Mining: what to buy and when it pays back
Where a miner's income comes from, how an ASIC differs from a GPU, why the break-even power price matters more than income, and what to do with what you mined.
4 lessons · 19 min
Who this course is for
For those thinking of buying hardware who want to compute rather than believe. After the course you calculate income yourself from the formula, read payback as "no faster than", know your own break-even electricity price and understand what happens to your machine if the network doubles.
- 1Where a miner's income comes from4 minBlock reward, difficulty and network hashrate — three numbers everything else follows from.
- 2ASIC, GPU, CPU: what to buy4 minThe difference is not speed but what you are risking. Speed shows on day one; risk shows in year two.
- 3Break-even power price and payback5 minThe buyer's main number is not income but the price per kilowatt-hour at which the machine breaks even. It takes one line to compute and it decides everything.
- 4From mined coins to money: pool, payouts, taxes6 minBetween a found block and money in your account stand the pool, the network fee, an exchange and the tax office. Each step takes its cut, and it is better to know how much in advance.