TL;DR I purchased some cryptocurrency mining power in the cloud.I found that SHA256 mining is not that great, but Ethereum mining is more profitable.I plan on investing in more mining power.If you want to jump in right now here are my affiliate links:   Affiliate code for discount ODVnHM Previously I blogged how to mine Bitcoin on Azure (and why it is a terrible idea).In it I concluded that CPU mining is terrible with the advent of cheap USB ASIC miners and that you are better off purchasing one of them rather than wasting cloud computing credits.I did more research and discovered rather than purchasing hardware, and running them myself and paying for electricity, maintenance, etc. I could just purchase raw mining power in a specialised mining datacentre. I liked that sign up was simple, that you could allocate your mining power/payouts (see below) and most importantly that it had Ethereum miners (look out for future posts on Ethereum!).I decided up front to invest a bit over $100 in SHA256 & Ethereum mining and roughly distribute it between the 2: SHA256       USD $70.81        0.15 TH/s        $0.45 per GH/s      Lifetime contract Ethereum     USD $57.62        3 MH/s            $17.99 per MH/s    1 year contract The reason I liked Genesis Mining was how you could allocate your mining and payouts across the many altcoins.

Below I’ve included screenshots of the payout screens and my configuration.SHA256 The original Bitcoin hashing algorithm.Mining power is being added to this at a crazy rapid pace with ASIC manufacturers trying to cash in and mine as many Bitcoin as they can.Profitability of mining this will drop rapidly.Here I allocated my payouts as 90% Bitcoin (as that was the point of the exercise) but then 10% into Dogecoin.Dogecoin was created as a “fun” cryptocurrency and the development community has fun with using it as tips throughout Reddit.I wanted a small trickle of this so that I could tip people.X11 Built to be more ASIC resistant by incorporating 11 different hashing algorithms.I haven’t purchased any mining power in this mining algorithm yet, but I plan to in the future.Ethereum Not much in the way of options, as it has been designed to be a unique ASIC resistant algorithm.This is just for Ethereum mining.I’ve been mining for 9 days now and thought it would be a good time to analyse how my mining has been going.

Payouts occur at the same time every day, meaning my 1st day only saw a partial payout on the day I signed up.I have removed the datapoint to make the graphs clearer. Ethereum The amount I’m mining each day has been trending very slightly downwards but is more or less stable.bitcoin usb asicminerProfitability/day: $2.77 / 9 days = $0.30/day SHA256 Bitcoin Fairly stable mining, but it is trending down sharper than Ethereum.litecoin in chfThis is most likely due to the rapid pace that additional mining capacity is brought on globally from all the ASIC miners Profitability/day: $1.04 / 9 days = $0.11/day SHA256 Dogecoin A very sudden drop in Doge earned per day.ethereum coin audThis can be explained by looking at the exchange (see graphs below).

Dogecoin isn’t mined directly by Genesis mining, but instead Bitcoin is mined and then converted into Dogecoin.Over the last 3 days the price of BTC has gone down while DOGE has gone up, meaning during the daily conversion of earned BTC to DOGE the exchange rate is lower.Profitability/day: $0.20 / 9 days = $0.02/day Exchange rates for last 30 days Ethereum mining 1 year contact: $57.62 Daily profit: $0.30 Daily ROI: 0.30/57.62 =  0.0052 Yearly profit at current values^: $0.30 * 365 = $109.5 SHA256 mining Lifetime contract: $70.81 Daily profit: $0.13 ($0.11 + $0.02) Daily ROI: 70.81/0.13 =  0.0018 Yearly profit at current values^: $0.13 * 365 = $47.45 ^I do not believe that this will be the true yearly values.Exchange rates will fluctuate and amount mined per day will go down.I was interested in the SHA256 miners because of the lifetime contract that will always be mining until it is no longer profitable.However I am wary of the long term profitability of it.

The chart below from blockchain.info shows the crazy rate that ASIC miners are are bringing on more hashing power.This will rapidly diminish the amount of BTC I mine per day.I do not plan to invest more in Bitcoin mining as I don’t think it will economical to compete.I am very happy with the progress of my Ethereum miners.Ethereum is more resistant to ASIC miners and therefore the amount of global mining power brought should not reduce my profitability as much as quickly as it is with SHA256.Ethereum mining is also almost 3x as profitable per $ as SHA256 mining (0.0052 vs 0.0018).Because of this I plan on purchasing more Ethereum mining power as well as some X11 mining power.But I will not be investing any further in SHA256 mining.I’d like to get some data points from the X11 miner to share next time.Remember if you want to signup for your own, here are my affiliate links to get a discount ODVnHMUpdated: May 23, 2017 / Home » Computer and Internet Security » BitcoinBitCoin may be the most popular digital currency but it is getting harder and harder to mine.

Today, there are so called ‘Professional Miners’ with dedicated hardware mining BitCoins, our average household computer doesn’t have the computing power to compete, not even those with 3 SLi NVidia Graphic Cards.Because the entry barrier gets higher and higher as the pool of BitCoin available for mining shrinks.See Also ➤ 10 Best BitCoin Wallets With Low Transaction FeesFor those still interested in Digital Currency, also known as Cryptocurrency [ Wikipedia ], here are 10 alternative digital coins.They are easier to mine, however, the down side is these companies might cease to exist if their popularity wanes.Which is the biggest alternative digital currency?Here are the Top 100 Crypto-Currency Market Capitalizations.Dash (DASH) is an open sourced, privacy-centric digital currency with instant transactions.It allows you to keep your finances private as you make transactions without waits, similar to cash.Safecoin is a digital token.It can be thought of as the oil in the engine of the SAFE Network, a built in way of ensuring that all users of the network are compensated for the value they provide.

Let’s find out how it works.Safecoins are distributed entirely by the algorithms within the SAFE Network.Human beings are not involved in the process.Only 4.3 billion coins will ever be in circulation at one time and each will have its own unique identity.Safecoins will be recycled when users exchange them for network services, ensuring there is always a supply for users to earn.Steem is a blockchain-based social media platform where anyone can earn rewards.Cryptocurrency tipping platforms require users to give something up to reward other for their contributions.With Steem, rewarding others is as simple as voting for a post, such you may on Reddit, or as you would Like a post on Facebook.The blockchain distributes payouts as 50% Steem Power for voting and 50% Steem Dollars.Rewards are distributed by the blockchain, similar to how miners are paid by Bitcoin, and occur roughly 24 hours after content and votes have been submitted.Steem is a form of esteem, which means to prize or value.

Steem is also a homophone for steam, which is frequently associated with power, and a step further, steam powered trains gave influence to English idioms, such as ‘this conversation is picking up steam.’ The associations with prizing, language and empowerment only felt right.Litecoin is a peer-to-peer Internet currency that enables instant, near-zero cost payments to anyone in the world.Litecoin is an open source, global payment network that is fully decentralized without any central authorities.Mathematics secures the network and empowers individuals to control their own finances.Litecoin features faster transaction confirmation times and improved storage efficiency than the leading math-based currency.With substantial industry support, trade volume and liquidity, Litecoin is a proven medium of commerce complementary to Bitcoin.Peercoin seeks to be the most secure cryptocoin at the lowest cost, rewarding all users for strengthening the network by giving them a 1% annual PPC return when minting.

Peercoin is one of the truly unique alternative coins.Although its code is based on Bitcoin, Peercoin is the first coin to introduce Proof of Stake to secure the network.Proof of Work is also used in Peercoin, to promote fair coin distribution, but is not necessary for the security of the network.Namecoin is an experimental open-source technology which improves decentralization, security, censorship resistance, privacy, and speed of certain components of the Internet infrastructure such as DNS and identities.Namecoin was the first fork of Bitcoin and still is one of the most innovative “altcoins”.It was first to implement merged mining and a decentralized DNS.Namecoin was also the first solution to Zooko’s Triangle, the long-standing problem of producing a naming system that is simultaneously secure, decentralized, and human-meaningful.What can Namecoin be used for?Primecoin is an innovative cryptocurrency, a form of digital currency secured by cryptography and issued through a decentralized mining market.

Derived from Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin, Primecoin introduces an unique form of proof-of-work based on prime numbers.Novacoin is the coin of the feature.It’s unique way of utilizing both Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake for block generation with separated target limits make it stand out.Though Novacoin is similar to PPCoin in some things but it’s a project with own ideology and independent codebase, that’s why it’s hard to perform such comparison.We can say definitely, that:An Internet currency free from any central bank or institution.feathercoin bypasses the old banking system by using peer-to-peer technology.Payments are borderless and can be processed by anyone with affordable computer hardware using free software.This work is rewarded with new feathercoins which are issued by the network.Feathercoin is based on NeoScrypt and implements many features not seen in the majority of crypto coins.We have open source projects for ATM’s and Point of Sales equipment, t-shirt wallets, laser etched physical Feathercoins and Raspberry Pi based projects.