I have been mining crypto for a few years now. Nothing huge, only a few GPU's on a gaming PC that I let run when I'm not playing Rust or Sid Meier's Civilization VI. I try to keep up with the community on here, as well as on Reddit, and a few months back I saw folks talking about Betterhash in a Ravencoin Forum. I had been mining directly with TREX, and it was just a lot to keep up with, and I felt like it was crashing a lot and just creating extra anxiety. Power outages would knock everything out. Add in issues with also trying to CPU mine VRM that creates conflicts with TREX and "Oh God An ETHlargement Pill" and well I was looking for something easy. This is a hobby for me, not a full time job!
Betterhash is a cryptocurrency miner that is very similar to Nicehash, where it will mine many different algorithms without you have to configure or worry about optimization. Unlike Nicehash, Betterhash allows you to mine natively in a handful of currencies and if you choose to do so you can enable it to do "profit switching" when it will automatically switch to the most profitable of the available algorithms for each of your miners. Here is a fast overview of how to setup Betterhash and the coins it will mine.
First, go here and download the client: Betterhash. Install on your machine - making sure to turn off Windows Firewall and any virus software (cryptominers are notorious for being flagged as malicious.)
Next, you'll need to setup an account with Betterhash via your email and Google Authenticator. Once installed on your machine and an account is setup, you'll can open the program. First step within the program is run the benchmarks on your potential miners.
Betterhash supports CPU mining, as well as both AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards and if you have one; ASIC mining. The benchmark does take a little bit, but you should see shares from when it is running credit to your account. Make sure to enable profit switching!
What can you mine?
For CPU mining, the only option at present is Monero (XMR), which is also an option on AMD graphics cards ( via XMRig AMD.)
Monero is a privacy focused coin. Lots of interesting things you can do with it (including sending BTC to XMR rather than using a mixer for more annonymity.) Their pitch is "Monero cash for a connected world. It’s fast, private, and secure. With Monero, you are your own bank. You can spend safely, knowing that others cannot see your balances or track your activity."
XMR Minimum transfer: 0.05000000
XMR Estimated fee: 0.0002 XMR
On their website, they note this about XMR fees:
"IMPORTANT: Monero has the highest average transaction fees of all coins. This happens because the privacy features of Monero take a lot of processing power that cannot be deactivated. We keep 0.0002 XMR to cover the transaction fee required by the Monero network. In comparison, Poloniex keeps 0.05 XMR and Bittrex keeps 0.04 XMR for each transfer. In case the transaction fee is less than 0.0002 XMR , we will credit you the difference and transfer it into your account. These transaction fees are collected by the Monero network (by the miners validating the transactions) and NOT by us."
For AMD GPU's option are:
Bitcoin Gold - BTG - Zhash (LOL)
Bitcoin Gold was a response to BTC becoming too ASIC heavy. They describe themselves as "BTG is a cryptocurrency with Bitcoin fundamentals, mined on common GPUs instead of specialty ASICs.
ASICs tend to monopolize mining to a few big players, but GPU mining means anyone can mine again - restoring decentralization and independence. GPU mining rewards go to individuals worldwide, instead of mostly to ASIC warehouse owners, recreating network effects that Bitcoin used to have."
Minimum transfer: 0.01000000 BTG
Estimated fee: 0.002 BTG
Ethereum Classic - ETC - Ethash (Claymore)
Ethereum Classic is the original fork of Ethereum and still has a lot of enthusiasm - especially as Ethereum (ETH) looks to try to add interoperability. I think it has a long and exciting future ahead.
Minimum transfer: 0.01000000
ETC Estimated fee: 0.002 ETC
Ethereum - ETH - Ethash (Claymore)
Ethereum is technically a hard fork from ETC after a hacking exploit. It is the second largest blockchain after only Bitcoin. They describe themselves as "Ethereum is open access to digital money and data-friendly services for everyone – no matter your background or location. It's a community-built technology behind the cryptocurrency Ether (ETH) and thousands of applications you can use today."
Minimum transfer: 0.01000000
ETH Estimated fee: 0.002 ETH
Monero - XMR - RandomX (XMRig AMD) - as previously noted above.
For NVIDIA GPU's you can mine:
Bitcoin Gold - BTG Zhash (Gminer) - as previously noted above.
Ethereum Classic - ETC - Ethash (Claymore) - as previously noted above.
Ethereum - ETH - Ethash (Claymore) - as previously noted above.
GRIN - Cuckaroom29 or Cuckatoo32 (both via Gminer)
GRIN is another privacy coin, and I don't know very much about the project they describe it as "Electronic transactions for all. Without censorship or restrictions. Grin is designed for the decades to come, not just tomorrow. Grin wants to be usable by everyone — regardless of borders, culture, skills or access."
Minimum transfer: 1.10000000 GRIN
Estimated fee: 0.1 GRIN
Ravencoin - RVN - KawPow (NBMiner)
Ravencoin is one of the projects I try to keep up with and it's source code was the original BTC code, which has been heavily modified and patched to make it more private, scalable, decentralized (and ASIC resistant) and easier to use than BTC. They have recently had a vulnerability that if you're interested in the project is worth the 30 or so minutes to read on what happened, and how it was fixed. Ravencoin describes itself as "Ravencoin is a peer-to-peer blockchain, handling the efficient creation and transfer of assets from one party to another."
Minimum transfer: 1.00000000 RVN
Estimated fee: 0.002 RVN
ZCoin - XZC - MTP (CCMiner)
ZCoin has been around for a while and is similar to ZCASH and others from the ZeroCoin whitepaper, and got a bit of attention a few years back. That attention has since waned, but it's still around, plugging along and improving. They describe themselves as "Zcoin's technology can be used as private digital money, for anonymous voting/polling, or to create your own private digital assets."
Minimum transfer: 0.04000000 XZC
Estimated fee: 0.02 XZC
ZCash - ZEC - Equihash (EQMiner or EWBF)
ZCash is another one of the ZeroCoin whitepaper coins that were developed a few years back. Privacy focused. It was a top ten coin a few years back and still hangs out at the top of the leader boards. They describe themselves as "Zcash is a privacy-protecting, digital currency built on strong science."
Minimum transfer: 0.01000000
ZEC Estimated fee: 0.0002 ZEC
ASIC Mining
ASIC miners supported are Antminer D3 and Antminer Z9.
Dash - X11 (Antminer D3)
Dash has a bit of notoriety about it, as people either hate it or love it. I don't really have any opinion one way or another on it, and they describe themselves as "Digital money that's better than cash. Dash is instant, global, and easy to use."
Minimum transfer: 0.01000000 DASH
Estimated fee: 0.002 DASH
ZCash - ZEC - Equihash (Antminer Z9) - as previously noted above.
Candidly, I have never used and ASIC miner, but at the current prices of about $100 for a Antminer D3 and assuming some relatively cheap electricity perhaps that is worth considering.
What does this look like in real life?
By way of example, I have AMD 580's and NVIDIA 1080's and over the last few weeks they have mostly stabilized on mining the following:
Radeon RX 580 mining ETH at ~28 MH/s which yields about .077 ETH /mo. Or a little over $18.00 per GPU per month.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 mining RVN at ~15 MH/S which yields about 1,130 RVN /mo. Or a little over $22.50 per GPU per month.
For CPU mining, it fluctuates. I have an Intel i7-7700K (BX80677I77700K)on my machine and it presently is mining about .0333 XMR a month or about $2.09 at current prices. In the past it's been as high as .05 XMR a month (about $3.50/mo.)
I am pretty happy with the miners, as they update themselves and switch automatically based on profitability, which allows me to let it run on auto-pilot with out having to check my machine. I know many out there with more sophisticated setups or rigs, but for many beginners or even intermediate folks, this may be a good start and/or compromise. One of the biggest features I think is the low limits to transfer out, as well as the low fees. Two points I like the most is it can be setup to auto-start on restarts (e.g. after a power outage) and two as mentioned above the low cash outs and fees. Most of the pools are immediate shares, but some of the coins like Ravencoin only payout once a day (you'll see your estimated shares, but they won't be paid out until the next morning - typically.)
Lastly, it is worth noting that most of the coins above are compatible with Atomic Wallet, which I am a huge fan of, but not all of them do. If you're at a point of wallet fatigue like I am, you may want to consider Betterhash's Auto-Exchange feature, where it will convert the coins you mine into BTC.
Betterhash BTC Auto Exchange
I have admittedly never used this feature before, but I think it is a nice feature to highlight should you not have any real connection to the coins you end up mining or you don't want to deal with their wallets. However, if you're using something like BlockFi to stack your crypto and chase yield transferring your ETH first and then enabling BTC Auto-Exchange may be a good call. However, BlockFi is presently paying 6.00% on BTC and 4.5% on ETH, so maybe converting it all to BTC isn't half bad anyways.
Please let me know your thoughts or comments on any of these coins, or if you've used BetterHash before, let me know your thoughts!