Mining cryptocurrency on a home PC

Nowadays, almost every person has a computer or laptop connected to the Internet.Any, even the most ancient of them, has approximatelyidentical components designed for computing and data storage. This is a processor, a storage device for long-term storage of information, RAM and a video card, which can sometimes be built into the processor (more often) or integrated into the motherboard (less often).

These components can theoretically be used to carry out the work necessary to mine cryptocurrencies. Based on this, many people think about the question:can their home computer mine cryptocurrency without purchasing additional hardware?

The answer to this question is yes. Yes, most modern home computers can be used to mine cryptocurrencies. This is possible thanks to the wide variety of algorithms used to build the blockchain of the thousands of coins currently in existence. But the answer to the question of whether mining on a specific hardware will be profitable requires a more detailed study of the existing hardware configuration and the selection of optimal computation algorithms that will give the highest productivity.

Let's take a closer look at how to start mining bitcoins and other cryptocurrency assets on your home computer.

How do I start mining on my home computer?

To start mining, you need to make sure that the available equipment is suitable for mining cryptocurrencies. In addition, you need to open a wallet where the earned cryptocurrency will be transferred (the easiest way to do this is on a cryptocurrency exchange),choose a coin for mining, a suitable pool, download and configure the miner program and you can start mining.

Easiest program for beginners to useNicehash miner, which allows you to mine at home automatically by mining the most profitable cryptocurrency and converting it into bitcoins (the user only needs to open a bitcoin wallet). In this case, you do not need to choose a pool, know the intricacies of program settings, but you will need to pay a commission for this.

It should be noted that making a mining farm out ofhome computer, which will be able to bring tangible income, is unlikely to work out without additional investments in the purchase of components. If you have a modern gaming computer with a powerful video card and a good power supply, then you can mine a fairly large number of cryptocurrencies, provided that the computer is sufficiently ventilated.

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When using budget video cards for mining, it must be borne in mind that support for multi-threaded parallel computing should be a prerequisite.

This mode is only available for video cardsinstalled in PCI-Express slots and supporting Open Cl technology for products from AMD and CUDA from Nvidia. Thus, theoretically, the minimum video card for mining from AMD that supports Open Cl version 1.0 is the Radeon HD5450 (and other cards of the Evergreen series), and Nvidia has video cards with Tesla microarchitecture: GeForce 8400, which supports CUDA 1.1 and GeForce 8800, Quadro FX 5600 (CUDA 1.0).

Video adapters below levelRx 560AndGTX 1050Ti, no one uses for mining... Each pool has a specific thresholdwithdrawal of funds. That is, until you earn enough money, no one will pay anything. Even if you are connected to a free outlet, with a low hashrate, it will take a very long time to wait for payments.

Old video cards in mining

You need to understand that old video acceleratorstheoretically they can perform calculations for mining some cryptocurrencies (they do not support a large number of algorithms), but the productivity of such a mining farm will be minimal. In fact, they can only be used forstudying the mining processa limited number of cryptocurrencies using old mining programs that support these cards.

Limited suitability (depending on the price forelectricity and computing algorithm) for mining are currently AMD HD6000 series and higher, and from NVidia - with Fermi microarchitecture (support for CUDA 2.1 and higher) - GTX560Ti series and more modern.

You can really make money on video cards of the R9 280/290 level and higher, and on NVidia – the GTX750Ti series and higher (from the Kepler microarchitecture and higher).

Outdated gpu devices in principlecan demonstrate a fairly decent hashrate. For example, AMD Radeon R9 390x on Ethash accelerates to 30 Mh/s, but high power consumption reduces the profitability of mining. And it’s not worth buying used cards for mining.

To start mining cryptocurrencies on a processorthe minimum requirement for mining is to support SSE2 instructions, and to mine at acceptable speed it must support AES instructions. In processors, these instructions appeared in 2011:

In Intel processors of Sandy Bridge architecture, as well as on server processors starting from the Xeon E3-12xx series;
At AMD - starting with the Bulldozer FX41xx series processors.

CPU performance inmining depends on the clock speed and the number of cores. The Xeon line is considered a promising option. AMD Ryzen and Intel i3, i5, i7 series cpu have proven themselves quite well. The more powerful the processor, the higher the profitability of crypto mining.

What affects mining earnings, how to earn more?

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The biggest impact on the ability to earn cryptocurrencies on your home computer isgraphics card... Performance GPUsgraphics cards have a large number of stream processors and powerful video memory, which, as a rule, have much more aggregate processing power than a processor.

Based on this, the more powerful and modern the video card is installed on the computer, the more profitable it is to mine on a PC at home.

However, after the transition of the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency andsome forks of Cryptonight for the RandomX mining algorithm, mining on the central processor has become more relevant. On the RandomX protocol, top-end central processors are more efficient than video cards. With the current profit, it makes no sense to use gpu rigs on XMR, but the pools continue to work, which means that cpu mining is profitable. Moreover, over the past week, the coin rate has significantly increased.

You can slightly increase the mining speed byoptimizing the operating system by disabling unnecessary programs and services, but this will not give a dramatic increase in performance. Most of all, the performance is affected by the overclocking parameters, as well as the quality of the mining program.

Mining types

On a home computer for mining, you can simultaneously use several components for earning cryptocurrencies:

Video card– for carrying out calculations using algorithmsproof of work performed, requiring high speed, parallel use of multiple computing units of the GPU and a large amount of high-performance memory (several gigabytes) - ether, expansion, ZCash and many others, as well as all cryptocurrencies that can be mined on the processor;
CPU- for computations requiring highperformance, using high-performance cache memory of a small volume (several megabytes) - cryptocurrencies such as Monero, Electroneum, HODL and others are mined;
Storage driveusually a hard drive that allows you to earn cryptocurrency for leasing your space (you can mine cryptocurrencies like Siacoin, Storj, Burst and others).

The best coins for mining can be found using calculators on the sites of Nicehash, Whattomine and others.

All ways of earning in most casesrequire constant connection to the Internet of a computer that produces cryptocurrencies. In addition to mining on your own equipment, there is the possibility of earning cryptocurrencies by renting the facilities of companies that provide cloud mining services.

For the vast majority of usersCloud mining remains the best option for mining bitcoin in 2020, thanks to the flexibility of contracts and more favorable working conditions than mining on your own equipment.

Regular mining — the most profitable mining option for 2020

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Cloud mining is a model of earningcryptocurrency, which creates groups (mining pools), with one goal: to generate more income, in comparison with conventional distributed mining, due to the management of equipment by a contractor who solves all issues related to technical and software components.

In this case, the user simply paysthe work of the rented equipment for a certain period of time. The cloud mining provider for the payment received must ensure the round-the-clock operation of its equipment with the specified capacity, ensuring that the earned cryptocurrency is credited to the wallet of the tenant who paid for the cloud mining services.

Cloud mining setup does not requirea productive computer or knowledge in the field of blockchain and cryptocurrencies in general. Setting up in this case consists in going through the standard registration procedure on the pool, depositing money (usually ordinary money or bitcoins) and choosing a tariff plan.

The user then specifies the address (personalwallet), where the mined cryptocurrency, withdrawal limits and other parameters will be displayed. Cloud mining starts after balance replenishment. After that, you need to periodically check the balance and funds received from the cloud provider.

According to statistics, 80% of cloud mining sitesare scam projects, so use only proven and reliable services (the current rating is available here). And keep in mind, none of the services of this type will require software installation, everything happens through your personal account, if you are offered software installation, these are 100% scammers.

Rating of the TOP 5 best cloud mining sites, with current estimates for 2020

Service	Rating	Detailed overview
IQ Mining (Editor's Choice!)	9.5	Read the review
ECOS	8.1	Read the review
YoBit VMining	7.5	Read the review
BitDeer	7.3	Read the review
HashFlare	6.8	Read the review

The criteria by which the score is given in our rating:

Profitability and profitability– we calculate the payback period, clarify the reality of mining.
Prices and commissions– we take into account the validity of tariff plans and compare them with competitors.
Deposit / withdrawal, discounts, reliability– we analyze reviews, test the correctness of accruals and withdrawals.
Convenience of the platform and site– we evaluate the functionality, errors and failures when working with the service.
Features of the company– unique services and useful services, period of work on the market.
final grade– the average number of points for all indicators determines the place in the ranking.

For 2020, the most popular and reliable cloud mining service is IQ Mining:

The company has been operating since 2016.User-friendly interface, stable operation, fast payments. The uniqueness of the service lies in the fact that in addition to Bitcoin mining, the system monitors profitability on different algorithms and automatically switches between them.Editor's Choice!
To mine cryptocurrency, IQ Mining usesmore than 16,000 farms with a total capacity of 119,000 megahash per second. Location of data centers: Canada, Russia, Iceland, China, Georgia, Algeria. The company's capacity is regularly increasing, the number of added devices and new users can be tracked on the official website of the platform https://iqmining.com/.
Stock! Until 31.10.2020, IQ Mining has a 35% discount on all contracts!

A program for mining cryptocurrency on a home PC

If you have the performance necessary to start mining, the question arises, how to start mining on a home computer or laptop?

For mining on a processor of a regular computer, you can use the following programs:

Claymore's CryptoNote CPU Miner;
XMRig;
Nicehash miner;
Hodlminer.

Usually, the following programs are used for mining on a video card:

Claymore's Dual Ethereum Miner;
EWBF;
Nicehash miner;
Phoenix Miner;
XMrig-AMD / NVidia;
SRBMiner;
Teamredminer and many others.

To make money by renting a hard drive, you need to use special software from the websites of the developers of these cryptocurrencies.

All of these programs must be downloaded from developer pages or reliable resources, for example, via links from Bitcointalk, Github.

The answer to the question of how to start mining on a PC in the case of each specific program is different. First of all, you need to study the help section on the pool and in the program itself.

Choosing a program for mining at homea computer is quite an important element to achieve maximum performance and security. You need to be as sure as possible of the source from where this program will be downloaded, because there are many unscrupulous people who distribute programs with built-in viruses, because of which you can lose not only the mined cryptocurrency, but also important personal information.

The relevance of mining on a laptop and other devices

Laptops, even those with high performanceprocessors, video cards, and large hard drives are not very good for mining. This is due to the fact that their cooling systems and power circuits are not designed for 24/7 operation in a critical mode, which is usually used when performing mining calculations. The laptop will not be able to work with great performance for a long time and will simply burn out.

On a laptop, you can run mining onfor a short time, if you want to study the process itself, set up mining programs, but you should not use mobile devices for round-the-clock mining.

Mining pitfalls to consider

Mining on a home computer thatnot specially adapted for round-the-clock work on complex and energy-intensive calculations, it is associated with some features that novice miners sometimes forget about.

They are related to the fact that the conditions under whichmining is carried out, they require good ventilation, high-quality and reliable power supply, which often do not correspond to the parameters laid down in ordinary computers, namely:

Home computers, even in the mostthe best ventilated and spacious cases cannot provide the level of cooling that mining farms have, assembled in special cases for mining with high-performance forced cooling, or assembled on frame structures with good ventilation;
Power supplies installed in conventionalcomputers, as a rule, do not have the necessary power reserve, which is required for round-the-clock work to carry out calculations for mining cryptocurrencies, therefore, they can fail faster;
Even the largest computer cases are notwill allow you to install multiple video cards in them. The most advanced gaming cases allow you to use two video cards at the same time, but if you use them around the clock for mining, overheating of the components in the computer is guaranteed, the operation of all coolers at the maximum mode and a quick failure of the computer. In new games, the equipment carries loads that are quite comparable to the process of mining cryptocurrencies, but does not work 24/7.

Mining farm at home may well generate incomefrom mining cryptocurrencies, if it has equipment released in recent years. When using your home computer for mining around the clock, be sure to remove the side cover from its case for better cooling. Do not try to squeeze maximum performance out of it by overclocking. This will not bring much benefit, but it will significantly increase the possibility of its failure.

If you recently purchased an Nvidia RTX 3000 series GPU, then your computer can be compared to a budget mining rig. One video cardRTX 3070develops 100 Mh/s on air and if you don'tIf you save on the power supply, then by removing the case cover, or even better, by placing the gpu in the riser, you can mine cryptocurrency. Not everyone is ready to pay that amount for a video card and then run it around the clock. However, the activity is quite profitable and the money will be recouped in about a year. Well, if you realize that mining is not your thing, you can use the card for gaming or sell it.