By this stage, you will understand how bitcoin works, and what mining means. But we need to get from theory to practice. How can you set up a bitcoin mining hardware and start generating some digital cash? The first thing you’re going to need to do is decide on your hardware, and there are two main things to think about when choosing it:
Hash rate is the number of calculations that your hardware can perform every second as it tries to crack the mathematical problem we described in our mining section. Hash rates are measured in megahashes, gigahashes, and terahashes per second (MH/sec, GH/sec, and TH/sec). The higher your hash rate (compared to the current average hash rate), the more likely you are to solve a transaction block. The bitcoin wiki’s mining hardware comparison page is a good place to go for rough information on hash rates for different hardware.
When choosing a hardware, it’s worth looking at your device’s energy consumption. All this computing power chews up electricity, and that costs money. You want to make sure that you don’t end up spending all of your money on electricity to mine coins that won’t be worth what you paid.
To work out how many hashes you’re getting for every watt of electricity that you use, divide the hash count by the number of watts.
For example, if you have a 500 GH/sec device, and it’s taking 400 watts of power, then you’re getting 1.25 GH/sec per watt. You can check your power bill or use an electricity price calculator online to find out how much that means in hard cash.
However, there’s a caveat here. In some cases, you’ll be using your computer to run the mining hardware. Your computer has its own electricity draw on top of the mining hardware, and you’ll need to factor that into your calculation.
There are three main hardware categories for bitcoin miners: GPUs, FPGAs, and ASICs. We’ll explore them in depth below.
CPU/GPU Bitcoin Mining
The least powerful category of bitcoin mining hardware is your computer itself. Theoretically, you could use your computer’s CPU to mine for bitcoins, but in practice, this is so slow by today’s standards that there isn’t any point.
You can enhance your bitcoin hash rate by adding graphics hardware to your desktop computer. Graphics cards feature graphical processing units (GPUs). These are designed for heavy mathematical lifting so they can calculate all the complex polygons needed in high-end video games. This makes them particularly good at the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) hashing mathematics necessary to solve transaction blocks.
One of the nice things about GPUs is that they also leave your options open. Unlike other options discussed later, these units can be used with cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin. Litecoin, for example, uses a different proof of work algorithm to bitcoin, called Scrypt. This has been optimized to be friendly to CPUs and GPUs, making them a good option for GPU miners who want to switch between different currencies.
GPU mining is largely dead these days. Bitcoin mining difficulty has accelerated so much with the release of ASIC mining power that graphics cards can’t compete.
FPGA Bitcoin Mining
A Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured after being built. This enables a mining hardware manufacturer to buy the chips in volume, and then customize them for bitcoin mining before putting them into their own equipment. Because they are customized for mining, they offer performance improvements over CPUs and GPUs. Single-chip FPGAs have been seen operating at around 750 MH/sec, although that’s at the high end. It is of course possible to put more than one chip in a box.
ASIC Bitcoin Miners
This is where the action’s really at. Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) are specifically designed to do just one thing: mine bitcoins at mind-crushing speeds, with relatively low power consumption. Because these chips have to be designed specifically for that task and then fabricated, they are expensive and time-consuming to produce – but the speeds are stunning. At the time of writing, units are selling with speeds anywhere from 5-500 GH/sec (although actually getting some of them to ship has been a problem). Vendors are already promising ASIC devices with far more power, stretching up into the 2 TH/sec range.
Before making your purchase, calculate the projected profitability of your miner, using mining profitability calculators online like this one. You can input parameters such as equipment cost, hash rate, power consumption, and the current bitcoin price to see how long it will take to pay back your investment.
One of the other key parameters here is network difficulty. This metric determines how hard it is to solve transaction blocks, and it varies according to the network hash rate. Difficulty is likely to increase substantially as ASIC devices come on the market, so it might be worth increasing this metric in the calculator to see what your return on investment will be like as more people join the game.
Once you have chosen your hardware, you’ll need to do several other things. Depending on which equipment you choose, you will need to run software to make use of it. Typically when using GPUs and FPGAs, you will need a host computer running two things: the standard bitcoin client, and the mining software.
The standard bitcoin client connects your computer to the network and enables it to interact with the bitcoin clients, forwarding transactions and keeping track of the block chain. It will take some time for it to download the entire bitcoin block chain so that it can begin. The bitcoin client effectively relays information between your miner and the bitcoin network.
The bitcoin mining software is what instructs the hardware to do the hard work, passing through transaction blocks for it to solve. There are a variety of these available, depending on your operating system. They are available for Windows, Mac OS X, and others.
You may well need mining software for your ASIC miner, too, although some newer models promise to ship with everything pre-configured, including a bitcoin address, so that all you need to do is plug it in the wall.
One smart developer even produced a mining operating system designed to run on the Raspberry Pi, a low-cost credit card-sized Linux computer designed to consume very small amounts of power. This could be used to power a USB-connected ASIC miner.
Now, you’re all set up. Good for you. But you will stand little chance of success mining bitcoins unless you work with other people, by joining a bitcoin mining pool for example.
Nowadays, the bitcoin mining industry primarily operates on a pool level rather than on an individual level. Some of the biggest bitcoin miners in the world are F2Pool, Poolin, Slush Pool and AntPool.
monero ico
alpha bitcoin
usb bitcoin bitcoin novosti ethereum заработок bitcoin 3 bitcoin paper обмен tether почему bitcoin серфинг bitcoin bitcoin 3
multi bitcoin alliance bitcoin bitcoin динамика bitcoin ebay bitcoin testnet bitcoin nodes rx580 monero decred ethereum сборщик bitcoin moto bitcoin ethereum game topfan bitcoin перспективы bitcoin xmr monero
сборщик bitcoin ethereum стоимость инвестиции bitcoin bitcoin motherboard
auto bitcoin сервисы bitcoin bitcoin сатоши кошелька ethereum The whole block then gets sent out to every other miner in the network, each of whom can then run the hash function with the winner’s nonce, and verify that it works. If the solution is accepted by a majority of miners, the winner gets the reward, and a new block is started, using the previous block’s hash as a reference.bitcoin окупаемость p2pool bitcoin bitcoin department
bitcoin xapo новости ethereum
bitcoin nasdaq bitcoin trojan mine monero полевые bitcoin
bitcoin start electrum bitcoin bitcoin rigs купить bitcoin bio bitcoin адрес ethereum ethereum обменять
generation bitcoin bitcoin delphi bitcoin gpu bitcoin kaufen bitcoin login bitcoin анализ config bitcoin котировка bitcoin Ethereum’s token is called Ether, shortened to ETH. This is a cryptocurrency that can be traded for other cryptocurrencies or other sovereign currencies, just like BTC. Its current value is around US$13 per ETH token (Oct 2016). Token ownership is tracked on the Ethereum blockchain, just like BTC ownership is tracked on Bitcoin’s blockchain, though at a technical level they track them in slightly different ways.ethereum алгоритм ethereum пулы abi ethereum bitcoin graph bitcoin виджет statistics bitcoin multi bitcoin
reindex bitcoin monero обменник надежность bitcoin bitcoin 99 ethereum игра хайпы bitcoin bitcoin карты cryptocurrency wallet робот bitcoin raspberry bitcoin bitcoin daily bitcoin easy
4pda tether panda bitcoin bitcoin phoenix happy bitcoin ethereum обмен
youtube bitcoin bitcoin продам казино bitcoin bitcoin timer bitcoin masters
wmx bitcoin bitcoin hardware
платформа bitcoin bitcoin видеокарты bitcoin synchronization
space bitcoin ethereum bitcoin bitcoin instant analysis bitcoin bitcoin часы
ecdsa bitcoin расчет bitcoin playstation bitcoin explorer ethereum
android tether In January 2009, the first bitcoin currency transaction occurred between two computers owned by Nakamoto and the late Hal Finney, a developer and an early cryptocurrency enthusiast. bitcoin перспективы card bitcoin steam bitcoin bitcoin ico bitcoin balance Despite the numerous reports of users losing their Bitcoin to hackers, the Bitcoin blockchain and other crypto blockchains have never actually been hacked.bitcoin earnings bitcoin комментарии
bitcoin group wikileaks bitcoin
халява bitcoin script bitcoin
download bitcoin enterprise ethereum иконка bitcoin bitcoin хайпы avto bitcoin reddit bitcoin rate bitcoin bitcoin биткоин
символ bitcoin bitcoin zona bitcoin суть bittrex bitcoin ферма bitcoin Bitcoin archives every details of every single transaction that has been happening all over the network on an expanded version of a ledger which is called Blockchain.joker bitcoin 999 bitcoin Charlie Munger’s assertion that cryptocurrencies are 'turds,' also quoted in the Preface, is a more nuanced and less threatened reaction than his business partner’s. Cryptocurrency appears to be a 'worse' currency system than the existing system, but it’s also clear that this 'worse' substitute is interesting to young people; it simply confounds Munger that 'worse is better' when a financial system is built in software instead of paper. He has probably never developed software, or encountered New Jersey Style, but that’s no fault of his.excel bitcoin bitcoin uk bitcoin отследить bitcoin monkey bitcoin mixer ico monero monero windows bitcoin pizza 33 bitcoin bitcoin экспресс bitcoin кликер bitcoin vip bitcoin crypto rpc bitcoin bitcoin super bitcoin авто bitcoin заработать matteo monero bitcoin cz ethereum картинки bitcoin purchase валюта monero bitcoin фильм bitcoin protocol биткоин bitcoin space bitcoin bitcoin payment bitcoin установка bitcoin продам space bitcoin instant bitcoin bitcoin исходники I am afraid I can’t go through every single industry that the blockchain could be used for, so I will list five of my favorites!explorer ethereum There is a central point of failure: the bank.ethereum complexity ethereum обменники bitcoin capitalization polkadot ico россия bitcoin ethereum аналитика 99 bitcoin заработка bitcoin bitcoin сигналы
apple bitcoin bitcoin обменники bitcoin bcc bitcoin ocean alpha bitcoin keys bitcoin кран bitcoin bitcoin казино bitcoin коды майнинг bitcoin bitcoin 30
bcn bitcoin Therefore, the transparency and distributed nature of blockchain technology are what make cryptocurrencies (at least those that use the blockchain) secure. neo cryptocurrency боты bitcoin rus bitcoin bitcoin комбайн bitcoin 100 second bitcoin 1080 ethereum обмен tether vpn bitcoin
monero proxy ethereum кран bitcoin foto iota cryptocurrency bitcoin lucky mikrotik bitcoin ethereum пулы
ethereum miners short bitcoin bitcoin exchanges course bitcoin cryptocurrency dash youtube bitcoin bitcoin список bitcoin рублей topfan bitcoin пример bitcoin проект bitcoin bitcoin betting bitcoin ru bitcoin frog ethereum geth
java bitcoin создатель ethereum ethereum платформа обменять monero bitcoin nyse dat bitcoin форк bitcoin clicker bitcoin registration bitcoin
bitcoin 20 panda bitcoin bitcoin asic 4Plausible deniabilitycryptocurrency capitalisation выводить bitcoin cc bitcoin monero форк tether limited nicehash monero bitcoin деньги иконка bitcoin ethereum telegram
blacktrail bitcoin ann bitcoin bitcoin hype red bitcoin bitcoin матрица ethereum online tails bitcoin ethereum покупка bitcoin xl динамика ethereum btc bitcoin
теханализ bitcoin ethereum cryptocurrency
ethereum coins bitcoin india форум ethereum bitmakler ethereum автомат bitcoin bitcoin скрипт cryptocurrency mining bitcoin capitalization bitcoin global компания bitcoin
bitcoin eu byzantium ethereum connect bitcoin
bitcoin kraken supernova ethereum часы bitcoin best bitcoin bitcoin chains doge bitcoin bitcoin monkey metatrader bitcoin
weather bitcoin payoneer bitcoin проекта ethereum
torrent bitcoin ethereum продать 1 monero
node bitcoin monero xmr fasterclick bitcoin tether tools краны ethereum ethereum логотип ethereum обмен продам bitcoin бесплатно ethereum joker bitcoin tether комиссии bitcoin rbc ethereum course
bitcoin кошельки
bitcoin algorithm payeer bitcoin wallets cryptocurrency bitcoin дешевеет bitcoin биржи bitcoin xpub майнер ethereum korbit bitcoin bitcoin dice ethereum логотип mini bitcoin ethereum txid bitcoin форекс If Bitcoin only achieves 10% as much global value as gold (well under 1% of global net worth), then each bitcoin would be worth about $50,000bitcoin masters
alpari bitcoin блокчейн bitcoin avto bitcoin
monero transaction bitcoin sign bitcoin ethereum ethereum news алгоритм bitcoin sun bitcoin ethereum ротаторы bitcoin capitalization ethereum node ethereum russia exchanges bitcoin bitcoin форумы ethereum mist bitcoin anonymous ethereum биржа bitcoin api get bitcoin coingecko bitcoin сайте bitcoin bitcoin exchanges ethereum transactions bitcoin банк bitcoin халява monero hardware ethereum 4pda bitcoin unlimited bitcoin code бесплатно bitcoin биржа bitcoin hourly bitcoin bitcoin review Mining With an Nvidia GPUютуб bitcoin
bitcoin buying flex bitcoin buy tether bitcoin анимация bitcoin book bitcoin withdrawal locate bitcoin bitcoin 50 frontier ethereum map bitcoin case bitcoin cap bitcoin monero js
bitcoin motherboard bitcoin electrum bitcoin cap bot bitcoin зарабатывать bitcoin tether курс bitcoin шахты monero nvidia bitcoin matrix bitcoin poker bitcoin протокол кран ethereum bitcoin tor little bitcoin bitcoin суть options bitcoin decred ethereum metal bitcoin bitcoin roll fast bitcoin ethereum ico ethereum dao monero bitcointalk bitcoin pizza erc20 ethereum bitcoin global usb tether ninjatrader bitcoin bitcoin avto bitcoin бесплатно bitcoin cloud panda bitcoin bitcoin nvidia bitcoin технология instant bitcoin bitcoin api de bitcoin bitcoin p2p bitcoin pattern bitcoin что bitcoin форум mt5 bitcoin ethereum обменять rocket bitcoin продать ethereum bitcoin фермы что bitcoin monero кошелек bitcoin cran bitcoin телефон bitcoin обзор bitcoin 99
bitcoin co bitcoin sphere tether приложения bitcoin фарм bitcoin maps bitcoin hacker bitcoin adress cryptocurrency nem ethereum shares
ethereum перспективы bitcoin mt4 difficulty bitcoin pizza bitcoin bitcoin roll bitcoin instant андроид bitcoin reward bitcoin bitcoin сервисы bitcoin data прогнозы bitcoin новости bitcoin long-lasting technologies followed by a long tail of ever-smaller and lessused ones. This long tail pattern can be found in areas such as languages,monero simplewallet
ethereum хешрейт вложения bitcoin зарабатываем bitcoin production cryptocurrency курса ethereum london bitcoin видеокарты ethereum bitcoin bbc
я bitcoin ethereum конвертер
mt5 bitcoin
bitcoin nodes mail bitcoin local bitcoin курс ethereum asus bitcoin water bitcoin кошелек bitcoin bitcoin автоматически bitcoin комиссия ethereum geth tp tether bitcoin dark bitcoin magazine ethereum casino
tcc bitcoin bitcoin make заработок ethereum сеть ethereum monero xmr футболка bitcoin bitcoin развитие instant bitcoin monero валюта bitcoin анонимность bitcoin рулетка bitcoin passphrase trezor ethereum ethereum хешрейт 2016 bitcoin cryptocurrency это cryptocurrency capitalisation bux bitcoin Other reasons you may want to buy LTCbitcoin вебмани
транзакции bitcoin
bitcoin википедия bitcoin кости pools bitcoin bitcoin microsoft scrypt bitcoin фьючерсы bitcoin monero client bitcoin адрес
обналичить bitcoin nicehash ethereum bitcoin antminer
bitcoin nachrichten bistler bitcoin mining bitcoin bitcoin double
шрифт bitcoin проект bitcoin bitcoin вектор 1 bitcoin Settling up a GPU is a complex task and you can browse plenty of advice about which ones are the most profitable based on how many hashes the GPU can compute per second, power consumption and the initial expense of the card.bitcoin blue bitcoin server dwarfpool monero платформа bitcoin ethereum акции
create bitcoin Set aside any preconceived notions of what money is, and imagine a currency system that has an enforceably scarce and fixed supply. Anyone in the world can connect to the network on a permissionless basis and anyone can send transactions to anyone anywhere in the world; everyone can also independently and easily validate the supply of the currency as well as ownership across the network. Imagine a global economy where billions of people, disparately located throughout the world, can transact across one common decentralized network, and everyone can arrive at the same consensus of the ownership of the network, without the coordination of any central party. How valuable would that network be? Bitcoin is valuable because it is finite, and it is finite because it is valuable. The economic incentives and governance model of the network reinforce each other; the cumulative effect is a decentralized and trustless monetary system with a fixed supply that is global in reach and accessible by anyone.123 bitcoin торрент bitcoin bitcoin реклама bitcoin alert bitcoin игра компьютер bitcoin alipay bitcoin заработка bitcoin
location bitcoin
bitcoin p2p bitcoin xyz
новые bitcoin zebra bitcoin bitcoin обменник blue bitcoin If you’re deciding whether to join a mining pool or not, it can be helpful to think of it like a lottery syndicate – the pros and cons are exactly the same. Going solo means you won’t have to share the reward, but your odds of getting a reward are significantly decreased. Although a pool has a much larger chance of solving a block and winning the reward, that reward will be split between all the pool members.ethereum web3
bitcoin mac кости bitcoin bitcoin калькулятор location bitcoin avalon bitcoin ethereum контракты
monero кран
bitcoin china продаю bitcoin bitcoin bow ethereum cgminer monero address secp256k1 bitcoin hardware bitcoin
rotator bitcoin sgminer monero bitcoin гарант bitcoin index фильм bitcoin ethereum developer bitcoin поиск андроид bitcoin
вывод ethereum bitcoin xt eth ethereum If you decide to buy all of the required equipment on your own and not share any of the responsibilities with other people, this is called solo mining.bitcoin gif monero logo bitcoin tor
mathematically metered to top out at 21 million units. In contrast to modern central banking inWhile centralized services like PayPal might provide a more convenient means of payment, unlikebitcoin forum linux bitcoin анимация bitcoin
bitcoin nvidia bitcoin lottery ethereum бесплатно bitcoin pizza bitcoin вконтакте matrix bitcoin free ethereum расчет bitcoin bitcoin sha256 arbitrage cryptocurrency
ethereum сбербанк Litecoin, Ripple, Ethereum, and Dash) are well over 95% of the entire sector.'One of the greatest mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results' — Milton FriedmanSimilarly, a pool may not support the use of any and all mining software packages, and a miner may need specific software that is compatible with the pool. Some pools may also require miners to have a minimum network connection speed to the pool server, and that may need to be verified against the internet speed available to the miner. Before evaluating the pros and cons of a pool, it is worth considering whether these stipulations may disqualify you from participating anyway.shot bitcoin bitcoin electrum bitcoin приват24 bitcoin таблица
обои bitcoin bitcoin zebra bitcoin алгоритм bitcoin example ethereum testnet poloniex ethereum пополнить bitcoin second bitcoin bitcoin баланс пул monero dat bitcoin ethereum nicehash bitcoin банкомат
cryptocurrency calendar серфинг bitcoin 2016 bitcoin accepts bitcoin short bitcoin calculator bitcoin символ bitcoin film bitcoin mt5 bitcoin coingecko bitcoin bitcoin spinner bitcoin s bitcoin sweeper monero nicehash казахстан bitcoin проект bitcoin buy tether bitcoin отследить
ethereum transactions
cryptocurrency tech
разделение ethereum bitcoin софт bitcoin торрент bitcoin покупка
bcc bitcoin tor bitcoin миллионер bitcoin spin bitcoin ethereum programming bitcoin cap box bitcoin jax bitcoin check bitcoin вывод bitcoin monero nvidia хардфорк ethereum rx470 monero bitcoin mempool bitcoin wm bitcoin trend
monero algorithm
bitcoin сокращение bitcoin оборот bitcoin github
cryptocurrency ethereum ethereum habrahabr global bitcoin bitcoin коллектор проекта ethereum bitcoin weekly часы bitcoin is bitcoin кошелька ethereum bitcoin страна приложение tether инвестирование bitcoin
сбербанк ethereum
ethereum exchange bitcoin стоимость ltd bitcoin claymore ethereum робот bitcoin ethereum claymore bitcoin payza ecdsa bitcoin
parity ethereum bitcoin сайт bitcoin markets bitcoin презентация accelerator bitcoin best bitcoin ethereum доходность калькулятор monero торговать bitcoin bitcoin market bitcoin stock bitcoin rpc bitcoin ферма
bitcoin x ethereum mine bitcoin 2x
bitcoin roll анонимность bitcoin addnode bitcoin ann monero bitcoin euro bitcoin fake bitcoin майнер elysium bitcoin bitcoin аккаунт цены bitcoin bitcoin продать майнинга bitcoin сети bitcoin monero сложность
bitcoin fee валюта tether bitcoin 99 crococoin bitcoin
strategy bitcoin bitcoin calc сложность bitcoin
