Bitcoin mining is a great way to earn cryptocurrency while providing a valuable service to the global network of users. Miners can set up a hardware operation by themselves or join forces with a large venture via cloud mining. If you are looking to enter this field in 2020, here is what you need to know about the business.
What Does It Take to Mine Bitcoin in 2020
Bitcoin mining is a transaction security and validation service done via distributed computer systems each racing to solve complex mathematical problems before the competition. Miners keep the global ledger consistent and immutable by repeatedly adding newly requested transactions into a block, which is then broadcast to the network and verified. For providing their valuable hashing power to the cryptocurrency network, miners are rewarded each time a new block is created by them in this fashion.
Anyone thinking about entering this line of work needs to know that long gone are the days where one could just mine bitcoin with a desktop PC or even an old laptop. These days, any profitable bitcoin mining is done via computer systems tailored exclusively for the task, professionally called application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners.
The most popular bitcoin mining machines are the Antminer series from Bitmain, but there are additional hardware offerings from companies such as Microbt, Canaan, Ebang, and a few others. Take note that while some machines are available to be purchased off shelf already, or even immediately as second hand goods in online markets, when the newer models come out there is often a waiting period until they are shipped, and you need to take that into consideration.
Other than the upfront cost of the hardware, your main expense as a miner is electricity. The power is primarily for operation of the computer systems themselves, but also for ventilation and air conditioning systems that might be needed depending on the situation. This is why professional miners routinely migrate around the world to locations that can offer them an optimal combination of lower electricity prices and hospitable weather.
Once the hardware is all set up, you then need to direct your mining machines to a mining pool such as F2pool, Poolin, Btc.com, and Antpool. These are groupings of miners that compete to get a block together and share the rewards according to the contributed hashing power, thus spreading the work and streamlining the revenue for each one.