Right now, you might ask "how in the world do I make mining profitable when everyone else is already mining Bitcoin, Ethereum and other popular Altcoins left and right?". I don't guarantee I can give you the answer you want but will provide something to think about and maybe, execute.
There are still a number of ways to make mining profitable. But most of them require either you invest on expensive equipment or have huge sums to purchase cloud mining contracts. This approach is different. When you have not the equipment nor the money, you make it up with a bit of research and of course, patience.
We can all agree that "banking on a cryptocurrency's future value" is what mining has always been. With low-end equipment and low hashrate, we can almost impossibly calculate earnings based off of current market's valuation, because low-end equipment tend to use more electricity than it generates money from mining. This is why you go with a different approach. This, however, does not limit us to low-end machinery. I've seen smart people actually apply this strategy with huge hash rates, and then hopping in between coins; moving to the next coin when they experience a slow-down from the rising demand.
Essentially, what they are doing is mining and HODLing these coins before they become recognized then selling them a year or 2 later when it has increased in valuation significantly. By the time that happens, it will be hard to mine the same coin.
This goes without saying, this is the same idea of buying a certain crypto on a bear market (or during ICO phase) and selling them when it's up significantly. The approach I'm talking about is mining undervalued, unpopular, but has great potential coins. Like what Bitcoin used to be - undervalued and unpopular.
Consider mining Bitcoin in 2009 or in the early 2010 for example. You've likely mined a significant amount back then because they were not as valuable now as it was during the time period. Let's take that idea and apply it on today's crypto scene.
Here is a checklist on finding these undervalued altcoins:
- Market Cap below $5M. The $5M here is subjective. It can be $20M, $10M, or $1M. You will have to be the judge here. It depends on how much mining power you have. If it takes 1 day to mine 1 coin, that is not the coin you should be mining. Calculating the number of coins you can mine versus the circulating supply versus how long it takes to mine, should be a good indicator. CoinMarketCap is a site where you can search for these coins and their current Market Capitalization, Circulating Supply, and Current Price.
- They are tackling (or disrupting per se) a huge industry. Marketing and advertisements, Cloud Storage, Banking, Education, E-Learning, Medicinal Marijuana, or maybe Porn to name a few.
- The coin caters to a problem in the industry it is tackling. When it tries to solve an issue with good concept is a good sign you are not investing into what one would call vaporware.
- The coin have a professional website. A good example of a bad website: Money ($$$) or Cannation. This does not mean the website needs to be fancy and top-notch. It just needs to have this sincere and professional tone to it that they are serious with the project. If they release a half-assed website or a Github subdomain, it just shows the devs are unsure investing into their own work. An average website can be simply updated and may even drive the price up while they're at it. Meanwhile, sincerity and professionalism can not be bought.
- There should be a WhitePaper that checks out. If they don't have it yet, at least that they mention that they are working on it, on their Roadmap or Status Reports.
- RoadMap should have attainable goals but not necessarily achieved some time "soon". The farther away they are from the goals, the more coins you can mine. Balance and patience are keys aspects.
- It has great potential but currently suffering from issues (wallet, transactions, etc) or development still in the works. An already working GOOD coin is always NOT undervalued. And even the worst shitcoin may be overvalued merely because everything works.
- Social media presence should be there. A non-existent social media is as good as dead.
- You, yourself, believe in the coin provided they attain their goals that are yet to be achieved. This is why they are still in the low market cap in the first place.
- Is the team behind it have a real management personnel or is it a bunch of developers who had a good idea? It matters when there are actual brains doing the decision making and making things happen versus a bunch of developers taking their time to finish the project which is totally fine, until they wake up one day with a new idea and a new project they'll be more willing to put their time on, further delaying old objectives.
You may also choose to apply these research to coins that are still in the ICO phase; then mining them on the blockchain release date. You will have a chance to mine a full block in the first few hours (hundreds if not thousands coins) where everyone is essentially still a solo miner. Should there be a pool already in place, your rewards are still huge because the difficulty is low and you are one of the first miners of the coin. This usually tapers down as more and more miners come in. The more popular the coin is during the ICO phase, the faster the mining difficulty goes up.
How might I know? I already did this with a number of coins. Electroneum was one where I was able to mine thousands during the first few hours from its launch. Though, I did buy in the ICO and have HODLed them. :)
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BTC: 1GNqY5CsYrkHvDf9Jj3bwSXhHogbvmXBmF
ETH: 0x6c2F7128363332965b92A6c71eee0276FF27E0cD
LTC: LbLb9DcNvKzp2ywtYCctiv5NfpzvSwg7Ve
Legal Disclaimer: Everything in this post is of my personal bias. Make of it what you wish. It is not an advice nor recommendation to buy or sell anything. It is meant for informative and entertainment purposes only.