Ethereum is one of the top cryptocurrencies in the market. It is also easy to mine coin because the idle computers are enough to generate new ETH. However, your hardware still needs to be powerful enough to meet the requirements for Ethereum mining.
In this article, we will cover different aspects of Ethereum mining to help you mine your own coins. Typically, you need a powerful Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to get started. GPUs are usually used in gaming computers to enhance their performance. By using a powerful GPU, your mining speed will increase, and coins will be generated more quickly.
Ethereum mining is an excellent way to make money from home. It enables you to sell mined ETH at crypto exchanges or to individuals to make passive income.
Is Ethereum mining profitable?
The profitability of Ethereum mining differs every day because of its continuously changing mining difficulty. Besides, the power of the GPU also decides how much revenue you will earn daily. GPUs with higher hash rates are profitable but also expensive. However, their high speed makes up for the expensiveness.
In the current market, Nvidia and AMD are the two major GPU manufacturers. So if you’re planning on buying hardware for Ethereum, consider going with one of the two.
What is the top software for Ethereum mining?
Currently, there are three top software programs for Ethereum mining. Each software has its own customizations and unique features. There are also settings to improve the program’s efficiency.
Here are the names and brief details of each software:
- Ethminer
- Phoenix miner
- Claymore’s dual Ethereum
Ethminer
Ethminer uses Proof of Work or PoW algorithm to mine coins. Because of this ability, you can also mine a lot of other coins that use this algorithm such as Pirl, Ellaism, Ethereum Classic, Metaverse, and others.
Top features of Ethminer include:
- OpenCL mining
- Stratum mining without proxy
- realistic benchmarking
- OpenCL devices picking
- On-GPU DAG generation
- Nvidia CUDA mining
- Farm failover
Phoenix Miner
Phoenix miner is a fast miner that supports both Nvidia and AMD cards for mining. In addition to ETH, Phoenix miner also supports Muiscoin, EXP, and many others. It runs on both Windows and Linux OS and has the lowest developer fee in the industry – 0.65% to be precise. This means that every 90 minutes you mine on Phoenix, 35 seconds belong to the developers.
- Supports dual mining
- Quick download and start
- Supports AMD and Nvidia GPUs with enough VRAM support
- Maximum ethash mining speed
- Low power consumption
- DAG file generation
- Automatic GPU tuning
Claymore’s Dual Ethereum (CDE)
This miner is free to use; however, the developer fee of 1% is involved. This means that for every hour you mine, 36 seconds belong to developers.
On smaller cards with 2GB to 3GB storage, the dev fee is zero. You can mine Ethereum and other coins on them without dev fee, which makes it an excellent mining option for beginners.
Here are the top features of CDE:
- Dual mining mode
- Detailed display with mining information
- Enhanced mining speed
- Optimized OpenCL code
- Supports failover
- Runs on both Windows and Linux OX
How to earn with Ethereum mining for free?
If you want to earn with Ethereum mining for free, you should visit websites that pay Ethereum crypto for free. These websites are called Ethereum faucets, and they pay you for doing simple tasks such as solving captchas or viewing ads. However, the payouts are too small to be useful. If you want to earn a large amount of free ETH, you must spend several hours daily on these sites.
Here are some top free Ethereum mining sites:
- CC24
- Rocketfaucet.win
- Lolifuu ETH Faucet
- Ethereum-Faucet.org
- Ethereumfaucet.info
Some of these sites have high payout thresholds and will require you to disable your ad blocker. Therefore, you should study your options before investing your time and resources.
If the idea of free Ethereum crytpto mining appeals to you, you can also try different mobile apps. Here are some top free apps:
- Ethereum Faucet
- Faucet Run
- Free Ethereum Spinner
These apps pay Ethereum either with a simple push of a button or sending and receiving suitable app codes to their contacts. Some apps also involve games. You can earn free Ethereum from these apps by playing games in your spare time.
Here you can learn the best ways to earn free Ethereum.
How many types of Ethereum mining are there?
There are two types of Ethereum mining: pool mining and solo mining.
Pool mining
In this type of mining, the miners:
- Work with others to earn rewards
- Get paid on an hourly or daily basis
- Are less dependent on luck
- Pay some fees to pools (from 0.5% to 3%)
Solo mining
In solo mining, the miners:
- Mine the entire pool block without fees
- May go several days or months without ETH
- Are dependent on slow hardware that may take years to mine a single block
What are the top Ethereum mining pools?
Two factors determine the quality of an Ethereum mining pool – its location and market share. Location is the most important because the closer you are to the pool, the better your chances of mining the Ethereum. This is because the short distance reduces network latency, which also increases the generation speed of new blocks.
However, you should remember that the majority of these pools are based on Chinese servers, so you might experience lag or periodic breaks.
You can avoid this by choosing a server that is close to your geographical location.
The second important factor is the pool’s market share. Pools with larger shares usually offer consistent rewards, while the pools with smaller shares have smaller rewards. This is because the bigger pools continuously mine blocks, which means they can also pay consistently. To enjoy consistent payouts, find a pool close to your geographical location, having a high market share.
Is solo Ethereum mining possible in 2020?
Currently, solo ETH mining is not possible. Given the current equipment (30 MHash/s and 181 THash/s), it would take about 67 years to solo mine a block. This is like spending a lifetime to mine a single block.
What is the Ethereum difficulty bomb?
The Ethereum difficulty bomb is designed to reduce the effectiveness of mining over time. The benefit of EDB is that it ensures the movement of Ethereum crypto to proof of stake – a mechanism that doesn’t require mining to create ETH.
Proof of stake is part of Ethereum 2.0 and is designed to eliminate mining on Ethereum crypto gradually.
Why download an Ethereum wallet?
Ethereum wallet helps you store coins. After you mine ETH, you’ll need to wallet address to keep them. However, you must use the wallet carefully as some wallets don’t accept mined coins.
Jaxx Liberty is one of those wallets. It is a lightweight wallet that doesn’t accept tiny transactions. Using it for mined coins would mean a lot of small transactions, and Jaxx isn’t built for that.
Coinbase, which is one of the leading crypto platforms, is another wallet that doesn’t support Ethereum cryptocurrency mining. Therefore, you must choose your options wisely when choosing a crypto wallet.
Final Thoughts
So this was some essential Ethereum mining information. We hope that it informed you about a lot of Ethereum’s aspects. If you want to add something, please leave a comment below.