Is NiceHash a legit pool for mining?

[timk225]

I've spoken against ASICs and mining for a long time, and I was always correct in my assertions at the time.  But with BTC prices heading upwards, it is time to reconsider.

I have 0.2 BTC at an exchange and have been buying BTC and selling it back into cash in my account as the price rises and falls.  I just went from 0.186 BTC to 0.200 BTC on the recent Bitcoin Gold price dip.  Sold 0.186 and bought it back as 0.2 at a lower price a few days later.  Buy low, sell high.

I recently found the NiceHash website, and if they are what they claim to be, then the hell with it, maybe I'll set up a miner in the basement, I have 7.2 cent power, 24 hours a day (yes I verified that with the power company).

I don't know yet if I'd be better off getting a miner and mining, or just buying BTC.  And I sure as hell am not paying those ridiculous premium prices I see on ebay for an S9.  It'll be retail or less for me.  I have some ideas on how to save $ on getting the miner, but this isn't the place to discuss that.

[monkeydominicorobin]

I've spoken against ASICs and mining for a long time, and I was always correct in my assertions at the time.  But with BTC prices heading upwards, it is time to reconsider.

I have 0.2 BTC at an exchange and have been buying BTC and selling it into cash in my account as the price rises and falls.  I just went from 0.186 BTC to 0.200 BTC on the recent Bitcoin Gold price dip.  Sell high, buy low.

I recently found the NiceHash website, and if they are what they claim to be, then the hell with it, maybe I'll set up a miner in the basement, I have 7.2 cent power, 24 hours a day (yes I verified that with the power company).

I don't know yet if I'd be better off getting a miner and mining, or just buying BTC.  And I sure as hell am not paying those ridiculous premium prices I see on ebay for an S9.  It'll be retail or less for me.  I have some ideas on how to save $ on getting the miner, but this isn't the place to discuss that.

Buying BTC is not advisable. Nice hash is legit. I tried mining using an android phone which is 4 years old and neoscrypt hash miner and voila I earned 4 satoshi in a few hours. That is just cpu mining. They are not snobbish.They are fair to cpu miners as well.

[nexus2k14]

Nicehash is legit, they use over 30 different algo to mine in real time, so always most profitable wins. I mine  using this website for some time now, never had any problem, there is emai notification when something goes wrong - miner off line etc. Most important is very easy to start and setup, download setup file and install. Run benchmark and you ready to go. Highly recommended multipool. I mine with 2GPU and 8 Core AMD CPU. Electricity is free for me.

[Palmerson]

NiceHash is a trusted site. They are reliable. I have been working on their pool. My friend tried other pools but he failed to achieve more favorable terms. Software nicehash is very convenient and quite accessible for beginners. Only you can never use the latest version. It is often malfunctioning. Oh and don't forget that when transferring money to your account, you will have to take 3-4%.

[QuintLeo]

Nicehash is a legitimate service - but read up about them, they are not a traditional "pool" as such or anything close, they are more of a "hashrate marketplace" and trying to treat them as if they are a pool isn't right.

[timk225]

What's this about 3-4%  A commission cut from the coins I earn with my hash power?

I've looked at their site and the idea seems ok, I have a pc with a 7950 that I can try on it with no expense, just to see how it works.

[kano]

What's this about 3-4%  A commission cut from the coins I earn with my hash power?

I've looked at their site and the idea seems ok, I have a pc with a 7950 that I can try on it with no expense, just to see how it works.

Nice hash keep ~6% of the coin they get.
They charge the person buying hash rate a 3% fee up front.
They give the person with the miners 97% of their earnings.

Also note the obvious: you have no idea what hardware you are renting from them, or even where on the planet that hardware is.
They don't supply the hardware, that's supplied by anyone (whoever, whatever) who points miners at them.

[timk225]

I see, the 3% thing is for hash power buyers.  I've been reading their site, and I have a lead on an Avalon 741 to buy.

But in reading their site, I got to thinking.  Instead of all the fuss of buying a miner, getting it running, and all that comes with it ( I used to GPU mine back in 2013-2014, so I know), maybe it would be more profitable to just be a buyer and buy hash power?

I guess it depends on the coin being mined, huh?  Buying BTC hash power could be more or less profitable that other coins?  

The obvious question to me is that if I pay (X) to have BTC mined for a period of time, why should Nicehash tell me I made (X+X) during my mining time and give me the full amount, minus ONLY their posted fee?  If it were me in charge of that, there would be some serious skimming into my own personal wallet going on there!

As for who I am buying hash power from, or where on the planet the miners are, I don't think that really matters.  As long as I get more BTC in profits than I spent buying the hash power, all is good.

EDIT -- I was just on the NiceHash site, and it said that to mine BTC, the minimum purchase costs 0.0106 BTC for 24 hours of 0.05 petahash (50 terahash) of mining power for me.

And on the bitcoin wisdom site  https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty  It says that 1 day of 50 Thash earns me 0.0086 BTC.

So I pay 0.0106 and get 0.0086.  That is LESS  BTC.  And that is before any fees, assuming the calculator is right.

So if that is accurate, then why would anyone who can math be a buyer?

And what happened with the difficulty recalculation this cycle?  They really overshot it and highsided the difficulty bounce.

[timk225]

I got NiceHash running on one older PC I keep here for testing other computer hard drives.  I have an old 7950 mining now.  I used it back in my big mining time of 2013-2014, and it still works but it artifacts a lot, little specks all over the screen.  But it still mines, it is doing it now.  It appears that NiceHash switches miners to whatever mining project is needed at the moment, as I have seen the sgminer screen clear its progress text and start over a couple times.  Or the GPU is failing intermittently, wouldn't be a surprise.

This is just a proof of concept test for me.  So far so good.

According to the NiceHash calculators on their site, if I did get the Avalon 741 and set it up, it's good for $236 a month at current difficulty and BTC price.  $236 a month, divided by 720 hours in a 30 day month = 32.7 cents an hour in profit, with my power rate of 7.2 cents taken into account.  And that is currently 0.041 BTC a month.

Not big numbers by any means, but when I consider my BTC trading account, and how much I have made in the past 2 months from selling when the price is high and buying back when it is low, plus the general profit gain from the price rise, I guess it is better then doing nothing.

It would be nice if I could "obtain" the miner for free instead of spending $1000 or more on it.

I thought of just using that same amount of money to add BTC to my account when the price dips next time, but nah.  Part of the fun of having the BTC in my account is that I haven't added money to it since very early this year, and that my gains are from buying and selling plus the price rise.

I need to just find a computer with a lot of BTC on it and take it for myself, rather than all this worrying about nickel and dime size pieces of BTC.

[qinotorez]

I havebeen noticing that neoscrypt mining doesnot let me mine from lycheebit and altminer at the same ie, i have 2 miners running on nicehash. the 3th wont get any speed..

[QuintLeo]

It is possible to be profitable mining as a Nicehash buyer - but you have to watch the profitability of what you are mining pretty closely, and be VERY careful when you calculate what price you pay the market for your hashrate.

 It's usually NOT high profitable for long at a time on any given coin, as other folks see what's going on and jump on any high-profitability coin killing the profits pretty quickly, but low profits can last a good while on coins that are fairly stable or have huge tracks of hashrate....