[Hardware] How to Mine Ethereum: NiceHash, Mining Pools, Optimal Settings

[Angel of Death]

The cryptocurrency mining and Ethereum mining boom continues to roll on, and if you've read our best mining GPUs and want to see what all the fuss is about, we've got the details on the most po[CENSORED]r ways of mining with your PC. Besides the actual hardware for mining — which basically means having one of the best graphics cards — you'll need to decide on the software you want to run, and how you want to get paid. There are three primary approaches to mining, and we'll cover these in order of ease of getting started. Advertisement  Before we continue, let's be clear: We're all about providing information, both good and bad. There are GPU shortages, other PC component shortages, GPU pricing is stratospheric, and clearly, there are a bunch of people who think mining is awesome. This has all happened before, and we've seen how it ends — or at least where it goes temporarily. Anyone that had the foresight to put together a big mining farm sometime in the past year or two and save all the Ethereum and/or Bitcoin it generated (while eating the costs) looks pretty smart today. Trying to do the same thing right now? It will cost more, profits will be lower (or not even materialize for potentially years, if ever), and there are loads of other concerns that we'll get into.  Case in point: Just look at the past couple of months. We originally posted this article with data taken from before February 16, 2021. Two weeks later, we saw record prices for Bitcoin and Ethereum come and go, difficulty of mining increased, and potential profits dropped by at least 25 percent. Then Bitcoin rebounded and hit a new record high of over $61,000, while Ethereum has mostly stayed in the $1,800–$1,900 range, and mining profits improved along with those prices. Just in the past week, we've seen a low of around $51,000 for Bitcoin and a high of nearly $60,000; Ethereum ranged from $1,568 to $1,860.  Regardless of price, longer-term stability will almost certainly be at lower profits than we see right now. For that to happen, the difficulty of finding a block will need to increase — and it has. Ethereum difficulty increased about 15% during the month of March, 16% in February, and 24% in January. Unlike the volatility in price, difficulty has been on a steady upward climb, day after day, since the last Ethereum update in January 2020.