Mining Zcash vs Ethereum: Why I Prefer Mining Ethereum

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First of, a few disclaimers, this is based on a personal study that I have conducted from early January 2018 to the 10th of February 2018. This study is done mainly via Nvidia GTX 1070s and GTX 1060s. The study conducted is by no means representative of everyone's situation, the same findings may not apply to your situation. If you would like to dispute any of the opinions stated here, feel free to do so in the comments below. We are after all trying to learn from each other. So without further ado, let's begin.

In 2017, I have tried different platforms for GPU mining, I have tried Nicehash, Minergate and Winminer. Unfortunately, with the high fees as well as the hack from Nicehash, I have switched to mining both Zcash and Ethereum. Mining from mining pools does have its benefits and it is rather simple too.

How Much Can You Make?

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I started mining Zcash initially due to the higher returns when compared with Ethereum. At that point, Ethereum was at a high of 1200 dollars per coin. Zcash on the other hand was about 700 dollars per coin. Seeing that both were relatively close, I started with Zcash as I would obtain more coins when compared to Ethereum.

This came up to approximately 0.04 Zcash a day against 0.02 Ethereum a day. While it may seem mining Zcash would be a better option, in terms of dollars, they were both approximately 24-28 dollars a day. Thus, you probably won't go wrong mining either one. However, if you do have AMD cards, I do recommend mining Ethereum instead. At the time of writing, you will be looking at about 18 dollars for mining Zcash and 17 for mining Ethereum. Still pretty close, but Zcash would still be a better option in terms of monthly revenue.

So why the switch?

Ethereum pairs vs Zcash pairs

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This really depends on why you are mining cryptocurrency for. If you are mining because you believe in the coin, any coin you mine is good. However, I mine to pay bills and trade other cryptocurrencies. With that, the best course of action for me would be to mine the most profitable coin. For my setup, which generally consist of Nvidia cards, Zcash would be it. However, I would only mine Zcash if it increases to about the same price as Ethereum.

That's because there are not that many trading pairs of Zcash. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't see any cryptocurrency trading pairs for Zcash. Thus, I would have to first convert my Zcash to Ethereum or Bitcoin before I can trade in on exchanges such as Kucoin and Binance.

While the trading fee is only 0.1% for both Kucoin and Binance, if I am looking to trade for other coins, Zcash would cost me 0.2% in trading fees. Thus, it may mitigate any gains obtained from mining Zcash instead of Ethereum. Furthermore, I just like the convenience of trading Ethereum straight to other coins instead of having to first convert Zcash to Ethereum first.

Converting To Local Currency

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In the event that I would like to cash out to pay the electricity bill, most of my local exchanges only accept Bitcoin, Ethereum and if I'm lucky, Tether. With the high transfer fees for Bitcoin and the fear, uncertainty and doubt surrounding Tether, Ethereum seems to be the best option. Although, there is that little invasion of kitties on the Ethereum blockchain, mining Ethereum is akin to mining a more widely accepted currency which makes transactions easier.

In the end, it really depends on what works for you. If I were to sum up all that I have written, I would say this. Since the gains in mining Ethereum with Nvidia cards is almost the same as mining Zcash, why not just mine Ethereum instead? Of course, mining Ethereum fits my needs and as such I am sticking with mining Ethereum for now. It is forecased that the price of Zcash would rise to about 60,000 dollars per coin. If Ethereum does not go higher than that, I may consider switching over.

However, I am interested to hear your thoughts on this. Do let me know in the comments below. Cheers and Steem on!

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