Bitcoin Forum

Hi :) I'm new to the world of cryptocurrency and mining, so forgive me if I'm going to ask very stupid questions.
I have read multiples articles online and watched videos on youtube about these subjects and, considering I don't have to pay for electricity and I have 1 PC powered on 24/7 with this HW and SW:
i7 920 D0 @4GHz (soon I will buy a ryzen 1600x)
12GB DDR3 @1600MHz (soon I will buy 16 GB of DDR4 at higher frequency to match the ryzen)
One GTX 1070 Zotac AMP! Extreme edition
250 gb ssd + multiple HDD
Windows 7 x64 Ultimate

these are my questions:
1) It will be profitable for me to mine?
2) If yes, should I mine in pool or not?
3) Ethereum or Zcash? Considering also how much eth is increasing right now
4) What are the best software for mining (ethereum and Zcash)
5) How I get my wallet and how I protect my money? I have read this about the second question: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=17240.0
Is that the only way or are there easier ways?

Thanks :)

Hello and welcome

1. Redundant question, you say your power is free so yes no matter what happens (not accounting for HW depreciation).
2. Depends on what you are mining but generally yes (solo mining will take forever if the difficulty is high)
3. Zcash, ETH has been pumped to hell by lots of ICO's recently which only accept payment in ETH. I think probably some kind of scam in the works.
3.1. If you are mining for BTC profit and plan to sell right away and not to hold then check whattomine.com as this changes all the time.
4. Claymore(AMD) for both and EWBF for ZEC and I think Claymore for ETH (NVIDIA).
5. Wallets can be downloaded from any given coins website. I wouldn't worry about 100% at this stage (I would say this is for people with huge amounts), just an external HD to hold your wallets on will do (most people just keep their coins on exchanges which is risky).

You should get yourself a BTC online wallet from blockchain.info and download the nicehash.com miner and let it do its thing until you have done more reading.

edit.
Also I'm not 100% sure about Nvidia but generally RAM doesn't mean shit for most algos any 4gb cheap ran will do and unless you are CPU mining neither does the CPU.

Thanks a lot for the answers and for the welcoming :) I have read about nicehash here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1274983.0 so basically, instead of downloading claymore for ETH and EWBF for ZEC, I will just use nicehash for mining and get an online wallet from blockchain.info and that's it right?

Thanks :)

Yes that is correct. I think the nicehash software actually uses Claymore and EWBF miners to mine in the background.

The nicehash service is essentially a place you can sell your hashrate and other people can rent it to mine for themselves.

You run the software and then you will have to benchmark your hardware which will score your hashrates for each algo.

Then using the scores the nicehash miner will automatically switch between coins as to what is most profitable.

You will then be paid in BTC directly without the hassle of selling the coins that you mine.

It a simple way to get you started right away, expose you different algos and you can get insight into your hardware.

Remember nicehash generally is not as profitable using a pool to mine the coins for yourself.

blockchain.info wallet is actually fairly secure and you will need an address for the nicehash miner.

Enjoy!

The best thing about nicehash is that it is pay per share, so if you are not on a fulltime mining rig, starting and stopping is a lot easier to keep steady payouts.

Thanks a lot to both of you guys :) I will start with nicehash asap :)

Nicehash basically means trading 15% of your profits for convenience.

Oh, I see. Thanks for saying that. Do you have suggestion for mining in pool?
Thanks :)

yes it's profitable and it depends most of the time pool are better choice but for so.e coin I like solo mining, cash is better for me and the best miner software is ccminer 2.0

So for solo mining ccminer 2.0 is enough? And for pool?
Thanks

ccminer 2.0 has almost every also and can be used for both pool and solo yes, only also missed are dagger and equihadh but equihash will be added, i don't know if there are plan to add dagger also

Oh I see. Without equiash you can't mine Zcash right? Because equihash is used for the PoW, right?

If you are mining at home, then there is simply going to be X mining revenue gotten from the rig and set up that you have.  Solo mining, CPU mining and even GPU mining are just not going to work for you and it does not matter what kind of software you use, as long as it is the right for the job.

Not always, but most of the time, any mining software that is configured right and in the right type of mining software will work

I want to add question. I'm really interested right now in Mining. I want to know if there's a coin that you will suggest to me that is profitable than other coin to mine? I mean if I mine other coin is this profitable than Bitcoin or other altcoin?

This is indeed a strange question.

coinwarz.com
whattomine.com

Do your own calculations as nobody can do them for you.

So are you suggesting to me that I should do only pool mining?



Can I mine Zchas with ccminer 2.0?

Thanks to everyone :)