[Update 4/30/2014: Prices have fallen, and I updated the article with current pricing. Also added a link to the YellowJacket USB miner. - Bryan]
The world of Bitcoin mining can be confusing if you're new. You used to be able to mine with your CPU, and then GPUs ruled the roost for a couple of years. Today, however, you'll need to buy specialized mining gear based on ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits), but the good news is that there are several entry-level options available, and you can run them from your Mac, a Windows PC, or a Linux box.
On mining Bitcoins: it's an unending rat race. You'll love it! @TMOBryan#Macworld2014#bitcoin
— Macworld/iWorld (@MacworldExpo) March 28, 2014If you need more information on Bitcoins, check out my Bitcoin Primer, my review of a Bitcoin poker site, and my list of Bitcoin faucets that actually pay.
First, Where to Buy?
The most intimidating thing about Bitcoin mining is where to buy that gear. You can buy on Ebay, but I've found two U.S. retailers—JonesGear and ZoomHash.com—that not only offer excellent customer service, they back up the gear they sell.
The Moonlander 2 is currently the most powerful and efficient USB miner available on the market today, allowing you to mine scrypt algorithm based coins like Litecoin, at a hashrate of nearly 5 MH/s* with under 10 watts of power. Electrum – Simple Bitcoin wallet that works on Mac, Windows, and Linux. BTCMiner is an Open Source Bitcoin Miner for ZTEX USB-FPGA modules 1.5.
I've bought several times from both retailers. I got one defective (manufacturer's defect) piece of gear from each company, and they both promptly replaced it. In the Wild West world of Bitcoin mining, that's worth a lot.
Better yet, both companies set up discount codes for you, my gentle reader, to use.
JonesGear: Use coupon code 'MacObserver' during the month of April to get 5 percent off your order.
ZoomHash.com: Use coupon code 'MacObserver' to get 7.5 percent off your order.
Return on Investment
The question that experienced/serious miners look at is what their return on investment (ROI) will be. In other words, if you spend $1,000 on mining equipment, how long will it take to generate $1,000 worth of Bitcoins--after you also pay for electricity.
Search for Bitcoin Mining Calculator, and you'll find a ton of them. I like the Bitcoin Mining and Profitability Calculator at VNBitcoin.org the best. No calculator tells the full story, though, because you can sell your used gear on Ebay or Craigslist when it still has value to someone coming up the Bitcoin ladder. Then, of course, you'll be free to buy new equipment of your own!
Another consideration is future value. If you think Bitcoins will rise in price, determining the value of Bitcoins mined today is massively subjective. My advice is to do your research and only invest in gear at levels you are comfy with.
Let's get to the gear! I started with the least expensive and worked my way up from there:
- Antminer U2 from JonesGear
- ASICminer Cube fro JonesGear
- Antminer S1 from JonesGear
- Gridseed Infinity 5-Chip from ZoomHash
Next: The Antminer U2
Antminer U2
Behold the Antminer U2. It's literally a Bitcoin miner on a stick, a USB stick. This device hashes at 2 GH/s (giga-hashes per second), and it uses just 2 watts of power. They can be overclocked to 2.4 GH/s, too. As of this writing, they're just US$23 new from JonesGear (use coupon 'MacObserver' for 5 percent off). If you want to dip your toes into Bitcoin mining just to see what it's all about, this is the device for you.
Antminer U2You can run them with CGminer and BFGminer on Windows and Linux. Mac users can use the command line version of either software, or MacMiner from Fabulous Panda, which puts puts a GUI on the command line apps. There's another GUI app called Asteroid you can use, too.
I love MacMiner.
The U2 has a fat heat sink on it, as shown in the picture, which means for most USB hubs, you'll only be able to use every other port. That would be an issue if you were planning on getting a lot of them, but I'm here to tell you not to get a lot of them.
At $11.50 per GH/s, they're expensive. Like I said, they're great for dipping your toes, but for a little more money, you can get a really cool device called the ASICminer Cube.
JonesGear also has the YellowJacket 2.2-3.0 GH/s USB ASIC Miner based on the Nanofury chip (a Bitfury chip, to be specific. I haven't tested this device, but it runs at 2.2 GH/s without overclocking, and JonesGear has it for $19. Use coupon 'MacObserver' for 5 percent off.
Next: The ASICminer Cube
ASICminer Cube
I love the Cube. It's a compact extruded-metal case that houses six blades that hold many Bitcoin mining ASICs on each one. With a fan on one end and a grilled opening on the other, it's easy to cool (see my tip below).
The Cube mines at 30 GH/s using some 200 watts of power, and as of this writing, they're priced at just $119 at JonesGear (plus 5 percent off when you use coupon 'MacObserver'). It's also easy to overclock to 38 GH/s, though that bumps power consumption up to 280 watts.
ASICminer Cube - Front and backNote that you need a separate PC power supply unit (PSU)—if you plan to run more than one Cube, get a PSU with the right number of connectors that supplies enough power for all of them.
Like I said, I love this device. It's stackable, it's well-built, and it only kind of looks like a piece of ugly mining gear. On the down side, it uses an early generation of ASIC, which is why it uses so much power. That ASIC also needs an older form of software that requires you to run Slush's proxy (you can also use BFGminer as a proxy in MacMiner).
I'll be writing up a tutorial on installing Slush's proxy on your Mac another time, but this is command-line world. The easiest thing would be to use BFGminer as a proxy, but when I tried that, I got less performance from the Cube.
Still, it's a good way to start mining for a relatively small investment.
Tip: The fan that the Cube comes with is NOISY. It's LOUD! If that's an issue for you, you can change out the fan, but do so at your own risk as it could void the warranty. I found that the excellent Scythe Gentle Typhoon keeps it cool at a tiny fraction of the noise. It adds to the price, but when you go to sell the Cube, put the old fan back on and keep the Scythe for your next miner.
Next: Step up to the Antminer S1
Antminer S1
This is the best deal on the market today. For $379 at JonesGear as of this writing (plus a 5 percent discount when you use coupon the coupon code 'MacObserver'), you get 180 GH/s of mining power using about 360 watts of power at the wall. That's more hashing power running much more efficiently than the Cube. [Price updated 4/14/2014]
If the price of electricity is no object for you, you can overclock this device to 200 GH/s—overclocking increases the hashing power by roughly 10 percent, but increases the watts per gigahash of power consumption by about 25 percent.
Antminer S1One of the best things about this device is that it includes its own mining software—really, it's own computer—that's built right into this thing. On a Mac, Windows PC, or Linux box, you simply configure it (add your mining pool, user name, and password) from a browser and let it do its thing. Your computer doesn't have to be turned on or even connected to it once you set it up, and that makes it much more user friendly than the Cube.
It also has built-in WiFi, but you'll need to get a third-party antenna to get any range out of it. Doing so means you won't have to connect it to your network via ethernet.
If you're willing to invest US$379 (after the coupon) in mining gear, this is the way to start. It's the best price per GH/s at the entry level—roughly $2.10 per GH/s—running on the least power.
On the down side, this thing is essentially two motherboards bolted to a frame. It's open to the air, and uses a loud fan to keep it cool. if you don't admire the elegant beauty of minimalist electronics, it's unattractive and will need to be placed in a suitable place.
Tip: There are ALL kinds of cooling mods that engineers and people nerdier than me have come up with, but I found that replacing the main fan with a Corsair SP120 and adding a Scythe Gentle Typhoon on the other end of the S1 to pull air out keeps it cool with little noise.
Next: The Curious (and Cool) Gridseed Infinity
Gridseed Infinity
My last piece of entry-level gear to mention is the Gridseed Infinity (also called the Gridseed 5-chip), which I buy from ZoomHash for $134.99. This is a curious device—it not only looks funny (it reminds me of a funky oil filter), it lets you mine Bitcoins or Litecoins (or any Scrypt-based coin), and if you want to live life on the wild side, you can mine both AT THE SAME TIME!
The Gridseed Infinity - Top and BottomIt has three modes:
- Scrypt mining: ~350 KH/s @ 7W
- SHA-256 mining: ~11.25 GH/s @ 60W
- Dual Scrypt and SHA-256 mining: ~200 KH/s Scrypt & ~8 GH/s SHA @ 60W
Scrypt mining is a different beast than Bitcoin mining, which is based on SHA-256 encryption. In fact, there is no comparison when it comes to hashing rates, and 350 KH/s is much more powerful than it seems when compared to all the numbers associated with Bitcoin mining.
What's cool is that you can get Bitcoins with Scrypt mining if you mine with a multi-pool like ScryptGuild (my favorite). The pool mines a variety of Scrypt coins, automatically choosing the most profitable coin as it goes, and then you can have your Scrypt coins automagically converted to Bitcoins. As of this writing, one Gridseed Infinity will earn about 0.0015BTC per day using this method. Your mileage will vary.
Tip: If you have a powerful videocard made by ATI (which is owned by AMD) in your iMac or Mac Pro, Scrypt mining with your GPU could be profitable. In fact, almost all Scrypt mining is still done with GPUs, and that's likely to be the case for the next several months or so. Just be aware that it puts wear and tear on your video card to run full tilt all the time.
The reason I like to Scrypt mine (single mode) with the Gridseed Infinity is power consumption. You can earn a little more if you dual mine with this thing, but it uses so much less power if you're just Scrypt mining—7 watts vs. 60 watts! Your GPU will use far, far more power than that doing any kind of mining.
Plus—and this will most likely void your warranty—you can desolder the fan and run it fanless in Scrypt-only mode. That makes it silent, and silent is SO MUCH QUIETER! There are also a bunch of super nerdy engineering things you can do to tweak performance and get as much as 500 KH/s of hashing power out of it (they all void your warrant, but it's so cool!).
There's one more thing: the Gridseed Infinity is less Mac friendly. The easiest way to run these with a Mac is to get the Controller that Gridseed makes that you configure with a browser, just like the Antminer S1.
The developer behind MacMiner has been working his butt off to support this thing, but many people have had to turn to Linux or Windows to run it. If you don't get the controller, you need to have your nerd chops up to date to play with this thing.
I have personally run it with Ubuntu in a Parallels installation on a Mac, but more recently I got a Raspberry Pi to run four of them. It requires some command line know-how, but it (again) uses very little power. There are many setup guides available, no matter which way you want to set it up.
The Gridseed Infinity is $134.99 at ZoomHash.com as of this writing, but using coupon code 'MacObserver' will shave 7.5 percent off your order. [Price updated 4/30/2014] Add a preconfigured Raspberry Pi for $74.99, and the coupon applies to that, too.
Updated: June 4, 2019 Home » Bitcoin [ Buy, Sell, Mine & Invest ]
Is Bitcoin mining profitable? Should I invest in BitCoin? The answer is subjective, it depends where you live and what type of hardware you own. BitCoin mining is profitable if you live in a country where electricity is cheap, such as China, or you have Solar Panels that generates free electricity. Even if you have access to cheap or free electricity, you will need a dedicated BitCoin mining hardware. A home computer powered by 3 SLi Nvidia GPU such as 1080 may do the trick.
Alternative Article ➤ 16 Exchanges To Buy And Sell BitCoins / Ethereum Without Credit Card
There are many BitCoin software, the trouble is, most of them are outdated. The main job of the software is to deliver the mining hardware’s work to the rest of the Bitcoin network and to receive the completed work from other miners on the network. Hack: How To Make BitCoin Mining Profitable Again? Install Solar Panel and mine for BitCoins during the day, however solar panels simply do not offer enough energy to power a modern mining facility.
↓ 01 – Hive OS | Linux OS
The ultimate mining platform that allows users to setup, mine and control processes more efficiently and hustle-free across thousands of rigs all in one place. Everything you and your team need to keep your farm at its peak efficiency. Monitor your rigs from a single dashboard. Keep track of hashrates, online statuses, GPU errors, team activity, pool configurations, power consumption, remote access from anywhere across the globe, troubleshoot and reboot GPUs remotely or perform bulk updates across your entire farm.
- Real-time monitoring of your workers stats with regular refresh intervals without the need to reload the page.
- GPU Overclocking – A wide range of GPU settings to reach their most optimal performance: clock speeds, memory speeds, fan speeds and more
- Supported Miners – Claymore’s Dual Ethereum, Claymore’s ZCash AMD GPU, Claymore’s CryptoNote AMD GPU, Ethminer, CCminer forks available, SGminer forks available, Bminer Equihash, Dstm’s ZCash Cuda, EWBF CUDA Zcash, EWBF CUDA Equihash, Zcash, Optiminer, LolMiner-mnx, XMR Stak AMD Nvidia CPU, XMRig, cpuminer-opt
- Nvidia – Nvidia GeForce 10xx series family (1050, 1050ti, 1060, 1070, 1070ti, 1080, 1080ti, P106-090, P106-100, P104-100, P102-100) are fully supported with overclocking
- AMD – AMD Radeon RX series family (460, 470, 480, 560, 570, 580) are fully supported with overclocking
- ASIC – Bitmain Antminer series S9, S9i, L3+, L3++, D3, A3, T9+, Z9-Mini
↓ 02 – ethOS Mining OS | Linux OS
ethOS is a 64-bit linux OS that mines Ethereum, Zcash, Monero, and other GPU-minable coins. Instead of installing software onto Windows or Linux, the entire Linux OS is designed from ground up to mine for BitCoin.
- Supports up to 16 NVIDIA GPUs: Any 2GB+ GTX 900 and GTX 1000 series.
- Supports up to 13 AMD RX Series GPUs: Including support for RX Series voltage control and Z170/X/Z270/X/Ryzen Chipsets.
- Supports up to 8 AMD R7/R9 Series GPUs: Any 2GB+ HD 7000 series, any R9 200/300/Fury/Nano.
- Supports multiple coins: Ready to mine Ethereum, Zcash, Monero and many other gpu-minable coins.
- Extremely lightweight: Works with weakest possible CPU made in the last 5 generations on only 2gb of ram.
- GPU overheat protection: GPUs will automatically throttle or turn off if they reach temperature thresholds.
↓ 03 – Bitcoin Miner | Windows
Let your computer earn you money with Bitcoin Miner, the free easy-to-use Bitcoin miner! Earn Bitcoin which can be exchanged for real-world currency! Works great at home, work, or on the go. Download Bitcoin Miner and start mining Bitcoin today! Bitcoin miners perform complex calculations known as hashes. Each hash has a chance of yielding bitcoins. The more hashes performed, the more chances of earning bitcoins. Most people join a mining pool to increase their chances of earning bitcoins. Mining pools pay for high value hashes known as shares.
↓ 04 – WinMiner | Windows
Make your PC work for YOU 100% of the time (instead of 90%* idling). It is dead simple, all you have to do is install, then turn On/Off your PC. The miner will automatically mine for BitCoins or any other cryptocurrencies according to the settings. This software is ideal for those working as the IT admin of a university, most of the time, those computers in the lab are idle. Time to make money.
↓ 05 – EasyMiner | Windows | Linux
A simple easy to use UI for minerd.exe or cgminer.exe Bitcoin,Litecoin client. Highly optimized for x86, x86-64 and ARM architectures
It supports the getwork mining protocol as well as the Stratum mining protocol, and can be used for both solo and pooled mining.
It supports the getwork mining protocol as well as the Stratum mining protocol, and can be used for both solo and pooled mining.
- Automatically uses SSE2, AVX and AVX2 instructions where available
- Supports the Stratum mining protocol
- Lightweight, only depends on libcurl and jansson
- Tested on a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows
- Features : cpuminer , cpuminer 64 , bitcoin , bitcoin miner , cpu miner , cudaminer , cgminer , gpuminer ( gpu miner ) , stratum mining proxy.
- EasyMiner makes cryptocoin mining simple by ensuring maximum transparency with his featured log viewer.
↓ 06 – MinePeon | Windows | Raspberry Pi | Linux
MinePeon is an arm mining platform for the earlier generation of bitcoin miners (ASIC & FPGA) that interfaced with a computer via USB. It ran on the Raspberry PI 1 & 2 and there was even a version or two for the Beagle Bone Black making it a very cheap and efficient alternative to running a full PC. Mining has moved on from those days to dedicated miners in dedicated farms just as it moved on from CPU & GPU mining.
It was a great project while it lasted and perhaps one day I may get back to it (who really knows what direction mining will go next) but for now, it is shelved. A new version would take many hours to put together so unless someone wants to through large amounts of bitcoin and me to take a few weeks off my normal scheduled it is unlikely to happen.
↓ 07 – Ufasoft xCoin Miner | Windows
Ufasoft Coin is a Multi-currency bitcoin client and Miner. Supported currencies:
- Bitcoin – BTC
- Namecoin – NMC
- Litecoin – LTC
- Peercoin – PPC
- Novacoin – NVC
- DevCoin – DVC
- TerraCoin – TRC
- FeatherCoin – FTC
- PrimeCoin – XPM
- ProtoShares – PTS
- DogeCoin – DOGE
- EarthCoin – EAC
- MetisCoin – MTC
- iXcoin – IXC
↓ 08 – MinerGate | Windows | macOS | Ubuntu | Fedora
MinerGate is a mining pool created by a group of cryptocoin enthusiasts. It is the first pool which provides service for merged mining. This means that while mining on our pool you can mine different coins simultaniously without decrease of hashrate for major coin. Supported currencies
- Zcash [ZEC] – Zcash is a decentralized privacy-centered currency, allowing users to partly conceal the details of their transactions, such as sending and receiving parties and the amount. It is possible due to innovative technology the developers have come up with, zero-knowledge proving. Zcash is a fork of Bitcoin protocol, thus they share some similarities, such as the total amount of coins to be minted and block reward halvings. Advanced privacy is the main major improvement.
- Ethereum [ETH] – Ethereum is currently the most ambitious blockchain project. It runs its own cryptocurrency, called Ether, but goes beyond being just digital currency. Ethereum is a decentralized platform that allows building smart contracts: decentralized applications (dapps) that run as they coded without any possibility of censorship, downtime, fraud or third parties interference. The applications can move value through Blockchain and represent the ownership of property. The big idea behind Ethereum has attracted millions of users (crypto-enthusiasts, miners, investors) and boosted the market value of Ether coins, making it the most popular cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.
- Bitcoin [BTC] – Bitcoin is decentralized digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: managing transactions and issuing money are carried out collectively by the network. The original Bitcoin software by Satoshi Nakamoto was released under the MIT license. Most client software, derived or “from scratch”, also use open source licensing.
- Litecoin [LTC] – Litecoin is a peer-to-peer Internet currency that enables instant payments to anyone in the world. It is based on the Bitcoin protocol but differs from Bitcoin in that it can be efficiently mined with consumer-grade hardware. Litecoin provides faster transaction confirmations (2.5 minutes on average) and uses a memory-hard, scrypt-based mining proof-of-work algorithm to target the regular computers with GPUs most people already have. The Litecoin network is scheduled to produce 84 million currency units. One of the aims of Litecoin was to provide a mining algorithm that could run at the same time, on the same hardware used to mine Bitcoins. With the rise of specialized ASICs for Bitcoin, Litecoin continues to satisfy these goals. It is unlikely for ASIC mining to be developed for Litecoin until the currency becomes more widely used.
- Bytecoin [BCN] – Bytecoin is a first CryptoNote-based cryptocurrency. A CPU-mined coin, it”s primary advantages are extraordinary transaction untraceability and unlinkability features. BCN is stated to be much more anonymous than Bitcoin and all its existing forks. The developers claim a person’s right to privacy is their primary concern and strictly observe their own privacy. Bytecoin was started on July 4th, 2012. BCN is based on CryptoNote, an open-source technology for anonymous cryptocurrencies. It utilizes ring signature and one-time addresses for completely anonymous payments. CryptoNote is designed in a way, which makes block chain analysis impossible. CryptoNote is focused on CPU-mining in order to make the special purposes devices useless.
- Monero [XMR] – Monero is a new coin using the CryptoNote protocol. It’s based on Bytecoin, which was coded from scratch and is not a descendent of Bitcoin.
- DigitalNote [XDN] – DigitalNote is an experimental open-source cryptocurrency based on CryptoNote technology and CryptoNight algorithm. It is a fork of Bytecoin – the very first implementation of CryptoNote. Nobody own or control DigitalNote. It is a scalable decentralized cryptocurrency with strong privacy protection. DigitalNote uses ring signatures, to provide unlinkable and untraceable transactions.
- QuazarCoin [QCN] – QuazarCoin is a new cryptocurrency based on the CryptoNote and uses the CryptoNight algorithm. QCN protects your data and privacy with help of completely anonymous transactions with ring signatures.
- Fantomcoin [FCN] – Fantomcoin supports merged mining. It can be possible with Bytecoin, Monero, QuazarCoin or any CN based coin. New blockchain needs no additional hashpower – it uses Bytecoin, Monero, QuazarCoin blocks or shares as PoW. Miners are free to choose “donor” chain they like. In case other chains based on CryptoNote will appear they also can be used as “donor” chains.
- MonetaVerde [MCN] – Moneta Verde is the first CryptoNote-based cryptocurrency with blockreward increasing together with difficulty. It supports merged mining with Monero, QuazarCoin, Bytecoin or any other CryptoNight-based coin.
- AEON coin [AEON] – AEON coin is the anonymous cryptocurrency which is based on the CryptoNote protocol and uses the CryptoNight algorithm.
- Dashcoin [DSH] – Dashcoin is a Next generation anonymous cryptocurrency and the first automatically mutating cryptocurrency created with CryptoNote technology.
- Infinium-8 [INF8] – Infinium-8 (INF8) is a new privacy-centric coin using the CryptoNote protocol. The open source reference implementation of CryptoNote was coded from scratch based on the CryptoNote reference implementation, and is not a fork of Bitcoin. Infinium-8 aims to be a fungible and untraceable digital medium of exchange. It intrinsically has a higher degree of anonymity than Bitcoin or any of its various forks. Infinium-8 s the cryptocoin with blockreward increasing together with difficulty.
↓ 09 – BitMinter | Windows | macOS | Linux
Bitminter is a Bitcoin mining pool that aims to make it easy for anyone to make bitcoins. Bitminter has it’s own custom miner with a clear graphical interface and can work with GPUs and external ASIC devices equally well. Bitminter is one of the oldest pools. Since we opened in 2011 over 450 000 people have registered accounts with us.
↓ 10 – HoneyMiner | Windows
Honeyminer is the first platform that allows anyone with a computer to mine for cryptocurrencies. You don’t need to be a cryptographer or have a computer science degree to join this revolution! Our experts take care of all the software (and security) stuff, so that you can just open up Honeyminer and start earnings blockchain rewards right away. Every piece of a coin that you receive is a thank you from the blockchain for helping to secure the ledger and verify transactions. You are joining the most important technological advancement since the internet!
Honeyminer identifies the most profitable currency to mine at any given moment based on your computer’s specs and the difficulty of each blockchain. Behind the scenes, we convert these smaller cryptocurrencies into safer and more liquid blockchain assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, for no charge.