Preface
Hello, dear readers! It's been a while since I sat down and cranked out some profane prose on Publish0x. 2022 was a busy, awful year for most of us. I don't think I need to go into the reasons why.
I've tried to keep 2022 as constructive as possible, personally, having managed to finish up my MBA and keeping things vibing along over on the Discord server.
I've highlighted in writings elsewhere just some of the reasons we have to be optimistic, but there are still many hurdles we must overcome (hurdles legal, technical, and technological), as a community. How we evaluate & discuss projects, as well as how we evaluate & conduct ourselves, all merit further consideration. In the interim, I have continued to mine on quite a few chains from time to time & provide my experiences, knowledge, and wisdom wherever it is feasible for me to do so.
Thinking of the landscape, I feel the time has arrived to publish yet another mining guide on yet-another-crypto-site ever-so-crowded with them, already. This one's written with my special sauce, though, so I would imagine it to be somewhat more fun to read than your standard technology guide. I hope you enjoy and that this information still holds some value for you as you evaluate whether continuing to support blockchains with your hardware in this environment.
Without further adieu, let's dive right in.
Part I: What Anons Ask Me Every Day About Mining
Question 1: Should I get into mining?
Stop. Just stop right there, and now, okay?
ETH mining is OVER. It ended in September of 2022. The Ethereum gravy train is behind us. If you didn't get on board, you missed that boat.
If you're trying to turn your RTX into an ETH-flavored money printer, the opportunity no longer exists. However, there do exist ways to turn other chains and cryptos into Ethereum, if that is your goal! You must think more strategically, now (almost like a business manager. GEE WHIZ!) if you intend to mine on your computers.
ADDITIONALLY: the computer work you are asking your components to do is HARD! If you cannot keep them cool and non-dusty, it is NOT recommended by me that you continue.
From here, what you do with your components and your hard-won hardware, you do at your own risk!
But, Mister Necksus, what if I'm a plebian? I can't afford to buy a $15,000 ASIC, or even a $5000 gaming rig that could mine ETH during the night when it's cool!
I got you covered, plebe. All plebes are kings of their own destiny, in the new world! Here: Check these guys out. I think they're building really cool stuff; namely, a device that does what it says on the bloody tin: mines Bitcoin and puts out heat.
It's not a cheap device by any stretch of the imagination, but if your goal is to get into crypto mining at the lowest possible price point, the entire market has yet to offer consumers a cheaper option than these folks.
Okay bro that's cool and shit but what do YOU, NECKSUS, look for in a crypto miner?
It's a bad-ass machine that does hard work in exchange for digital assets. What more do you want to look for?!
Nonono bro!! I don't want an expensive, ASIC machine... I meant... say I already have the machine, like, a solid computer, plugged into the wall and hooked up to the internet, now. What do I put on it to get it mining?
I've scoured the web for platforms that do the following 3 things for admins who want to run crypto miners, because these are the 3 things I look for in a platform, protocol, or mining suite:
1. Cheap prices & fees on returns from the work
2. A variety of reward coins from which to choose (freedom & lots of options often go hand in hand)
3. A great-to-above-and-beyond user experience -- is the software easy for a non-tech-savvy person to use, or do you need to have intermediate knowledge at a bare minimum, and does it assist with remote monitoring of my hardware?
Nobody out there right now perfectly achieves all three of these elements. But there's some big players fighting for the crown on all three fronts.
Keep reading for my thoughts on these players.
Part II: Getting Some Mined Crypto
Let's assume, you're beyond that, and you already have a decent computer you'd like to put to work. You're going to be asking yourself 3 key questions:
1. Where (and what) can I mine that will make the most scratch, scrilla, bills, cash, and or dollery-doos?
2. What's out there to enable me to do this without it being too complicated?
3. Can I trust any of these services not to steal my shit?
The answers to these questions might determine which of these services you'd personally be comfortable utilizing, and I cannot determine your personal appetite for risk. That one's on you, champ.
I can, however, provide you with SOME information about what I use. There are 3 main platforms that I still utilize to mine cryptocurrencies. I switch between them periodically for a number of reasons; however, I would consider this my personal DEFINITIVE RANKING, IN ORDER, of the greatest mining suites that survived the turbulence of the past couple of years!
Unmineable began as a decentralized way for users to mine ETH but swap instantly into other coins for their work. It has since greatly evolved to allow for the most customizability and ease-of-use of a mining suite that I have seen to-date, offering the ability to get paid out in the greatest variety of coins, from Algorand/$ALGO and COSMOS/$ATOM to Cardano/$ADA and beyond, on a large (and growing) variety of proof-of-work algorithms.
Unmineable does not, however, feature profit-switching, AS OF THIS WRITING, which might be a dealbreaker for some of you miners out there who are absolutely uncompromising in your pursuit of cash flow, so you'll have to do your own research about what the network conditions for each of the possibilities are. They're still developing that suite of theirs, though... you never know! Profit-switching might be a feature they implement in the near future!
Nevertheless, that little extra bit of legwork might be made worth it due to Unmineable's incredibly low 1% fee (0.75% with a referral code), so taking a slight loss on the algorithm could be made up for with the extra savings of working with Unmineable's pool, compared to some of our other options as of late.
Unmineable's a smaller player, but nevertheless, their wildly inclusive efforts to include as many algorithms, chains, and payment tokens as possible causes them to take the crown, as far as earning money with your mining rig. The greatest downside Unmineable possesses would be the lack of monitoring capability compared to its competition listed below.
NiceHash is the biggest centralized miner in the space; they're so massive, they've quite literally turned the blockchain into a vehicle for renting you miners as, essentially, a form of gambling.
From a business perspective, I can't really argue with this; they can't afford to have all their ASIC's turned on all the time, so by renting them out for a % of the return for "solo block" mining, they achieve multiple business objectives. On the other hand, it incentivizes gambling your hard-worked $BTC on finding blocks with ASIC miners you don't control, and have no means of evaluating.
Take from all of that what you are able.
NiceHash provides the most limiting set of constraints (particularly for Americans) in that you can only receive Bitcoin/$BTC as your payment currency. However, you may withdraw your $BTC to other wallets, and obviously from there you may trade with it and use it as you please, and they charge a 2% mining fee for the lowest of plebian miners (larger firms can get lower percentages on their fees).
That said, if your goal is simply to accumulate $BTC, NiceHash is a solid option to go with, especially if you're interested in maximizing returns through profit-switching; in addition, NiceHash has completely upped their game when it comes to the monitoring capabilities. Both their QuickMiner and their more adaptable and customizable NiceHash Miner provide excellent hardware monitoring functionality.
If all you want is more sats, NiceHash is an optimal choice; if you want any altcoins, you're better off with one of my other two selections.
Finally, miners should be warned that NiceHash's engines have been compromised by hackers before, as well as having lots of Bitcoin stolen in the incident, so I'd not be doing my job if I didn't mention that this has happened. Not keeping a ton of crypto in any centralized location (regardless of alleged trustworthiness) is generally advisable as a best practice in the space.
CudoMiner comes to us from a UK software group. They've put together perhaps the most effective profit-switching system in the business; competitively, I'd say it's much better than NiceHash at doing what it's supposed to do. The reason NiceHash beats CudoMiner, however, is simply because NiceHash has integrated more algorithms. If you're a medium-to-large sized miner, strongly consider CudoMiner for your operations!
While it's nice that NiceHash did that, CudoMiner's multiple payment vehicles ($BTC, $ETH, $XMR and $ALGO) are a competitively interesting feature, and CudoMiner's internal systems offer greater control and power to monitor one's mining rigs than NiceHash currently offers, in addition to the profit-switching feature. NiceHash stands behind CudoMiner when it comes to monitoring, but CudoMiner's overpriced fee structure for small miners, along with their relatively slow addition of new algorithms to profit-switch between, finds them squarely at #3 on my list.
Finally, CudoMiner supports the CUDOS cloud computing project, its respective blockchain and native staking token, so if you're interested in getting some low market-cap staking crypto assets that hope to one day challenge the greatest cloud providers out there, mining crypto into $CUDO tokens are an interesting option, for sure. It's important to note, on that, that one of the only CEX's that trades $CUDO tokens is Crypto.com, so they might be difficult to trade.
My biggest complaint with CudoMiner is undoubtedly their fees: at 8.5% for small firms, they're shafting any small miners who plug in, offering the best percentage rates to the highest earners on a constantly rotating monthly basis. If you aren't wielding a lot of hashpower, CudoMiner is harder to recommend than the others, especially if you simply want to stack sats, and especially if you want to get the best value for your hardware's work. However, their support in the Discord server is top-notch, and though I complain about fees from a business perspective, it is clear that CudoMiner is spending at least some of those monies on some highly effective support agents. They deserve a round of applause, over there.
There ya have it, folks!
Not quite as profane as I imagined, but I think this about summarizes my thoughts on the state of getting into mining and the 3 big suites that most people will find accessible.
Come visit the Discord sometime... happy hashing to you, and until next time... stay safe and stay curious!!
Editor's Note 1: As of April 2023, NiceHash has implemented additional payout coins to miners. However, this option is not available to United States clientele, as NiceHash is utilizing their in-house crypto exchange to perform the activity, which is not a utility of their service offered to clients in the United States.
