Ethereum mining
In recent years, the Ethereum rate (in Russia it is called Ethereum or, even more simply, Ether) has been growing at a fairly rapid pace, certainly yielding to Bitcoin, but at the same time being the second most popular cryptocurrency. For ether mining, special programs are used. It is important to understand that this process today is much more efficient than "mining" bitcoins, since a noticeably smaller number of users participate in it. The most effective is the use of equipment in the form of high-performance video cards.
Ripple mining
Ripple (XRP) is quite different from most cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. Currently, this virtual currency is popular, competing on equal terms with Ethereum. The main feature of Ripple is the impossibility of mining. This is due to the fact that the developers immediately issued 100 billion units of XRP, leaving about 2/3 for themselves, and distributing one third among users. As a result, additional emission of cryptocurrency is not provided, and mining is also not required for the system to function.
Litecoin
The Litecoin cryptocurrency (LTC) was created in 2011 and is a derivative (also called a fork) of Bitcoin. Currently, its development is carried out completely independently and has several fundamental differences from the most popular type of virtual money. These include:
Greater mining efficiency using powerful processors;
The need for a large amount of free memory;
Wide distribution of pools, including cloud ones.
LTC is much less popular and in demand than Bitcoin. Therefore, mining of this cryptocurrency is currently available and quite effective even for individual miners. However, it is much more profitable for the user to become a member of the pool, which significantly increases the profitability of mining.
NEM
Based on the NEM blockchain technology, a cryptocurrency called XEM was created. She enjoys serious popularity in the Asian market, primarily in Japan. Features of this type of virtual money became the release of the entire amount of cryptocurrency at once. However, mining XEM is quite possible. It is necessary to generate new blocks required for transactions, the formation of appropriate records in the databases and to ensure the security of the operations performed. At the same time, XEM mining is considered one of the most democratic processes, since it does not require large computing power.
Dash
The capitalization of the Dash cryptocurrency, created in 2014, has exceeded at the moment the amount of $ 2 billion. Of course, its popularity today cannot be compared with Bitcoin, however, the virtual currency is showing stable growth. Almost any computer equipment can be used for mining, however, the most effective is the use of ASIC technology and various cloud services.
Iota
The IOTA cryptocurrency, which appeared on the market at the end of 2015, quickly became widespread. This is due to the peculiarities of this payment system, the main of which are: the absence of a commission in the implementation of transactions and the speed of their execution. The principle of operation of IOTA does not provide for the possibility of special mining, since in fact the user of the system becomes a miner when making any transaction, because this requires confirmation of the previous two.
ZCASH
The developers of the ZCash cryptocurrency declare it as the first anonymous virtual currency. This payment system provides a standard mining opportunity, for which you need to have the appropriate equipment, first of all, a powerful video card, appropriate software and connection to the pool. It is in this case that mining will be most effective.
Monero
Mining a relatively new cryptocurrency called Monero can be very profitable today, even for single users. The fact is that the payment system service does not allow the use of specialized ASIC processors. As a result, even having an ordinary, but at the same time sufficiently productive computer, you can mine Monero.
Stratis
The Stratis cryptocurrency (abbreviated as STRAT) appeared in 2016 and is one of the last such developments that have already managed to loudly declare themselves in the financial market. The creators took into account the experience of using previously issued virtual money, which allowed the newbie to become one of the ten largest cryptocurrencies in terms of capitalization almost immediately after its appearance. However, the excitement soon subsided and today Stratis is ranked 16th in this indicator, which is an undoubted success, given the short period of time on the market.
Cryptocurrency mining is carried out in traditional ways. For the process to be efficient, either the purchase of productive computer equipment or participation in cloud pools is required. Considering the opinion of experts, the investment in Stratis can be very profitable even in the short term.
Which cryptocurrency to choose for mining?
It is quite difficult to find an answer to the question of which e-currency is the most profitable to mine. The fact is that the cryptocurrency market has been formed only in recent years. It is constantly changing, in addition, new types of virtual money appear regularly. All this makes more or less accurate forecasting of the further development of the market situation extremely unlikely.
Nevertheless, every year it becomes more and more difficult for single miners to make a profit by "mining" the most popular cryptocurrencies, for example, bitcoins or ether. Therefore, it makes sense to pay attention to the equally popular types of virtual currency.
Mining prospects
It is important to understand that with the growing popularity of virtual money, making profit from mining becomes more problematic. This is explained not only by an increase in the number of participants, but also by the arrival of significant financial resources in this market segment. As a result, mining individually becomes simply unprofitable and unprofitable.
Another potential danger is the fact that some cryptocurrencies that have appeared recently do not provide for the possibility of mining. Such virtual money includes, for example, Ripple or IOTA, which have shown stable growth in recent years.
How much can you earn?
It is almost impossible to give an unambiguous answer to the question about the potential earnings from mining. This is due to the fact that it is determined taking into account many difficultly predictable factors, including the current rate of a particular cryptocurrency and the dynamics of its change, the amount of investment in mining, the number of participants in the "mining" process, etc.
At the same time, it is necessary to understand the following: the growth of the total capitalization of the virtual money market leads to the fact that the average payback period of investments is constantly increasing.
For example, not long ago, investments in bitcoin mining returned within 2-3 months, bringing further profit, and the entry threshold was quite low. Today, in order to start effectively mining the most popular cryptocurrency, a serious amount of funds is required, amounting to at least several thousand dollars. At the same time, the payback period is 9-12 months, and in some cases even more.
Investment risks
The cryptocurrency market is one of the most volatile. Even bitcoin, whose value has risen very strongly, has repeatedly fallen in value. There is no guarantee that the growth of the rate will resume after another collapse, which may occur at any time.