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When to limit mining bitcoins. How to start mining bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. The best ASIC miners are

When to limit mining bitcoins. How to start mining bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. The best ASIC miners are

Alexander Markov

Mining is the process of using a computer to perform complex calculations with data blocks that support the Bitcoin network. Miners are rewarded for their efforts with a certain amount of these coins.

Before starting work, study how much profit can actually be obtained from a particular pool. You can try connecting to different of them to estimate income.

So, what steps should be taken to launch Bitcoin mining.

Equipment selection

The easiest, but not the cheapest way to start mining bitcoins is to buy ASIC devices, for example, AntMiner S9. These devices have been specifically designed for mining bitcoins, which means that they usually give you the greatest return on your investment.

However, as already mentioned, these ASICs are expensive. For example, the S9 currently sells for $ 2,490 or more. It will require a separate power supply, which costs about $ 360. These devices are designed specifically for mining BTC, there is no guarantee that they will work well if you decide to use them to mine other cryptocurrencies.

You can create your own rig for mining bitcoins. Although they are not very effective in terms of hashrate, they usually require relatively small expenses, and can be used to mine other virtual coins besides bitcoin. As rigs, you can use computers with several powerful graphics cards. They are usually designed to render highly detailed graphics in games. But they also do a great job of the complex calculations associated with Bitcoin mining.

It’s worth starting with the case, it’s usually an ordinary metal frame that removes heat well. Then you will need to choose for mining. For example, AMD Radeon RX 580.

In general, if you decide to bet on video cards, study the question in more detail. The difference in models can be significant, in terms of their effectiveness in mining. And the difference in price will be insignificant. The same goes for motherboards. Having assembled the car, you will need to install the operating system and mining software on it. This solution is more suitable for those who are well versed in hardware, able to easily assemble and disassemble a computer.

Otherwise, it is easier to rent hash power from companies that provide services. Such companies have dedicated data centers that specialize in Bitcoin mining. They centrally purchase powerful and efficient servers, have access to cheap electricity, and often buy it at wholesale prices.

These companies offer a fixed amount of gigahs per second (GH / s). This capacity can be rented for an advance payment. The advantage of this method is that you do not need to invest money in expensive equipment on your own.

However, cloud mining fees vary. You will need to look for profitable offers. And be careful: hackers and scammers often impersonate cloud mining services.

Setting up an electronic wallet

Once you have chosen the mining method, you need to find and configure for which you will profit. If you consider this type of activity as an investment, you are not going to spend profits in the near future, you can go to sites that generate "paper" wallets. This will be a kind of “public address” to which you can receive your payments.

The balance can be checked in safe mode on the Blockchain.info website. It will be enough just to enter the public key code. Do not let anyone know the password from the wallet, because this can give access to your virtual coins to strangers.

If you plan to regularly cash out bitcoins or make payments, it is better to choose a special client. For example, the lightweight Electrum wallet is suitable for all operating systems created for desktop PCs, as well as for Android. After creating the wallet, Electrum generates a list of a dozen random words, they are used as a private key. This means that if something happens to the computer, the wallet can be restored.

Electrum wallet can be installed on a machine that is not connected to the network. It will be an analogue of the “cold storage”, protected from the actions of hackers. This program also allows you to run the wallet in monitoring mode, you can watch the daily balance, but you will not be able to make payments from it.

The choice of mining pool

Mining data collection

Preliminary data on the effectiveness of equipment is not always accurate. In fact, everything will depend on how communication is established between a particular card or device and the pool. Always consider how much of your equipment is more efficient than the rest.

If a certain device does not work out very well, you can try to stop mining in the GUIMiner program and restart it again. From time to time, this must be done for equipment that does not work in the fastest way.

Speed \u200b\u200bsetting

If you see that the thermal operating mode of the equipment allows you to slightly disperse it, it is worth it. This will allow you to get the most out of your devices. With graphics cards it is necessary: \u200b\u200bthere arrived so small that excess speed does not hurt.

For overclocking video cards, the Precision X utility from EVGA works well. AMD Catalyst drivers are also worth a try.

Overheating control

If you use your own rig or several ASIC devices, the mining process will greatly warm up your equipment. It must be placed in places with good ventilation so that heat can dissipate well. It is worth noting that the better you cool your car, the more effective mining will be.

Alexey Russkikh

Mining is a type of activity, the essence of which is the creation of new blocks of the cryptocurrency chain and making a profit in the form of newly created virtual coins or commissions. Despite the decrease in the effectiveness of such earnings, many continue to do this and get a good income. Below we consider how to start mining, what is required for this, what programs are needed and a number of other issues.

Features of mining at the present stage

For four years since the advent of cryptocurrency, thousands of people have earned through individual (solo) mining. They bought hardware, and emitted cryptocurrency in their apartment or garage. At that time, the reward for the block was quite high, and the costs were negligible. It also did not matter what speed the miner had, because the main requirement was the stability of the Internet connection.

Times change. Now the cost of mining one bitcoin depends on many factors:

  • tariffs for electricity;
  • computer power;
  • availability of necessary equipment;
  • system settings;
  • participation in a pool or solo mining.

Back in 2010-11, payback was easy to achieve in 2-3 weeks. Cryptocurrency mining in 2019 either pays off in a few years, or doesn't pay off at all. Moreover, the use of even modern ASIC chips at home does not bring the expected superprofits.

For this reason, in 2013, miners began to abandon personal mining and began to create pools - special associations of miners whose purpose is to create a block of transactions together. The reward is received by the miner who last forms the block. The prize received is divided among all participants in proportion to computing power. Such a pool can include from several tens to thousands of miners and more. The more people, the higher the speed and the greater the chance to "close" a new block of the chain.

To speed up the process and increase their share, pool participants create powerful farms - they buy powerful video cards, motherboards, processors, power supplies, RAM and other equipment. Only with this approach and teamwork with other miners can you get the result.

Therefore, no matter how many mining options exist, we will tell you about the most simple, but at the same time effective, in terms of return on investment. This is mining on our own equipment with the participation in the pool.

Under your own equipment, you are supposed to have a PC with a powerful video card or a farm on video cards. Your equipment is connected to the pool in order to increase the chance to create a new block and share the received award between the participants. This is what you need for mining in the first place.

But before telling about mining with your own hardware in the pool, it will be fair to tell readers about what other mining methods are.

Mining Methods

  1.   . To date, working in this direction does not make sense.
  2. Cryptocurrency mining in RAM. Theoretically, this is real, but in practice, the benefit for the miner is minimal or not at all.
  3. Mining on the video card. If you buy good equipment, powerful video cards and a good motherboard, you could count on profit. The main minus is the large costs of electricity, which "eat up" the income. Read our article on.
  4. ASIC mining - cryptocurrency mining on special integrated circuits. Here, it is possible to achieve high mining speed with low power consumption. The problem is that the cost of such equipment is very high, and in the event of a breakdown, replacement or repair is almost impossible.
  5. FPGA mining - work with the use of valve arrays having high performance and low power consumption. It is difficult to get such equipment, while the profit is quite low.

Every year, the requirements for mining components are growing. If earlier a new laptop was enough for beginners, and they could work independently from scratch, today they have to assemble powerful farms, which include a large number of video cards, which require money to buy.

Previously, the Radeon HD 7990 graphics card was in demand, which allowed you to get about 11 gigahashes per second. At the same time, the equipment had a power of about 200 watts. New ASIC systems allowed to double the mining process and reduce energy costs by two orders of magnitude. Naturally, the cost of such equipment is more expensive. And so, day after day: remuneration decreases, equipment rises in price, payback period increases.

We decided on the method of mining. The next step is the choice of currency.

Currency selection

Cryptocurrency mining begins with the choice of coins to be mined. As stated earlier, we only consider currencies with a proof-of-work algorithm. The following options are possible:

  1. Bitcoin is the first virtual currency that was created in January 2009. The developer of the cryptocurrency is Satoshi Nakomoto, but many are sure that this group hides a whole group of American researchers. Today, to earn Bitcoin, you need powerful equipment and participation in large pools. One of the alternatives to mining is cloud mining. More about this later.
  2. Ethereum is a relatively new virtual currency created at the end of July 2015. Ethereum is considered the “father” of Vitaly Buterin, a Canadian programmer who first proposed virtual currency in 2013, but it took another two years to create it. This is one of the best cryptocurrencies for beginners, but with the increase in the number of "miners", the complexity of its mining increases.
  3. Ripple is a whole system that appeared in 2012. The main task of the developers was to create a new network that provides fast and secure transactions, regardless of the amount of funds. Today, this cryptocurrency is among the ten most popular currencies.
  4. Litecoin is the first altcoin created in 2011. In terms of capitalization, Litecoin is in the top five cryptocurrencies. Creator Charles Lee laid the foundation of the system with the principles of Bitcoin already existing at that time.
  5. Ethereum Classic is an Ethereum hard fork.
  6. NEM is one of the most interesting cryptocurrencies, which appeared in Japan, and today is one of the ten most popular cryptocurrencies. Based on NEM, the well-known Mizin network operates, specializing in operations of banking institutions.
  7.   - A virtual coin, which was developed in January 2014. Previously, it was called Darkcoin, Ikskoin. The “father” of cryptocurrency is Evan Duffield.
  8. IOTA - a relatively new virtual money that arose simultaneously with Dash. Judging by the capitalization indicator, the cryptocurrency has reliably strengthened among the top ten virtual coins and holds its position.
  9. Monero is a cryptocurrency developed in 2014. Due to its features, it quickly entered the top ten and today holds its occupied positions. The disadvantage of virtual coins is the availability of open source code, which attracts the attention of hackers. Nevertheless, despite numerous attacks, the currency remains in the top.
  10. Stratis, a virtual coin introduced in 2016, allows enterprises and organizations to develop blockchain applications in C # using the Microsoft.NET Framework.

There are other cryptocurrencies interesting to miners. These are MUSI, Ubiq, Expance and others. When choosing, it is worth considering the following factors:

  • the necessary amount of time to mine a coin;
  • mining difficulty;
  • cryptocurrency exchange value and growth trends;
  • requests for equipment (equipment capacity, how much RAM, power supplies, and so on);
  • the ability to quickly configure and mine cryptocurrency.

One of the main criteria is the complexity of mining. For example, the Ethereum network speed is about 1332 terahash per second, while for Expanse the figure is much lower - 27 gigachehes per second.

The greater the complexity of mining, the higher the requirements for equipment, and therefore, cryptocurrency has a high price, and the "army" of those who want to mine it is growing. As a result, the complexity of the network increases, and the level of earnings of its participants decreases.

When choosing a cryptocurrency, you should give preference to one that is easier to mine. Earlier in our article, we wrote that the most profitable are cryptocurrencies based on Equihash (for example,). As well as for beginners and novice miners, we recommend currencies based on Keccak (Maxcoin) and Lyra2RE2 (Monacoin).

Having decided on the currency, the next step is to create a wallet.

Wallet

Before starting mining, you should decide on a wallet for storing cryptocurrency. There are several options here:

  1. A desktop wallet is the first wallet option. Using the program, you can transfer virtual currency and ensure its reliable storage. The main disadvantage is the need to download all transactions, starting with the very first. Such storages include Bitcoin Classic, Armory and others. To date, desktop “wallets” are considered the most reliable in terms of protecting cryptocurrencies.
  2. Mobile wallets - software that allows you to store virtual money on your smartphone. This is a convenient option, because the existing cryptocurrency can be used to make purchases at retail outlets. After installing the application, a certain part of the blocks is downloaded, which will be stored on the mobile device. Haro is one of the most popular mobile wallets. Often, these wallets are created for a specific cryptocurrency, for example, Ethereum or Litecoin.
  3. Online wallets are a popular type of storage that allows you to store money on a virtual server. This means that the cryptocurrency owner does not need to install additional software. Some services have advanced functionality and can serve various types of "wallets" (desktop, mobile and others). The disadvantage of this method is the dependence of the owner of the cryptocurrency on another service, because the money is not stored on a PC, but on a third-party server. The most popular repositories in this series include Xapo, Circle, and others.
  4. Gadget wallets are special equipment in which keys are stored. The devices are compact and can always be with the owner. The disadvantage is that in the event of the loss of such a gadget, the owner loses access to his virtual money.
  5. The paper version of the wallet is a regular document (a printed sheet of paper) containing keys. Today, special services are working to create such a "wallet". For example, bitadress.org. The main thing is to securely store the document, because if it is lost, it will not be possible to regain access to money.

At the start, you can choose any wallet you like. In the future, when the amount of savings grows, reliability will be a priority. Consider a few popular wallets:

Pool selection

As noted earlier, cryptocurrency can be mined independently, but this requires powerful farms that consume a lot of electricity and require serious investment. When working in a pool, at least one powerful PC with a good graphics card is enough. The computing power of thousands of other miners is involved in creating the blocks, the chance to find the right solution to the cryptographic task is higher.

The pool takes into account the contribution of each participant. The more powerful the equipment the miner has, the higher will be its share of the reward from the next created block.

Moreover, each has its own rules of work. When choosing you should focus on a number of points:

  • pool commission - the percentage that the pool takes in case a new block is created;
  • commission when withdrawing funds to the wallet;
  • the availability of additional features - viewing statistics, checking workers and others;
  • the ability to work with several cryptocurrencies;
  • ease of registration and setup (many pools provide step-by-step instructions for beginners to quickly understand the principles of earnings).

Some modern pools are able to automatically switch to mining the most profitable virtual coins (at the time of mining). At the same time, the system takes into account several factors - the cost of cryptocurrency, the complexity of its extraction and other aspects.

The best multi-pools include Minergate, which has a convenient interface, the presence of the Russian language, simplicity and clarity of configuration. But it is also worth highlighting such pools as F2Pool (Discusfish), Nicehash, MusiCoinPool, AntPool and others.

Cloud pools

If a miner wants to make a profit without the cost of buying equipment, cloud mining is also suitable. Its essence lies in the lease of capacities that are owned by the lessor - a company owning computing equipment. The latter takes all the costs of buying, updating, configuring and maintaining the equipment in working condition.

The pluses include:

  • the opportunity to avoid the high costs of creating a complex farm at home (production work is carried out remotely);
  • accessibility for novice users;
  • high power;
  • the ability to mine several cryptocurrencies at once.

Among the shortcomings are a high risk of getting into scammers, the presence of commission payments (charged from the reward), the danger of hackers attacking the server, as well as the similarity of cloud services with the classic financial pyramids. These are different in that they offer a premium for the drive of a new customer.

The essence of mining (from the word mining - mining) is the creation of crypto coins according to a special algorithm. A unique data set (or block) is generated on the computer, which confirms the accuracy of payment transactions. A block consists of a header hash of the previous block, a hash of transactions, and a random number. A chain containing all transactions is called a blockchain.

Each block found is rewarded. Different currencies are different. For example, at the oldest and most expensive cryptocurrency - (Bitcoin, BTC) - it decreases by half every four years. Since 2016, the award is 12.5 BTC (about 32 thousand dollars), in 2020 its next decrease will occur.

The reward for the Ethereum block (Ethereum, ETH) is 5 ETH (approximately $ 1,540).

The success of mining depends on the computing power of the computer that the miner has. The more, the higher the probability of receiving a reward.

What you need for mining

1. We assemble the equipment

  • Video card (GPU) - modern, not budget. And better than one, but several.
  • A computer (farm) with an effective cooling system, a motherboard with the maximum possible number of slots for installing video cards. The processor can be any, stably working. Recommended RAM - from 4 GB.
  • The most commonly used operating systems are Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. There is also an OS specially designed for the extraction of certain currencies. For example, ethOS for ethereum.
  • Internet with good ping.

2. Decide on cryptocurrency

The choice depends on the available graphics card. The most popular cryptocurrencies among miners are Ethereum, Zcash, Monero. Bitcoin and Litecoin with the help of video cards are no longer mined: for this there are specialized devices, for example ASIC (Application-specific Integrated Circuit).

Examples of video cards used for mining:

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti / 1050, as well as 1060, 1070, 1080 Ti / 1080;
  • AMD Radeon RX 470/480 and 570/580.

4. Choose the exchange or wallet where the mined cryptocurrency will accumulate.

Here's one tip: use only proven services, for which you need to study the reviews.

What is cloud mining?

This is an investment in the purchase or rental of equipment necessary for the extraction of cryptocurrency. Physically, it will not be in your home. A specially created service takes care of configuration, connection and maintenance.

Cloud mining revenue is proportional to equipment purchased or leased.

Pros:

  1. Most likely, it will not be possible to install not one, but several farms at home, since the equipment for mining is very hot. Remotely, you can use any number of farms. Or do with very small investments (minimum contracts on some services cost a little more than a dollar).
  2. This method is recommended for those who are not technically savvy: it will be difficult for them to assemble and configure the equipment themselves. Or those who do not want to spend time on this and be attached to the house or premises where the farm is located.
  3. Higher, in comparison with the home device, power.
  4. The ability to mine bitcoins, as well as extract several cryptocurrencies at once.

Minuses:

  1. The risk of running into scammers.
  2. The commission, which is taken from the reward for production (it usually includes all the costs, including possible damage to the equipment, etc.).
  3. The risk of hacker attacks on the server, as a result of which you can be left with nothing.
  4. Strong similarity with the financial pyramid. By logic, services with their capacities are more profitable to get cryptocurrency themselves, and not to give it to the side, albeit with a commission. Referral programs speak in favor of this statement: for attracting new customers, many cloud mining services promise a reward.

Is it worth it to mine

The attitude to cryptocurrencies is still ambiguous, although their liquidity (ease of conversion into "live" money - rubles, dollars and so on) is now very high.

The other day, the head of VTB Andrei Kostin said that bitcoin is a “speculative currency.” Although representatives of the Central Bank have already voiced a desire to create a national cryptocurrency.

To find out how much the costs of creating your own farm will pay off is very difficult.

It depends on the rate of cryptocurrencies, the growing complexity of their mining, the number of miners, which is constantly changing.

In general, the calculations made to date show that equipment worth about a thousand dollars can pay off in six months or a year. If you invest $ 3,000-5,000 in the creation of farms, the profit may be $ 50 or more per day. But these data can change dramatically (especially taking into account the growth in the number of fraudsters).

To calculate the profitability of mining, you can use the online calculator.

Some experts believe that mining can be considered as an opportunity to get a small additional income, but not as a way to quickly and correctly enrich. Think of it as collecting gold dust, not gold nuggets.

Thus, whether or not to take risks, everyone decides for himself.

Consider how to mine bitcoins on your home computer and whether it can be done.

All the advantages and disadvantages, as well as more profitable alternatives for mining coins.

Content:

Mining   (from Mining - mining) - this is the only way to get crypto money. Its essence lies in the fact that a computer or a network of computers performs mathematical calculations. The result of the calculations is finding new blocks of the cryptocurrency network chain (blockchain). for each block found, a reward is paid in the form of coins.

If in the field of crypto you are still a novice user, but want to start earning and making money from this, you need to study the current realities of this lesson. The complexity of the calculations does not allow us to talk about adequate profitability when working with low-performance equipment, for example, a home PC.

The concept of home mining was popular in the early 2010s.

Today, stationary or cloud are being created, in which dozens or even hundreds of video cards are involved at the same time. However, this does not stop you from starting to mine coins on your PC. You should immediately prepare for the fact that the earnings will be very small, but with constant mining, it can amount to several hundred dollars a year (subject to the active growth in the exchange rate of Bitcoin).

How to start mining on your home PC

If you are one of those who heard a lot of times about cryptocurrency mining, but did not dare to create their own mining system, first you need to decide how you will work and what currency will be the main one.

  • Choose one of the cryptocurrencies . Further in the article, we will consider mining Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency in the world, with a capitalization of more than $ 171 billion;
  • Open a wallet for the appropriate currency . As a rule, on the official website of the creator of crypto coins there is all the information for registering a wallet;
  • Choose which service will be used for mining. . This stage should be well thought out, as with the increase in demand for cryptocurrency, the number of fraudulent services that use the resource of your PC for mining, but the money earned, is not sent to your wallet. However, there are plenty of reliable and proven platforms. It is important to choose a pool with maximum performance;
  • Download and install the application . After registering in the pool, you will be prompted to download a desktop mining program. Each service has its own program. As a rule, there are always basic computer requirements to consider;
  • Start mining and earn Bitcoins.   Upon reaching the minimum withdrawal amount (each service has its own threshold), you can withdraw coins by sending them to a previously created wallet.

It should be remembered that without the good hardware characteristics of the processor and video card, mining will be impossible or the number of coins will be minimal (if at all). If you have a good enough home PC, you can try to start mining.

Services that provide users with the ability to mine from only one computer, at the software level, combine the power connected to the network into a pool - a group of devices.

This combination is necessary so that at the stage of mathematical calculations you do not compete with powerful stationary or cloud farms.

If the device pool performed a successful calculation and a reward was earned, it is divided among all members of the group according to the capacities.

Less productive PCs will receive less money.   In any case, participation in the pool is almost the only way to make money.

If you don’t understand much about the principle of mining coins and don’t want to deal with a lot of concepts, work with automatic miners that can simply be run in the background.

List of reliable applications for automatic mining of cryptocurrency on a home computer:

Kryptex   - here, after each successful calculation of coins, users have two options: to send the amount to their crypto-wallet or exchange the money earned at the current rate and then transfer it to their electronic money account (, and so on).

Go to the online calculator page and select the currency you want to mine. Then in the new window enter the previously calculated hashrate and click on Calculate.

This will help to understand whether mining will pay off. Also in the calculator window displays data on how much energy will be consumed with constant mining.

Is it profitable to mine on a home PC

With the popularity of Bitcoin mining it on home computers has become unprofitable.

If you are hoping to get a profit of several hundred dollars already at the initial stage, we recommend that you take a closer look at concepts such as cloud mining or.

The work of a getter on a regular PC will bring up to hundreds of dollars of income per month.   We recommend that you use this method only if you have a PC with a good level of performance and you do not use half of the video card’s working life while working with it. For example, you have a powerful gaming PC at your disposal, but you rarely run games on it and constantly use only a browser and simple programs. In this case, periodic work of the miner will not harm the system. Also, you should not mine bitcoins on your home PC around the clock. Limit yourself to 6-8 hours a day.

Mining Types

As mentioned above, mining is the only way to get cryptocurrencies, but there are different ways of mining:

  •   - The most effective and profitable method of production, but it requires investment. You will have to buy several and arrange their simultaneous work. This method requires a separate room and will entail impressive light bills;
  •   - These are groups of computers that can be located in different parts of the world, but at the time of computing and mining cryptocurrencies, they will work together. A home computer connects to the pool thanks to a mining program. You can independently configure the operation of several of your PCs through the pool;
  • – the easiest way to get coins without killing your computer. The essence of this mining method is that a third-party program uses the resource of your video card to calculate mathematical operations. The computer can either be used by the utility as the only link in the mining network;
  • CPU   - To date, the method of mining coins using the processing power of processors has become a relic of the past. It is much more profitable to work with video cards, since they are able to mine coins faster, and in the event of a breakdown, the computer does not stop working - all computing operations are switched to the video card, which is built into the central processor;
  • ASIC-miner - microprocessor equipment created exclusively for the extraction of BTC and coins mined on the same algorithm. Asiks provide maximum computing power and are reliable enough for long-term operation. The disadvantage is the high cost and the inability to use this equipment anywhere except for mining specific cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrency mining software

All mining programs work on a single principle. Only the conditions of the mining site can differ.

Before installing the application, familiarize yourself with the working conditions on the developer's site.

List of the most popular programs for mining Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies:

  • CGMiner;
  • Bfgminer;
  • SGminer;
  • Ccminer;
  • Claymore miner.

Is it worth it to mine on a laptop?

This question sounds very often, therefore it is necessary to answer it within the framework of the review. Bitcoin should not be obtained on laptops.

Firstly, the capacity of even the most powerful model is not enough to mine coins, the cost of which will cover the amount of purchase of a laptop.

Secondly, the laptop cooling system is not ready for constant maximum GPU loads.

And finally, replacing a burned-out video card in a laptop is possible only with a replacement main board, which is equivalent to acquiring a new one.

What is the difference between mining on a PC and a farm - which is more profitable?

Conventional mining on a PC can use only one video card. If you use a video card farm, earnings will increase proportionally.

For beginners, it is more profitable to use a regular PC for mining, since you do not need to invest any money in creating the system.

If you are determined to earn a decent amount and invest money in the business, buy several video cards and. As world practice shows, it pays off after 6-9 months after the start of work.

conclusions

You can create your own at home.

Today it’s really possible to develop a farm for the extraction of cryptocurrency, which will pay off in about 5-6 months and begin to generate stable income

Thematic videos:

If you decide to engage in mining bitcoins for investment and profit, most likely you will encounter one serious problem: most sites on this topic are designed for advanced users. If you are not a professional programmer, you have no experience with Ubuntu and Linux, and there is only a little experience using a Mac or PC, this text will help you get started with the basics.

1. Buy Bitcoin mining equipment

In the past, it was possible to mine bitcoins on a regular computer or using a video card (this was called GPU mining). However, today this type of activity has become so competitive that you will need ASIC miners - special computers designed exclusively for mining bitcoins.

2. Get a Bitcoin Wallet

First of all, you will need to choose a Bitcoin wallet. Since bitcoins are cryptocurrencies, you will need to store your money somewhere. Having opened a wallet, make sure that you have a wallet address. It is a long sequence of letters and numbers. Different wallets have different methods for obtaining a public (open) bitcoin address, but, as a rule, all this is very simple. Please note that you will need a public bitcoin address, not a private key, which is the password for your wallet.

If you got yourself an offline wallet (that is, you downloaded the program on your computer and do not use the online service), you need to do another very important thing. Copy the wallet.dat file to the USB flash drive, print it and keep it all in a safe place. The fact is that if your computer crashes and you do not have a copy of the wallet.dat file, you will lose all your bitcoins. They will not go to another user, but simply disappear forever, as if you had burned banknotes.

3. Select a mining pool

Now that you have a wallet, you are probably impatient to start mining, but if you really want to earn some bitcoins, it is best for you to join some kind of pool. A mining pool is a group of bitcoin miners who have combined their computing resources to get more bitcoins. The meaning of teamwork is that a reward is given out for blocks - as a rule, a created block costs 12.5 Bitcoins - and a single user must be very lucky to get this money.

In the pool you will need to execute small and less difficult algorithms, and thanks to collective efforts you will have more chances to execute a large algorithm and earn bitcoins that will be distributed among the pool participants in proportion to their contribution to the common cause. As a result, you will be able to earn more bitcoins, and your investments will more likely start to make a profit.

When choosing a mining pool, ask yourself the following questions:

  • What is the principle of remuneration calculation?
  • What is the commission for mining and withdrawing bitcoins?
  • How often do they find blocks (i.e. how often will you get rewards)?
  • Is it easy to withdraw bitcoins?
  • What statistics do they provide?
  • How reliable is this pool?

The answers to most of these questions are contained in the excellent text on the BitcoinTalk website. In addition, a detailed comparison of mining pools is available on Bitcoin Wikipedia. For example, consider the Slush 's Pool. After registration, you will receive a username and password, which you will need to enter later to work in this pool.

Follow the link to the site, click on “Sign up here” at the top of the screen and follow the step-by-step instructions. After you create your account, you will need to add an “employee” (Worker). Actually, for each miner computer, you will need to register a separate ID so that the pool can track your contribution to the common cause.

4. Install mining programs on your computer

Now that the preparations are finished, you are almost ready to start mining bitcoins. It remains only to install the client program on the computer to manage its mining equipment. Different computers require different software. Many pools have their own software, for example,

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