DIY Bitcoin Cash Mining - How to Get Started

Now you have a fair idea of what mining is, including its technical points such as hashrate, you can start your own Bitcoin Cash mining project. If you are interested in mining through ASICs, either as a stand-alone miner or by joining a pool, you should know what rig is most suitable for you.

Best Mining Hardware for Bitcoin Cash

While deciding to select the hardware you want to mine Bitcoin Cash, you should try to get your hands on the most powerful machines as they provide more chances of successfully finding a block and gaining the rewards. However, there are other factors such as the initial investment, cooling requirements, and your electrical rate that you must take into consideration. Here are some mining machines that you might find interesting.

For a beginner who isn’t ready to invest heavily, you can check out the Avalon6, going for around $650 on Amazon. The machine isn’t very powerful compared to the others on the market, pumping 3.5 Th/s and consuming 1kW of electricity every hour.

If you think the Avalon6 might not be suitable for you, you can check out the DragonMint T1. It is a more modern ASIC that can give you as high as 16 Th/s but consumes much more power. The DragonMint T1 is an expensive machine and the 4.5x increase in power over the Avalon6 translates into nearly three and a half times in cost, going for $2767 on the market. The machine is much higher in demand and you might have to wait for a while before you actually get your hands on one as it has a long waiting list.

You can go all-out on a mining rig by buying the Antminer S19 Pro, perhaps the most powerful Bitcoin Cash mining ASIC. This hashrate beast churns an astounding 110 Th/s. The higher power comes with a higher price tag, with the S19 Pro fetching $3770.

There are many other mining machines on the market in between these three. You can check out their hashrates and energy consumption. Use a good mining calculator (there are many available online for free) to input data including your utility rates to find out which machine will have the highest chances of giving you profits.

Other Costs to be Considered

There are a number of costs associated with the ASIC miners. First and foremost, you must understand that machines like these are sold as stand-alone units and many don’t even come with power supplies. The S1 Pro’s power supply can add as much as $150 to your investment.

Your location is another important factor. First what you must check is how much your electrical company is charging you. Western countries tend to have higher rates and places like China have the lowest. Secondly, your storage and cooling come into play. Urban areas are warmer and this can equate to more cooling requirements. Cooler climates can help drastically cut down on this cost, but then again this can be offset if you buy bigger machines that have heavier fans.

Most probably you are going to join a mining pool, so also check out their physical locations. Cheaper to run, they will affect your mining contribution and give you higher payouts.

Start Mining!

With all the hardware now set up, you can begin mining immediately. All you need now is a Bitcoin Cash wallet where you can store your rewards and the necessary software to run the machines. Bitcoin Cash uses the same SHA-256 encryption of its original Bitcoin code and therefore, you can use any mining software that is designed for it.

BTCMiner is a very popular choice, probably because it is license-free. It comes with a USB interface and can be easily set up to mine Bitcoin Cash. CGMiner is also a favoured mining software. It comes with a few advanced features such as remote monitoring, allowing you to control your devices from anywhere. If you are an Apple user, you should check out RPC Miner, which supports iOS.

If you are interested in a mining pool, there are several ones. BTC.com, F2Pool, ViaBTC and Bitcoin.com are a few of the largest BCH pools. Some of them even allow for multi-coin mining so you can even earn other cryptos when you join.

Mining Solution/Services

The power of decentralisation also means interconnectivity and that is something that miners have long been exploiting. The exa hashrates of BCH mean you will probably never make any profit if you only have a few mining machines to hand. The best solution for miners today is to get together and pool their computing power, hence the name pool mining.

The combined power gives you the advantage of getting rewards as the higher hashrate of the pool gives it a greater chance of successfully mining a block. However, since you are only contributing a part of the power, your share of the reward will be far less, although more regular. There are three ways mining pools determine participant rewards:

  • Pay Per Share (PPS): The most straightforward method, it will guarantee you a fixed payout based on your rigs’ contribution, regardless of whether a block is mined or not. This gives you a steady stream of income, but at the disadvantage of giving away your right of share in the block rewards.
  • Full Pay Per Share (FPPS): in FPPS, you are guaranteed a constant payout just like its PPS counterpart, but with a lower rate. This is compensated with sharing any transaction fees that the pool earns. Block rewards are still not part of the package.
  • Pay Per Last N Shares (PPLNS): A much higher risk payment system, PPLNS doesn’t offer any fixed payout or transaction fee sharing. Only actual block rewards are shared with participants. The higher risk is compensated with a chance of a greater payout.

    • Once you determine which pool to join, you can simply head over to their website and register. Your registration will include instructions on how to connect your mining software with the pool.

    For people who still want to mine but find the initial investment of owning and running ASIC miners out of budget, they have another option: cloud mining. In cloud mining, you rent out computing power from another person or group, paying on a monthly (or weekly/daily) basis. You buy a contract for a predetermined time period and the ASIC owner does all the mining for you. The contract includes all the necessary rights and access to rewards you might expect. A word of advice though: cloud mining nearly always has a clause where the hash provider can terminate the contract if it suits them, so keep an eye on this too.

    Bitcoin.com, apart from pool mining, also offers different cloud mining packages. An entry-level package will cost you almost $140 per year with a 2 Th/s rate with an expected $197.44 return. Their biggest package will cost almost $2,100, offering you 30 Th/s for a year and giving nearly $2360 back.

    IQ Mining currently offers the largest package of all, the Diamond contract dedicating a complete petahash per second for you, at a cost of $76,050 per year and giving you $98,570 as a payout.