Is mining still worth it? Iron Fish testnet.
This article will be devoted to the mining process, issues, benefits etc. Maybe you’ve already heard that mining is right now a very competitive business. So, I would like to clarify if a newbie, an average crypto enthusiast, should get involved in this kind of job. Moreover, I will take the Iron Fish project testnet as an example, so you will get to know a little about it too.
I feel like with the situation in Ukraine (details in here, donations, I would highly appreciate if you look through and share), my text became emotionless and less clear for an average user. Anyway, I’m getting back to my main goal: be interesting for people who know nothing on the topic.
What is mining
“Mining extracts useful materials from the earth. Although mining provides many valuable minerals, it can also harm people and the environment.” National Geographic
How could we apply this to blockchain technology? When we mine earth — we get new minerals of a kind, when we mine cryptocurrency — we get new coins on the market of a kind.
Here you go, what investopedia says:
“Bitcoin mining is the process by which new bitcoins are entered into circulation.”
Is it worth it
Mining process is costly, needs a lot of effort and the reward is not always worth it. So why is it still working? Mining is a base of currency functioning and a need. To get a lot of rewards, a lot should be invested into the process. I mean, money, time, effort. As a result, the rewards will be worth it.
This is how huge mining farms are created by great investors.
But there is quite a different point of view. If you are not seeking great rewards and don’t form the base of your business, mining can provide an average user with various interesting tokens.
In this way it looks like gold digging: the token can be worthless or a gem, but the effort is the same. Moreover, if you do not seek great money at a time, but the token itself in any amount, you don’t have to invest money — just use your average computer. Yes, it gives great profit and possibilities.
Why? Because, token is power, but it is another topic.
This is where the example of Iron Fish is needed.
Iron Fish testnet
I’ve already written an article about Iron Fish: Iron fish — new chain, new coin. But to be short, Iron Fish is a new blockchain that makes all transactions private.
With a goal to grow the project and succeed the testnet was launched. Anyone can participate and join the community.
There are different activities:
- Looking for bugs
- Mining
- Promote the project
- Work with community itself
- Submit pull request
- Other contributions
One day I will talk about testnets, but today we are getting back to mining.
Iron Fish mining
As any chain, Iron Fish requires miners to proceed transactions and generate new blocks.
Right now, in the Iron Fish testnet miners can get rewards earning points for every mined block that is accepted by the network.
What is needed to mine
The main hardware required is the graphics processing unit (GPU). All the operations and counting operations are done by this unit.
There also is a specific chip for the purpose: application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).
As for the software, I think it would be better to just give you an official instruction.
Conclusion
To conclude, I must say that today mining purposes are quite different from the very beginning of blockchain beginning, but can be useful now even if you don’t have a lot of resources.
Official resources on Iron Fish:
Official website — https://ironfish.network/
Official twitter — https://twitter.com/ironfishcrypto
Testnet — https://testnet.ironfish.network/about
Whitepaper — https://ironfish.network/docs/whitepaper/1_introduction
