How to mine Bitcoin

When you want to generate passive income, there are many ideas that spring to mind, but very few know how to whet the imagination how to mine bitcoin . The most famous cryptocurrency in the world, also known as "digital gold" has, over the years, been able to make the fortunes of all its "miners".

Obviously, such a profitable practice presents a whole series of challenges that must be budgeted and managed in the best way, otherwise you will end up making the proverbial "hole in the water". If you are looking for the best way to jump into the mining business, then you've come to the right place.

I have created this guide to illustrate in detail all the opportunities, but above all the problems, that this market offers, so that you can do your accounts well before starting. At the end of the tutorial you will have enough knowledge to judge for yourself if and how to undertake this activity. Before starting, however, I would like to emphasize that bitcoin and crypto are a very risky market and that any gains are never guaranteed. Furthermore, this post is not intended to represent investment advice in any way .

The ABC of bitcoin

Starting to mine a currency whose functioning is not clear is the prelude to an insured bankruptcy, so it is better to start from the basics. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that is based on blockchain technology , which plays the role of a ledger and is shared among all users of the Bitcoin network, which is based on a peer-to-peer operation (in which the various nodes, i.e. the users, are directly connected to each other without intermediaries, therefore in a decentralized manner).

The blockchain is composed of a chain of blocks containing information on all transactions carried out in bitcoin; each block includes data from the previous block, a fixed number of coins , and the public cryptographic keys of those who performed the transactions.

To add new blocks to the blockchain it is necessary to perform very complex calculations; specifically, it is necessary to attack data protected with SHA-256 encryption using brute force (so many attack attempts until the right combination is found).

These calculations are certainly not done with pen and paper, but with the help of sophisticated computers, specifically CPUs (processors) and GPUs (graphics processors (, with very high power and which, over the years, have had to evolve towards peaks). higher.

Among all those who manage to successfully carry out this "attack", a user is chosen; its block is therefore examined to see if it contains the same transactions as the blocks of other users (to verify that it has not been tampered with) and, if successful, it is added to the blockchain. In return, as a reward, the user receives new bitcoins: this is mining . To find out more, he keeps reading.

Mining

As just mentioned, to encourage more and more people to compete to keep the Bitcoin network going, a complex system of rewards has been invented that rewards everyone in proportion to the work done.

Put simply, those who solve 10 blocks get a certain amount of bitcoin in exchange, which will obviously be higher than that obtained by those who, at the same time, managed to solve 1, but lower than that obtained by those who managed to solve 100.

Here, however, the problem arises of being able to give value to the extracted currency, otherwise it would have been difficult to convince someone to spend money to get digital waste paper back. To solve this, Satoshi Nakamoto (pseudonym of the unknown, or perhaps of the collective, which founded Bitcoin) has decided to limit the maximum number of coins that can be created to 21 million : a ceiling beyond which bitcoins can never be generated again.

This partially solves the issue, leading to scarcity which has always been the driving force behind every asset of great economic value. But that alone would not have been enough. In fact, extracting every single penny in the very first years of life would have made you lose interest in the blockchain too soon, ending up quickly relegating it to oblivion.

To solve this problem, halving has been implemented , i.e. the net cut of 50% of miners' revenues every 4 years : therefore, every 4 years the number of bitcoins distributed per block is halved. In this way, scarcity is created, the price goes up, miners get less but with a higher value so they remain incentivized and everything continues to work at its best.

At this point there was only one problem to solve: to guarantee a level of security such that no one would ever be able to "break" the code. Without this factor, in fact, the whole idea was destined to fall like a house of cards on the first attack by cybercriminals. This is where the hash rate comes into play .

L’hash rate

To keep the blockchain secure but, at the same time, not saw its legs in the bud with requests that could not be satisfied, an index called hash rate was used . During the early stages of bitcoin's existence, this value was very low as the blockchain didn't boast much attention and was operated by a handful of computers.

Over the years, however, the rise in the price of the coin has attracted the attention of numerous investors, eager to embark on the path of mining to generate profits. This has given way to a real hardware race, in order to have an increasingly performing means capable of extracting digital gold .

This hash rate (which would be the complexity of the mathematical calculations required to solve the blocks) increases as new miners enter the business , so more power leads to greater difficulty. However, the relationship between these two factors is not directly proportional, so one more miner does not increase the difficulty of the code by as many times.

The relationship between the parties involved is exponential , so a miner makes the curve go up by "n" times, making life more difficult for everyone. This is the main factor to take into consideration when you want to start mining bitcoin, since a high-performance machine today could be useless in a short time depending on factors that cannot be calculated.

What it takes to mine bitcoins

The answer to this question has changed a lot in history since at the beginning it could be mined with any PC , or almost, by exploiting the power of the processor and the ease of operations of an embryonic system. Over time, however, the CPUs began to suffer, forcing the switch to graphics cards.

In fact, GPUs are much better performing when it comes to complex calculations, which has allowed the latter to undermine at a speed and with an efficiency unthinkable for the other components. This led to the great video card crisis, where they were literally snapped up in the crypto mining sector with gamers all over the world having to pay crazy bucks for sometimes outdated GPUs.

The increase in hash rate and the need to find alternatives to video cards so as not to strangle the gaming sector, has led companies to create ASICs , real machines born for mining, which make energy efficiency and of brute power their strengths.

An ASIC of the highest level today can cost even more than € 10,000, which makes it clear how much this sector has evolved compared to when it could be managed with a simple home PC. Mining bitcoins today is a complex process that requires a certain type of investment, not to mention the fact that it requires a large amount of energy , therefore to make the business profitable it is necessary to operate from a place where the cost of energy is not high. .

That said, after this "general smattering" on the essence of bitcoin and the mining process, let's go into more detail and see, practically, what solutions there are to mine this crypto.

How to mine bitcoins for free

If you are wondering how to mine bitcoin for free , know that there are some methods to do it but that, for all the reasons explained above, they do not offer stellar rewards , indeed. In any case, trying does not harm (although it is always necessary to pay attention to some contraindications present), so here are some solutions that you can take into consideration.

How to mine bitcoins from a PC

One of the most famous and reliable methods to mine bitcoins from a PC for free is Bisonapp , a platform that allows you to grant excess computing power from your computer , so that it can be exploited for mining activities. This method is safe and allows you to get real revenues, but there are a few factors that need to be considered.

First of all, even if you have a high-end PC that allows you to do things like mine bitcoins with your video card , the difficulty of the calculations to be performed has reached such a level that it is practically impossible to generate profits for traditional hardware . If we add to this that here we would rely on a third platform by adding elements to the equation, we understand how things can be further complicated.

Keeping a computer on all day costs a variable amount depending on its power and the price of energy, but it affects the final balance. In addition, the continuous use of a machine with a limited life cycle, which wears and gets damaged if kept under stress 24/7 , implies reaching the end of its useful life much earlier.

Through NiceHash you can generate profits in bitcoins but, even if you have an NVIDIA 3080 (therefore a high-end video card ), you will hardly pay back the expenses in the current state of things, but it could do so in the future. If the price were to soar in the years to come, a few cents of bitcoin could turn into noteworthy capital that would make sense of the whole operation.

To use this platform you need to go to the official website (not present in the Italian version) and click on the Get started button , in order to open an account. Then you need to enter your email address and a secure password as your login credentials.

Once the preliminary operations have been completed, the devices will then be associated (if you have more than one) which have different procedures depending on the processors, video cards or any ASICs you intend to use.

How to mine bitcoins from Android

If mining bitcoin from a PC is a complex operation, it becomes even more complicated if you move to less performing devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Not having available any noteworthy GPUs, the mining will have to be entrusted to the processor, which was not born for this type of operation.

If you are really looking for a solution to mine bitcoins from Android , one of the few software that allows you to mine bitcoins for free from mobile is CryptoTab , a web browser very similar to Chrome that works on all devices. To install it, just go and look for it from the store and choose CryptoTab Lite for the free version with a lower hash rate (mining power), or select the Pro version , for a fee, for a better available power.

Once the registration is finished, it is possible to start mining: something that the software does automatically without the need for external intervention. The only thing required by the user is to tap the button to start it every 2 hours , which must be kept in mind because, otherwise, the whole process will stop.

The use of autoclicker apps (those that automatically push buttons) is strictly prohibited and may result in account closure . One very important thing must also be taken into account: CryptoTab is a web browser that does not openly declare that it uses the data entered , which exposes to possible sales of information or other activities that could damage the user's privacy or security.

Up to the time of writing this article, there have been no violations or other incorrect practices by the company, but this is a factor to be taken into due consideration before proceeding. In any case, the revenues recorded were always minimal and very insignificant even in the case of intensive use . In short, my advice is to let go of this type of solution.

How to mine bitcoins from iPhone

For iPhones , the same is true for Android devices: no matter how powerful, smartphones are not devices designed for mining and do not have sufficient power. One of the very few solutions available is to use the software seen for Android, namely CryptoTab .

Other apps have existed, exist and will exist that, in their own way, promise interesting cryptocurrency revenues through mining, but a lot of attention needs to be paid. Many of these are not downloadable from the official app stores , since they are of dubious origin and with the risk of finding yourself with something useless or even dangerous.

On mobile devices, they store thousands of vital information for the user, which is a real goldmine for the bad guys. Whatever you install it is good to do it on empty smartphones, intended only and only for crypto-mining activity.

How to mine paid bitcoins

Mining is an activity that, to do it well, requires a certain economic outlay that cannot be underestimated. Taking a simple thousand-dollar PC with an NVIDIA 1650 video card is of no use to you, as the revenues will be a few pennies a day.

At the end of the month, making a final calculation, it will be difficult to repay the expenses of the electricity bill together with the amortization quota of the computer, which must warn against investing money in useless equipment. However, if you still want to start the business, there are other methods that may work.

Participate in a mining pool

There are companies that mine bitcoins on behalf of customers, who rent hash power (mining power) at rates that should be advantageous. To participate, all you need to do is sign up, pay and withdraw the profits once they are deposited on the virtual account.

It all sounds very nice, but here too there are a number of risk factors that must be considered , some of which are related to the reliability of these intermediaries. Many companies charge very high payouts for ridiculous hash power , which will never generate the same value, or put in minimum withdrawal limits and other clauses that greatly hinder the user.

Even in the case of finding the most reliable site ever, the solutions offered rarely guarantee real income, in the best of cases you can aim for an honest balanced budget. To calculate the prospectus of profits, you can use the same site that I recommended in the section above related to ASICs. These companies make explicit the hash power offered so it is easy to check if the offer is advantageous or not, but remember to read the contract carefully, in order to avoid disadvantageous and unclear clauses.

Buying bitcoins on exchanges

These do not want to be financial advice , everyone must be free to choose which way to go, but I want to clarify one thing. Bitcoin has evolved to the point where it really no longer makes sense to attempt home mining, as the difficulty of the network is too high.

Surely there will always be people who say they have made big gains with these methods (and maybe that's true) but the reality is that, nowadays, to become a miner requires huge investments and technologies beyond the reach of the average user. If you believe in the future of this coin, investing in it might make a lot more sense than trying to mine it , regardless of the method you choose.