A Beginner's Guide to Bitcoin Mining: A Guide for Newbies

In the past two years, the cryptocurrency market has experienced huge ups and downs. Many people have turned their attention to the relatively stable mining industry. Today I will introduce to you how a new investor can enter the mining industry.

The first point that needs to be emphasized is that after so many years of development, the mining industry has become highly specialized. If you don’t want to invest too much energy and money in mining, you are advised to give up. Otherwise, it will only be a waste of time, energy and money without a very good output ratio.

If you only want to buy a few to dozens of mining machines, you should first ask yourself whether you have cheap and stable electricity and a place to place and run these mining machines. If you have these resources (such as a good friend's mining farm), you can buy them. If you don't have them, and you want to find a place to host them, then I advise you to give up, because the number of machines is too small, and the management and operation costs of the unit are too high. Whether it is transportation or daily maintenance, the cost is much higher than others, which is not cost-effective. It is better to buy coins directly. In addition, general mining farms also have a minimum number of hosting restrictions.

Of course, if you have a small site, the electricity price is cheap, and you know a little about computers, then buying some machines and managing and maintaining them yourself is also a good choice. It is really like having a mine at home. However, this situation is relatively rare.

Let's talk about the specific process of mining for newbies:

• Managed mining farm

Seeing this, some friends may feel strange, shouldn’t they buy mining machines first? In fact, it is still easier to buy machines now, and the delivery is also faster, but a suitable hosting mine needs to be carefully found.

A suitable mine must have conditions such as low electricity prices, stable operation, and a large enough site.

At present, mining farms are mainly divided into two categories, thermal power and hydropower. Thermal power mining farms have the same electricity price throughout the year; hydropower mining farms have lower electricity prices during the flood season and higher electricity prices during the dry season, and they are often not enough. Therefore, to compare electricity prices, we need to compare the average electricity prices throughout the year. Many large miners will conduct migratory mining. During the flood season, they will transport the machines to the hydropower mining farms for operation, and during the dry season, they will transport the machines to the thermal power mining farms for operation. However, the relocation cost is not low, and a large enough scale is required to reduce the unit cost. If you don’t have much investment at the beginning, it is recommended to choose a thermal power mining farm, and consider whether to relocate after you are familiar with the industry.

In addition, many mining farms, in addition to normal electricity charges, also have listing fees, management fees, etc. When calculating electricity charges, you also need to take into account line losses (power transmission losses, usually a few points), so when choosing a mining farm, you must also take these costs into account.

In addition to electricity prices, we also need to determine whether the mine is running stably. Mining machines are always making money. If there are frequent power outages, it will not only reduce direct profits, but also damage the life of the machine and increase maintenance costs. If a mine is frequently out of power, it is better not to go there.

So how do you choose a reliable mining farm? It is recommended to go to a mining machine manufacturer or a mining pool certified by a mining pool, such as the certified mining farm on the official website of F2Pool. It cannot be said to be 100% safe, but at least there is a certain degree of screening and filtering. Then, I will go to the site for an on-site inspection and make a choice after understanding the basic situation.

At the same time, if there are enough machines, more than a thousand, it is still a good choice to hire your own mining machine operation and maintenance personnel to be stationed in the mine to avoid additional management fees.

• Buy mining machines

At present, there are still many sales channels for mining machines, and there are many specialized mining machine dealers, but if you are buying for the first time, I personally recommend buying from the official website of the mining machine manufacturer, as the safety factor is high.

The current mainstream Bitcoin mining machine manufacturers include Bitmain (Antminer S17), MicroBT (Shenma Miner M20S), Canaan Creative (Avalon 1066), etc. The performance and power consumption of the first two models are not much different, but the delivery time may be different (this needs to be carefully checked), and you can choose freely.

Search the name of the mining machine manufacturer and enter the official website (make sure it is the official website). If you buy a small number of units, you can directly register on the official website to place an order and wait for delivery. If you buy a large number of units, you can find the contact information (phone or WeChat) on the official website and ask the customer service whether there is a discount. Now the market is sluggish, each company has certain preferential policies, don't miss it.

• Rack Installation

When the machine arrives, don't sit idle, install it and start running immediately. Generally speaking, mining farms will provide shelf services, some are free, and some require a certain fee. You can also choose to install it yourself. The installation of Bitcoin mining machines is relatively simple. People who have a basic understanding of basic computer operations can learn it in ten minutes. One thing to note is that it is also important to choose a suitable mining pool. It is recommended to choose a large mining pool, such as Biyin, Fish Pool, etc. At the same time, you can contact the customer service of the mining pool to apply for a VIP account, which charges a lower fee.

• Daily maintenance

If you entrust a mining farm to do routine maintenance, it will save you a lot of trouble. If you want to save money, it is also a good choice to do it yourself or hire someone to do it. Bitcoin mining machines are generally stable. You only need to regularly enter the mining pool backend to check whether the computing power is stable and check the unstable mining machines. It is not very laborious overall.