Day 18 - Which Cryptocurrency Should I Mine?

Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome to another article for Vendata's journey of the crypto world! Within the crypto world, crypto mining is an essential feature. It is what keeps the crypto ecosystem alive, allowing transactions to securely and successfully occur between participants. Crypto mining in its basics is acting as the "middle man" in a transaction so it can work correctly. However, there is not only one "middle man," which you would see in centralised payments (e.g. Paypal and Visa), but many "middlemen," each contributing to make the transaction occur. Each "middle man" in the "middlemen" is a computer that is donating its computing power to assist in the completion of a transaction, thus keeping the crypto ecosystem alive.

We know that crypto mining is a huge thing in the crypto world, and whenever we hear it, the first thought that comes to mind is the rewards. Most people would not donate their valuable computing power to mine for free. To compensate for their service in a transaction, the miner would receive a reward in the native cryptocurrency. The reward can either originate from the fees of the transaction or a portion of the native cryptocurrency dedicated to miners. Now, the question is " Which cryptocurrency should I mine?". The answer to this would mainly look at the computing power required with the return depending on the computing power. In this article, I will be looking at some of the top cryptocurrencies to mine, looking at the features of each to come to a conclusion. Please note that my information is not completely reliable, and I advise that before committing to a decision from this article, you do your own research. I take no fault for any accidents that occur, only providing this information for entertainment and potentially educational purposes.

Bitcoin (BTC) Mining

BTC mining is one of the first options that need to come to mind when thinking of crypto mining. However, since it is so popular, it comes to be one of the most unfavourable for earning money with typical computers, such as a PC. Most of the mining is done by massive computer, which is called ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits), that have enormous computing power, outpacing everyday computers. To put this in perspective, a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080, which you can say a somewhat average graphics card for most top-end computers, has a processing power of 2.4 MH/s (Megahash/second). What this essentially means that this graphics card can do 2.4 million (since M = Mega = 1 million) processes per second. One very simple process would be solving an equation like 1 + 1 = 2, but with crypto transactions, it gets much more complicated with immense cryptography required that is accomplished with computing power. Now, with an ASIC, such as the Antminer S19j, there is a processing power of 90TH/s! That is 90 terahash per second, meaning 9,000,000,000,000 hashes per second, or better put, 9 trillion hashes per second! 

This is only a small ASIC in comparison to the enormous ones that crypto businesses use, so imagine how much computing they have! What this means is that most of the big rewarding transaction that has high fees associated with them go to the big businesses, since the fees are rewarded to the miners. Competing for this with a normal computer is bad enough, getting the smallest rewarding transactions, but there is more. Keeping it short to explain other coins and get more valuable information, there is also the issue of electricity costs and the liability to ruin your graphics card, and so unable to use your computer!

Cutting to the chase, BTC mining can be rewarding, possibly getting big rewards from big fees in some transactions, but comes with the issue of massive competition across massive businesses who are solely dedicated to BTC mining since BTC is so popular alongside computer failure. If you want to begin BTC mining, clicking here can help you out. Below is a graph from CoinWarz showing the mining difficulty of BTC over the past years.

Ethereum (ETH) Mining

Ethereum mining goes very similar to BTC mining. It is so popular and overrun with big businesses, that it becomes very difficult to get a profit with mining. But do not get me wrong, it is still possible to get good rewards with BTC or ETH mining, though it has the issue of competition, as I have mentioned many times before. However, one thing to point out about ETH is that it has extremely high gas fees, which we should be all aware of. Since ETH has such high gas fees, it is more possible to get higher rewards, but I could be wrong, big businesses eating all the high rewards. It is plausible, but more you would need to research more to find out. Below is a graph from CoinWarz showing the mining difficulty of ETH over the past years. If you want to begin ETH mining, clicking here will help you out.

Ravencoin (RVN) Mining

RVN is a much smaller cryptocurrency than BTC and ETH, with less popularity from mining giants and what I believe has a greater potential for greater profits. For those that do not know what RVN is, it is in basic terms a cryptocurrency that is solely focused on asset transfer, meaning sending one asset (e.g. gold, oil, NFTs) from one person to another. RVN mining is achieved from GPUs, so that is a good thing being that most of our typical processing on a computer is done on the CPU, which is done needed for mining other cryptocurrencies. Another good thing about RVN is that they are aiming to prevent ASIC from dominating the RVN mining network with a new mining algorithm called KAWPOW so there is greater equality for mining across all platforms. Below is a graph from CoinWarz showing the mining difficulty of RVN over the past years, making out some great changes in the way RVN mining has evolved.

Zcash (ZEC) Mining

ZCash is another small cryptocurrency that has promising mining rewards. I have heard that it is great for mining cryptocurrency across the internet, but cannot verify it myself for I have never mined ZEC. Just as a quick note, ZEC is a cryptocurrency that is decentralised and open-source that operates private and selective transparency with its transactions. What is great about ZEC mining is that it has the Equihash algorithm that makes it ASIC resistant, meaning there is an equal mining potential for all ZEC miners. From this feature, ZEC does seem like a good cryptocurrency to mine. Also, ZEC is mined with GPUs, which once again relieve pressure from the CPU where the main action of a home computer occurs. Underneath is a graph from CoinWarz displaying the mining difficulty of ZEC over time. If you want to start mining ZEC, clicking here can help.

Conclusion

There are a vast variety of cryptocurrencies available in the crypto world to mine, which I believe are associated with all since that is what makes it live. To go through them all would be tedious and long, so I have chosen some of the top cryptocurrencies that people have mined and looked at them to give some guidance with crypto mining. My information is not as detailed for those seeking to begin mining, and so if you do want to begin mining a cryptocurrency, I recommend researching the resources required. You can also use some of the links I provided to help. Out of the cryptocurrencies I mentioned, RVN and ZEC look much more appealing than BTC and ETH, allowing smaller miners like me to participate in a fairer competition! Between RVN and ZEC, I think ZEC sounds better with the resistance it has with ASICs plus the great purpose it has in a private transaction environment.

Looking at some of the top cryptocurrencies people mine, I learn new information about crypto mining, becoming more fit for the crypto world.