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In this guide, you will learn how to put together for own mining setup and learn how to mine Ethereum Classic. There are three requirements for any mining setup which are:
- Hardware requirements
- Software requirements
- Solo or mining pool decision
With the rise of Bitcoin, mining became an interesting passive income alternative for most tech-enthusiasts. Early adopters benefited from mining at lower difficulty rates and with not so advanced hardware setup. Mining rewards were lucrative with BTC and the same so with Ethereum. However, in both cases, with markets becoming over-saturated and difficulty levels on a consistent rise, an early adopter option is still hidden in plain sight.
What is ETC?
Ethereum Classic technically the original Ethereum blockchain that didn’t undergo the hardfork in 2016 following the attack on DAO. The chain came into existence as the Ethereum community became divided as to whether to preserve the immutability or revert the extensive damage. A group of developers who were not in favour of forking, resumed their operations on the un-forked blockchain, which is now referred to as Ethereum Classic.
ETC or Ethereum Classic follows a proof-of-work consensus mechanism similar to the bitcoin blockchain, however, it hasn’t reached the saturation or the level of difficulty in ethereum classic mining comparable to the bitcoin network, hence making it a suitable option for miners looking for a good return on investment option in the mining markets.
The ethereum classic mining setup required for ETC is not very extensive and thus can be easily set up and generate a good amount of returns.
Ethereum Classic Hardware Requirements
Hardware requirements are pretty low gear compared to their counterparts such as Ethereum and Bitcoin mining. ETC can be mined on GPUs and doesn’t require specialized ASIC rigs, to begin with. If you have a well-built powerful gaming desktop packed with an NVIDIA or AMD graphics cards, you should be able to start mining right away.
If you have an NVIDIA graphics card of the 1080 series or higher, with a minimum 4GB dedicated video RAM or systems RAM, then you should be able to set up a mining rig pretty easily. You can add up to around 6 GPUs to the mining rig and it shouldn’t incur a substantial amount of electrical consumption from power generation the cooling system. Do not forget to update your drivers from the respective manufacturer’s website to ensure smooth sailing in your mining ethereum classic journey.
Currently, the hash rate of ETC is in 84 million hashes per second, with virtually no hardware cost. The difficulty cost is much lower than that of Ethereum, and since both use the Ethash algorithm, therefore, ETC is definitely a better choice to divert your mining power to. The per-block reward currently stands at 3.88 ETC which is roughly $45 per block mined. With the mining rig setup and the cost of $0.1 per kWh, ETC is quite a good opportunity for crypto enthusiasts to take advantage of the low saturation in the ETC mining space.
Is mining Ethereum classic profitable?
CryptoCompare, a comparison website for various statistics related to cryptocurrencies and tokens, has an informative dashboard for Ethereum Classic related to its mining activities which offer useful insights for potential miners. Currently, it comes with a monthly profit rate of $157 compared to an estimated power cost of $86, generating a profit to cost ratio of 181%. Low cost and high returns are surely an easy call to make for mining enthusiasts.
Software Requirements and Installation
Before anything else, you need to make sure you have a wallet that is secure and supports ETC, making sure it’s different from an ETH wallet. A good example would be Atomic wallet or Exodus, for a software wallet, though you can opt for a hardware wallet such as one among the Ledger Nano series as well.
Once the wallet functionality is selected, you will need to decide how you would like to mine. You can choose to mine solo or join mining pools. The benefit of the latter is there are greater rewards compared to the computational power that is put in, hence making it a more preferable choice for miners to opt for.
There are various choices of mining pools available for Ethereum Classic, among which some notable examples are Nanopool or Ethermine. Both of these mining platforms offer a simple quickstart option that guides you through allowing you to choose the respective crypto to mine, in this case, Ethereum Classic, and then directing you to a Github page to download the appropriate mining software.
In Nanopool, once you select ETC, you are given instructions to follow along with the latest stats related to pool hashrate, miners in the pool and the range of payout to the miners.
Once you make your selection and perform installation, you will be required to provide certain inputs such as selecting the server location, algorithm to use, OS and graphics card related information. Enter that, follow through the instructions and begin your installation process.
Ethermine on the other hand, allows you to choose a mining region and then offers the following mining software for Windows which works for both NVIDIA and AMD graphics card.
Among the mining software available, an interesting one is the Claymore’s Dual Ethereum Miner which offers the functionality to mine two cryptos at the same time. Therefore, while you are mining ETC, you can choose to mine for SIA coins, for instance, a decentralized cloud storage token, alongside at no additional cost. This dual mining
Conclusion: Ethereum Classic Mining
Once you are through with the hardware setup and follow through the instructions on any of the above mining pools, complete the installation and setup process, you are ready to start mining! Depending upon the mining software you choose, follow the steps related to running commands on setx and initializing your GPUs to get started. You will be available to view your hashrate as well once the setup is up and running.
So that’s how you start mining a currently underrated but definitely an undermined cryptocurrency in the crypto realms. Give the mining process a go and share your thoughts in the comment section below!
The post How To Mine Ethereum Classic? [Easy Beginners Guide] appeared first on Blockgeeks.
