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How Can I Get Myself Into Crypto Mining?

How Can I Get Myself Into Crypto Mining?

How Can I Get Myself Into Crypto Mining?

This question originally appeared on Quora, the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answers are by Kumar Attangudi Perichiappan Perichappan, Travis Bigelow, Max Miner, Kate Kifa, Fabio Augusto, Vimal Sharma, Rossi Meacham, Anurhada Patel and Daniel A Marquez.

Kumar Attangudi Perichiappan Perichappan, Futures and Options Trader at Self (2006-present)

Answered Sept. 16, 2017

Mining Bitcoins:

1. With own hardware:
a. You need to buy custom build hardware like Antminer 13.5TH/sAntminer D3, etc. These Rigs are expensive.
b. You need to spend on the electricity for these devices
c. Since these devices get heated up fast, they also have a lifespan of 2–3 years.
d. But, once you have the device you can use that to mine for the next 2–3 years.
Additionally, you need to take care of maintenance and updates.

2.Renting hardware: (I have been using this for the last 2 years)
a. In this option you rent the hardware for a year or 2, instead of buying them yourself.
b. You get to select the Hash rate of the processor. The higher the rate of processing, the higher  the price.
c. On an average, you would make 2x–5x the amount of money you invested in the servers.
d. Websites for renting hardware: Hashflare (This has 1-year contracts) and Genesis Mining (Use the code: 6upHZK to get 3% discount). I personally prefer Genesis over Hashflare.
e. These sites don’t charge you for electricity, maintenance or updates.

Travis Bigelow, former Experience at 4 Different Manufacturing Companies

Answered May 16

Nanopool makes it pretty easy. You can just click the “Quick Start” button near any of the cryptos they support for a basic set of instructions on how to mine that particular currency.

Basically the process is as follows:

-First you need a wallet for the type of crypto you intend to mine. My first foray into mining was with Zcash, which I found to be the easiest.
-Then you need to download a miner, which is a program or “app” which uses your computer to do the mining. I used EWBF’s miner, a download link to which can be found on the Help page for Zcash on Nanopool
-Before you can mine with the mining program, you need to configure it by editing a config file to put in your wallet address, your username (make one up) and an email address (not always necessary). This process is described on the “Quick Start” links on the Nanopool page, and more detail can be found on the Help page for Zcash which I linked to above. Once you have your wallet address and your username in the config file, save it and close it. Then run the mining program to start mining.
-Your progress in mining can be checked on the Nanopool website, by inserting your wallet address into the following URL: https://zec.nanopool.org/account… Note that the example link here is for the wallet address t1Zk9UZHcUFgB1XS5uDVeUB4BQti9RPYqqN – your wallet address will be different and you need to put your unique wallet address into that URL in order to check your mining status. It will probably take a few hours of mining before your status page on Nanopool gets created or updated.

Once all that has been done, you just leave your computer mining for many hours per day (preferably all day every day). Once you’ve mined 0.01 units of Zcash, those funds will automatically be transferred from Nanopool into your wallet. It may take an entire day or more of mining before you see your first “payout” of .01 ZEC.

If you intend to mine with an Nvidia graphics card, you will need to install the CUDA Toolkit first. AMD graphics cards might have an equivalent utility which needs to be installed – I’m not sure.

Max Miner

Answered Sep 17, 2017

You can start by running a miner on your PC. This miner is very popular http://bit.ly/get-miner Go there and create an account. Then download and install the software. It’s very easy to use for beginners and only takes 5 mins to set up. Monero is one of the best to mine with a CPU at the moment. Don’t bother with Bitcoin on your computer, you need specialised ASIC hardware these days. If you are not sure which currency to mine this miner can mine over ten different coins and has a smart mining feature that will automatically pick the most profitable currency to mine. You will be able to mine more with a graphics card too if you have one.

If you want to mine faster, or you want to mine Bitcoins specifically, you can try cloud mining. This is where you purchase mining (hash) power and they run all the equipment for you. You keep all the coins mined. This way you can buy as much mining power as you like. Much more than you will be able to mine at home.

You can try one of the below four cloud mining sites. They have been around for a long time and are probably the four best. There are a lot of dodgy sites out there so be careful. However, these four are very popular and safe to use. I don’t recommend any one over the other, they are all good sites, but if you are not sure just pick the first one.

1. Hashing24

Create an account then set up a suitable hashing plan to start mining. If you are not ready to invest in mining, this site also offers a Demo Mining feature that will help you understand the nature of mining without risking your own money.

2. Genesis Mining

Create an account then buy hash power for whichever coin you want to mine (you can use this discount code: POk8fu). Then you need to allocate the hash power to whichever coin you want to mine. It supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, Ethereum, Zcash, and Monero.

3. Hashflare

Create an account then buy hash power for whichever coin you want to mine (you can use this discount code: C60FA175). It supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Dash, and ZEC.

4. NiceHash

Create an account then buy hash power for whichever coin you want to mine. It supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, ZEC, plus many more.

Kate Kifa, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Adviser. PR at Minery (MNRY.io)

Answered May 22

To start crypto mining (and to make it profitable), you need a few things: mining equipment, low electricity costs, maintenance/service centre located nearby, and high power capacities.

You can either mine at home, involve in cloud mining, place your mining equipment at third-party hosting or own a personal mining facility (farm).

Each option has its own restrictions though:

1. Home mining is noisy, inefficient and demands constant attention, maintenance and results in additional expenses.

2. Cloud mining lacks transparency: users do not know anything about the hardware used or its efficiency, power consumption and location.

3. Third-party hosting is competitive, but there are few projects providing this service.

4. Operating one’s own farm requires numerous qualified technicians to service it.

There is also a different solution – turnkey hosted mining. Minery (Minery — Largest LEGAL public mining facility in Siberia, Russia) is the largest legal crypto mining operation in Russia. Located in the coldest Russian part, Siberia, it has large capacities of 55 Megawatts (with further increasing to 150 Megawatts) and gives an opportunity to mine legally on the cheapest electricity rates in the world ($0,04 for kWh). You can buy tokens and mine, or rent them out. You can also earn fixed 3% in tokens every time someone registers using your referral link and buys MNRY tokens.

Fabio Augusto

Answered Saturday

That’s a very interesting question, if you want to get into mining, you should first see the solution that fits for your lifestyle. I mean, how much time do you have to dedicate? How much money are you willing to spend?

The main possibilities are listed below:

1. Mining from your personal computer. If you want to make serious money, this option won’t be good. You will need a gaming computer or a series of GPUs to see some profit, and the return takes a long time, even if you are lucky.

2. Using a mining rig. A mining rig is a specialized device for mining. You can find a good list here (Best mining rig 2018: the top pre-built mining rigs for Bitcoin, Ethereum and more) . Let me advise you that your mining rig needs to be powerful enough to solve the computations needed, for that specific coin. But waaait, how do you choose the right coin ?
a. Choose the right Coin/Token – I recommend you go to Cryptocurrency Market Capitalizations CoinMarketCap. Look for mineable coins that increased its value over time, and seem to be in the uptrend. Research about the company behind the coin or the token, see if you can trust. Go forward, but only if your mining rig suits for that coin.

3. Cloud Mining. This is basically buying CPU power from dedicated data centers. Be aware about suspicious offers. ( How to Identify a Bitcoin or Ethereum Cloud Mining Scam? – Tokens24) The main difference, from the mining rig, is that you don’t have to understand about your hardware CPU, since is already set and you are only borrowing part of its capacity.

4. There is a new concept where you don’t have to worry about hardware or research about the best cryptocurrency to mine (The “Plug and Earn” Crypto Mining Rig For Those Who Value Comfort). This last one seems ideal for beginners, or if you are just not willing to spend a lot of time into research and stuff. We have to wait to see the upcoming of this, but is promising.

Vimal Sharma, A student, learning, aspiring and searching for inspiration

Answered Jan. 23

For a start, just use Minergate. Open the link, register on the site, and download the simple GUI miner for Android, Windows, Ubuntu, and a lot more.

All you need to do is to open the GUI, and click the start mining button. Smart mining is an option which automatically starts mining the coin with the max exchange rate in the last hour.

Rossi Meacham, CMO at Artesian Future Technology

Answered April 20

Mining crypto with your own hardware has more logistical challenges than most people assume. If you think it’s going to be an easy path to passive income it’s important to do a bit more research.

But if you’re genuinely interested in the technology, and want to get involved for reasons other than making a bunch of money, crypto mining is an incredibly rewarding experience.

I started by building my own mining rigs and man, building computers from the ground up is more difficult and time-consuming than I ever realized before that. The greatest takeaway for me when building my own rigs was how much I learned about the hardware that’s involved in computers and the complex integration with software.

If you decide that building the rigs yourself is just too much there are other ways to get involved but for the most part, it really does take a lot of capital upfront if you want to have powerful rigs. You also have to be aware just how much electricity really costs! The hidden cost of electricity bills will dramatically offset your profitability so again, if you think it’s a fast track to money-making, think again!

For me, building miners got me into the industry and led me on a path of discovery that resulted in my current career path and a lot of interesting friendships and partnerships. If the technology and industry are interesting to you I would say dive right in. Crypto will most certainly be interwoven into the fabric of the future so if you want to be at the tip of the spear, get involved!

Anurhada Patel

Answered Thursday

First of all you would need to gain enough knowledge of crypto world. There are a few ways to do it, either conducting your own research or joining trusted memberships. A great membership to join is The “Plug and Earn” Crypto Mining Rig For Those Who Value Comfort . Here you will not only learn all there is to know about crypto world but it also presents you a rig that will mine cryptocurrencies for you. It is a very effective machine and investing in either the membership or the rig will be very much beneficial for you, talking from my own experience. Check out the website, highly recommend it. You will learn a lot.

Daniel A Marquez, Self Employed

Answered May 17

Originally Answered: What is the easiest way to get started mining crypto?

The lowest barrier to mining right now is thru the Electroneum App on the Google play store.

Also you have airdropalert.com

These are not true mining but rather easy and free ways to start earning crypto.

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