Experts provide recommendations for newcomers to mining and large businesses on how to choose equipment in 2021
More than $ 50 million are earned by miners every day as of mid-March 2021. These are new records of the industry. Previously, such achievements took place in 2017, when miners were able to earn a little more than $ 350 million in total per week.
Miners’ income is growing significantly due to the rise in cryptocurrency value. Bitcoin’s value is hitting all-time highs day by day. It’s still hard to believe, but 60 thousand dollars for 1 bitcoin is our reality. Bitcoin added 93% of the value in less than 3 months of 2021, and as of March 17, it costs about $ 55,000, according to TradingView. Altcoins are also increasing in value in parallel. For example, the cost of Ethereum jumped 141% during 2021, from $ 730 to $ 1,760 per coin.
Recently, Avito service was provided with information that the demand for video cards in Russia jumped more than 2.5 times in just one month in February 2021. Mining farms are interested in 3.8 times more often than in the same period of 2020. However, the market for graphics cards only rose 18% despite massive interest.
New wave of popularity
ASIC miners have more processing power than video cards. They are used to work with Bitcoin (SHA-256), Litecoin and Dogecoin (Scrypt), Monero (Cryptonight), Dash (X11), as well as many other cryptocurrencies. Video cards are often used strictly for Ethereum (Ethash algorithm).
The high interest in mining creates a shortage of technology. Manufacturers managed to sell all the newest miner models for a year in advance. Everything is built on pre-orders. Prices for some miners jumped by almost 50% due to the significant dominance of demand over supply.
It’s the same with video cards. The small number of GPUs available due to the simultaneous demand from miners and gamers. NVIDIA and AMD are already offering special Ethereum mining hardware to bring gamers and miners to the corners of the ring. Meanwhile, the conflict is growing.
The pandemic is also stimulates a shortage of technology, namely a problem of semiconductors’ availability. This is inside information from Jahon Khabilov, CEO of Sigmapool. He notes the incredible difficulty of entering the digital currency mining market at the moment. The types of equipment and mining methods do not matter much. Philip Modnov, CEO of LAZM, also agrees with him. According to the estimates of the latter, the yield at the moment is 8-24 months on average.
Video cards for beginner miners
It’s easier to work with one ASIC miner than with a bunch of connected video cards of equal power, says Khabilov. However, the entry threshold for mining on ASIC is an order of magnitude higher in comparison with making business on video cards. Therefore, it is video cards that are recommended for mining beginners as a starting point. Also, this is a forced decision on a limited budget. GPUs have lower working temperatures due to their lower energy density, which simplifies the task of high-quality cooling of the system, added Philip Modnov. The expert also notes that video cards have high liquidity in the secondary market and do not tend to be instantly obsolete in comparison with ASIC miners.
“If we assume that the cryptocurrency mining market is a bubble, then the GPU can be used further. There will certainly be demand among gamers, for example, ”said CEO Sigmapool.
When to use ASIC
Khabilov and Modnov recommend purchasing ASIC miners in case of plans to create a full-fledged mining farm. Big profits in the long run are possible. With up to $ 5 million, LAZM CEO advises investing in active farms. Everything is very simple: the presence of a tuned infrastructure eliminates a huge graph of costs at the start. If more than $ 5 million is available, then it is better to create your own data center. In this case, it is worth considering the costs of arranging the location, resolving legal issues, land management, personnel training and other related organizational issues.
