One of the most asked question in all of mining is “what should I mine?” This sounds very simple but is quite a loaded question.
Your equipment affects what you can mine. Some GPUs are better with certain algorithms or simply can’t do others. ASIC’s are generally tailored for one specific algorithm, for example. These factors will be unique for each individual. I use Nvidia 1070 GPUs which get a much better hashrate on the Equihash algorithm while many of the Radeon GPU’s excel on Ethash.
Then, you need to determine what your goals are in mining. Generally, there are a two main different philosophies on the topic: profit chasing and future coin value.
Profit chasing is quite simple. You aim to be mining the most profitable coin at any given time. Sites like What to Mine allow you to input your mining setup and tells you which coins are currently most profitable. It's simply a matter of taking your hashing rate and comparing it against the current mining difficulty and the current price. This strategy can be a bit time consuming and if you have multiple rigs with different GPUs, each can have different optimal coins to be mining at any given time.
You also have another issue of needing to constantly be trading your coins when profit chasing. And since not all coins are offered on every exchange, you end up having to swap between exchanges and often need several transactions until you end up with the coin you want, in the wallet you want.
The other philosophy is future coin value. This philosophy is quite simple: you find a coin you believe in and set your miners to mine the coin. The goal is to stockpile as many coins as possible in hopes that the price will increase in the future. This strategy is a bit of a gamble but if you’ve done your research, should result in significant profits further down the road. If you need the income provided by mining as soon as possible or are rather impatient, this strategy is probably not for you.
Personally, I like to use a strategy somewhere in the middle of these two. To a certain degree I chase profit, probably switching coins at least once a week but not daily. I then usually have another coin or pyramid scheme that I’m currently aiming to invest in. Right now I’m holding OmiseGo (which has not been great so far) and have invested in my favorite pyramid scheme, Bitconnect (which has been pretty good so far). I don’t have huge hashing power so I’ll probably never quite reach crypto-millionaire status but I quite enjoy attempting to keep on top on of the mining world and managing my mini portfolio that gets a little bit bigger each day.
Happy Mining!
Love,
bwar
I've always wanted to start mining, but dont know where to start.
I got started from watching some youtube videos and stumbling across the nvOC mining OS. I don't know how long it's going to take me to pay off everything I've bought but I quite enjoy it.
Ahhh, wat hardware u using? the specs?
I have 4 x GTX 1070's. The setup is pretty simple, motherboard, 4GB ram, crappy cpu and a 750W powersupply. I run the OS off a 32GB flash drive.
ahhh nice! That's some rig right there....
Sounds like fun - but a lot of time and effort, no?
Think I am more of a buy and hold and pray type!
Cheers
Great summary! I have an old mining rig that someone gave me that I've been using to mine Monero (XMR). I detailed the setup in a post last week.
The moral of the story is that it's difficult to get into mining without some expensive upfront costs, but it can be a fun way to earn a little bit of extra currency. Thanks for sharing!
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I didn't run myself in the ground with debt but I was a bit tempted to. I love the idea of making money by mining coins. Hopefully at some point next year I'll be able to buy one of those fancy ASIC miners.
I've never mined, outside of 'mining' STEEM. I like that Steemit does not require any hardware purchases like GPU's and such to 'mine' the crypto.
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STOPI have started cloud mining recently. Here is my experience: https://steemit.com/mining/@river-island/my-experience-with-cloud-mining-help-which-coins-to-invest-in
For the cost of cloud mining I'd much rather buy the equipment myself. I can have it right in my house without issue so cloud mining is not for me.