Mining is something anyone can do. Mining at its core is selling your computers power in exchange for a cryptocurrency. If you have a working computer – you can mine. Simple as that.

If you are interested in mining as a way to make money I don’t think you are crazy – it’s a lot of fun – but there are some things to consider.

I have a bit of a love affair with Steemit – so in an effort to get more intimate with it I setup mining software on three machines with different operating systems. My background is in I.T so it wasn’t hard to setup. With the guides at the bottom of this post - you will be able to get started by literally cutting and pasting linux commands or in the case of Windows – adding your account to the config file and simply double clicking on program.



Steem uses your spare CPU cycles to mine. The problem is – if your CPU runs harder, you use a bit more power – which translates to at least some additional money on your power bill. So even if you do get paid through mining – the wear and tear on your computer and the extra power usage - probably isn’t worth it financially.



Steemit is by far my favorite network. I like how content is valued and there is a digital currency attached to it. I want nothing more than to spend my money mining Steem.

But there’s a problem

Mining Steem is not profitable. There are two guys who take all the mining spots. What that means is your computer stays on 24 hours a day waiting in line for maybe a block every three days which translates into 1 SP. SP or Steem Power as you probably know cannot be taken out for 2 years. So if you mine you are investing in the future of Steem because you are being paid in SP. Unfortunately there is not enough room for you to mine Steem regularly so even the most die-hard fans look to other currencies.



Steemit makes sense right now only if you are producing content, curating content or designing a supporting project.

Z-Cash was released today. There was a lot of hype surrounding its release – and futures traded high. It is mined using your Graphics Card or GPU. This is again an intense operation that costs money in power – there is a hobby component to it however, and the fact that Z cash will actually give you blocks – makes mining it a lot more interesting.



You don’t have to know how to mine. You can buy a “Cloud Mining” contract. Essentially you buy resources from a providers datacentre. All they need is payment and your wallet address for whatever currency you want to mine. Many of these contracts are for a year – so they tend to be priced almost exactly to the reward you would receive based on the current exchange and difficulty. The hope is – the currency goes up as the contract goes on. It is a gamble – but if you want an easy way it mining it’s the way to go.

Finally – if you really want to get into mining because you want more currency – I say buy it on the market. How many articles do you write to get 20 Steem? With exchange rates the way they are it makes sense to buy. Instead of spending $50 on a server rental or power, put the $50 into STEEM and into SP – if you are “long” on it! It’s a great value right now.

Guides

https://steemit.com/steemhelp/@joseph/mining-steem-for-dummies (complete set by step – I have done it).
https://steemit.com/steem-mining/@ajayseervi/how-to-start-steem-coins-mining-on-windows
https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/guides/how-to-mine-zcash/

Cloud Mining

https://www.genesis-mining.com/