Bitcoin BTC Mining With A Laptop
Bitcoin Questions and Answers › Category: General questions › Mining Bitcoin With a Laptop 1 Vote Up Vote Down Sabrina asked 10 months ago Last updated on January. Dec 20, 2016 - Even though I am a fond of huge in-house bitcoin mining rigs, I also love to experiment on PC altcoins' mining, in an attempt to find the best altcoins one can mine using his/her PC. Accordingly, I decided to look through the altcoins one can mine with his PC and GPU. After researching through a.
Note: Our guide on Bitcoin mining has been fully updated. This feature was first published in November 2015.
Mining is the process of using a computer to perform complex calculations on blocks of data which maintain the Bitcoin network. Miners are rewarded for their efforts with a certain amount of. Bitcoin (BTC) is fast becoming the province of people using specialized (application-specific integrated circuit) devices, although if you have one or more powerful graphics cards you may still be able to generate a small profit by assembling your own mining device. You'll learn more about this in the following steps.
The actual profit you make will depend on a number of factors. The first is your 'hash rate' – in other words, the actual processing power of your machine. Computers designed for mining, or 'rigs' as they're commonly known, require large amounts of electricity, which will increase running costs. The complexity of mining also rises over time. Keep your Bitcoin wallet anonymous, protect your mining bounty from pirates With super fast servers in 90+ countries & apps for all devices, ExpressVPN provides unrivaled speed, reliability, security & unblocking. Try risk free today with an exclusive 49% discount and a 30-day money-back guarantee!
The Bitcoin itself is a very volatile virtual currency and while it has recently made huge gains, it may also plummet in value. Bear this in mind if you plan to hold onto any BTC you mine rather than selling immediately. If you want a rough idea of how much you can make from mining, use one of the many online profitability calculators (for example, the one at ). While you can technically try to mine Bitcoin on your own, it's very unlikely that your rig will singlehandedly solve the complex sums necessary to receive a reward. Instead, you'll need to join a mining pool. As the name suggests, this is a pool of multiple machines connected together, engaged in a collaborative mining effort.
The Bitcoin rewards reaped are shared amongst everyone who contributed processing power to the effort. However, note that the way in which profits are shared can vary from pool to pool. You can learn more about pooled mining on the.
• If you just want to buy bitcoin instead, check out as well as a list of the. Prev Page 1 of 15 Next Prev Page 1 of 15 Next 1. Choose your miner. One easy – but not cheap – way to get started with Bitcoin mining is to buy an ASIC device such as the AntMiner S9. These devices have been specifically designed for mining Bitcoins which means they'll generally give you the greatest return on your investment. However, as mentioned, these ASIC devices are expensive. The S9 for instance currently retails for around €2,100 (about £1,860, $2,490). How To Be A Ethereum Classic ETC Miner there.
You will usually need to buy a separate power supply unit which will set you back something like another €300 (£265, $360). These devices are usually designed specifically to mine Bitcoin and will not function well if you try to use them to mine other cryptocurrencies (if, say, Bitcoin should happen to fall drastically in value). Alternatively you can build your own Bitcoin mining rig. While these aren't as efficient in terms of power and hash rate, they require less upfront expense and can mine other currencies besides BTC. In the simplest terms these are computers with multiple powerful graphics cards installed. These GPUs might be primarily designed to render complex graphics when playing games, but they also lend themselves well to coping with the complex calculations involved in Bitcoin mining.
To get started, you'll need to purchase a case for the machine. Most of these are a simple metal frame to allow heat to dissipate easily.
You'll then need to choose a motherboard and graphics cards for mining, such as the AMD Radeon RX 580. If you need some more advice, see our guides on choosing the and for mining. You'll need to assemble the machine and install the OS and mining software yourself, so you should only go down this route if you are tech-savvy and familiar with computers. If neither of these options appeals, you can rent hash power from cloud mining companies. These firms have dedicated data centers devoted to mining Bitcoins. As they are centralized they can buy machines in bulk and use efficient methods to generate electricity. Most companies will offer you a fixed amount of Gigahash Seconds (GH/s) of mining power for a fee.
The advantage of this approach is that you don't need to buy any expensive hardware. The fees for cloud mining will vary, however, and another point to be wary of is scammers posing as cloud mining outfits. See the for a list of reputable cloud mining companies. Image credit: Marco Krohn (Wikimedia Commons) Prev Page 2 of 15 Next Prev Page 2 of 15 Next 2.
Set up your Bitcoin wallet. Once you've made the decision that mining is right for you, you'll also need to set up a Bitcoin wallet to store your profits. If you're mining as an investment and don't plan on spending any of your coins soon, consider using a website like to create a 'paper' wallet.
Make a note of the 'public' address which you can use to receive payments. You can check the balance of your Bitcoin wallet safely at any time by visiting and entering your payment address into the search bar at the top-right. Don't let anyone see your private keys as anyone with access to your paper wallet can control your virtual cash. If you plan to regularly cash out your BTC or make payments, consider using a software wallet instead. The lightweight is available for all major desktop operating systems and Android. Most Efficient Litecoin LTC Miner 2018. When you create your wallet, Electrum will generate a 'seed' of a dozen random words to use as a private key.
This means you can restore your Bitcoin wallet if anything happens to your computer. If you use a software wallet like Electrum, try to do it on a machine that isn't connected to the internet so your BTC can't be hacked.
This is known as 'cold storage'. The Electrum website has for setting up a 'watching' wallet for day-to-day use which can show your balance but cannot make payments itself. Or for full instructions on setting up secure offline storage, see our article on. Prev Page 3 of 15 Next Prev Page 3 of 15 Next 3. Pick a Bitcoin mining pool. Head over to the and click on 'Sign up here' at the top-right. On the registration page choose a username, then enter your email address and password.
The Slush Pool website will send you a confirmation email. Click the link to validate your email address. You'll see that a 'worker' has been created for you, so you can begin mining. Although it's not compulsory, you should ideally have one worker per device. Visit at any time to view and create workers. Prev Page 5 of 15 Next Prev Page 5 of 15 Next 5.
Funded mining. You need to tell your mining pool where and when to send the funds from your mining exploits. On the Slush Pool website you can do this by clicking 'Settings' at the top-right, then click 'Bitcoin' on the left.
Choose 'Payouts' then click the 'New Wallet' button. Paste in your public address for Bitcoin payouts here. If you're using a paper wallet this should be clearly marked.
In Electrum you can view your current receiving address by clicking on the 'Receive' tab. Click 'Submit' when you're done.
Some miners also allow you to choose the payout threshold – in other words how many BTC you need to have mined before the Pool sends funds to your wallet. This is important as while it's risky to leave large amounts of BTC in an online wallet, transaction fees for sending BTC across the network are currently very high, so you could end up paying a lot for multiple smaller payments. Choose freely and wisely. Prev Page 6 of 15 Next Prev Page 6 of 15 Next 6. Mining pools are a popular target for hackers for obvious reasons. To make sure no one can potentially pilfer your Bitcoins, first check that your pool uses SSL. This means your connection is secure – in most web browsers you'll see a padlock icon (in the address bar) if this is the case.
Certain mining pools such as Slush Pool also allow you to secure access to your account by using two-factor authentication. This introduces a second step for a successful login, and is therefore another hurdle to prevent hackers from breaking into your account. In order to use this you'll need access to a mobile device and an app such as Google Authenticator or FreeOTP.
Prev Page 7 of 15 Next Prev Page 7 of 15 Next 7. Grab Bitcoin mining software. Whether you're using a specialized ASIC Miner or your own rig, the device is going to run very hot when trying to mine BTC for you. Therefore, be sure to place your mining hardware somewhere with good ventilation so the heat can dissipate easily. Generally speaking, the cooler your mining machine, the more efficiently it will perform.
Make sure to factor the costs of air conditioning and/or a heat pump into your mining calculations to be certain you’re still running a profitable enterprise. If you live somewhere cold, you could follow in the footsteps of and use the excess heat from mining as a 'data furnace' to heat your home. Prev Page 14 of 15 Next Prev Page 14 of 15 Next 14.
Keep mining profitable. As research continues into specialist mining equipment and the difficulty of mining increases, the highest profits from mining are usually earned by data centers based in locations where energy is inexpensive such as China. As a hobbyist miner, you can maximize your profits by following their example by using ASIC miners and keeping electricity costs down. While relocating to China may not be on the cards, you can increase the efficiency of your rig by using an efficient PSU. You can get help with this in the Pools section of the.
An alternative way to get one over on the ‘big bully’ miners is to use renewable energy to power your mining machine – for example by installing solar panels on your property. If you do this, remember that the advertised wattage for devices is usually the optimal amount you'll receive under ideal conditions. Solar panels in particular are affected not just by the amount of sunlight they receive, but by surface area, the angle at which they're placed, and the direction in which they're facing.
Speak to a qualified installer, fully explain your needs, and get things right. To get started, consider using an electricity usage monitor to measure the energy consumption of your mining device in kWh (kilowatt hours).
These are very inexpensive and available from any hardware store. Remember that the reward for mining Bitcoin halves every 210,000 blocks.
You can find a more detailed explanation of this on the, but essentially, this means mining becomes less profitable over time, unless you can increase your hash rate – or the value of Bitcoin increases. Image credit: Thamizhpparithi Maari (Wikimedia Commons) Prev Page 15 of 15 Next Prev Page 15 of 15 Next • • • • •.
Purchase custom mining hardware. When Bitcoin first started, it was possible to mine using only your desktop's CPU and GPU. While this is still possible, the returns make running this method impractical. You will be spending far more on electricity than you will earn mining coins.
Instead, custom hardware allows for much better processing for about the same power draw. • Custom hardware comes in the form of cards that are inserted into the computer much the same way that. • Popular Bitcoin-mining hardware brands include Butterfly Labs, Bitcoin Ultra, CoinTerra, and more. • A dedicated Bitcoin mining machine can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands depending on the number of operations it can complete per second.
Obtain a bitcoin wallet. Bitcoins are stored in digital wallets that are encrypted to protect your money. These wallets can be either locally. While online services that host your wallet won't be able to access it, they are considered less secure as your money could potentially be lost if something catastrophic happens on their end. • Most established bitcoin users recommend using a local wallet for security reasons. • Local wallets typically require verifying the entire blockchain, which is the history of all bitcoin transactions.
Hosting a blockchain is what helps keep Bitcoin running and secure. Syncing this blockchain for the first time can take a day or more. • Popular local wallets include BitcoinQT, Armory, and Multibit. Multibit does not require downloading the entire blockchain. • You can also get wallet apps for your mobile device. These do not require downloading the entire blockchain.
Popular apps include: Blockchain and CoinJar. • If you lose your wallet, you lose your money! Decide between joining a pool or going alone.
When it comes time to start mining coins, you have two main options: join in with an established pool or attempt to mine on your own. A pool allows you to share resources and split the rewards, which can lead to quicker returns. Mining alone can be difficult as getting new bitcoins is highly competitive, but you get to keep everything you mine. • Without joining a pool, you may go a year or more without earning any bitcoins, since the coin is awarded to the pool that discovers it. • Most pools charge a small fee (around 2%) of your earnings. • When joining a pool, you will need to create a 'worker'.
This is a subaccount which is used to track your contributions to the pool. You can have multiple workers at once. Each pool will have instructions on creating workers. Download a mining program. Mining programs are almost all open source and available for free.
There are different mining programs available depending on the type of hardware you are running. Mining programs run in the command line, and may need a in order to start correctly, especially if you are connecting to a pool. • The two most popular mining programs are CGminer and BFGminer. EasyMiner runs with a graphical interface as opposed to a command line.
• See your pool's help section for specific details on connecting to the pool with your mining program. • If you are mining solo, be sure to connect your mining program to your personal wallet, so that anything you earn gets deposited automatically. If you are mining as part of a pool, you will connect your wallet to your user account with the pool.
Coins will be transferred as they are earned.