Since Satoshi Nakamoto changed the world with his bitcoin whitepaper and blockchain database, bitcoin miners have been devising innovative ways to get their hands on virtual currency. Even in 2020, it is still possible to mine bitcoin with the right hardware and expertise. We put together a list of the ultimate 5 basic things you need to start bitcoin mining in 2020. This is in no way a comprehensive list, but it should be enough to get you started and well on your way to solving complex math problems for some sweet bitcoin.
What you need to start bitcoin mining
Basic miners to start with
If you want to be competitive and earn a profit, you’ll need to start doing your homework on ASIC miners. It’s that thing that looks like a Ghostbusters ghost trap. It’s basically a dedicated Bitcoin mining machine. You’ll want a miner that has a high hash rate and works efficiently.
You can grab more information on this from Crypto Mining Tools and use their crypto mining calculator to find out up to date mining profitability and difficulty levels. Enter some key information like your miner, hashrate, power consumption, block reward, etc. And voila! You’ll see how much profit your rig can potentially generate.
Hire a licensed electrician
Speaking of power consumption, you’re going to need a lot of power to do this right and with great power comes great responsibility…to wire your crypto mining rig correctly. That’s why we recommend hiring a local commercial specialized electrician. The keywords here are commercial and specialized. They’ll look at your proposed set-up and make sure there is enough electricity coming into your 3-phase panel to power your gear. Depending on your miner’s power consumption, they’ll be able to calculate whether you need 15 or 20 amps per outlet and how many 220-250V outlets you’ll be able to install. This gets complicated fast with each miner requiring its own dedicated outlet and cable.
Buy high-quality mining power cables
Your rig is only as good as the power cables. Yes, we said it. Assuming your crypto mining rig will be running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, your power cables will be super important. We recommend investing in quality cables for your miners. And investing is a strong word since quality cables are actually quite affordable. This includes everything from ethernet cables to NEMA power cords.
Think about crypto mining cooling
We wrote about cooling in this blog post, so we’ll keep it short. All that processing power will create a lot of heat. Too much heat can cause your rig to reboot or cause serious damage to the hardware. You’ll need to properly extract this heat with a venting system of some kind. Of course, your method for cooling will depend on your set-up and how many miners you plan to use, as well as space you have available. If you are using immersion cooling, you will need to look into fan simulators.
Choosing the correct mining pool
Have you put everything together and had a commercial electrician give you the thumbs up? Great, now it’s time to consider mining pools. Joining a cooperative of miners is a great way to ensure predictable payouts. A mining pool is a collection of miners who put their processing power together to mine and share in the profits. This is a great way for the average miner to contribute mining hash power and receive crypto for their efforts. The majority of mining pools are concentrated in China (cheap electricity!) and can be joined at any time. Some popular destinations are Poolin, Antpool, and BTC.com.
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