Book Image

Bitcoin Essentials

By : Albert Szmigielski
Book Image

Bitcoin Essentials

By: Albert Szmigielski

Overview of this book

Blockchain is being billed as the technology of the future. Bitcoin is the first application of that technology. Mining is what makes it all possible. Exploring mining from a practical perspective will help you make informed decisions about your mining setup. Understanding what the future may hold for blockchains, and therefore for mining, will help you position yourself to take advantage of the impending changes. This practical guide starts with an introduction to Bitcoin wallets, as well as mining hardware and software. You will move on to learn about different mining techniques using the CPU, GPU, FPGA, and ultimately the ASIC as an example. After this, you will gain an insight into solo mining and pool mining, and see the differences between the two. The book will then walk you through large-scale mining and the challenges faced during such operations. Finally, you will take a look into the future to see a world where blockchain-based applications are commonplace and mining is ubiquitous.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Bitcoin Essentials
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Best practices when mining with ASICs


Let us look into the recommended things do to when mining with ASICs. Mining is fun and it can also be profitable if several factors are taken into account.

Make sure that all your ASICs have adequate cooling; additional fans beyond what is provided by the manufacturer are always a good idea. Remove dust frequently as a build up of dust might have a detrimental effect on the cooling efficiency and therefore mining speed.

Note

For your particular mining machine, look up all the optimization tweaks online to get all the hashing power that is possible out of the device. Due to the large variety of mining machines, we cannot provide all the possible tweaks in our book.

When setting up a mining operation for profit, keep in mind that electricity costs will be a large percentage of your overall costs; hence, seek a location with the lowest electricity rates. Think about cooling costs; perhaps it will be the most beneficial to mine somewhere where the climate is...