Key facts:
At NiceHash you can buy computing power to mine more than twenty cryptocurrencies.
As a hashrate seller, you will receive payments in BTC regardless of the cryptocurrency you mine.
NiceHash is a platform where bitcoin mining is available to everyone. Thanks to its hashrate market, anyone can buy mining power on various cryptocurrency networks without the need for mining equipment.
Many of the people who want to mine cryptocurrencies have all the necessary knowledge and passion to do so, but they do not have the minimum resources to take their first steps in mining. Not everyone has between $ 1,500 and $ 4,000 left over to buy an ASIC device specialized in bitcoin mining, or a rig of five or more graphics cards (GPU) to mine ether. In addition, it is necessary to invest in maintenance of the mining hardware and in the conditioning of the place where it will be located.
The opposite case to the one described above, is that of those who have equipment with suitable characteristics for mining, but who are not interested in dedicating themselves to it in the traditional way. Perhaps, for reasons such as not having time to be attentive to the different relevant aspects of mining, for lack of knowledge on the subject or for mere unwillingness to get the best possible performance from this activity. However, miners who rent the hashrate of their equipment at NiceHash must still be attentive to the performance of their hardware. The platform simply spares its users some of the hassle they might encounter if they were to mine directly into a pool or on a cryptocurrency network.
What is NiceHash?
NiceHash was founded in 2014 as a solution for all those who identify with any of the newly presented scenarios. Simply put, it is a platform that provides a market for the rental of mining power. On the one hand, the one with mining hardware can offer the hashrate of their equipment and receive a constant payment in BTC for it. On the other hand, someone who wants to mine but cannot afford all the expenses involved in this activity, can rent a small portion of someone else's hashrate and start taking advantage of it little by little.
Regarding the rent of hashrate, on the NiceHash website it is stated that they do not have their own hardware for mining bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency, so all the mining power marketed belongs to their users. The fact that NiceHash does not rent to its users mining power produced by themselves, is something that differentiates its business model from that of cloud mining platforms, or Cloud Mining.
What cryptocurrencies can I mine with NiceHash?
Some of the cryptocurrencies that you can mine with NiceHash are: bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), bitcoin gold (BTG), ether (ETH), ethereum classic (ETC), litecoin (LTC), dogecoin (DOGE), zcash (ZEC), dash (DASH), lbry (LBC), grin (GRIN), vertcoin (VTC) and ravencoin (RVN).
The NiceHash hashrate market currently comprises over 30 mining algorithms, including: SHA-256, Scrypt, Equihash, X11, Lbry, Zhash, Lyra2REv3, Cuckaroo29, Cuckatoo31, KawPow, Ethash (although this appears as "DaggerHashimoto"), among others.
How to use NiceHash?
Both the purchase and sale of hashrate in NiceHash are simple processes that begin with the registration of the new user on the platform. If you are interested in buying mining power, and you are already registered, the next step is to select a mining pool. To do this, you must already have in mind what cryptocurrency you want to mine, as there are pools that may not offer the cryptocurrencies that are of interest to you.
After having selected the cryptocurrency and the pool where you will mine it, you must go to the Marketplace section to make a purchase offer. There you will detail the conditions of the hashrate purchase contract such as the algorithm, the time you will mine and the price you are willing to pay per terahash per second (TH / s). When the purchase order is taken by a miner, everything that is mined will reach the portfolio that you have indicated in the pool you selected.
Regarding the payment of contracts related to mining services, NiceHash only accepts Bitcoin as a form of payment. However, your wallet on the platform offers you addresses to deposit different altcoins (ETH, BCH, LTC, ZEC) and the possibility of exchanging them for bitcoin.
In case your interest is to sell the hashrate of your mining hardware, be it bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, the first thing is to register on the NiceHash web portal. Then you must indicate the type of hardware you have and the address of your bitcoin wallet (be it the one assigned by NiceHash or your own). Finally, you have to configure the connection of your miner with the platform's stratum servers and you will be ready to start receiving payments in BTC while your equipment is mining for someone else. It should be noted that, regardless of the cryptocurrencies that your hardware mines, NiceHash will always pay you in bitcoins and under the PPS payment scheme.
If you want to learn more about how to buy / sell computing power at NiceHash, take a look at the detailed tutorial we offer on our website. It is also available on our YouTube channel, for those who prefer to see it on video.
Advantages of using NiceHash for mining Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
For the tenant:
The main advantage that you can have as a tenant, or buyer of hashrate, is not seeing yourself in the need to spend thousands of dollars on mining hardware and the necessary paraphernalia for it to work optimally. This implies evaluating and budgeting everything in advance, taking into account the profitability and availability of each equipment, and then buying and installing them. Something that, although it seems simple, is not. Anyone who has spent time building computers knows how much can go wrong when installing new hardware, not counting the software.
On the other hand, with NiceHash, you don't have to worry about anything that has to do with mining hardware. Purchasing, maintenance and other operational expenses are no longer a headache for you; allowing you to focus exclusively on getting the best possible out of mining.
Another advantage is the flexibility in the hashrate purchase contract. As a buyer, you can decide how much mining power to buy and for how long you want to use it. NiceHash allows you to make contracts of a few minutes duration up to a maximum of 10 days. These contracts can be canceled by you at any time.
NiceHash is shown as a safer alternative compared to Cloud Mining or cloud mining platforms. This is because the hashrate being traded is provided by NiceHash users. For their part, cloud mining platforms use their own farms to generate the hashrate they offer to their customers.
Cloud mining has previously been singled out as a risky business model for those who want to invest in it. This is because these types of companies can easily manipulate the data they offer to take advantage of their customers.
For the landlord
The most important advantage that you have as a landlord, or hashrate seller, is that you do not need to be jumping between cryptocurrencies or pools to obtain the highest profitability of the moment. You will simply receive your fixed quota in bitcoins without stressing yourself over the price of other crypto assets, or the profitability of mining on other networks.
The fact that you receive your payments only in bitcoin is something especially attractive for those who do not want to have anything to do with altcoins, that is, other cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin. If that is your case, renting the hashrate of your teams in NiceHash is the best option; Since, to mine BTC you need to have ASIC equipment that is powerful enough to mine profitably on the Bitcoin network.
Costs and profitability of buying hashrate at NiceHash
The profitability of mining cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, whether mining in the traditional way or on a platform like NiceHash, depends on a set of variables. If you are interested in buying mining power, the first thing you should consider is the rental costs of the algorithm of your choice.
Prices are always expressed in BTC, so their fiat currency equivalence may vary according to market fluctuations. For example: to mine bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency that uses the SHA-256 algorithm, you would have to pay 0.0092 BTC per petahash (PH) per day. Of course, if you only want to rent a portion of that mining power (say, about 10 terahashes for several hours), you can do that too. The minimum amount per contract is 0.005 BTC (about USD 46 according to its price in the market, which today is around USD 9,000 per bitcoin).
Other algorithms are valued with different measures, as in the case of Scrypt (used in cryptocurrencies such as litecoin and dogecoin), which currently shows a reference price of 0.1521 BTC / TH / day. The terahash per day in cryptocurrencies that use the Ethash algorithm (which appears as DaggerHashimoto in NiceHash), as is the case with ether and ethereum classic, has a value of 2,0185 BTC. The price difference is mainly due to the fact that achieving a certain hashrate is more expensive in some networks than in others.
Along with the price of the algorithm of your choice, you will also have to consider the profitability per se of mining, since your earnings as a lessee or buyer of hashrate will come in the cryptocurrency you decide to mine. You must be attentive to market movements and the profitability of the network you are mining to get the best possible out of your contract on the platform.
Costs and profitability of selling hashrate on NiceHash
As a hashrate lessor in NiceHash you do not have to pay anything to the platform, but it keeps 2% of your earnings in BTC. A fee that they require for the service provided by this website. The payment scheme, as mentioned above, is PPS (Pay Per Share) and every four hours payments are made to miners who have 1000 satoshis (0.00001 BTC) or more on their balance.
The profitability of selling the mining power of your hardware on NiceHash can be higher or lower compared to direct mining on a network. This will depend on factors such as the pool where you mine, the cryptocurrency you mine, the equipment you have and even the configuration you use to mine. Added to this are variables such as the cost of electricity and services related to the maintenance and proper use of the hardware. However, NiceHash offers a tool that can help you in this matter called Profitability calculator, which we will talk about below.
Tools available to NiceHash users profitability calculator
This tool is aimed at those who offer mining power of their equipment through NiceHash. Its objective is to reflect an approximate of the gains that a certain type of hardware can generate when mining a certain algorithm. In this regard, the website clarifies that the hashrate of each team was measured at NiceHash facilities under the most appropriate conditions possible. They also recommend not using the calculator to measure profitability over time periods of seven days or more, as this feature varies greatly.
NiceHash Miner and NiceHash OS
NiceHash Miner is a mining software that works basically the same as other mining programs, such as ETHminer or Claymore, with the difference that it facilitates the interaction between the hardware and the NiceHash platform. This software is only compatible with the Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 operating system in its 64-bit versions. If you prefer to use a different software than NiceHash Miner, there is no impediment for it, but you would have to do some extra configurations so that everything works well when you turn on your hardware.
NiceHash OS is a dedicated mining operating system that you can use directly from a USB stick on your mining hardware. Both NiceHash Miner and NiceHash OS are recommended for miners with graphics card rigs; since they can automatically select the mining algorithm that offers the best profitability according to the hardware that is available (the model of the GPUs and the CPU that make up the rig).
Both software can be downloaded from the NiceHash download center on their website. There you can find various applications, programs and guides to get the best out of this platform. You can also find the firmware for a variety of ASIC equipment that you can use to mine with NiceHash.
Miner Statistics
This tool, found in one of the top tabs of the NiceHash web portal, allows you to monitor the activity of your bitcoin mining hardware, or of other cryptocurrencies. In this way you can know if your teams are active and the hashrate with which they are performing in real time, wherever you are.
Smartphone app
NiceHash, by H-BIT, d.o.o., is the official application of the platform and is available for Android and iOS devices in their official application stores. With it you can carry out various functions as a NiceHash user. Among the functions are: monitoring and managing your mining hardware, depositing and withdrawing funds from your portfolio on the platform, monitoring and managing the status of your hashrate purchase orders, managing your user information on NiceHash and receive instant notifications about any news.
It is important that you keep in mind that this mobile application is not made so that your smartphone can mine cryptocurrencies in NiceHash. It is basically a tool for monitoring and managing your activity on the platform.
NiceHash exchange house
This tool can be quite useful for you as NiceHash users, since it makes it easy for you to exchange the crypto assets you have in your wallet for someone else that you prefer. You can even act as a cryptocurrency trader or merchant while generating fixed income from mining. Everything on the same platform.
Among the crypto assets that you can trade here you have litecoin (LTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), ether (ETH), monero (XMR), zcash (ZEC), dash (DASH), basic attention token (BAT), among others. The available exchange pairs are bitcoin (BTC), dollar tether (USDT) and usd coin (USDC).
There are two ways to use the NiceHash exchange office. One is the simple view, where it is much easier to handle the exchange of crypto assets. This option is ideal for occasional operations, in which you only want to exchange one crypto asset for another. The other view available is the trade view, in which you have access to the historical price graph, as well as the possibility of opening buy and sell orders in the market.
Calendar of forks and halvings
A very curious tool that NiceHash offers on its website is an event calendar. There the countdown of future halvings (scheduled reward reductions) and forks (blockchain forks) is displayed.
This calendar shows the type of event that has to occur, the height of the chain in which it will occur, the date on which it is estimated to happen and the countdown to occur. At the moment, there is only information on events for six cryptocurrencies: BTC, BCH, BSV, BEAM, ZEC and LTC.
Knowing when these types of events will happen on a cryptocurrency network can be important. These events usually affect the total hashrate of this, the difficulty of mining and sometimes even the price of the cryptocurrency in the market. All these aspects affect the profitability of bitcoin mining, and of any other cryptocurrency, directly, so it makes sense that NiceHash offers a tool like this on its web portal.
NiceHash Bot
Bots are a type of software that can be programmed to perform tasks automatically. In the case of NiceHash Bot, it is a program that serves to automate the administration of contracts made in the platform's hashrate market. With this bot it is possible to control the pool selected for mining, the activation and deactivation of purchase orders and the recharge of the balance of an open order. NiceHash Bot can also be downloaded from the NiceHash download center, on its web portal.
Technical support
NiceHash has a help and support section on its web portal. There you can get detailed information about different procedures and possible inconveniences that you may experience while using the platform. In case your questions are not answered in the content you can get there, there is also the official NiceHash blog and its social networks. Among the available networks, Reddit could be of help when getting the answers you are looking for from the NiceHash team.
In conclusion, NiceHash shows itself as a fairly complete and versatile platform for mining bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The most striking benefit of using NiceHash may be the ability to "mine for money" by purchasing hashrate. Also, if you are short on budget, you can limit yourself to acquiring only a small portion of mining power while you test how well you are doing. As if that were not enough, you can choose the cryptocurrency you want to mine from a wide variety of options offered by the platform. And if you have mining hardware, but it is not used to mine Bitcoin, you can still receive payments in BTC for selling the mining power of your equipment on NiceHash.
Link: https://www.nicehash.com/?refby=627c45d2-8b94-43dc-8f07-ccde67d1a713
