GPUs are particularly well-suited for mining because of their parallel processing capabilities, which significantly enhance mining performance compared to traditional CPUs. However, the RTX 4090 comes with a substantial price tag, estimated to be around 1,700-2,000 USD at the time of writing. This high cost means that miners will need a longer period, bitmain antminer s21 potentially over a few years (depending on current cryptocurrency prices), to recoup their investment and start realizing profits.

Home mining with the right hardware offers significant benefits, including cost savings, enhanced control, and the potential for innovative, sustainable solutions. Mining difficulty refers to the complexity of the mathematical problems that must be solved to mine a block. Higher difficulty means more computational power is required, which can increase costs. Most bitcoin mining software is free and runs on all of the leading operating systems. Computer hardware—commonly known as mining rigs—can be as simple as a cloud computing option or as complicated as a highly customized system costing thousands of dollars.

For the home miner, though, it is the blockchain’s ASIC-resistant POW algorithm that is most relevant. Moreover, the project developers have gone a step further to hard code a hard fork every six months to minimize the effects of any ASICS that may be developed specifically for its network. Furthermore, this altcoin’s network was designed specifically to resist the development of Monero specific ASIC’s. Mining standard Ethereum is no longer possible as the Ethereum blockchain moved to proof of stake in October 2022.

It even offers a "lite mode" for when you want to use your computer for other things, like using the internet or playing games. If you plan on growing your mining operation by using a mix of different hardware, Awesome Miner will let you do so in one convenient location. You can even track your mining performance while away from your main computer. With CGMiner you can easily manage mining rigs remotely, via keyboard commands, allowing you to adjust settings on devices such as fan speeds for cooling. When you dispose of your mining rewards, you’ll incur a capital gain or loss depending on how the price of your crypto has changed since you originally received it. Monero is a privacy-focused blockchain that makes transactions completely untraceable.