I've been reluctant and look down on the profitability on the mining since joining this space one year ago. While I know mining can definitely be one of the greater ways to generate passive income, the hassle of setting one up is too high and the electricity bill will always be the potential killer if you mine big time without a proper monitor on the very volatile market.

However, I've changed my mind a little when I got an opportunity to access some free hashing power(just like < 1KH/s, nothing hardcore), why don't make use of it and teach myself more about crypto? That would be a great idea!

CryptoNight Algorithm

I have no GPU, not even one. So the main focus will be taking advantage of the weak CPU hashing power. Came across the CryptoNight Algorithm the other day and turns out it was one of the famous hashing algorithms out there, Monero was the most coins using it! (Sorry I wasn't aware of all these if they sound obvious to you, told ya I'm mining idiot)

CryptoNight is a Proof-of-work algorithm and designed to be suitable for ordinary PC CPUs. This sounds just right for my use case, because I will start the trial with my home PC first. This algorithm is meant to be mined by CPU only but you know when there is profit, capitalism will find a way to squeeze the cash out of it. So recently there issome ASIC mining machine being introduced for CryptoNight coins, but that is not in the range of discussion today.

A site for all the CryptoNight coins

Found this gem from the bitcointalk forum. It lists 10~13 coins that is mineable with CPU and sorts them according to profitability. Though I'm not sure if this site list all the coins possible already, the listed coins are more than enough for my research as I didn't hear of most of them. The famous one among them is the Monero(XMR), Bytecoin(BCN) and others. Find the site here:

http://minecryptonight.net/

Besides the coins list, they have some nice tabs giving valuable information like How to mine CryptoNight coins explaining coin mining in a brief summary. Definitely a good read even if you are not up to mining.

What coins to mine?

I do not choose coins depends on the profitability base on the site's sorting as well. First, I could not verify how valid is the sorting and even if they track it accurately. Secondly, the market is just too volatile for choosing side base on current pricing. You can go for the top profitable coins mining now and by the time you mined a considerable amount of it, it might drop to the bottom of list.

Since I have almost zero cost on the electricity and a really casual mining power with my ordinary PC, solely chasing after the profitability for a coin short-term is not a wise move. The much better idea is, study all the CryptoNight coins listed and hoping them to gain value over time. That would include study the code committing rate over Github, check out community activities, project's roadmaps and unique idea. I will study each and maybe come up with a short report here on Steem about my finding.

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见证加密货币的精彩世界一年有余了，可以说已经尽可能地去参与很多不同的项目和技术了，但是有一块也是最大一块我从来都不想去鹏的领域，那就是挖矿。

一直觉得挖矿时很吃力不讨好的脏活，不怀疑其赚钱的潜力，但是同时要解决的硬件和电力问题时非常头痛的。直到最近有了一个免费挖矿的机会，我决定踏入这个挖矿的世界，顺便好好了解到底挖矿是怎么运作的。有的算力并不多，少过 1kH/s 吧。主要是想利用多余的算力来看看 CPU 挖矿是怎么一回事，再者 CPU 挖矿花费的电力也不会想 GPU 那么高。在这里就不可不说 CryptoNight 这个演算法，它最初出现的目的就是利用 CPU 来挖矿，Monero 就是大名鼎鼎的 CryptoNight 币之一。

Minecryptonight.net是个专门列出 CryptoNight 项目的一个网页，从高到低排列了很多可以用 CPU 挖矿的项目。老实说，除了 Bytecoin 和 Monero 有很多我听都没听过。

那么如何选择要挖什么币呢？

尽管上面的这个网站有列出各个项目的获利性，我并不打算将之作为依据，原因有二。其一，没人知道这里获利性排名是否正确。其二，就算信息正确无误，在这个龙卷风式的币圈，可能今天你选择挖最赚钱的币，等挖到一定数量时它说不定早就跌出榜外了。

因为我不是急着挖了就卖，最正确的策略应该是研究榜上的所有币种，选择最有前瞻性和活跃性的那个来下手，以期在未来的某个时刻会爆发。或许以后可以在这里简短的报告研究结果。

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