Conditions for a Successful Mining Rig
After reading the last article we posted here, you now have a basic understanding of the fundamentals of crypto-mining. You understand the sequential flow of how a blockchain is created and maintained. With this knowledge, it’s time for you to build your first mining rig!
To build a mining rig one needs to think about what coins he/she would like to mine. Determining which coins you would like to mine (especially as a beginner) is down to how much capital you have for development, maintenance and operations for your mining setup. Most people reading this will probably be interested in mining Bitcoin — which honestly is the coin that got you in the crypto market in the first place. That being said, Bitcoin is an expensive coin to begin your mining endeavours due to the high volume of competition and high costs associated with setting up your rig. Factors that you should consider before calculating the specifications of your crypto computer are electricity prices, coins you would like to mine and capital you would like to spend.
First and foremost — electricity prices. This step is the most overlooked when setting up your computer to be a cryptocurrency mining rig. Lots of people get too excited when they hear that they can make a profit by verifying blockchain transactions and go full steam ahead into building an expensive machine. This common mistake can easily be avoided. Electricity charges are different in every location around the world due to a variety of factors such as government regulation, outside temperature, infrastructure etc. There are several ways you can make this calculation, but one of the easier ways is to simply add your electricity costs for a year and find the average cost per kilowatt hour (make sure you make the adjustment for the carbon taxes coming in Canada!). Next, you will need to determine the energy usage your computer will need to operate 24/7 and 365 days a year (unless you won’t be mining all the time). This is a simple but important step to complete before setting up your mining rig, giving you an indication of ongoing costs associated with your mining operation.
Next, you will want to look and see what coins you would like to mine. The types of coins you may want to mine could be for a number of different reasons; such as portfolio diversification, future speculation, business needs etc. Different coins require their own algorithms and are optimal for different processing units. If your main goal is to be profitable, than it may be easier to not be too picky when determining what coin you want to mine. Remember — once you receive your mining reward, if needed, you can trade your new coins on the market for whatever token you require. To find what coins provide what profitability (current period), you can find detailed information at WhatToMine and CryptoCompare.
Finally, we must talk about the costs. Building a mining rig is not cheap, especially for an average working individual. Unless you have some disposable income, it would be difficult to justify the risk of buying a high-spec computer for mining Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This is why it is important to do some research and cost calculations before deciding whether crypto mining is the right option for you. Something to consider would be joining a mining pool. A mining pool will add your personal mining rig into a sea of other miner’s machines to increase overall computational power. As the difficulty rate for these coins increase, it is often too expensive for an individual miner to build additional units to be competitive. This is a simple way to cut down the cost. It is also a way to be consistently profitable due to the ease of switching mining between different coins. You can still do this as an individual miner, but your margins will be much less, and the risk will also be much higher.
Why is it so complicated for the average individual to get into mining? The industry is complex by nature, making it a hurdle for new users to grasp the basic concepts of blockchain and cryptocurrency mining. Furthermore, crypto mining has become a capital-intensive industry with large corporations setting up full scale mining facilities. This in turn increases the overall difficulty rate of mining, with more computing power required the higher the difficulty rate. Luckily this is precisely the main issue Abelian is trying to solve! Remember, as described in early articles, Abelian wants the miner to have complete control of his/her needs while mining in a decentralized pool. Abelian gives the miner all the power to choose what coins they want to mine while simultaneously optimizing all their operations based on their computer specifications — maintaining the fact that your hardware is still in a pool to decrease overall competition for mining rewards. Additional factors such as profitability are also customizable on the Abelian Platform.
To learn more about crypto mining and how Abelian is trying to decrease the barriers for entry into the mining space check out their website at abelian.tech and join their Telegram group https://t.me/abeliansolution for frequent updates.
