How long bitcoin mining

How Long Does It Take to Mine One Bitcoin?

Strictly speaking, it is impossible to set out to mine exactly 1 Bitcoin (BTC) in a given timeframe.

Table of Contents

Bitcoin Block Rewards and Bitcoin Mining

Strictly speaking, it is impossible to set out to mine exactly 1 Bitcoin (BTC) in a given timeframe: Bitcoin mining is best understood in terms of cryptocurrency block rewards, rather than in single units, like one Bitcoin (BTC).В

This is because new Bitcoin are only created (“mined”) each time a new block on the Bitcoin blockchain is validated.

Whichever Bitcoin miner is the first to validate a new block receives a block reward in the form of cryptocurrency, which is currently set at 6.25 Bitcoin (BTC).В

Mining Difficulty

A consistent factor that affects how long it takes to mine one Bitcoin is what is referred to as the network’s hashing difficulty algorithm, which is designed to self-adjust in order to maintain a consistent 10-minute block verification time.В

Mining Bitcoins is an “all or nothing” affair — miners receive either 6.25 BTC in 10 minutes or 0. Mining is structured as a race between miners, who compete to solve computationally intensive puzzles and become the first on the network to successfully validate a new block and pocket the reward.

Prior to May 11, 2020, the block reward on the Bitcoin network was twice as high (12.5 BTC) as it is now. On May 11, an event known as the Bitcoin halving took place, which decreased the cryptocurrency distributed to successful Bitcoin miners for each block by 50%.В

Mining Solo vs. Mining Pool

While it used to be possible to mine Bitcoin yourself on your home computer, those days are long gone — the amount of energy and equipment required is now far beyond what you can do on your personal laptop.В

However, even if you’re not ready to go all in and start a large-scale mining business solo, it is possible to accumulate fractions of one Bitcoin (BTC) over time if a group of Bitcoin miners combine their computing resources to form a mining pool or mining farm and then share the block rewards between themselves.В

Cloud mining services also enable their users to mine Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency without having to invest in costly mining hardware themselves.

If you’re really invested in mining crypto solo, it is possible — you just have to choose a cryptocurrency that is realistic for a solo miner to mine (and that, unfortunately, is no longer Bitcoin). It’s possible to mine this following list of cryptocurrencies solo, as their mining difficulty makes solo mining realistic:В Zcash, Ethereum, Monero, Dogecoin, Grin, Beam, Bytecoin, Vertecoin, Ethereum Classic and Aeon.

Mining solo might not be able to get you as high of a reward as you would get by mining in a pool or with cloud mining services, mining solo is still possible if you look outside of Bitcoin.

Mining Hardware: ASICs vs. GPUs

A strong reason to operate as a mining pool rather than as a lone Bitcoin miner is that the efficiency of Bitcoin mining depends to a great extent on the type of mining hardware that is used.В

Mining pools that invest in a large amount of expensive mining hardware stand the highest chance of becoming the first to validate a new block and pocket the newly-mined Bitcoin.

The most efficient mining rigs are expensive to set up and deploy ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) chips, which are tailored to efficiently mine cryptocurrencies based on a specific hashing algorithm (in this case, Bitcoin’s SHA-256).В

Bitmain’s “Antminer” series is a famous example of specialized ASIC mining hardware that is used to mine Bitcoin, as well as Ethereum (ETH).

Alternatives to ASIC set-ups use GPUs for Bitcoin mining, which are less optimized for the coin’s hashing algorithm, and therefore face a greater challenge competing with ASIC mining rigs for block rewards on the Bitcoin network.

Hash Rate

The hash rate (or hashing power) of a cryptocurrency is a measure of the overall computing power involved in validating transactions on its blockchain at any given time.В

Higher hash rates indicate higher levels of participation in the network, which implies greater competition among miners to validate new blocks.В

A high hash rate makes the odds of each Bitcoin miner or Bitcoin mining pool’s success relatively lower. This makes mining Bitcoin in some sense “slower,” as the relative chances of receiving Bitcoin as a reward diminish for both solo miners and mining pools.В

It’s worth noting that while it may raise the competition for individual miners or pools, a high hash rate remains a positive thing for the overall health of the Bitcoin network. The high network participation signaled by a high hash rate increases the number of resources that would be needed for a bad actor to pull off a 51% attack, making the network more secure.

Источник

How Long Does it Take to Mine a Bitcoin?

After the Bitcoin craze, which took over the world in December 2017, many people got interested in crypto mining as a potential source of income. However, the harsh truth is that Bitcoin mining got extremely competitive these days, so the overwhelming majority of newbies feel like they’ve already missed the boat. In 2011, the extremely low difficulty rate would allow you to mine one BTC per day with your ordinary PC, but now you have to use specifically designed ASIC mining chips. The question is, how long does it take to mine 1 Bitcoin?

What is the hash rate?

How long does it take to mine a Bitcoin block? Before we find out about this, it is important to understand what Bitcoin’s hash rate is. A hash is a cryptographic puzzle that miners have to solve. Consequently, the hash rate measures the speed at which a specific machine operates and solves mathematical problems. Bitcoin’s cumulative hashing rate increases almost every single day due to the monopoly of large mining farms.

Mining difficulty

In June 2018, it was reported that Bitcoin’s hashing rate skyrocketed by five exahash over the course of two weeks. Remarkably enough, it took the whole network over more than eight years to reach a similar milestone. The sudden spike in mining difficulty doesn’t necessarily mean that a lot of miners join the industry in droves and create a bigger competition– it rather indicates that ASIC chips become more advanced. The same happened during the transition from CPU mining to GPU mining. Thus, huge ASIC manufacturers (Bitmain, in particular) effectively establish a monopoly. Here are the most popular producers of ASIC hardware:

Over the last 30 days, BTC’s mining difficulty has increased almost by 20 percent. This change seems significant and the difficulty drastically grows when every 2016th block is mined (which happens every month or two). The data, which shows how long it takes to mine a Bitcoin in 2016 and how long it takes to mine a Bitcoin in 2017, is not really relevant anymore since now it is significantly more difficult to mine BTC.

Image by bitcoinity.org

The speed of mining

New BTC are mined almost every 10 minutes, but you have to actually earn a part of the block reward by contributing your hashing power to the network that a necessary for solving a block. As of now, the block reward is set at 12.5 BTC.

By the way, the actual block time is not determined– it often takes less than 10 minutes to mine a single block. This is only an average timeframe that is set as a target for miners.

Image by bitcoinity.org

The fastest type of mining

How long does it take to mine a block of Bitcoin alone without powerful AISC chips? More than eternity. You may run your hardware for decades without mining a single block. Furthermore, it will never be very unprofitable power-cost wise. Those who are interested in how long it takes to mine a Bitcoin with GTX 1080 may be disappointed as well since GPU mining hasn’t been profitable for years unless you run a large farm with plenty of mining rigs.

If you want to mine effectively, you have to join any mining pool of your choice. The obvious downside is that you have to split the reward for solving a complex mathematical problem with other pool members (the more computing power you contribute, the bigger part of the reward you get). In a mining pool, you will need to contribute about four percent of the cumulative processing power, which is required to mine a block, in order to earn one BTC. How long it takes to mine a Bitcoin in a pool? There is no clear answer to this question because the exact duration depends on what kind of pool you choose and what equipment you use. Here’s a table which shows popular mining pools and their fees.

Источник

How Long Does It Take To Get 1 Bitcoin in 2020?

How long does it take to mine 1 bitcoin? It’s a question many people ask when transacting for the first time. The short answer is 10 minutes for a Bitcoin transaction to occur, however there are many factors which extend this time. In this article we will explain what contributes to delaying a transaction past ten minutes to over an hour or a day in some cases.

Understanding Crypto Mining

Ever since cryptocurrency was introduced to the world in late 2008, its existence has been baffling yet very intriguing at the same time. Cryptocurrencies like BTC are built on the concept of blockchain; which is known as the most secure method of conducting transactions. In simple words, it is just lines of code that make up a secure block that stores data and is highly encrypted. On the Bitcoin blockchain there will only be 21 million BTC created through a mining process. The processing time for these transactions varies from 10 minutes through to hours or days depending on several factors which we will explain later in this article.

Satoshi Nakamoto (real identity unknown) along with a team of skilled developers created the first cryptocurrency ever known as Bitcoin. Though this was not a new concept in the tech world, it surely was something that caught the attention of the layman. Bitcoin reached its peak in 2017 when one BTC was worth $20,000. This, of course, was the outcome of constant trading and mining.

The creators of Bitcoin created different techniques to obtain this bizarre yet worthwhile entity. One of the most lucrative methods was mining. Bitcoin mining is very similar to any other element mining. It is essentially a process to contribute to the security mechanism of the Bitcoin blockchain by verifying transaction information or data to the collective ledger. This verifying process takes a ton of computing and complex mathematical problem-solving. Miners are successfully awarded Bitcoins for their contribution to the ledger based on their proof-of-work.

Bitcoin mining is no rocket science. It is, however, a little tedious and sometimes the payoff is questionable. When you are BTC mining, you are solving complicated cryptographic challenges with the help of mining hardware. This helps you search for blocks to store data in. Once you do come across a block through mining, new transactions are recorded and verified within that block. You, the discoverer of the block, are rewarded BTC for your effort.

Bitcoin Mining Speed: How Fast Can You Mine One Bitcoin?

Determining the exact time it takes to successfully mine 1 Bitcoin depends on a lot of things like computing power, the type of equipment used, and the competition. However, in the best-case scenario, with the ideal computational power and equipment, it should take about 10 minutes to process 1 BTC. This may not seem like much, but this is for an ideal situation, something that is not possible for a lot of miners.

It takes a large setup nearly 30 days to mine 1 BTC. This setup is not as economical as we think it is, after deducting the electricity cost and the overall hardware and software cost you will be left with 0.1 BTC of profit every month at best. With the majority of setups and the electricity cost and some manpower, it would cost you a total of $73,000 to process 1 Bitcoin every month.

The speed of mining does not only depend on the cost, but it also depends on other hardware and software factors as well. The total speed and cost of mining a Bitcoin relies on the type of device you use like ASIC, GPU or CPUs, the hash rate of the device, the total number of devices you are operating, and the mining pool.

Mining One Bitcoin in the Past vs Mining One Bitcoin Today

Bitcoin mining began soon after the news of the rewarding Bitcoin was released. The initial idea of mining was that anybody with a computer could become a miner. Today, it is arguably something carried out successfully by big mining organizations.

At the time, computers were run on CPUs which could mine you a large number of BTC, maybe a few dollars. The first BTC transaction was two pizzas that were purchased for 10,000 BTC. Today, the same is worth a tremendous amount. Back then, BTC mining was only done by blockchain geeks and true enthusiasts.

Today, we have progressed considerably when it comes to the hardware and software department for Bitcoin mining. Instead of amping up the software and hardware, there is a whole machine created only to solve complex computational algorithms to mine Bitcoins.

ASIC devices are pre-designed and optimized hardware that only compute necessary calculations to create a Bitcoin block. ASICs are the most efficient machines to mine Bitcoin today. However, electricity usage is one of the biggest costs miners have to incur today. Although ASIC units are not economic, they are the best way to mine Bitcoins. Big mining companies have the facilities to purchase these kinds of rigs, but modest miners do not. This makes mining a little tricky if you are expecting to mine from a personal computer.

How Much Does it Cost to Mine 1 Bitcoin?

The cost of mining 1 Bitcoin can vary depending on several factors. The cost mainly boils down to the type of rig used, the country of mining, and the cost of the software. If you are planning on mining, here are the expenses that are worth considering:

• Power costs in the region of mining
• Pool fees
• Hash Rate of the rig
• Labour
• Crashes and unforeseen hacks

Though it may not seem so, the country where you choose to mine can play a significant role in the overall cost of mining. Many South American and Asian countries have lower power consumption rates. These continents have become a hotspot for Bitcoin miners. Mining 1 Bitcoin in the USA will cost you ten times the cost in Venezuela.

Bitcoin mining is like any other business venture. If you are planning on mining, you have to be ready with a business plan of what it might cost you on the whole. If you want to turn mining into profit, you have to consider account depreciation essentially. Here, you have to calculate the total cost it will take you to set up a mining facility and then the longevity of the equipment. Because your rigs will have to run day and night, they will be subjected to the usual mining wear and tear. You have to calculate how to improve the bottom line for your mining venture by looking out for competition and investing in better hardware.

At the end of the day, you have to break even. Many rig providers give warranties for their devices, but many times these deals go south. So, consider warranties and other incentives to be negligible. It will make more financial sense to invest in cheaper equipment that will be easy to replace.

Should You Get Into Bitcoin Mining?

Bitcoin mining is no rocket science, but it indeed is a little expensive. Before taking this decision, you have to account for all the hardware and software necessities for mining. Sometimes you might require a specific graphic card for your rig that can easily cost you $700. It is possible to establish a less expensive rig, but it all depends on how you operate it.

Back when Bitcoin wasn’t worth much, mining didn’t seem all that interesting. However, now that the rates have skyrocketed, mining has become one of the prime sources for collecting Bitcoin. Bitcoin miners not only earn from the reward, but they also earn from the transaction fee Bitcoin users have to pay while making a Bitcoin transaction. This adds to the revenue earned.

With economic and reliable mining pools and hardware, you can easily earn enough to break even while collecting some revenue on the side. With the development of cloud mining, many people have found it less financially draining to mine.

Is There Anyone Mining Bitcoin Profitably?

Bitcoin miners have been around since 2009. Today, the US alone has nearly 2,625 active miners or nodes, followed by Germany and France with approximately 2022 and 700 nodes respectively. These three countries have the most number of individual miners.

Making a profit from Bitcoin mining can take a lot of time. Considering how volatile the currency is, there is still plenty of scope to become a decent miner in the crypto world. After all, miners contribute to a large part of the fabric Bitcoin is woven in. Without miners, the cryptocurrency can derail.

Conclusion

Bitcoin mining is an investment that can have a payoff, but it can go sideways. It is always advisable to consider all the hard work and patience that will go in mining. Since the noise around BTC and Bitcoin mining has increased over the years, it is highly unlikely that one might be able to earn profits with a single rig and a mining pool. Your likelihood to earn Bitcoin by mining has to do with the hash rate and other mining tools you are using. Mining today requires strategy, planning, and patience. It is a slow but profitable process.

If mining isn’t your interest and trading is, then it may only take 10 minutes to transfer your local currency into Bitcoin. All you need to do is sign up for a Zipmex account to begin trading Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Источник