Even your personal computer can earn some dollars while you binge-watch your favorite shows on Netflix. In this article, I’ll share various cryptocurrency mining platforms for you to make some passive income.
Mining is the lifeline of the crypto world. It validates ongoing transactions and mints new coins into circulation. In straightforward terms, a miner solves some complex Math problems to verify the transactions.
It is the process by which a miner trades his computing power and electricity for the block reward. Block reward is the incentive for the miner to help sustain the blockchain technology behind cryptocurrencies.
Simply put, blockchain is the foundation of everything crypto and the NFT universe. It’s a digital distributed ledger that holds a tamper-proof record of every entry.
The following section will discuss various advantages of crypto mining.
Benefits of Crypto Mining
If you’re a crypto-miner, then it can be a pretty good side gig. With little analysis, you can generate passive income based on your computing power without anything to do about it. Get–Set–Forget.
Next, you can be a vital part of the crypto movement, as miners are the primary contributors to making decentralized finance a reality.
Finally, you have veto power for any change in the network protocols.
Mined vs. Non-Mined Cryptocurrency
A consensus mechanism is a method to approve the transactions in a decentralized system such as a blockchain. It also assists in keeping the system secure from possible vulnerabilities such as a 51% attack.
A 51% attack is a situation where a bad actor controls more than 51% of blockchain. This majority powers the fraudster to mold the protocols as per will. A consensus mechanism keeps the power decentralized. Such a degree of decentralization demands enormous computing capabilities and work to perform a 51% attack. In the end, a scammer is prone to lose more than they’d possibly gain.
There are plenty of consensus methods like proof-of-work, proof-of-stake, proof-of-capacity, proof-of-activity.
Depending on the type of consensus mechanism, crypto coins may require mining or otherwise.
Mined Cryptocurrency
Blockchains using a proof-of-work consensus mechanism need mining.
They use miners for approving the entries (transactions). Whenever transactions go up for verification, miners start competing to solve for a 64-digit hexadecimal number.
The first one to find the solution broadcasts it to the entire network as proof-of-work. This victory bestows the reward on the winner while others wait for the next challenge.
This process repeats every time for a block worth of transactions. A block is nothing but a group of transactions totaling 1 megabyte in data.
Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two biggest cryptocurrencies, use proof-of-work along with many others. Therefore, they need mining to check double-spending.
The only drawback with the proof-of-work is the energy consumed and time taken per transaction, as all the miners except the winner end up wasting their computing power for nothing.
Non-Mined Cryptocurrency
All cryptos which don’t use proof-of-work are non-mineable such as Ripple, Cardano, etc.
They use more energy-conservative methods to validate the transactions. Proof-of-stake is one such consensus protocol that is an alternative to proof-of-work.
Proof-of-stake removes the competition. Blocks are not mined. Instead, they are validated by the stakeholders. Validators are chosen at random. They stake their share of crypto for approving any block. And they lose their stake (partial or full) based on the degree of misconduct.
While proof-of-stake is eco-friendly, it has its own set of drawbacks such that it promotes amassing crypto rather than its expenditure.
So at present, for the foreseeable future, proof-of-work (mining) has no strong alternatives.
Who can Mine Cryptocurrency?
In general, anyone with a supported wallet, internet connection, and powerful hardware can start mining cryptocurrency. It also depends on the type of cryptocurrency you choose to mine.
You can either go with solo mining or pool mining.
In solo, you alone solve for the hash, while it’s more of a group effort in the pool. Similarly, it’s also based on the type of hardware you’ve deployed, CPU, GPU, or the professional ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) miners.
Please go through this guide to understand crypto mining in detail.
Crypto Mining Platforms
The following sections will discuss some of the major mining platforms and utilities that make the mining procedure easy–cutting much of the technical setup.
Before initiating, make sure you have a cryptocurrency wallet and mining software that supports your choice of cryptocurrency.
Without further ado, let’s start with some of the best mining platforms.
Ecos
Ecos calls itself a full-fledged crypto investment platform. And when you see their breadth in the crypto domain, you might think the same.
It has a cryptocurrency wallet, exchange, cloud mining contracts, and crypto portfolios for investors. Besides ECOS has a convenient mobile app. It is available at App Store and Google Play.
However, their cloud mining contracts are only for Bitcoin mining. You can create a contract ranging from USD 75 to USD 50000 valid for 15 months to 50 months.
They accept payments from cards and in a few cryptos: BTC, ETH, XRP, and LTC.
Interestingly, you can purchase a Bitmain Antminer from their website. And it will mine Bitcoins at their mining facility. Finally, you have the choice to get it shipped to your address at your convenience. They pay daily for cloud mining and miner hosting contracts. All detailed statistics you can see into your account.
The main feature of the ECOS platform is that they provide a free cloud mining contract for 1 month to test their platform!
Shamining
Shamining is also a cloud mining platform. And the process is also similar: registration, contract, and mining.
They pay daily, no matter the amount mined with your hash rate. There is a minimum deposit of $150, and the platform mainly supports BTC mining.
StormGain
StormGain is one of the simplest mining platforms. It has a one-click mining process that doesn’t eat from your local resources, and it’s free. But there’s a catch!
As advertised, this is an all-in-one crypto platform. You can buy, sell, trade, exchange, and mine. Mining is limited to Bitcoin and is done on StormGain servers.
Now the catch is, first, mining is done in 4 hours shift. So, you have to click to activate the miner every four hours. In addition, if you aren’t trading on StormGain, then mining speed is slow to the extent that you would be mining a minuscule 0.5 USDT (~USD) per mining session.
And second, you have to increase your trading level to boost your mining speed. Notably, there are six more levels in addition to the starter. The highest level is VIP 3 for traders having 75,000,000 USDT trading volume per calendar month. With this peak level, you can have a free mining income of close to 16,000 USDT per month.
Trading, exchange, and withdrawals fees are specific to coin type. But, the deposit is free of any commission.
StormGain has native applications for Android and iOS. You can also use it as a web application.
Conclusively, StormGain is suitable only if you do-it-all with crypto. Keep reading to know about the crypto platforms if you’re interested in mining alone.
Slushpool
Slushpool is an excellent place to step in for anyone aiming for pool mining.
It’s one of the veterans in bitcoin mining presently mining about 3.5% of all bitcoins.
SlushPool charges a 2% pool fee for using its platform. It also has a 0% pool fee option for some supported ASIC miners.
It also has an official mobile app for iOS and Android. The app can be used as an account monitoring tool. SlushPool clearly states that you can’t mine with its mobile app.
Its platform has two-factor authentication (2FA) for added security. In addition to the regular one-time passwords, you can use FIDO2 compatible physical authentication devices like the TREZOR or Yubikey.
While the minimum payout is 0.001 BTC, you pay a payout fee of 0.0001 BTC for transactions lower than 0.01 BTC. The same goes for payouts of Zcash.
SlushPool has Bitcoin mining servers across the continents: USA, Europe, Canada, Japan, and Singapore. Zcash mining servers are located in the USA and Europe.
CryptoTab Browser
This is a unique concept to mine cryptocurrency while browsing. It has mining features built-in.
CrytoTab Browser promises automatic algorithm switching to boost profits. Similarly, it also assures of no overheating or battery drain while browsing with its in-house browser.
It converts all the rewards in Bitcoin. The minimum payout listed is 0.00001 BTC. You can earn by your mining hardware as well as receive commission for referrals.
This browser is available for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.
This is recommended for non-tech users who wish to have a minimum taste of cryptocurrency mining.
Awesome Miner
Next on the crypto mining platforms list comes Awesome Miner, which is similar to Cudo Miner. It is a mining management utility for Windows and Linux users.
It can be used free of cost for 2 miners. Afterward, its paid plan kicks in, starting with USD 4 per month billing annually.
It also has a cloud subscription that offers mining management from anywhere with just an internet connection. This service starts with USD 4 per month, billing annually for 10 miners. This service has a 30-days trial period if you’ve less than 400 mining rigs.
There are also monthly plans which are a tad more expensive than their yearly counterparts.
Awesome miner seems an excellent solution for huge mining farms. It has rich documentation and help sections to assist users in every possible way.
Bitfly (Ethermine.org)
Bitfly is where you can mine six crypto coins: ETH, ETC, ZEC, BEAM, RVN, and ERG. Each one has a different domain name and set up instructions matching the specific coin.
It charges a standard 1% pool fee irrespective of the coin you mine. It has 3rd-party apps for monitoring supported on Android and iOS.
Bitfly has specific configuration guides depending on the operating system, graphic card, and coin.
Once you click Start Mining, it takes you to the server details and mining software options. After that, you just download the preferred mining utility and set up the mining software to start mining.
It has mining servers in Europe, Asia, and the USA.
Bitfly boasts of instant payouts. It also has a Discord channel, a place to share knowledge with fellow miners. This can be useful if you’re new to the mining space.
Cruxpool
A very modern-looking website that says: “Stable and Predictive revenue from crypto mining.”
You can mine ETH, ETC, BEAM, and Ravencoin on Cruxpool. And they are adding new coins as we speak of this.
But when you go to their mining page, they show only two mining pools, ETH and ETC.
These two are the biggest of their pools. However, their help section shows the other two mining pools, Beam and Ravencoin.
Cruxpool charges a 1% pool fee.
Their quick start guide is detailed and helpful in setting up mining Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. It aids in starting with various operating systems (Windows and Linux).
Minimum payouts are:
Ethereum – 0.01 ETH
Ethereum Classic – 0.1 ETC
Ravencoin – 50 RVN
Beam – 1 BEAM
HashCity
You can mine 14 cryptocurrencies with HashCity.
The good thing about this platform is that you don’t have any payout fee like with SlushPool.
The pool mining fee is 1%.
You can find start-up guides by clicking the ‘How to start’ button against each cryptocurrency.
For instance, when you click ‘How to start’ for Litecoin, this will pop up:
You can directly find the appropriate miner and other files from this section.
Similarly, you can download detailed instructions for every crypto coin to set up mining with HashCity.
They have a HashCity app for Android and a Telegram channel for the pool members.
CoinFly
Coinfly is different from others in that they offer a crypto operating system (COS). No mining setup is required. They do not have a mining pool of their own. Instead, they provide connections to other pools.
For starting with Coinfly, you need to make a bootable USB device and boot from it on your mining rig. It has the miner utilities preinstalled and configured.
You have the option to use COS as the primary OS for your mining rig as well.
As of now, Coinfly doesn’t charge anything for its services. So, you can try their unique service free of charge.
Since CoinFly only connects you to other pools, payout terms will be specific to the pool you join.
