However, my confusing part is that why do they give you an estimate on dollar amount if it's not gonna be anywhere near that (i would assume $18 instead of 14 bucks ive been getting on 3 gpu).
Some things to keep in mind when estimating mining earnings:
- Luck: The key thing to keep in mind is that these are all estimates based on probability. Over longer period of time or with really large hash rate numbers the estimates tend to be closer to reality, but they're still estimates and won't be perfect.
- Exchange Rates:When you start estimating in dollars, you also have to account for the variability of the exchange rate which is even more volatile than difficulty. So best to estimate your expected earnings in the coin that you mine if possible (which is more difficult when you're profit switching).
- Exchange fees: Even converting from one coin to another (e.g. e.g. an altcoin to litecoin) will incur fees for the exchange.
- Mining pool fees and miner fees are a factor (e.g. https://www.nicehash.com/help/fees). Most of the miners themselves collect a fee by periodically using your hardware to mine for themselves which often equates to a 1-2% "fee".
- Reward System:How the mining pool actually rewards your contribution varies as well. See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=104664.msg1146110#msg1146110 for more info. This is bitcoin specific post, but broadly applicable for the most part.
- Difficulty: A variable to account for in estimating is the future "difficulty" of the coin which cannot be predicated all that accurately (for more on difficulty see https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty, which is bitcoin specific but generally applies to most coins). This usually isn't a major factor for estimating earnings a few days out, but is a major factor when estimating a weeks or months out.
Looks like you're earning about ~18% less than what the calculators estimated. So either the calculators are just wrong or some of these variables are eating into the estimates.
