What are the ways for ordinary users to participate in mining?

In the article "Is mining a good business?", we talked about the importance of mining timing. A good timing can get the Davis double-click reward of both the coin price and the mining machine rising; a bad timing will encounter a Davis double kill of both falling. To be good at mining, you must not only know how to grasp the timing of participation, but also the way of participation in mining is also very important. Let's talk about the common ways for ordinary users to participate in Bitcoin mining today.

01

Misconceptions about mining

In many people's impressions, Bitcoin mining means that miners buy mining machines and mine at home. This requires computer and mining-related professional skills, but they know nothing about it, so they give up the idea of ​​mining. This is the most common misunderstanding of mining among the public. It is true that mining is a highly specialized thing, but the supporting services of the mining industry are already very comprehensive. As long as users choose to participate, the related technical work will be handled by a professional team, and users with no basic knowledge can also participate in mining.

Another point is that mining is not about putting the mining machine at home, because:

1. The price of household electricity is not cheap, and using household electricity for mining may lead to legal risks;

2. During the use of mining machines, various abnormalities may occur, requiring 24-hour care and professional operation and maintenance. Ordinary users do not have such conditions and business capabilities;
   

3. The mining machines make a huge noise when they are running. A single mining machine can produce 80 decibels of noise. It is unimaginably terrible to live in the background noise of dozens of mining machines running at the same time.
   

02

Three ways for ordinary users to participate in mining

In reality, ordinary users participate in mining in the following three ways:

1. Purchase cloud computing power

2. Joint Mining

3. Purchase mining machines and host them at the mining farm

1) Cloud computing power

Cloud computing power is one of the simplest ways to get started with mining. The cloud computing power platform operates a certain scale of computing power, breaks it down into small pieces, and sells it to users. Users can choose different computing power and time periods. For example, you can choose to buy a cloud computing power product with a computing power of 50T and a computing power period of 360 days. After payment, you can just sit back and wait to receive the coins. The advantage of cloud computing power is that the user threshold is low, there are almost no intermediate links, and it is simple and easy to understand.

The disadvantages of cloud computing are also obvious:

1. The reliability and credibility of the cloud computing platform. Try to choose cloud computing platforms with strong strength and clear background. Some small cloud computing platforms have weak risk tolerance and are at risk of bankruptcy or running away.

2. The unit computing power cost of cloud computing power is high, and users do not own mining machines, so they cannot enjoy the added value of mining machines.

Currently, some of the more well-known cloud computing platforms on the market include BitDeer, which has close ties with Bitmain.

In general, cloud computing products have fewer links and a simple model, which novice users can understand at a glance. The disadvantage is that they are expensive and cannot enjoy the added value of mining machines.

2) Joint Mining

The joint mining model provides users with a package of mining-related services including group purchase of mining machines, removal and de-installation of mining machines, hosting, operation and maintenance, repair, migration, access to mining pools, etc. All that remains to be done is to wait for the coins to be received.

Merged mining is almost as user-friendly as cloud computing, but it has three distinct advantages over cloud computing:

1. Lower unit computing power cost;

2. Users who have their own mining machines can enjoy the added value bonus of mining machines;

3. The joint mining business is closely related to the interests of users. Out of consideration for their own interests, partners will make professional and detailed decisions for users.

Let's take the third advantage of Litebit's joint mining business. Litebit's joint mining business does not charge any management fees before users get their money back, and the share of joint mining after the money is back is directly related to the user's income. This model encourages Litebit's joint mining business to allow users to get their money back as soon as possible, and after the money is back, it also helps users get higher income as much as possible. This ability is not available to ordinary users. For example, depending on the specific situation, choose to let the mining machine work in overclocking, normal or downclocking mode to obtain the highest income. From this perspective, Litebit's joint mining professional decision-making has invisibly helped users avoid various pitfalls and obtain higher income.

The biggest risk of joint mining lies in the platform’s reputation risk. You need to look for a platform that is strong, has been in operation for a long time, and has a good reputation in the industry.

3) Purchase mining machines and host them at the mining farm

The third way for ordinary users to participate in mining is to purchase mining machines and host them in mining farms. Professional mining farms provide professional mining machine operation and maintenance services and cheap electricity to hosted users.

Users buy their own mining machines and look for mining farms for hosting. In each link, users are more involved and have a greater sense of control. The advantage of this is that users have more freedom of choice and the cost is relatively low, but it also puts higher requirements on users: they have to buy mining machines themselves, sign contracts with mining farms, and may also involve the delisting and relocation of mining machines, etc. They must pay attention to the operation of mining machines at any time. All of these require users to have rich mining experience. Because there are many links involved, there are also many pitfalls of all sizes. For example, the mining farm does not start the machine at the agreed time, raises the electricity price for various reasons, and uses the user's mining machine for mining under the pretext of power outages and machine repairs. This requires users to find trustworthy and reliable partners in each link. Once unfortunately pitted, users fall into a passive situation, and all previous efforts may not be worth the gain.

There are too many links involved when users inspect a managed mining farm, and they need to enter the circle, such as participating in offline activities, to explore and judge on their own.

The three modes mentioned above are mainly for ordinary users. Users with strong financial resources and professional capabilities can build their own mining farms, which is beyond the scope of discussion in this article.

▲Comparison of three mining methods from various dimensions

03

Summarize

There are three main ways for ordinary users to participate in mining: cloud computing, joint mining, and mining farm hosting. They each have their own characteristics:

Cloud computing power has the lowest cognitive threshold and is the most friendly to novice users. It has the highest computing power cost relatively speaking, and cannot enjoy the added value bonus of mining machines.

Under normal circumstances, the overall cost of mining farm hosting is relatively low, and it can enjoy the added value of mining machines. However, this model has many links and requires high experience from mining participants. They must have the ability to select mining machines, sign contracts with reputable mining farms, and have the ability to identify and avoid pitfalls in each link.

Joint mining takes into account the advantages of both cloud computing power and mining farm hosting. The model is simple and user-friendly. The participation threshold is low and the overall cost is low. In addition, participants can also enjoy the added value of mining machines. In addition, under the joint mining model, the interests of participants and partners are strongly related. Participants can enjoy the professional and sophisticated decisions made by partners, avoid many pitfalls invisibly, and obtain higher returns.