Build Bitcoin BTC Mining Rig
The whole Bitcoin network is pillared on mining. Bitcoin mining is the way bitcoins are minted. These components will help build a hi performance gaming rig at a. Bitcoin mining difficulty has accelerated so much. It is aimed at developers to build applications with and. How to Set Up a Bitcoin Miner Generate bitcoins.
Since, countless so-called experts have been predicting the death of Bitcoin over and over again. There is even that counts how many times Bitcoin survived and kept thriving when, according to “experts”, it was supposed to die. Since Bitcoin is apparently not going anywhere anytime soon, you might be thinking of getting your hands on an to get some BTC in your wallet. In this article, I have compiled a list of what I believe are the best ways to get Bitcoin. This list describes the top 6 ASICs for BTC mining, as well as two cloud mining companies that proved to deliver as promised. How to Mine Bitcoin If you are not into cryptocurrency trading and speculation, you might want to mine your Bitcoins instead. By mining you support the cryptocurrency and get some money in the process too.
What is good about mining is that by using an ASIC you get a passive income, rather than profit one time from a lucky trade. Cryptocurrency trading might be potentially lucrative, but it requires you to be immersed in the world of cryptocurrencies 24/7.
The more immersed you are, the more chances you’ve got to profit from cryptocurrency speculation. Is different. Personally, I see mining as a way to create a steady flow of Bitcoins into my cryptowallet, rather than a way to get rich quickly. That being said, there are hundreds of people who made millions dollars with Bitcoin. There are many people who pay their bills by owning massive contracts with Genesis Mining or by operating their own mining farms. While more than one thousand people proved that one can make a living by mining cryptocurrencies, I would recommend you to start with lower expectations. The cryptocurrency market is complex and despite its average rising trend, it is rather unpredictable in the low scale.
It might be also a good idea to start small and invest only the amount you can afford to lose. Bitcoin mining requires quite a solid investment in order to provide you with a noticeable monthly income, which is why some newcomers are tempted to invest into mining more than they should. This creates unnecessary expectations and contradicts to the goal of mining, which is to have a passive income, rather than to make a million bucks in a month. All of the mentioned means that the following list is based on the idea that mining is meant to be a mid- or long-term investment. When I review mining equipment, my main criteria are longevity and hashrate/power usage ratio. So, how to mine Bitcoin? There are essentially two ways to mine Bitcoin.
One is by owning Bitcoin mining hardware: In this article, I will be talking about what I think is the best Bitcoin miner, as well as five others that are close to it. The other way is by purchasing a cloud mining contract and delegating the job to maintain the mining gear to a third-party company. Some people are reluctant about cloud mining since there used to be some cases of fake cloud mining companies scamming their customers.
I am aware of the risks and I will talk about two companies that proved to be legit and trustworthy. Tutorial Contents • • • • • • • • Best Bitcoin Miner Here is my list of the best Bitcoin miners. Now you know the criteria I’m using to determine which miners should go in the list, so you probably won’t be surprised about my best Bitcoin ASIC miner pick. The good thing about a list is that if one of the miners is out of stock, you can still consider the others. Some of those are meant for home mining, while others are either too noisy or too big and can only be properly used in a specialized farm (which might be a clean and properly cooled garage or basement). 6) Antminer S7 – 4.73 TH The AntMiner S7 was released in mid-2015.
Back in the day, with Bitcoin being priced at $225 USD and the difficulty being a fraction of what it is today, the AntMiner S7 was considered one of the best miners for the coin, as well as it featured a very promising ROI. It also was one of the game changers for the Bitcoin mining community. Two years have passed by and some think that the AntMiner S7 is no longer viable for mining. The reason is simple: if we calculate the profit based on the hashing power, electricity costs and mining pool fees, the AntMiner S7 ASIC Bitcoin often gives either negative or near zero profit.
Today, with Bitcoin being priced at $ 3836.95, this ASIC delivers only about $ 1 USD a day, all fees included. Your question probably is – why is this ASIC in this list? The reason is simple – if we think of mining as a way to convert fiat currencies into BTC, then the Antminer S7 might be considered a great option. While you probably won’t be expecting any additional passive income from this miner, not with BTC being priced at $3836.95, you can still use this little piece of equipment to safely and steadily convert your dollars into BTC. The main pro of this ASIC is its durability. Many S7s have been mining for two years now and they keep hashing the way they used to do. This is a good sign and it makes the S7 a good pick for those who are not rushing anywhere and who want to play it safe.
The AntMiner S7 features a strong metallic case and dual fans for stable cooling. It can operate between 7 C and 40 C ambient temperature, which makes it suitable for home mining too, if you don’t take into account the noise it produces. It is indeed quite noisy with tests showing a sound level of about 63 dB. 5) AvalonMiner 721 – 6 TH The next Bitcoin ASIC in our list is the AvalonMiner 721 – a miner by Canaan released in 2016. The Avalon 721 is smaller and lighter than Bitmain’s miners, being only half of the weight of the Antminer S7.
However, by some reason, the 721 manages to output some nice hashrate and one year later it is still considered a solid miner. Canaan interactive is a China-based company that is focused strictly on manufacturing Bitcoin ASICs. The Avalon 721 is based on 16nm chips, which allows it to be more power efficient than the aforementioned Antminer S7. In fact, the 16nm technology is still considered close to the cutting edge. This means that the ASIC still got a long life ahead. ROI-wise, the AvalonMiner 721 is rather an interesting case. As for today, it features ROI of somewhere between 8 and 12 months, depending on the price you pay for it.
Back when the miner was released, in December 2016, its ROI was 24 months. 4) AvalonMiner 741 – 7.3 TH If you like the AvalonMiner 721, you might like its successor too – the AvalonMiner 741. This miner is still based on 16nm chips too, however due to some important software and design optimization, this new model features even higher hashrate.
Efficiency-wise, the Avalon 741 still got the same 0.15 W/Gh, but thanks to the optimizations its base price is about 20% lower than the one of its predecessor. The AvalonMiner 741 looks really solid – it features an aluminum shell and custom heatsink with airforming technology. All of this makes me believe that the miner won’t be breaking anytime soon. This is even more believable since Canaan has a reputation of manufacturing quality products.
Noise-wise, the Avalon 741 can be considered a home miner in the case you live alone or your neighbors don’t mind the 50-60 dB noise. Otherwise, it might be a good idea to keep it in a dedicated mining farm (whether it is a mining office or a properly configured garage). If you want a miner especially designed for home mining, then check the next one in the list.
3) AntMiner R4 – 8.6 TH (great for home mining) The Antminer R4 can be considered the most popular Bitcoin home ASIC miner. While the miner is big and heavy, it produces only 51 dB of noise. According to loudness scales, 51 dB can be compared to the noise level of a quiet office or a refrigerator. As for today, the ASIC mines Ƀ 0.07031/ month or around Ƀ 0.8554 /year. Considering the upward trend of Bitcoin, this translates to $208 USD/mo profit. This is also why few people are willing to sell their R4.
New miners are not available for sale either. Last time I’ve checked, the cheapest R4 for sale was priced $ 3.200 USD per unit, used. Even then, it features 18 months ROI, which is actually not bad for a Bitcoin ASIC. 2) AntMiner T9 – 11.5 TH The AntMiner T9 is still one of the most sought-after Bitcoin ASICS. It features great power efficiency, as well as a solid metallic shell and equally good cooling system. The T9 is one of the newest Bitmain’s additions to the ASIC market.
It features 171 16nm chips that output between 11.5 TH/s and 12.5 TH/s, depending on the batch. The best thing about this Bitcoin ASIC miner is probably its availability on the market. While ASIC availability changes overnight and tomorrow things might be different, today the AntMiner T9 is on sale at a reasonable price in several sites. By having an average price tag of $1.600 USD, the T9 features 7 months ROI. 1) AntMiner S9 – 13.5 TH As for today, the AntMiner S9 is widely praised as the best Bitcoin miner. I completely agree with the public opinion on this miner.
The S9 features better power efficiency than the T9, which makes it even a better option for long-term Bitcoin mining. In fact, I still got to find a miner that would have better power efficiency than the Antminer S9. This ASIC is easy to operate and it takes only a couple of minutes to set it up. You don’t have to be a mining guru to be able to profit with this miner. Bitcoin Cloud Mining I agree that not anyone can afford to have their own ASIC at home for various reasons.
In some cases, your roommates might oppose to home mining because they don’t like the constant noise the miner produces. Or there might be no room for a miner in your apartment. Or, depending on where you live, electricity might be really expensive at your place rendering mining unprofitable. There are several reasons why far from everyone can mine from their homes. Luckily for us, there is a way to enjoy the benefits of mining without the need to have a miner at home.
I am talking about Bitcoin cloud mining. There are companies who rent hashrate. Investing in a cloud mining contracts can be compared to investing in a company – you pay a fixed amount upfront and then your income depends on how the value of the company (in this case, the value of the cryptocurrency) evolves.
• • • • • There are two main factors that affect your profit from a Bitcoin cloud mining contract: • Bitcoin price • Bitcoin mining difficulty Electricity and maintenance fees are usually included in the price in the case of a limited time contract. Usually, cloud mining contracts offer a ROI of 18 months. Depending on Bitcoin price/difficulty fluctuations, this might go up or down. I am talking about legit companies here.
Scam ones often attract unsuspecting victims by offering them 3-5 months ROI contracts. Those are indeed unrealistic numbers and anyone who is not new to cryptomining can spot what’s wrong. The two companies I am going to talk about here have stood the test of time. That being said, there is always that guy who gives negative rating to a functioning and honest company.
Also, as always, please take what you read with a grain of salt and make your own research. Genesis Mining – Bitcoin Cloud Mining Genesis Mining owns farms in Bosnia, China and now. The company was founded in late 2013 and since then it proved to work as intended. They do face some technical difficulties from time to time that result in payoff delays but at the end of the day people still get their money. Newcomers sometimes start to panic when they don’t get any BTC the first month after they’ve purchased a contract. Most negative reviews about Genesis Mining are based on this.
I guess it is worth mentioning that the company will hold the Bitcoins you’ve earned the first 30 days after you’ve purchased the contract. You will get your BTC 31 days after you’ve bought the contract. The reason is simple – credit card payments have a 30 day refund policy, so anyone can potentially exploit this to get infinite hashrate from GM for free. This is why Genesis Mining freezes your income for the first 30 days in order to avoid being scammed by its own customers.
(Image Courtesy of CoinGen) Nothing in the tech world confuses us as much as Bitcoin it seems. What we do know about it is that it’s volatile and it can be worth a ton of money, but we hardly understand where it comes from, who invented it apparently, or what it is past being a crypto-currency- even that term confuses many. Perhaps the main reason Bitcoin baffles us so is it’s infinite nature- it can develop into so many structures and utilities that it’s hard to describe it as anyone thing, but hopefully this article clears up some of the confusion for you. Bitcoin has been making headlines quite a bit lately. The that Bitcoin is not a currency but an asset, one that must be taxed on its gains. Dismissed the entire concept of Bitcoin in a television interview as “a mirage,” an opinion that fired up venture capitalist and perhaps Bitcoin’s number one fan Marc Andreessen to group those like Buffett as “old white men crapping on new technology they don’t understand.” After getting hammered by a series of attacks the past few months, and currently sits around $360 with a market cap of just over $4.7 billion according to.
Whatever side of the love/hate debate over Bitcoin you might find yourself on, we could all use a little more understanding over a subject that most of us are only beginning to understand. If you have ever been curious about Bitcoin, then you’ll definitely want to hear this student’s story. Geoffrey Welborn is a political science major at the University of California, San Diego. A self taught Bitcoin enthusiast, Geoffrey has been mining Bitcoin from his on-campus apartment since January and is also a co-founder of a Bitcoin ATM startup. As a young entrepreneur in the crypto-currency industry, I had the pleasure of visiting Geoffrey on campus where I picked his brain on everything about Bitcoin to explain it in a way that anyone can understand.
I met Geoffrey at his on-campus apartment on the Monday of finals week at his university. With most students cooped up inside cramming for their exams, the atmosphere on campus was quiet and peaceful. Sitting with him in his cozy single, I got the chance to examine the neat bundle of wires, the whirring fan, USB chips, and monitors that made up his Bitcoin rig.
With my curiosity immediately sparked, I began to fire away with my questions. I first wanted Geoffrey to explain in the simplest terms to me something that seems to confuse pretty much everyone when it comes to talking about digital currencies- what is Bitcoin? Geoffrey explained. Ios Bitcoin Cash BCH Miner. “With the advent of the internet in the past twenty years, Bitcoin is the first serious attempt at making a digital currency that isn’t exposed to counterfeit. The first thought that comes to mind when people think digital internet currency is that it is prone to a digital copy-paste.
A lot of people think, “How do I know that’s my money when I can’t hold it?” “So it’s basically a decentralized ledger that is stored in many places, called nodes, collecting and storing the data of all these transactions, known as a blockchain, of this payment network so everything is recorded when you send and receive through it; it’s not as anonymous as people think. It’s actually more relevant to email, it’s pseudonymous.
You have an identity but that identity can’t always be traced back to the person unless they want to sell their Bitcoins, in which case a regulatory environment is developing to combat criminals. Bitcoin is a network, a protocol, it’s a currency, it’s an asset, it’s not quite clear yet but it’s an exciting piece of technology at the end of the day.” What is the greatest utility in Bitcoin for the average consumer? “Most people right now see at it as a speculative asset that could be used in many different ways.
I personally see it in a ‘commodity’ phase where it could one day stabilize and gain ‘currency’ status. If it achieves a much higher market cap, hundreds of billions, it will really be able to be utilized as the efficient payment network it is.”. The Bitcoin Rig Following the mess of wires that ran from the monitors on his desk to the crate that held his rig below, I asked him to explain why and how he learned to build his Bitcoin rig. “This past November, Bitcoin got a lot more news attention and I thought I’d want to get into it.
I like information technology and I like where this is headed, so I started in mid-December experimenting with mining on my MacBook Pro and that was interesting.” While taking a supply chain and operations management course at the university, he became very interested in the concept of utilizing spare computing power to start mining Bitcoin. Geoffrey explained, “Right now I see Bitcoin as the leader; it’s almost guaranteed at this point, just as the first mover principle and for it’s ability to be changed if absolutely needed.” Beginning his research, “I looked up a few tutorials online. A lot are handy and simple put-it-together and it was all fairly inclusive. “Building a Bitcoin miner with a Raspberry Pi” yields a decent amount of Google searches.”. • – $40.00 – $80.00 • (1.6 Gh/s) – $52.00 (each) • – $6.00 • – $8.00 If you aren’t familiar with the Raspberry Pi, it’s the world’s cheapest production computer and it’s about the size of a deck of cards- a perfect, cheap, extra brain to manage your mining 24/7.
The most expensive components of the rig are the block erupters. Simply put, as Geoffrey explained, block erupters are “computer chips specialized to do one thing and one thing only- mine Bitcoins.” Virtually a “plug and mine” USB stick, block erupters vary in price depending on their mining speed. To give you a sense of reference, Geoffrey’s rig only contains five block erupters- two 1.6 Gh/s and three.336 Gh/s block erupters, all of which were purchased for between $30-$50 which is considered on the lower end. Now, it would make sense that the more Gigahashes, the units that basically measure mining speed, you have, the faster you can mine; they are also more expensive. In total, your very own rig to start mining Bitcoin won’t cost more than a few hundred dollars. One point Geoffrey highlighted that anyone buying should keep in mind is the speed at which Bitcoin mining technology advances.
You can order one block erupter one month and find that the next month, there could literally be a new chip on the market that is twice as fast and half the price; for you hungry entrepreneurs out there, the Bitcoin mining technology industry is an exciting and fast-paced industry in itself. Once your components are set, the hardest part is installing and running the program to manage your mining. This task will take a fair amount of research and an understanding of some computer science, though I was informed that some Google searches, patience, and determination will land you success. Working with your rig, you’ll also need a variety of online platforms to help mine, track, store, and trade your Bitcoins. The three big names to look out for are, and. “With BitMinter, they allow me to monitor, store and send my earnings made through the mining pool.” When mining, you need to be part of a mining pool, which is a community of miners that informs you when blocks are found; by yourself, you’ll basically never find a block to mine. Another resource to check out is, which is regarded as the world’s largest mining pool.
When looking to store, trade, buy and sell Bitcoin, Coinbase is perhaps the number one platform out there. “Coinbase acts as a wallet to some extent, but Coinbase has nearly 98% of their Bitcoins in cold storage so they aren’t connected to the internet. It’s another added level of security. I trust them, I have a two-factor verification, I can send you Bitcoin as easy as sending an email, and they are also venture capital backed.” If you are also looking for diversity, ease of use, and another place to stash your Bitcoins, Blockchain is a wallet platform that also tracks other Bitcoin transactions. “I use blockchain as another wallet. I use it to show people starting out because it’s really easy to use.” The real question in all this is how much that little rig can make. Geoffrey broke it down for me by comparison.
Since starting in mid-January and working the rig at maximum capacity, Geoffrey explained that, “On average every five hours, I make about 20-30 cents worth of Bitcoin, depending on the market price.” This may not sound very much to most, but keep in mind that his modest rig represents the most affordable hardware suitable for a hobby; the investment, return and risk involved are the lowest possible. If are want to spend money to make money, on the more expensive ends, for example, you can buy mining hardware for tens of thousands of dollars.
At, a mining hardware company, you can purchase a Bitcoin miner for just under $10,000; at mining speeds over 3000 Gh/s, excluding the amount of your electricity bill, Geoffrey calculates that you can mine about $222 worth of Bitcoin a day. “It’s all about scales of economy. When you buy the Bitcoin machinery, they have to give you more.
ROI (return on investment) is more achievable. If you were going all in, you would get one of those.” The Future of Bitcoin So why should anyone mine Bitcoin? To anyone easily lost in computer jargon, it’s certainly a challenging task. It all falls on the potential of Bitcoin. As Geoffrey explained to me, we have only seen the very beginning of Bitcoin’s rise- if there is to be one at all- though Bitcoin’s recent volatility hasn’t helped that much. Geoffrey explained that, “It’s a cat and mouse game with all the security flaws.” Just like the many recent credit card hacks of major department stores, Bitcoin platforms have also fallen victim to cyber attacks.
Trading platform Mt. Gox was one such victim in which a security flaw involving digital receipt-fraud and the unethical business practices of Mt. Gox’s owner were exploited, resulting in bankruptcy and the loss of Bitcoins for many who used the site.
While all other platforms adapted to prevent such a flaw after the fall of Mt. Gox, the Bitcoin market ultimately took a beating where the speculation on Bitcoin’s security became the subject of doubt; a concept frequently seen when the stock market crashes on Wall Street. The loss of hope in Bitcoin still doesn’t deter those who are passionate about seeing it’s success, like Geoffrey, or those who have invested millions in it, like Marc Andreessen and Richard Branson.
To them, Bitcoin still has a bright future, but for us, we can at least understand what needs to happen in order for Bitcoin to become something that will leave us kicking ourselves years from now for not investing earlier. Geoffrey explained to me why we might regret not buying Bitcoin sooner: “On the BitcoinMarket sub-reddit, there’s been consistent talk of a logarithmic bubble trend over several years of price movements. If that trend stays consistent with this summer, it will be the biggest rise in price yet. Following this line of thought, I tend to agree with Barry Silbert of the Bitcoin Investment Trust & the Winklevoss twins. Large valuations that have been speculation are obviously exposed to internal bias, so who really knows. If millions of people begin to take Bitcoin seriously, or Wall Street creates financial instruments out of it, then it could re-enter a long-term trend. On the other hand, history is filled with technology failures as well as success stories.
As reported by, SecondMarket Chief Executive Barry Silbert predicts another Bitcoin bubble to burst, speculating that as close to this summer to the end of this year, we may see Bitcoin reach a four digit price range again. And yes, those are the same Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, who milked Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg in a lawsuit for $140 million in 2004 and became internet entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and heavy Bitcoin investors; a bright future for Bitcoin, seeing its market cap explode to one hundred times what it is now to reach $400 billion, meaning that each Bitcoin could be worth upwards of $40,000 dollars. With Bitcoin currently sitting around $360, for it to reach several thousand by the end of this year is the point of an exciting opportunity, but also a miracle as it seems. The big question is if and how Bitcoin will become popular among both consumers and merchants. “The future of Bitcoin is really bright, especially in America. I heard a really great quote on a lesson that if China bans something, the U.S. Should embrace it.
China put out some sketchy releases involving their banks banning Bitcoins, but now it seems that’s phasing out. With the U.S., especially with these exchanges coming out in the future, a lot of startups are really pushing hard.” While Bitcoin can indeed still be wildly successful, one should never downplay the risk involved in speculating and investing in Bitcoin. An entrepreneur, out of anyone else, knows this lesson all too well as the two industries are nearly one in the same. “In both scenarios you have the risk of losing everything. I’m drawing a lot of similarities, but the sky is the limit really, until government intervention comes along of course.” To the business minded, Bitcoin is simply an exciting investment opportunity, plain and simple, but the looming question is, “How much do you believe in Bitcoin?”.