Bitcoin mining plays 2 major roles in maintaining Bitcoin Network:
Confirming/Validating Bitcoin Transactions
Issuing New Bitcoins to Miners Who employ their computing resources to this process.
We have already covered a detailed guide on “Bitcoin Mining”, You can check it here – How Does Bitcoin Mining Work. In this post, we will explain the step by step process to start Bitcoin Mining and earn money.

In the beginning, the only people who would mine Bitcoin were coders who were interested in cryptography or were just trying to expand the blockchain. However, as the price of bitcoins rose further and further, people started seeing it as a legitimate investment and went to the lengths of buying warehouses and server farms to mine bitcoins properly.

The main costs associated with mining Bitcoins are equipment and electricity. Buying powerful processors is one of the major expenses, but they last a relatively long while and don’t need regular replacement.

On the other hand, electricity is a constant requirement, so it makes sense to set up a mining operation in a place where electricity prices are low.

But all of this is only important if you know that mining Bitcoins will be profitable. The first step to mining is to figure out if there is any profit to be derived, or if attempting a mining operation is simply a waste of time and money.

How to Start Bitcoin Mining

Step 1 – Calculation – Is Bitcoin Mining Profitable?
Step 2 – Buying a mining rig
Step 3 – Get a Bitcoin wallet
Step 4 – Get mining software
Step 5 – Joining a mining pool
Step 6 – Start Mining

Step 1 – Calculation – Is Bitcoin Mining Profitable?

In the early days of Bitcoin mining, people could easily mine with a mid-to-high end Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). However, as the popularity of Bitcoin increased, more and more people took up mining professionally. Now, given the amount of time and power it takes to mine Bitcoin, the first thing you need to figure out is if your investment is worthwhile.
There are three variables you need to take into consideration.

Hashing Power
Power Consumption
Cost per KW/hr
Hashing power is a measure of how powerful your mining rig is. Hashing power is measured in Hashes per second, and the best mining rigs usually have a processing power measured in Gigahashes per second or even Terahashes per second. The more powerful the rig, the faster the mining will progress.

Mining rigs consume electricity proportional to their processing power. The more powerful rigs draw in large amounts of power per hour, and all that power used costs money.

So this is the calculation you must perform before you decide to start mining. If you want to invest a certain amount of money into mining, the first step is to make sure that the Return on Investment is enough. After all, what’s the point of mining if it’s not going to turn the profit?

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There are plenty of profitability calculators that you can use. Simply plug the three variables into the calculator and see if the amount you will mine is more than what you’ll spend setting up and running the operation.

Step 2 – Buying a mining rig

As mentioned above, it was possible to mine Bitcoins with GPUs. But now, it takes specific chips to mine effectively. Mining chips are called Application Specific Integrated Chips, which are made for the sole purpose of mining.

You can choose a rig based on price per hash and electrical efficiency. The best rig isn’t always the most expensive one, but the one that strikes the perfect balance of power and cost.


If the projected earnings are more than the expenses, then setting up the mining operation will benefit you and you can move on to the next step.

Step 3 – Get a Bitcoin wallet

A bitcoin wallet is a bank account specifically for your Bitcoins. If you wish to receive or send bitcoins, you need a wallet. A wallet consists of a public key and a private key.

The public key is what you give out to people. If they wish to send you bitcoins, they simply input your public key and send whatever the amount is. The private key is your password into the wallet, allowing you to access the money in it.

There are two types of wallets, physical and digital. One of the most well known digital wallets is called Copay, and it is great for beginners.

Physical wallets, also known as hardware wallets, are extremely secure, much more than digital wallets. Ledger Nano, TREZO, and OPENDIME are good suppliers of hardware wallets.

Step 4 – Get mining software

There are several different softwares that are used to interface between your mining rig and your computer. If you join a mining pool, they may have their own software, but if not, there are plenty of options like CGminer, BFGminer or EasyMiner.

Step 5 – Joining a mining pool

Joining a mining pool is one of the more convenient options available to miners. How a mining pool works is that a bunch of people decide to get together and pool their computational resources. Whenever the group earns any bitcoins, they are split among all the participants, depending on how much computing power they have contributed. Nowadays, earning Bitcoin is very difficult without joining a mining pool.

When joining a pool, you have two options. You can either connect your rig to the pool remotely via the internet. Alternatively, you can ship your rig to a warehouse where the pool is located and plug them in. There are several benefits to the latter, mainly the fact that earnings are pretty much guaranteed. When mining at home, miners often do not have enough computing power to finish blocks, wasting all the electricity and computing power used. By contributing to a pool, miners can ensure that they earn at least some profit. It is a very efficient mechanism for mining.

The method of mine bitcoins in a pool doesn’t differ significantly from home miners. All you need to do differently is sign in to the pool and give them your public key. Depending on the contributions, you will earn bitcoins.

Step 6 – Start Mining

Connect the mining rig to your computer and run the software. That’s it. Let it run. Now that you have started mining, the more transactions you validate, the more of the blockchain you process, the more bitcoins you will earn! Congratulations, you’re a bitcoin miner!

So there you have it. These are the basics of mining bitcoins. As you can see, it’s not too difficult. All you need is some basic research, and you can create another source of income!

There are plenty of well-known critics of Bitcoin in the banking and business worlds. Recently, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co., called the cryptocurrency a “fraud” and said it would blow up. He even went so far as to say he would fire anyone who traded Bitcoin because “they are stupid.”

But not everyone’s so dismissive. Bitcoin has had a bullish run in 2017, rising from $966 at the start of the year to a record high of more than $18000, and some major holders of the currency are no doubt looking to cash in on its value. The names might surprise you. While Bitcoins allows for anonymity, using strings of letters and numbers to identify sources of transactions, certain people have publicly revealed that they’re enthusiastic users. Here are the people with the biggest known stakes in Bitcoin.

The Winklevoss Twins
You likely know Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who tried and failed to gain control of Facebook after alleging that it had been appropriated from them, thanks to Armie Hammer’s satirical portrayal of both siblings in The Social Network. But the Winklevii have a second act in their enormous Bitcoin investment. While they were shut out of creating a Bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF), their 2013 investment in $11 million worth of Bitcoin (which reportedly amounted to one percent of all the currency in circulation) looks pretty rosy now. That same amount is worth approximately 21 times as much now, putting their total at about $231 million.

Barry Silbert (cryptocurrency maven)
Silbert, a venture capitalist and founder of Digital Currency Group, was an early proponent of Bitcoin. He reportedly nabbed 48,000 Bitcoins in an auction held by the U.S. Marshals Service in 2014 (the government had seized much of the currency from Silk Road, an online marketplace it said was used for illegal drugs). Bitcoin was then worth $350, which means Silbert’s haul has climbed about 16 times, from approximately 16.8 million to $268.8 million.

Tim Draper (billionaire venture capitalist)
Draper, a venture capitalist worth billions thanks in part to his early investment in Skype, made headlines for his purchase of 30,000 Bitcoins in 2014 from that same government auction. Then worth about $19 million, that stash would be up to $171 million now. Draper is clearly feeling optimistic about the digital currency market, as he’s gone on to back Tezos, a new cryptocurrency.

Charlie Shrem (Bitcoin early adopter)
Shrem is more infamous than famous. The entrepreneur got in on the early days of Bitcoin and was a member of the Bitcoin Foundation, which was supposed to protect the use of Bitcoin but has seen several of its leaders under criminal investigation. Shrem himself received a two-year prison sentence for charges related to money laundering. But he’s now back with a crypto-investment startup, and while he hasn’t disclosed exactly how much he owns in Bitcoins, he reportedly bought a few thousand back when they worth were little, and those would be worth several millions now.

Tony Gallippi (cryptocurrency executive)
Gallippi is the cofounder and chairman of Bitpay, currently the leading Bitcoin processor, and is said to be among the largest holders of the currency. While he hasn’t disclosed the exact value of his Bitcoin investments, estimates have put it around $20 million.

Satoshi Nakamoto (Bitcoin mastermind)
Nakamoto is the shadowy figure sitting at the heart of Bitcoin, which itself still confounds so many. After inventing Bitcoin with a 2008 white paper describing a software tied to digital currency, Nakamoto retreated from public life. People aren’t even sure if that is his (or her) real name. While one man came forward to say he was Nakamoto, online sleuths disputed the evidence. Theories abound as to who Nakamoto really is, but it’s clear they have a whole lot of Bitcoins at their disposal. A Bitcoin developer estimated in 2013 that Nakamoto had around 1 million Bitcoins. At a valuation of about $6,133 as of this writing, that would be theoretically worth an astounding $6.1 billion. A huge caveat here, though: If Nakamoto were to start selling off their entire supply of Bitcoin, it would rapidly drive down demand for the currency, and therefore the value of the holding.

Uncle Sam
Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that Bitcoin, a software-based currency that’s supposed to be free of traditional currency restrictions, has already provided a lucrative payout for the federal government. As noted above, the FBI seized 144,000 Bitcoins while shutting down the Silk Road marketplace in 2013, which back then made it the owner of the biggest Bitcoin wallet (though not necessarily the entity with the most Bitcoins, as they can be spread across many wallets). The government then auctioned off the Bitcoins. collecting $48 million. It could’ve made a lot more money if it had waited on the sale, but Uncle Sam is still trying to get a piece of the Bitcoin action. The IRS has declared that digital currencies are taxable property, and is waging a legal battle to unmask Bitcoin users who haven’t been properly disclosing their capital gains and losses. Reports suggest that the vast majority of Bitcoin transactions go under the radar. That could mean potentially millions more for the feds to take as their own.!

last week I had withdrawn 0.012 btc from faucethub to coinbase. and it has been 6days already but I havent received that amount on Coinbase. Whenever I check the withdrawal page it says that is is QUEUED. And the sent status is still pending. What should I do guys? I am really worried about it.

Hello Altruist,
I am a newbie here and new to the world of cryptocurrency. I bought about 170$ worth of bitcoin but due to the need of immediate money I need to sell these. However I want to earn a good amount from it so is there any possibility of BTC crossing 20000$ within next month. If you think so or you are certain enough then don't hesitate to inform me.
Thanks