0.1 Ether, so I set that as my payment threshold. Whenever the miner reaches 0.1 Ether, it gets deposited in my Metamask wallet.

After that, I can use many services like Crypto.com, Binance, Coinbase to exchange my coins into fiat currencies. These platforms usually have an exchange fee, so compare them to find out the right one for you.

That’s all you need to know about mining Cryptocurrency. Do hit us up on our social media channel, and let us know if you’ve any questions.

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Bitcoin mining started as a lucrative activity for early investors, who might gain up to 50 bitcoin per ten minutes by mining from the comfort of their own homes. If you successfully mined only one Blockchain block and kept it since 2010, you’d have $450,000 bitcoins in your wallet by 2020.

First and foremost, there are several variables in Bitcoin mining. This is why investing in bitcoin in an exchange would be a more straightforward way to win. However, if performed correctly, mining will result in more bitcoin than merely holding. Suppose you, like other people, pay in dollars for the mining equipment and power. In that case, you’ll need to gain enough cryptocurrency from mining to offset your continuing expenses and pay back your upfront outlay in the machine.

The price of bitcoin, for example, has an impact on all miners. Cheap power, low-cost and practical machinery, and a decent mining pool, on the other hand, are three variables that divide productive miners from the rest. Read more with crypto superstar.

Electricity At A Low Cost:

Electricity prices differ from one region to the next. To stimulate economic development, many countries charge a lower price for commercial energy. This implies that a mining farm throughout Russia would cost half the price of a mining farm in the United States for the same amount of energy. As you’ll see in the graph, it’s a different matter in countries like Germany. In terms of application. If your energy costs $0.045 per kWh and you live in China, Russia, or Kazakhstan, running an  M20S for a month would cost you about $110. According to the table below, at such energy rates, you will earn $45 a week in May 2020.

Cost-Effective Hardware:

I’ve used the M20S as an indicator of the kind of computer you’ll need to mine bitcoin so far in this essay. There are many hardware vendors to pick from these days. The cost of hardware differs by producer and is primarily determined by how efficient the computer is in terms of power consumption compared to the amount of processing power it generates. The less oil you use, the cheaper your food payments would’ve been.

A Dependable Mining Pool:

Any miner these days must use a mining pool to mine. The web of Bitcoin mining devices is so big that your odds of consistently locating a block (and winning the block bonus and transaction fees) are very slim if you are mining in one computer or many thousand.

Selling Bitcoin Has Fees:

The payments paid to sell the Bitcoin mined are a frequently overlooked aspect of mining profitability. You may have to offer your coins on a retail exchange, including Kraken or Bitcoin cash, if you are a small-time miner. Your payments can be minimal at times, but they may even be heavy at other periods; it all depends mostly on the exchange’s pricing schedule and the buying pressure’s current condition.

Amateurs Vs. Professionals:

It’s undeniable that getting access to the best computers and the lowest power prices has become extremely challenging for individual miners. Bitcoin miners that run on a large scale take advantage of these benefits to increase their profits. It is becoming more impossible for small mines to profit as the complexity of mining bitcoin rises and the price falls behind.

How Can Bitcoin Miners Figure Out How Much Money They’ve Made?

You’ve already encountered disturbing tales of how much electricity Bitcoin mining uses. If the media exaggerates the effect, the reality remains that the total expense of mining is electricity. To be sustainable, mining sales must exceed such prices and the understanding of the mechanism in mining machinery.

Revenues From Mining:

In 2020, one current Bitcoin mining system (also known as an ASIC), such as the Whats miner M20S, can produce approximately $8 in Bitcoin revenues per day. When you equate this to the revenue generated from mining a particular cryptocurrency, such as Blockchain technology, which is done using graphics cards, you can see that Bitcoin mining generates twice as much revenue as mining the same number of GPUs where one ASIC might generate. Eleven Urge RX graphics cards are about the same price as a single Whats miner M20s.

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Bitcoin mining is the process of participating in Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (POW) consensus mechanism to discover new blocks and help with transaction validation. The combined efforts of all the Bitcoin miners is responsible for the integrity of the blockchain, and ensures that transactions remain essentially irreversible. 

Each time a new block is discovered, the miner receives a reward, known as the Bitcoin block reward. Following the 2020 halving, this is currently set at 6.25 BTC per block, but most miners generally receive much less due to working together as part of a mining pool. 

Rather than buying or trading Bitcoin, many individuals choose to simply mine their own, since it often costs less to mine Bitcoin than it does to buy it on the open market. As a result, mining and selling Bitcoin can be a profitable business endeavor, under the right conditions. 

Here’s how to get involved.

If you’re looking to get involved in Bitcoin mining, then you’re going to need to get to grips with a few things first. 

First and foremost, you will need a Bitcoin wallet. The exact type of wallet you use doesn’t really matter, so long as it’s secure. This will be used to receive your mining proceeds, which, depending on your mining setup, could be substantial. Hardware wallets are widely considered to be the gold standard in security, but they’re more cumbersome to use. Many miners instead use software wallets like Electrum, due to their convenience. 

Next up, you’re going to need your mining hardware. We’ll cover this in greater depth in the next section, but this is the machine you will use to actually participate in the Bitcoin mining process. In general, the more powerful your machine (in terms of hash rate), the greater your rewards—but there are other considerations too (more on this later). 

Lastly, there’s the mining software. This is software that you run on your computer which tells your mining hardware how to perform, such as which mining algorithm it should work on, when it should operate, and which Bitcoin address mining rewards should be sent to. This can affect your mining yields, so it’s wise to choose carefully. 

When Bitcoin mining first began in 2009, the difficulty was so low that low-power devices could participate in the mining process using their CPU resources. At the time, even individual miners using their regular computer could discover blocks—earning 50 BTC apiece by doing so. 

However, as the popularity of Bitcoin mining grew, miners began looking for ways to get an edge on the competition—and thus GPU mining was born. In 2010, people began hooking up large GPU arrays to mine Bitcoin—which, according to mining consultancy firm Navier, yields a six-times efficiency improvement over CPU mining. 

But the era of GPU mining was short-lived. In 2011, it was found that a specialized type of hardware known as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) could be designed to mine Bitcoin with even greater efficiency. This type of hardware ran the Bitcoin mining roost until 2013, when it was usurped by application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners—which still dominate to this day. 

Nowadays, unless you plan to mine Bitcoin from a supercomputer with tens of thousands of CPU or GPU cores, you are unlikely to be competitive, and almost certainly won’t be profitable with BTC mining. You will almost certainly need an ASIC miner, unless your acquisition and electricity costs are negligible.

As of writing, Bitmain’s AntMiner S19 Pro, S19, and T19 are arguably the most efficient Bitcoin miners available—but getting hold of stock is challenging. 

Though Bitcoin mining profitability has improved in recent months—largely due to Bitcoin’s rapidly increasing market value, the amount of money you can earn can vary considerably based on several parameters. 

The most important of these is your hardware. More powerful hardware can crunch the calculations required to discover Bitcoin blocks much faster—thereby earning you more rewards. But it’s also generally more expensive. 

The next most important consideration is your electricity costs. Cheap, reliable electricity can help to maximize your mining yield, since electricity costs will be your primary expense. Moreover, you will need to factor in your maintenance costs, such as cooling, modifications, installation costs etc., and if you use a pool, consider how the pool fee will affect your yield. 

Find out more about the profitability of Bitcoin mining. 

Before you get your Bitcoin mining hardware up and running, you are going to need to choose the mining software for your computer. This is used to control which mining algorithm you want to work with, which pool you will use, and acts as the hub for controlling your miner. 

Though these all offer the same basic utility, they can vary considerably in both their efficiency and the additional features they offer. Moreover, choosing the right mining software can impact the efficiency of your Bitcoin mining operation, so it’s often a good idea to try out a few before committing long-term. 

When selecting your mining software, these are some of the basic considerations you will want to make:

Oftentimes, Bitcoin mining software can be downloaded and used free of charge. However, you will often find that these software programs offer additional features for a fee (or donation), while those that are the simplest to use and setup come at a cost.  

Find out more about the best Bitcoin mining software available in 2020. 

A Bitcoin mining pool is a coordinated group of Bitcoin miners that work together to improve their odds of successfully mining BTC. The combined efforts of a large number of Bitcoin miners ensures that they are able to discover more blocks than when working alone and hence generate a more stable income.

While it is possible to mine Bitcoin solo, doing so is unlikely to ever yield any rewards—unless you are packaging some serious hardware. Instead, with Bitcoin mining pools, everybody aligns their mining power to the same purpose for the common good of the pool.

When mining Bitcoin as part of a pool, you will share in the rewards generated by that mining pool in proportion to your fraction of the hash rate controlled by the pool. As such, if you contribute 1% of the hash rate, you will get 1% of the rewards—regardless of which miner in the pool actually discovers the blocks.  

Choosing which pool works best for you will mostly come down to personal preference. But in general, the larger the pool the more consistent your income will be. On top of this, you may want to consider pools based on their task assignment mechanism, minimum payout threshold, fee schedule, and transparency, among other parameters. 

“A good pool must have a good reputation, technology and know-how. Additionally, it is important you consider pools that are attempting to help the ecosystem grow. A pool that wants the best for bitcoin is a pool you should always go for,” Alejandro De La Torre, VP at Poolin, told Decrypt.

Although most Bitcoin miners tend to set up their own hardware and work together with a mining pool, it’s not the only way to get involved. 

Cloud mining is rapidly gaining popularity as a simpler alternative. Cloud mining providers are online platforms that allow you to rent computing power used for cryptocurrency mining. This allows you to get started with Bitcoin mining with essentially zero barriers to entry. You simply create an account, choose a mining plan, make your payment, and earn your Bitcoin—completely eliminating the efforts and costs involved in purchasing your own hardware and setting it up. 

These platforms either pool mining power from their users, or have their own massive mining operations—leveraging the economies of scale to offer mining power to users at near cost rates. But though these platforms are cheaper to start with, there is no guarantee that they are profitable, and they often require lengthy contracts to get the best rates. 

When choosing a cloud mining provider, it’s important to read into the specifics of your contract and use one of the numerous Bitcoin mining profitability calculators to estimate if your plan will be profitable over its lifetime. 

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

Ethereum mining can be a wonderful way to understand what cryptocurrency is all about as well as gaining integral technical knowledge while earning a consistent profit. 

Ethereum by design depends on proof of work, aka mining. This means that individual users completely provide computing power in order to validate blocks as well as transactions. When this happens, Ethereum (ETH) is earned during the process. 

While Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to introduce mining, it has become increasingly difficult to earn money from bitcoin mining. It is for this reason that Ethereum mining became a captivating alternative for cryptocurrency users, especially for the computer components used in mainstream computing.

However, before you learn how to mine Ethereum, you have to consider the requirements, profits, and of course the costs.

At this moment, Ethereum utilises a mining algorithm known as Ethash. When broken down to its basics, it just means that Ethereum is slightly ASIC- resistant. ASIC-resistant is the term given to a cryptocurrency’s property that is immune to ASIC mining. ASICs, simply are integrated circuits which have been designed to have a unique use case such as performing a computing task. In the cryptocurrency world, ASIC devices have been created to be used to mine cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Bitcoin and more.

ASICs that we’re specifically built for Ethereum mining wouldn’t be able to perform better than a general-purpose but high-end GPU. This also means that ASICS created solely for Bitcoin mining are unable to efficiently mine Ethereum. 

It is possible that the algorithm controlling Ethereum’s mining might change later in the future. Developers have been considering introducing ProgPOW which has the ability to provide Ethereum ASICs with less of a lead on GPUs. It does not matter if you intend to mine using an ASIC or a GPU, you will first have to buy a device before you can begin. 

The most efficient mining devices tend to have an extremely high hash rate, which is signified by MH/s. This means that they can solve calculations faster causing them to earn more Ethereum. Energy efficiency, which is highlighted by W is also another important factor, given that power bills can reduce the profit made. 

When it comes to profitability, the top-performing mining devices were able to make a daily revenue of about $5 to $9. When you take into account the costs accrued by energy usage, the profits for those same devices become anything from $3 to $6. That being said, it is imperative to note that revenue and profits attained are subject to the fluctuating prices of both electricity and Ethereum. 

While higher hash rates can provide increased revenue, it is still crucial to consider things such as electricity efficiency, depreciation and upfront costs. It is surprising to some to know that it could take years to recoup the upfront capital of any device be it an ASIC or a GPU. 

A major disadvantage is that ASICS quickly becomes obsolete. It is even possible for an ASIC to become useless if developers choose to change the mining protocol associated with Ethereum. Even if this is not the case and an intentional change is not made, manufacturers of ASIC tend to have trouble publishing updated firmware.

Compared to ASICs, GPUs will always have a resale value thanks to the fact that they can be useful for system performance and gaming in general. That being said, continuous mining could result in the GPUs wearing out, especially if they do not get adequate cooling and proper maintenance. That being said, they are still a lot easier to resell compared to ASICs because they have other use cases besides cryptocurrency mining.

Ethereum can be mined using previous generation, low end or even integrated GPUS. Nevertheless, the profit margin for that setup is bound to be quite small. Moreover, electric costs could cause your ethminer rig to lose you more money than you make overall. This is why you have to know what your electricity expenses are going to be before you start.

The mining protocol associated with Ethereum as well as its network has been gradually changing. These changes have of course affected revenue and profits made. Fortunately, it does appear that the total hash rate of Ethereum has declined for over 2 years. In layman terms, this simply means that ethermine is not as competitive as it used to be and the ethash is affected

An inverse of that is the fact that mining rewards have dropped as well. Ethereum, in February ‘19, had a hard fork which saw block rewards reduced to 2 ETH from 3 ETH. This has made mining less lucrative in overall terms and that decrease appears to continue. Additionally, it does appear that a difficulty bomb designed to make mining each block more difficult is set to be detonated soon. However, this process has stalled in various updates, so being an ethminer is not at risk yet.

These two significant changes have been made in order to determine, forging the way ahead for staking. The second iteration of Ethereum is said to introduce staking, however, this has also been continuously delayed and is unlikely to take the place of mining at this moment. This simply means that Ethereum mining is said to be viable for a little longer.

Learning how to mine Ethereum, you discover that an individual mining by themselves is unlikely to unearth a block, which then means that individual miners have to join a mining pool. Deciding mine by yourself means that you will have to wait months, years even before you can get a payout.

As an ethminer, you join a mining pool, you will have to pay fees and share your profits with miners in the pool. While this could lower the financial rewards you get slightly, you are still able to earn rewards regularly to help offset the reduction.

Some of the largest mining pools are Nanopool, F2pool, Ethermine, and Sparkpool.

Every pool has its own set of fees, payment thresholds, and payout models. Generally, the fees expected, amount to about 1%, with the cashing out threshold held about 0.1 ETH. Nevertheless, despite the restrictions, it is definitely a boon to have an increase in consistent earnings.

In order to join a mining pool, you have to install the mining software, configuring it to your chosen mining pool’s instructions. 

Rather than buying your very own GPU or ASIC, it is actually possible to ethermine by renting Ethereum hash power directly from a remote provider. You could also choose to discover the free Ethereum mining offered by cloud mining. A few notable names that provide the free and paid services are Minergate, NiceHash, CCG Mining, IQ Mining, and Genesis Mining.

There is quite a lot of appeal to be had with cloud ethermine. For one, you do not have to set up or maintain any hardware, worry about electricity costs or even consider the number of hours in a day you have to spend mining in order to turn a profit. All you have to do is purchase a contract.

That being said, cloud mining and the services that offer it aren’t as accountable or transparent as mining pools are. You will be required to pay upfront and this can be a risk, given that the cloud service might close its doors or incorrectly manage its funds. It could also be that the mining service might get attacked and then becomes unable to pay the clients.

While there are quite a lot of prominent cloud mining service detractors, they still are quite popular. Nevertheless, it can be nearly impossible to gain continuous revenue using cloud mining. The most effective way to make money via mining would always be to maintain an efficient rig, made with inexpensive hardware and reduced electricity costs.

While Ethereum is the most popular Ethash based coin, it is not the only one. It is actually possible to mine QuarkChain, Ethereum Classic, Ellaism, EtherGem, Expanse, Ubiq, EtherGem, Dubaicoin, Ether-1, Callisto, Metaverse, and EtherSocial. Mining these altcoins offer miners the opportunity to get even bigger profits.

This just shows that while there are quite a number Ethash based coins available to mine, Ethereum is still profitable out of all of them. 

When it comes to selecting the hardware you intend to mine with, you will have to experiment with quite a number of varying GPU selections. You should bear in mind that Nvidia cards are outperformed by AMD cars when it comes to cryptocurrency mining. Your selected card should come with a minimum of 3 Gigs of ram. Anything less will hamper its ability to effectively mine Ethereum. The minimum ram requirement is down to the increasingly large directed acyclic graph or DAG file utilised by Ethereum’s proof of Work hashing process. 

When it comes to the requirements of the operating system, you have to ensure that you use the latest iteration of Windows, which is Windows 10. Additionally, it has to be 64 bit. While there are numerous Linux distributions, Windows is still the most seamless operating system to set up and have running as quickly as possible. At this juncture, there isn’t a Macintosh version. Nevertheless, there are a couple of things you have to cover when creating your own mining rig

You will have to get a motherboard that comes with sufficient PCI-E slots in order to help support all the cards you intend to run. Should you utilise more than a single GPU, you will want to have a powered PCI-E riser that attends to every additional GPU. This is why it is important to double or even triple-check that the power supply unit or PSU comes with a sufficient number of connections that support the GPUs you intend on running. Additionally, you should also ensure that you have an overall wattage that cannot only support your entire system’s power draw but also leave you with a little buffer room.

This will involve you getting a low end or previous generation CPU that comes with 4 gigs of ram as a minimum. You also have to ensure that the RAM, CPU and motherboard chosen are all compatible.

It is also imperative that you remember to use a power button. Having a basic power button that can be connected to the motherboard’s headers enables you to switch the system off and on. You will require a standard mouse, monitor and keyboard.  

Should you decide to be an ethminer and create numerous rigs to boost your ethash, it is best to stick to one brand of PSU or power supply unit. This enables you to have additional cables that can be used on any of the other systems should a need arise. So long as your system can meet the prerequisites and comes with 1 3 gig ram GPU, you should be able to mine Ethereum. 

You might consider using a gaming laptop as your rig given that they tend to have high-end cards. However, this would be the wrong thing to do given that mining would generate considerable heat and that could impact other aspects of the laptop. For this reason, it is always best to use a desktop build.

Learning how to mine Ethereum and transforming yourself into an ethminer can be an extremely viable option as there are numerous advantages associated with it. They are:

That being said, there are a few disadvantages associated with ethermine. They are:

Nevertheless, choosing to ethermine can be a wonderful method to properly comprehend cryptocurrency, whilst gaining valuable technical knowhow. Should you learn how to mine Ethereum, you would be able to gain consistent profits.

Ethereum is a software platform based on blockchain which has a primary job of supporting the cryptocurrency with the globe’s second-largest market capitalisation. Just like with other cryptocurrencies, Ethereum is used to receive and send value anywhere in the world without having a third party step in or watching unexpectedly. 

The way Ethereum is used today is as a value exchange. This can also be said for its native token, the ether. However, there are quite a number of reasons why developers are choosing to work on this cryptocurrency. For one, it has a long term potential, one that the most ambitious developers share of using Ethereum to provide users greater control over their online data and finances.

Just as with the most popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin and others, Ethereum transactions require “proof of work” to be confirmed. Proof of work in this sense means that a third party needs to ethash or hash out algorithms that occur during a transaction. The moment the proof of work is accepted, the process is then completed. This type of mining transforms you into an etherminer as you have to create new Ethereum chains while the transaction is occurring. This basically means that once the transaction goes through, you get paid in Ethereum.

You might wonder if that’s all there is to learn on how to mine Ethereum, well there is something else you have to know. Every time the blockchain processes a transaction, the links in the chain become longer. This simply means that it takes a bit more work to have the transaction processed. This additional work is translated into an increase in computational power right before the transaction of every ethermine situation. The computational power needed will increase after every transaction, that is why you might need to consider other methods of free Ethereum mining.

If you are interested in free Ethereum mining, you would be happy to know that unlike Bitcoin mining which has a centralisation encouraging algorithm, Ethereum’s algorithm actually encouraged decentralisation, making it easy for just about anyone to become an etherminer using their hardware to ethermine.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t make much sense to ethermine using a laptop in today’s world. It is not only not profitable, but it is also not really worth the time. choosing to ethermine means that you will have to incur some significant start-up costs. For one, your hardware will have to be upgraded. This means getting a great GPU which will work at least 200 times quicker than the CPU in your system. It also has the added benefit of providing a much-improved output.

Software is also an integral aspect of free Ethereum mining. There are quite a lot of options to select from when it comes to becoming an etherminer like Ethermine, Minergate or Geth. These applications will have to be saved on your computer before you can ethermine.

If you are interested in becoming an etherminer but have no clue about GPUs, ethash or algorithms, then you might be interested in joining a mining pool. With an Ethereum mining pool, you can, as the word describes, pool your resources together which becomes a lot more valuable and profitable. The higher the number of people included in the pool, the larger the computational resource available to ethermine and potentially make some money. Choosing to be part of an Ethereum mining pool might lower your potential income in the short term, however, this method is comparatively better than trying to do it alone. There are countless Ethereum mining pools available online.

Since you cannot mine Ripple, the only option is to mine other Cryptocurrencies first and then look for exchanges that help you convert your BTC to XRP. In this way, you can lay your hands on XRP directly without having to pay for the Ripple mining process separately. Many people have already started buying XRP owing to its advanced structure and the gradual increase in its price.

Reports are claiming that there are more than a thousand virtual currencies in existence. While Bitcoin leads the pack, others are far behind but still very relevant; one of them is Ripple’s XRP. At present, Ripple is the seventh-largest crypto asset by market cap.

The current bullish run in the crypto market, which has seen the value of many virtual assets go through the roof, has increased interest in the assets.

Several people are wondering how they too can get into the market. Since crypto mining is a fundamental part of most cryptocurrencies, it is normal to look for ways to mine XRP too.

However, Ripple is unlike the other cryptocurrencies in this respect. It is impossible to mine XRP, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to scam you. Here, we examine Ripple XRP, why it can’t be mined and how you can own it.

Ripple is actually a technology company focused on developing online payment solutions. The history of Ripple started back in 2004 with Ripplepay, but it was in 2012 when its ownership changed that it actually started function in line with its goal.

XRP is a crypto asset designed by the company to facilitate financial transactions. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, Ripple XRP seeks to improve the traditional financial system through partnerships instead of providing a complete alternative to it.

This is most of the popularity of Ripple XRP, and its value is tied to its partnership with Banks within and outside the US. Ripple XRP is designed to serve as a bridge currency.

Many crypto enthusiasts have criticized XRP as not being a true crypto, and this is mainly due to its distinctive features. The most relevant one to this article is that it cannot be mined. The creators of the currency created 100 billion units.

Of these units, over 40 billion is currently in circulation. The Ripple company is the only one that can increase the amount in circulation. This means market conditions cannot determine how much of it is in circulation. Closely related to the fact that it can’t be mined is also the fact that it is centralized. The mere mention of cryptocurrency usually brings up images of a decentralized network. But that is not how it works with Ripple XRP.

It is based on the XRP Ledger (ripple consensus ledger) instead of a distributed ledger technology. This is like Blockchain but instead, it is controlled by the company. The centralization of XRP means the Ripple has full control over it. This is why many financial institutions embrace cryptocurrency.

XRP, which is Ripple digital currency, serves as a bridge currency for traditional institutions to use in facilitating cross-currency or cross border payments. It is faster and cheaper than the traditional means of doing this through SWIFT.

Thus, XRP is not merely a crypto token; it is a currency with a mission. The mission is not to supplant Fiat currency but to replace the SEPA and SWIFT systems that banks currently use for cross border payment.

XRP services financial and banking institutions, which are those that it is designed for. It eradicates the problems of high cost and slow transactions that these institutions experience with the current technologies for that purpose. By the nature of its design, it can integrate seamlessly with the traditional financial infrastructure.

Ripple created a digital network known as RippleNet. This network facilitates XRP transactions by incorporating the XRP Ledger. In line with the tradition of Ripple to make its technology as accessible as possible for traditional financial service providers, RippleNet has three services. They are: xRapid, xVia, and xCurrent. These three products serve different purposes that ensure that the Ripple network is truly capable of processing any kind of transaction.

A payment with xRapid follows the trajectory of a financial institution connecting directly to a digital assets exchange in both originating and destination corridors. The originating currency is exchanged into XRP which provides the necessary liquidity to power the final payment, and then in seconds that XRP is exchanged into the destination currency in the second digital asset exchange. 

Once this transaction takes place, the funds are sent out on the local rails of the destination country for payout. The transaction is tracked end-to-end, and the result is a cross-border payment that is much faster and cheaper than anything before it.

All members of RippleNet are also connected through Ripple’s standardized technology, the already mentioned xCurrent.

To enable cross-currency flows via xCurrent, banks can leverage their existing nostro/vostro relationships with other banks and provide liquidity through their FX trading desks, or use external market makers to provide FX liquidity for exotic currency corridors. 

This example will refer to that function as the liquidity provider, whether it is the bank’s FX organization or an external market maker. The settlement is an atomic process, meaning that both intra-bank settlement legs of the transaction happen at the same time so as to eliminate the settlement-leg risk.

xCurrent is typically installed on-premises behind the corporate firewall of a bank, with a load balancer handling inbound connections to Messenger and a proxy server handling inbound and outbound connections to all xCurrent components. Banks can deploy multiple instances of the xCurrent behind the load balancer to scale to the volume of payments. 

By joining Ripple’s growing, global network, financial institutions can process their customers’ payments anywhere in the world instantly, reliably and cost-effectively.

Banks and payment providers can use the digital asset XRP to further reduce their costs and access new markets.

xRapid and xCurrent are interoperable and made to be used together (Ripple plans on offering one convergence solution) while xVia is a gateway that provides access to RippleNet via a single standardized API. The API enables users to seamlessly send payments globally with transparency into the payment status and with rich information, like invoices, attached. 

The attached data to payments eradicates verification and reconciliation issues. xVia enables direct connectivity to receive correspondents and affords bi-directional messaging to confirm FX and fees, submit payout requests and verify payout completion. It requires funding in the local or payout currency.

The XRP token in these settings provides instant liquidity pools for facilitating fast and cheap payments. The first part of the transaction takes just 2-3 seconds and the conversion of XRP through digital asset exchanges and/or local payment processors, the entire transaction takes about 2 minutes in total.

The Financial Conduct Authority in the UK has also gone to categorize XRP as a utility/exchange token alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, its technical purpose and role in the system make it a class of a digital asset that is not recommended as a “regular” investment nor meant to serve a function outside its specific context. It is meant instead to keep money flowing freely (as information) and unhampered by high transaction costs and processing delays.

While many have criticized the lack of mining for Ripple, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Coins that require mining to increase their circulation poses an environmental problem.

Mining cryptocurrencies usually require high-level computers that consume a lot of energy. As the effects of climate change and its awareness continue, the energy efficiency of processes such as Bitcoin mining has been criticized too. Ripple offers a more energy-efficient, low cost, more liquid, and more stable alternative.

One may ask that if mining Ripple is impossible, then how is the amount of Ripple in circulation controlled? The answer to this lies in the Ripple escrow.

Less than half of the 100 billion Ripple units created are in circulation at present. A sizable portion is held directly by the bank, with many financial institutions and payment providers also holding large amounts. However, 55 billion Ripple, which is over half of these total supplies, has been kept in an escrow account.

According to the Ripple company, the decision to put these units in an escrow account is to prevent a situation where there will be excess XRP in the market which will affect those holding XRP negative.

55 escrow contracts were created, each holding 1 billion Ripple. The contracts are set to expire on the first day of each month for the next four and a half years. With each expiration, the Ripple company will have access to 1 billion XRP, which it can sell to institutional investors or use to reward market makers. Any leftover from the 1 billion Ripple supply for that month will be returned to escrow that will expire on the first day of the month after the current 55 contracts expire.

By this estimate, XRP supply in circulation could double in the next eighteen months. However, given that the company uses only around 300 million Ripple averagely in a month according to its reports, it might take between 14 to 18 years before all the 55 billion Ripple in the escrow account is spent.

Since Ripple mining is not possible, the simplest way to own it is to buy from a currency exchange platform. While it was not originally created to be an investment vehicle, the increase in its value over time has enabled it to become one.

At present, the Ripple price is around $0.4. The Ripple company sells part of its XRP holdings to cryptocurrency exchanges, and you can easily buy the asset from them.

However, it is worthy of note to mention that the Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and the company itself is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the SEC. The SEC claims XRP is unregistered security, while Ripple labs claim the coin is a cryptocurrency. The announcement of the lawsuit influenced the price, and the outcome will definitely do the same.

From everything above, it is clear that ripple cloud mining or any form of cryptocurrency mining is impossible for XRP. However, if you are insistent on getting your XRP token through mining, there is an indirect way of doing it. This is by mining other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc., and exchanging any of this digital currency for XRP on cryptocurrency exchange platforms.

Ripple XRP is more than just a digital coin; it is designed to improve the traditional banking system with the Ripple transaction protocol. Rather than supplanting it like other cryptocurrencies, the ripple protocol is built to integrate seamlessly with it. However, the only way you can own the Ripple coin is by buying it or exchanging another altcoin for it, so if anyone comes to you about mining XRP, that is a clear red flag.

You must have heard of Bitcoins and how they can change the fortune overnight. You must have also heard of the bitcoin online classes and so on.

Well, if not, this resolute dossier is for you only.

Before beginning, you must know what actually Bitcoin is?

Bitcoin is basically a digital currency that was created back in the year 2009. It is the world’s largest cryptocurrency that is known for its turbulence. The Bitcoin system as a whole is a collection of computers that are called nodes or miners. These are responsible for running bitcoin’s code and for storing its blockchain (transactional history).

If you are interested in buying cryptocurrency, you will easily find the platform to buy crypto , as there are a number of them available online. You can buy as many bitcoins as per your convenience keeping the total limit of 21 million in mind and among which 18 million are already in circulation.

What is Bitcoin Mining?

Bitcoin mining is all about the process of digitally adding transactional records to the blockchain. Blockchain is actually a publicly distributed ledger that holds the history of every bitcoin transaction that has taken place.

It is a process that involves keeping a record that is executed through immense computing power. The Bitcoin mines from around the world contribute to a decentralized peer-to-peer network. This is to ensure that the payment network is secure and trustworthy.

How Does Bitcoin Mining Work?

Blockchain is the key to bitcoin mining. It is basically an online decentralized ledger whose aim is to record transactions throughout the network. Actually, the block of approved or valid transactions is called a block. Now when these blocks are tied together they form a chain. Hence the name Blockchain.

Coming back to the Bitcoin network, a miner adds individual blocks to the blockchain by solving sophisticated mathematical problems. This process demands computational and electrical power. It is not like that a single miner is being involved in this process, many miners compete to add each block. But the miner that is able to solve the problem earns a chance to add the block along with an approved transaction. The miner also receives a reward for the same. This reward is 12.5 bitcoins.

Note: The reward does not remain the same throughout, it changes with time.

Moreover, once the block is added to the blockchain, you are free to spend the bitcoins that are associated with the transactions. You can also transfer them from one account to another account.

Conclusion: 

Bitcoin has gained huge importance within a short span of time. Since its introduction in the year 2009 Bitcoin, Crypto wallet, Bitcoin mining, and so on remains a topic of debate. You must be aware of what Bitcoin mining is all about after going through this resolute dossier. So if you are interested, it’s time to make a decision and start buying and selling bitcoin at your convenience. It will be fun.

Scientists from the University of Cambridge Judge Business School have built an interactive analysis tool to calculate the real energy cost of bitcoin cryptocurrency. Using their energy use model, the researchers found that bitcoin mining uses more energy each year than the entire country of Argentina.

That sounds like a wild stat, but energy use has always been a key part of bitcoin’s story. Let’s go back to the beginning and see how we got here.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which means it’s a shared, encrypted, publicly available form of money made by building links in a longer and longer blockchain code. Blockchain refers to the collective record (called a ledger) that stores cryptocurrency transactions, like a communal Excel spreadsheet.

This record is stored on volunteers’ computers, which run software that verifies transactions, checking to make sure that both parties agreed to the change and the buyer has enough currency to honor it. These volunteers are called miners, and the reward for volunteering their hardware is kickbacks in the form of more cryptocurrency.

If enough computers conclude that yes, this is a valid exchange, that verification joins the rest of the world’s recent transactions as a “block.” To prevent people from generating counterfeit currency, the math required to verify a transaction takes so much computing power that no one user or group could do it.

People “mine” bitcoin, then, by tasking computers to process complicated math, usually in the background on real users’ computers or even on dedicated machines. Miners use high-end graphics cards, or GPUs, because these pieces of hardware are already made to churn through computer math as quickly as possible and with a lot of calculations running at the same time. Like a highway with more lanes, this reduces congestion and travel time. It also heats up your PC, usually requiring high-end fans to match.

Lately, PC gamers have had trouble finding parts, like high-end Nvidia 3000 series and AMD 6800 series graphics cards, partly because cryptocurrency miners have snatched them up. That’s on top of a global microprocessor shortage.

The Cambridge team’s tool counts mining activity and cross-references users’ locations to make a heat map of energy use by all bitcoin miners.

According to the BBC, Cambridge’s tool has ranked Bitcoin’s electricity consumption above that of the entire country of Argentina (121 terrawatt hours [TWh]), the Netherlands (108.8 TWh) and the United Arab Emirates (113.20 TWh), and it’s gradually approaching Norway (122.20 TWh).

Because this model only considers bitcoin, however, that means the real energy cost of cryptocurrency overall is even higher. Bitcoin is just one example of an industry that includes dogecoin, marscoin, and so forth.

Now, China and the U.S. still tip the scales at well into the thousands of terawatt hours each year. But bitcoin algorithms are designed to be inefficient uses of energy with a lottery-like quality, critics say, meaning any amount of energy spent mining them is not worth its relative energy cost. Around the world, including in the U.S., about 40 percent of energy is still from coal power plants. “It’s very bad that all this energy is being literally wasted in a lottery,” blockchain expert David Gerard told the BBC.

Is it possible to make a more efficient bitcoin mining algorithm? That would go against the spirit of bitcoin mining, so it’s hard to imagine. The whole point of mining is that it is slow and that it does involve tons of computation. “Bitcoin is literally anti-efficient, [so] more efficient mining hardware won’t help—it’ll just be competing against other efficient mining hardware,” Gerard said. “This means that Bitcoin’s energy use, and hence its CO2 production, only spirals outwards.”

Why is that? Well, the Cambridge team explains that making mining a slow and arduous process is how bitcoin’s creators try to ensure the currency isn’t hijacked by malicious actors:

That means the inefficiency is part of what bitcoin must do to exist, and we must grapple with its environmental costs firsthand instead of thinking of some shortcut solution.

Additional reporting by Alexander George

In a previous blog, I shared you a piece of information that why GPU mining is not profitable in 2020. Still, a few of you wants to give it a try, for those this is a very special blog. In this blog, I will show you a few methods to mine a few cryptocurrencies that can be mined by your PC and also how to mine different cryptocurrencies and get paid in Bitcoin (satoshis).

Nicehash miner is one of the best crypto-miner in this list. If someone wants to mine Bitcoin. This miner will benchmark many algorithms and automatically chooses the best miner with the highest profitability. For example, if you have a good CPU it will mine Monero but if you have a good pc build with a graphic card installed in it will benchmark many algorithms such as KAWPOW, Lyra2REv3, ZHash, BeamV3, Cuckarooz29 etc and will choose the best profitable algorithm for your system out of these and pays you out in the form of Bitcoin. In short Nicehash miner buys and sell hashing power.

If somebody is interested in mining Monero (XMR) it also supports CPU and GPU mining. Back in days, it was also used to mine in mobile phones later major smartphone operating systems like Google, iOS banned mobile cryptocurrency mining apps from their stores. The reason was these apps reduces the life of the CPU and battery and overall performance of the device. Minergate is still functional for PC’s and laptops so if you want to mine cryptos like Monero you should give it a try.

Its a rebranded cryptocurrency from WebChain to MintMe at the time of writing this blog its price is at $0.00176854. The price of MintMe is very low as of now but it is easy to mine with CPU and if you own a website you can easily mine this crypto without using your own devices computing power. Coinimp is the website where you can mine MintMe simply just open your browser type coinimp.com create your account and start mining its that easy. website owners can download miner plugin for their WordPress website and then upload the plugin on the website activate it and you are all set for mining MintMe.

Bitcoin is a virtual or cryptocurrency which is extremely simple to send or receive. The transaction is as simple as sending or receiving messages. Like any other currency, bitcoin can be used to buy things, or booking etc. The major difference between any usual currency and bitcoin is that bitcoin is not under the control of the government. Satoshi Nakamoto, in 2009 started this concept and today many people are interested in bitcoin. Bitcoin is never midway, it will either give you a great loss or great return. This is because the value of bitcoin fluctuates extremely.

Bitcoin mining is not related to any physical work or on land practice. It is done over high-power computers that are potent in solving strenuous math problems. Such problems cannot be solved manually and thus requires computers. Also, anybody or anyone cannot solve them easily as it does not include some set of formulas or steps. The miner must have some experience in the field and a high-power computer.

The result of bitcoin mining comes with a great reward. When any such high computational mathematical problems are solved you produce a new bitcoin. On the other hand, miners make the bitcoin transaction trustworthy. This is how all miners ensure that all bitcoin payment networks are secured.

Since bitcoin or any transactions related to bitcoin does not come under the protocol of the government, there is a need to make the payment history for the future. To meet the demand all transactions are blocks. These blocks when put together they generate the history of payments; this process ultimately generates a blockchain. Nodes monitor the blocks or transaction for future verification.

Bitcoin exists virtually and there is a great possibility of copying the data and producing a duplicate bitcoin. Thus, there is a huge venture that a bitcoin owner makes several transactions using the same or original bitcoin. The verification of bitcoin is of extreme importance and hence place the role of the miners. Miners basically confirm that none of the bitcoin is on repeat. Since for the physical currency, there is a receipt and once you give them, they are physically gone but this is not the case with bitcoin. Bitcoin does not exist physically and there is no receipt for their use. So, during any transaction of bitcoin, miners guarantee that there is no duplicate or the second use of bitcoin by solving complex mathematical problems. As a result of which the transaction gets verified and miners get a bitcoin as an award.

Earning bitcoin via mining seems easy, but it includes effort and luck. Miner majorly to earn reward focuses on the two things. 

The math problem is what is used to define Bitcoin Mining, but it is not exactly a math problem. They are looking for a 64-digit number or a hexadecimal number which is also known as harsh. This includes guesswork and luck. If you can come at the correct 64 number as the first one compared to all other miners, then you will produce a bitcoin. 

There are some steps and requirements to complete Bitcoin mining. These are listed below:

Before going to purchase Bitcoin or making up the mind to do Bitcoin Mining it is important for you to understand the advantages and disadvantages of using Bitcoin. These advantages and disadvantages are listed below:

Bitcoin mining is a complicated concept. If you just want to invest in bitcoin, buy bitcoins. But if you want to really get into cryptocurrency, you can learn to mine bitcoins. It will give you extensive knowledge about cryptocurrency and enable you to become better in this subject. There is no guarantee that you will surely be able to mine bitcoin, but you can be assured to learn a lot about this technology by trying it. Also, even if you are successful in mining a bitcoin, you need to learn how you make the best use of it. You need to decide whether you should keep it safe until its value gets higher or sell it at the current market price.

Image(s): Shutterstock.com

When it comes to investing in Ethereum, mining is one of the more popular ways. It is the activity of dedicating computing resources toward the verification of transactions and generating new Ethereum blocks. It also entails contributing to the governance and security of the network.

This detailed guide will learn about the unique features of mining Ethereum and how different it is from mining Bitcoin. We’ll take you through things to consider before investing in Ethereum mining, such as hardware, software, and the mining community.

Ethereum is a decentralized autonomous blockchain network comprised of three parties:

The developers create the code and implement technical changes to the network. The miners help generate the new coins, confirm transactions and contribute to the governance of the blockchain. Users take advantage of the selling proposition of the network. In Ethereum’s case, it is a platform that hosts smart contracts.

Smart contracts are pieces of code that execute automatically when a specific set of conditions is met. They utilize Ethereum’s global computing network.

Ethereum also provides a decentralized digital currency called Ether (ETH) to facilitate value exchange within the network or cryptocurrency exchanges.

The three components of the Ethereum network are interdependent and have to work together in harmony all the time. If the developers stop contributing to the network, it will fail. The same case happens if miners stop mining or users abandon the community.

Cryptocurrency mining means dispensing computing resources towards solving complex math challenges. Since there are several miners in the network, the first one to solve the challenge is to create the next block and be rewarded with new ETH coins. This type of mining is referred to as Proof of Work (PoW).

Additionally, mining in the Ethereum network also means verifying and validating transactions. Every transaction performed has to be verified before it’s included in the blockchain. For this activity, miners are compensated with transaction fees.

Both individual users and smart contracts have to pay network fees to have their transactions included in the blockchain.

As described above, we can identify three types of rewards to Ethereum miners:

We’ve stated above that Ethereum uses the popular PoW consensus mechanism to facilitate block generation. This method has its pros and cons. However, according to the Ethereum core developers, it seems to have more cons than pros.

The biggest con is that it is not scalable in its current implementation. Ethereum is a Turing Complete blockchain that allows other decentralized applications (dApps) to run on its network. It needs to be fast to achieve this.

To solve this problem, the developers upgrade the network to Ethereum 2.0 that implements the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. PoS uses staking instead of the mining as a means to secure and scale the network.

There are two aspects of PoW mining that are essential to understand. These are:

The two factors are directly correlated to one another. The network difficulty trails the hash rate, as an increase (or decrease) in hash rate, causes a subsequent increase (or decrease) in the difficulty score.

Network difficulty is essential in regulating block generation time. Ethereum’s blocks are created every ~14 seconds, and whenever this number rises or falls, the difficulty automatically adjusts appropriately.

Bitcoin and Ethereum have many similarities. They are both public blockchains. They both have native cryptocurrencies used for value exchange, and they both use the Proof of Work consensus mechanism.

This is about the extent of similarity that the two networks share. They have a lot more differences than they do similarities. Here are some of them:

Bitcoin’s SHA-256 allows for the use of highly specialized equipment called ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuit chips). Ethereum, on the other hand, can be mined using GPUs (Graphical Processing Units). ASICs are much more powerful and expensive compared to GPUs.

Ethereum core developers are upgrading the network to Ethereum 2.0, which will mean the end of mining in favor of staking through the PoS consensus mechanism. In this mechanism, individuals or institutions interested in verifying Ethereum transactions will be required to stake Ether.

Additionally, an Ethereum block is significantly smaller than a Bitcoin block at roughly 45Kb and 1.0Mb, respectively.

The above points are not the only differences between Ethereum and Bitcoin mining. However, these are the main.

There are three ways to mine Ethereum (and any other cryptocurrency that supports a PoW consensus). They are:

Mining Ethereum solo is highly discouraged unless you are able to set up an industrial-grade mining operation. The hash rate required to mine a block on Ethereum has grown past the hobbyist level, and anyone trying to mine solo may have to do so for a very long time to see any returns.

However, not all pools are recommended. Here are the factors to consider when looking for a mining pool to join:

Try to find the largest Ethereum mining pool HERE with the least fees and the least reward distribution limit with servers closest to you.

PROS: Here’s why you might opt to invest in a cloud mining company:

CONS: The disadvantages of cloud mining include:

There are so many different wallets in the market today that will help you store your Ether. However, most are not ideal for a miner’s needs. Miners often hold their mined coins for medium to longer-term periods. The safety of these assets is paramount.

In this section, we will highlight the subtypes of cold wallets that are ideal for miners. If you need a more detailed look into the different wallets, check out our guide on ‘How to buy Ethereum Safely.’

A wallet is considered either hot or cold, depending on its connectivity to the internet. Hot wallets can be accessed remotely through the internet, making them less secure to store Ether for the medium to long term. Hot wallets include web, mobile and desktop wallets.

On the other hand, cold wallets are safer to use since they are inaccessible over the internet. They include hardware wallets such as Ledger Nano S and Trezor, paper and steel wallets like ColdTi, Billfodls, or SteelWallet.

Ethereum wallets can be either full or light nodes. Full node wallets are designed to download the entire Ethereum ledger onto the device in which they are installed. An example is Mist, the official Ethereum wallet.

Light node wallets do not store a full copy of the Ethereum ledger. Instead, they refer to other trusted full nodes. This makes them easier to download and operate. Most Ethereum wallets are light, including the Ledger Nano S and Trezor wallets we mentioned above. All mobile and web wallets are light nodes.

Choosing the right hardware for your Ethereum mining activities is essential. This is because the wrong hardware could mean the difference between being profitable and losing money.

When considering the perfect hardware for you, the most significant factors to consider will be price, availability, and performance. There are two major brands to choose from – AMD and Nvidia. Both of these are well known for their graphics cards which are popular with gamers.

AMD cards are generally cheaper but more versatile than Nvidia’s, meaning that they can mine several other cryptocurrencies. Nvidia cards, however, trumps AMD’s in terms of performance.

Better performance often means more energy consumption which increases mining costs and eats into your profits. To be profitable, a miner needs to strike the right balance amongst all these factors. To know which card best suits your situation, use a profitability calculator.

You can get profit estimates for almost any mining equipment online. If the specific card you are considering is relatively new with no prior metrics, you can use the calculator above from CryptoCompare. Just plug in the paper specifications from the manufacturer’s website and energy price in your region.

A profit calculator is essential in deciding which mining GPU to invest in based on your profitability targets.

Another significant consideration for mining hardware is the amount of VRAM that comes onboard the graphics card. Due to the Ethash mining algorithm used to mine Ether coins, there is a DAG (directed acyclic graph) file that has to be stored in every card. The DAG file is updated every 30,000 blocks, and its size is now just over 4Gbs. This means that every GPU under consideration has to have at least 6GBs of VRAM to mine Ether.

Most computer hardware components need companion software to communicate effectively with a computer’s other components. The software designed to perform this task is called a driver.

Each manufacturer creates a companion driver for its hardware. Both AMD and Nvidia have repositories for all versions of their hardware as well as target operating systems.

Visit the following support pages from either manufacturer to download the latest versions of drivers for your chosen hardware: AMD | Nvidia

Make sure to download the correct driver depending on your operating system and GPU card. 

We also highly recommend you watch these three videos about Ethereum mining to understand how everything really works.

Recommended video #1: How Much It Costs To Mine For Cryptocurrency?

Recommended video #2: How to Build a Mining Rig for Rookies on Windows in 2021?

Mining clients are different from drivers. While drivers help the graphics cards communicate effectively with the computer, the mining software (also called a client or miner) allows the computer to communicate with the Ethereum blockchain.

These are some of the mining clients to consider:

Claymore receives regular software updates and is one of the most optimized Ethereum miners. It is a popular option. Experiment with most of these choices and find the one that works best for your mining setup. Each software comes with detailed instructions on how to install and set up the computer for mining.

Note: Ensure that you download the correct miner from the official repository. Use the links provided above. Do not download any miner from a third-party vendor.

At the moment, mining Ethereum can be done on either Windows or Linux operating systems. Windows is the more popular option given its ease of use and appealing interface, but Linux gives users more advanced settings and greater control of their mining rigs. It’s best suited for advanced miners.

Now that you have everything in place – your wallet installed, hardware installed and configured, and the mining client installed – there is one last step to go.

Your operating system’s default settings may not be ideal for mining and therefore require some changes. These changes include:

For a more detailed guide on configuring your Windows 10 OS, check out this guide from MiningChamber.

The final step to mining Ethereum is joining a mining pool. Earlier, we mentioned that joining a mining pool is the best way to mine Ether. It is possible to mine ETH alone, but it is not likely you will succeed.

Revisit the section above on the “Ways of mining Ethereum” for some things to consider when choosing a mining pool to join.

Here are three popular mining pools (TH/s at the time of writing):

Each pool will have a specific setup guide and possibly a list of stratum servers you will need to connect. You can find this information on their websites.  Within these instructions, you will find other details, such as instructions for editing your miner files,

changing your mining address and the mining rig name.

All mining pools provide their users with a balance inquiry feature. For instance, with Ethermine, you can input your wallet address on the search bar on the top right-hand side to check how much ETH you have mined.

Additionally, if the coins have been sent to your wallet, you can use conventional blockchain explorers such as Etherscan.io to check your balance.

In the ongoing upgrade to Ethereum 2.0, the popular PoW consensus mechanism will become obsolete in favor of Proof of Stake (PoS). Ethereum’s core developers argue that PoS has several advantages over PoW. These include:

Ethereum 2.0 is rolling out in three phases – 0, 1, and 2. Phase 0 (called BeaconChain) launched in December 2020. Phases 0 and 1 will see both Eth1 and Eth2.0 run concurrently. It is only in Phase 2 that Eth1.0 will be fully deprecated and replaced by Ethereum 2.0.

Given Ethereum core developers’ history of implementing the Ethereum roadmap, it is hard to tell when the rest of the phases will launch. They are, however, proposed to roll out in 2021 and 2022 for phases 1 and 2, respectively.

This means that if you are mining Ether using GPU or considering it, you have until 2022 to mine Ether. Once Ethereum 2.0 launches, ETH miners will have to repurpose their gear towards mining other PoW coins or consider becoming stakers instead.

There you have it, your detailed guide to mining Ethereum. You have learned what it means to mine ETH, the various ways to do it, and what to consider before starting.

We also covered the mining setup from choosing the perfect Ethereum mining equipment, installing it, and configuring it correctly.

Finally, we highlighted the highly anticipated network upgrade to Ethereum 2.0, which uses PoS instead of PoW for transaction verification and validation.

You are now ready to start mining and staking Ethereum.