Crypto Mining Curious? Here is a guide to get you started! DIY guide

There is a lot of confusion about what crypto currency mining actually is. It is understandable! The term is a little misleading.

A blockchain is basically a decentralized, highly secure database. There are many copies of the blockchain all over the world. For coins like Bitcoin you can actually have a full copy of the blockchain on your computer that stays in sync with the rest of the world (with all other copies). That is a true Bitcoin wallet. Other wallets are usually services that keep a copy of the blockchain on a server that you interact with over the Internet. This is a convenient approach.

So what is mining? Mining is actually a program attempting to to verify the transactions that occur from one wallet to another. So it is like verifying a an accounting ledger. The miners get paid a portion of the transaction to do the verification. It takes some pretty complex math and massive computing power to "find a hash" and confirm a transaction. Usually there have to be multiple transactions for a transaction to be considered complete and a permanent part of the blockchain.

Ok that is my blockchain 101...probably not the best explanation, but good enough for the purposes.

Side note. Some coins do not use the mining model (called Proof of Work - POW). Some use Proof of Stake (POS) where having lots of coins makes you a node that verifies transactions and rewards the coin holder. Most coins are moving this way...Ether will switch at some point to POS.

OK NOW FOR THE FUN PART!

Forget mining Bitcoin because the math is too hard. There is highly specialized mining equipment to make Bitcoin mining profitable.

If you have a gaming PC, you are in good shape. The best DIY mining is done with a gaming video card. I like the Nvidia cards like the GTX1060ti or the GTX1070. They give great returns for the money at 50 - 100 USD a month!

Be careful using a laptop. It may overheat and fry on you!

If you don't have a gaming PC, you won't make as much, but you can have some fun making a bit of currency.

To mine, you need some specialized software. There are tons of programs out there. I am going to recommend two of them.

MINERGATE
https://minergate.com

This one is a no brainer. It is dead simple to use and works on both gaming PCs and regular PCs. In fact there is a an Android version - your phone may overheat so beware! You install it, set up an account and run it. It will "Smart Mine" the coin that it thinks is the most profitable. You can turn on video card mining too or just use your CPU. It will detect your card. Miner gate is a pool so everyone gets a chunk of the profits depending on their contribution. You get paid in the coin you mine after a certain payout period.

NICEHASH MINER
https://www.nicehash.com

I once considered this one great. They were recently hacked and lost 60 million dollars of their user's dollars. They are back and seem to be safe to use again. They constantly switch the coin you mine to optimize the mining. You must have a gaming card. In fact you have to choose AMD or Nvidia before you even download the software. It is easy to set up and run. You put in your Bitcoin wallet address and away you go. After a certain point no matter what you are mining you will be paid out in Bitcoin. They seem to be more generous in their payouts than Minergate. Like Minergate this is a mining pool. They have a profit calculator that helps you manage your expectations and even select a good video card to get. There is no CPU mining on this one so you need a fairly current video card.

https://www.nicehash.com/profitability-calculator

Big question - can you mine Steem? Nope...it uses a witness model which is similar to Proof of Stake. The witness must be voted in by the community. If you want to learn more, read the Steemit White Paper. It is actually genius level stuff. Well worth it to understand this platform!

https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf

Happy mining. Please comment with questions or contributions to the discussion!