How to Build a Crypto Mining Rig
December 09 2021 - 5:15AM
Finscreener.org
As the crypto industry reaches
new heights each passing year, more crypto enthusiasts are drawn to
the crypto mining business as a way of making profits. ItU+02019s a
logical move, too: after all, why should you pay to buy crypto from
third-parties, when you can make it yourself? In a way, mining has
become the technological equivalent of growing your own organic
tomatoes, except these tomatoes could end up being more valuable
than gold. Tasty, right?
However, much like organic
farming, mining cryptocurrencies requires patience, diligence and
above all, resources. In this guide, we will cover the steps you
need to take in order to put together a crypto mining rig and some
drawbacks that you need to consider in order to decide if crypto
mining would be a profitable venture for you.
What Do You Need to Mine Cryptocurrencies?
Crypto mining is an
energy-intensive and competitive
endeavor. The current
popularity of cryptocurrencies guarantees that millions of people
are vying for a limited amount of crypto tokens at any given time.
Mining successfully under these circumstances requires you to
make some hard decisions: which cryptocurrency you are going
to mine, how much you can invest in mining, and finally, how much
you are hoping to gain.
If your goal is to get some
Ether
or Bitcoin
directly from the source, you need to buckle in for a bumpy ride,
because mining difficulty steadily increases for these
cryptocurrencies as more people (and companies) dip into the mining
game. You might need multiple higher quality (i.e.: expensive)
mining rigs to mine these digital assets and more electricity to
keep them running.
However, if you are looking to
mine less popular altcoins, you might get away with a smaller
initial investment. Certain altcoins like Monero
are both popular and somewhat resistant to industrial mining. If
you are fine with mining less popular digital assets, you may earn
steady profits from your venture, but you need to keep in mind that
these assets don’t yet have the clout that Bitcoin has, and there
is no way of telling if they ever will.
How to Build a Crypto Mining Rig
There are different kinds of
mining rigs you can put together depending on your mining needs. If
you want to mine popular cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and
Bitcoin, you need specifically designed equipment: ASIC miners that
are tailor-made to mine on an industrial level.
ASIC miners cost anywhere from a
couple of hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. Obviously,
newer (faster and more capable) ASICs cost more than the older
models that you can buy secondhand online. But the cost of a mining
rig isn’t the only thing that you need to worry about, as ASICs
also require immense amounts of electricity to keep running and
should be paired with proper cooling equipment in order to be able
to function. All this adds up to a hefty electricity bill for
crypto miners.
Another option is to put together
a CPU or GPU mining rig. CPU mining is simply using a powerful
computer to mine cryptocurrencies, and while you can’t depend on
your computer’s CPU to mine Bitcoin, you can still mine certain
cryptocurrencies that can’t be mined with ASICs as per their
protocols. Without ASICs in the game, your CPU has a fighting
chance.
GPU mining, on the other hand,
can be a lot more profitable than mining with a CPU, but it is also
significantly more expensive. GPU miners generally put together a
mining rig by connecting several GPUs to a single motherboard.
Powerful Nvidia (NASDAQ:
NVDA) and AMD
(NASDAQ:
AMD) graphics cards are
used for crypto mining so often that Nvidia actually released a GPU
specifically designed for crypto mining.
Is Cryptocurrency Mining Profitable?
If you are wondering whether you
can make a profit out of crypto mining, your best bet is to use a
profitability calculator like what to
mine or
Slushpool’s calculator. These calculators help you parse
the cost of buying and running mining equipment.
It might be hard to start crypto
mining as we are still in the midst of a
global chip
shortage. But there are
other ways of making a profit from cryptocurrencies. You can take
the more traditional route and
invest in cryptocurrency-related
stocks that have increased sharply in the past years. And if you can’t mine crypto
yourself, you could invest in growing companies like Riot
Blockchain (NASDAQ:
RIOT) or Marathon Digital
Holdings (NASDAQ:
MARA), which are building huge mining operations
across the US.
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