How to Mine Bitcoin Cash In 2023 | Ultimate Guide | CoinJournal

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.

Mining Solution/Services

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. 

CCG is one of the most popular cloud mining contract providers. It provides the highest hashrate and offers a choice of contracts to suit different aims and budgets.

You can buy your own hardware if you do want to mine for yourself, but 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.

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.

How Profitable is Mining Bitcoin Cash?

To determine how profitable it might be for you to mine BCH, you need to consider the factors we mentioned earlier and which we recap below.

• Hashing power
• Power consumption
• Cost of electricity
• Pool fee
• Bitcoin Cash price

You can determine if mining Bitcoin Cash will be profitable when you consider the hardware machine’s computing power (output in Terahashes per second (TH/s) or Gigahashes per second (GH/s)). 

You should also note the amount of power the hardware will consume, and the cost of electricity per kilowatt-hour (kWh). If you have joined a mining pool, find out how much fee you will pay and crucially, consider the price of Bitcoin Cash.

Let’s assume you have settled on the Whatsminer M30S++, an SHA-256 miner that costs around $3,900 and packs 110TH/s, consumes 3472W and has an efficiency rate of 0.031j/Gh. The revenue per day will be $41.58 at the current BCH price of $684.

If you deduct pool fees of $0.42 and electricity costs of $8.33, daily profit comes to around $32.83. 

A solo miner would need 103 days to mine 1 block and 16.5 days to mine 1 BCH using this device. ROI would take about 118 days. Note that how long it might take to mine a block using a given hash rate will rise or fall depending on adjustment in mining difficulty.

Overall, it is crucial that you undertake this step before you start mining because you can then determine whether it’s worth it or not or whether to join a pool or do solo mining. Remember, you can calculate profitability quite easily using a Bitcoin Cash mining calculator.

I’ve Already Mined Bitcoin Cash, What Now?

Congratulations! You have not only earned 6.25 BCH but have done so while helping to secure the Bitcoin Cash network. It means you can go on to mine more.

Now, what do you do with the coins sent to your Bitcoin Cash wallet? You can either:

• Sell the BCH coins immediately and earn a profit, or
• Hold (hodl) the coins securely in your wallet and sell at a later date.

Selling Bitcoin Cash

If you decide to sell your coins, there are two ways to go about it. First, you can use a cryptocurrency exchange such as Coinbase or go to a peer-to-peer platform.

Cryptocurrency exchanges: An exchange will allow you to create an account and then proceed to sell the coins. The platform will charge you a fee for the transaction, which is one factor you need to consider. Other than that, ensure you use a reputable exchange that is likely to be more secure. Also remember that only keep coins on an exchange when you want to sell them immediately, otherwise keep them in a secure offline wallet.

Peer-to-Peer network: A P2P platform is one that provides a marketplace for buyers and sellers to meet and transact directly with one another. The essence is to find a buyer willing to match your asking price and once they pay into an escrow, you can send the coins to the wallet address they provide.

Saving Bitcoin Cash Coins in a Secure Wallet for the Long Run

If you don’t want to sell your Bitcoin Cash immediately, then you’d probably do well “hodling” them. This is a long-term strategy that allows you to hold onto the BCH as long as possible, with the conviction that Bitcoin Cash is currently undervalued and will therefore be worth much more in the future.

As explained earlier, how safely you store your cryptocurrencies can be the difference between enjoying the fruits of your mining effort and allowing someone else an easy way into stealing them. 

In short, to safely store your mined BCH coins, it is highly recommended that you use the most secure wallets.  Our guide has helped narrow down your search with the following list of the top recommended Bitcoin Cash wallets.