Get started with Bitcoin mining
Cryptocoin Mining 101: How to Get Started as an Beginner Miner
So, you've decided that you want to try mining cryptocoins? This page will certainly help you get started. What follows below is a set of strong suggestions for people with consumer-level hardware and a dabbling interest in making a small passive second income.
Expectations: if you can keep your electricity costs to under $0.11 USD per kilowatt-hour, mining with 4 GPU video cards can net you around $8.00 to $10.00 USD per day, or around $250-$300 per month.
The two catches are 1) the up-front investment in purchasing 4 ASIC processors or 4 AMD Radeon graphic processing units, and 2) the market value of cryptocoins.
Decision: bitcoins are not a good choice for beginning miners. The mathematical difficulty does not make it profitable for consumer-level hardware. Better options for beginners are Litecoins, Dogecoins, and Peercoins.
Online Approach: you will need to join a group of miners on the Web called a 'pool'. There are dozens of pools out there, and they each have their pros and cons for profitability and ease of use.
Hardware Approach: you will want to run two computers, perhaps even four computers. Some miners choose to make specialized component rigs called ASICS which do nothing other than mine cryptocoins. Many beginners choose to use their PC's with AMD Radeon video cards, and have their PC's mine while not in human use.
Warning: cryptocoin mining is a diminishing returns endeavour.
As more cryptocoins get discovered, the crypto system makes each cryptocoin harder to mine. More hardware and electricity and time will be required as more coins get created. This translates into two key warnings:
1. Cryptocoin mining rewards early adopters. If you wait too long to join the mining goldrush of a particular coin, the system difficulty will prevent you from profiting.
2. Cryptocoin mining is an arms race. As your cryptocoin of choice gets more difficult to mine, then more expensive hardware will be required to to discover coins. You will be forced to either invest heavily if you want to stay mining that coin, or you will want to take your earnings and switch to an easier cryptocoin.
