Here we will see the newest selection of 10 most profitable coins and cryptocurrencies to mine in 2018 as things are now.
Why searching for the most profitable coins and cryptocurrencies to mine when we have Bitcoin? Well, because mining Bitcoin is becoming more and more difficult since it has become so popular among the cryptocurrencies. So, today Bitcoin mining enterprises are being developed by Samsung, for example. Then there is BitCap, a Chicago based cryptocurrency mining company that has been on for 4 years already. Also, it is worth mentioning that a Slovenian mining company NiceHash was recently robbed for more than $60 million worth Bitcoin. So after the money was stolen, NiceHash stopped working with the announcement of the fast comeback. Nevertheless, during that short period, the value of money that was stolen had risen to around $77 million, since Bitcoin’s price had inclined for about 25%!
Now, it really seems that Bitcoin mining has become a serious business. Since that is the case, there exist, of course, other cryptocurrencies worth mining, that are actually possible to mine by yourself. For the Bitcoin alternative for 2017, you can see the selection of 7 Most Profitable Cryptocurrencies and Coins to Mine in 2017. But anyway, what you are going to mine depends on your computer. To see which coins and cryptocurrencies you would be able to mine on your computer, check out WhatToMine. There you can type in the hardware configuration you have and the site will list your possibilities.
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Now, is there a difference between GPU and CPU mining in terms of best cryptocurrency to mine with GPU and best cryptocurrency to mine with CPU? Certainly, but let’s first see differences of GPU vs. CPU mining. GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) in general includes support of graphics card, which was developed by NVIDIA (for personal computers) for purposes of acceleration of deep learning, analytics and engineering. So, while CPU (Central Processing Unit) works with several cores by sequential processing, GPU has many smaller units which perform tasks at the same time, which makes completing tasks faster. But, on the other hand, CPU, although not working simultaneously, works faster on completing individual tasks. And considering CPU vs. GPU in coin and cryptocurrency mining at home computers, opinions differ. Some people do both, but then face the hardware problems (overheating) and higher electricity bill (yes, cost of running the processor should also be taken in mind), while others use GPU or CPU only. Some of the leading GPUs for coin and cryptocurrency mining are NVIDIA and AMD nowadays.
Now, while GPU and CPU mining can be achieved through personal computers and (relatively) cheaper configurations, many coins can only be mined through ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit). ASIC represents a unit (let’s say a small computer) specialized only for completing special tasks. One such ASIC was created by Samsung recently, as we have noted above. Whatever method you chose for mining, have in mind that you will spend a lot of money on hardware and also on the electricity bill.
As with Bitcoin mining, dealing with other cryptocurrencies draws for attention and caution of course. Some advice on mining any cryptocurrency would include mining on a different PC than the one you are regularly using. That especially applies to those who already have a certain amount of Bitcoin to avoid running different clients on the same machine, if you want to be sure, and/or are newbies in this things, meaning it’s easy for you not to see the scam at first sight. Nevertheless, using the same PC for mining coins and cryptocurrencies is, of course, possible safely, by isolating separate wallets and under separate accounts by using privilege separation.
There are tons of issues and subjects on coins and cryptocurrencies mining that we could start now. One of these things is, for example, X11 algorithm. This algorithm was developed by Dash, and it uses 11 sequence rounds of hashing for the Proof-of-work sequences. Using X11 has shown to reduce electricity usage by 50%. Apart from this one, there are more algorithms like this one such as X12, X13, etc. You can check out some of the coins that use X11 with mining calculators such as CryptoCompare or WhatToMine.
OK, so now we know that the values of cryptocurrencies fluctuate on a daily basis, (while heavily depending on the state of Bitcoin of course), and we have decided to search for the most profitable coins and cryptocurrencies to mine in 2018 at places where people share their experiences and predictions. So we went to places such as BitcoinTalk, Gecko&Fly, Quora, OrdinaryReviews and CoinSuggest just to name some. There we have gathered information on coin trends and advice how and what to and not to mine. Finally, we have ranked our list of the most profitable coins and cryptocurrencies to mine in 2018 by the count of suggestions, which does not mean their values will not fluctuate in close future.
Let’s see now which are those most profitable coins and cryptocurrencies to mine in 2018:
10. ZenCash
ZenCash is one of those profitable coins cryptocurrencies to mine in 2018, and it is a privacy coin which means you can send off-grid transactions to others. It seems that this year will be promising for ZenCash according to the charts.
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9. Electroneum (ETN)
Electroneum is one of the most profitable coins and cryptocurrencies to mine on CPU. It also has developed mobile platform so mining can be done through mobile phones as well. This user-friendly approach makes it more popular with time.
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8. Steem
Steem as a starting currency which you buy for the money, and can transfer it to Steem Backed Dollars and/or Steem Power. Steem Power represents Steem that is locked for 3 months. So, the point of converting into Steem Power or Steem Dollars is that, while Steem doubles every year and because of that loses value, that is not the case with Steem Power and Steem Dollars.
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7. Zcash
Up next on our list of most profitable coins and cryptocurrencies to mine in 2018 we have Zcash, which is one of those high privacy cryptocurrencies meaning that payments are publicly published while user and the amount are unseen by others. It can be mined with CPU and GPU. Some of the advices on how to mine Zcash can be found here.
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6. Litecoin
As one of the most profitable coins and cryptocurrencies, Litecoin works on a similar basis as Bitcoin. Nevertheless, Bitcoin is generated every 10 min, while Litecoin is generated every 2.5 min. Litecoin mining can be done through ASIC, but unlike for Bitcoin, they are harder to purchase. It is also one of the Proof-of-work coins.
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5. Dash
Dash ranks 5th on our list of most profitable coins and cryptocurrencies to mine in 2018. It is a cryptocurrency that has come out of Litecon. One advantage of Dash compared to the Litecoin is that it is more secure in terms of privacy and autonomity, based on Proof-of-work. Thanks to Dash there is the X11 system that we have mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, GPU and CPU mining of Dash is not available anymore; it’s being done only by ASICs. Some of the recommended ASCIs for mining dash can be found here.
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4. Gridcoin
Mining Gridcoin is actually helping scientific community? How? By contributing to BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), which an open-source grid that uses processing power provided by users to scientific purposes (for AIDS, Ebola, malaria and other researchers), meaning you will not be wasting your energy for anything. Gridcoin is one of the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) coins in basis, but a bit modified, meaning your reward will be depending on the amount of research you participate in comparing to others. The new development of Girdcoin is Proof-of-Research that actually uses PoS together with PoB (Proof of BOINC) which is a mining algorithm which is compatible with all different hardware.
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And now, let’s see the top three most profitable coins and cryptocurrencies to mine in 2018.
3. Monero
Monero is a type of cryptocurrency that makes transactions untraceable, comparing to Bitcoin, where once the address is shown publicly, anyone can track the Bitcoin transactions from that address, which is not the case with Monero. Monero uses Stealth Address in order to make the transactions untraceable which brings privacy to the whole new level, by creating a random address each time transaction is being made. Mining Monero can be done with a regular computer since there are no ASICs for it, so it is a good option whether using GPU or CPU mining.
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2. Ethereum
Ethereum is just behind the Bitcoin concerning the value of the cryptocurrency. And yes, we here refer to Ethereum (ETH) and not Ethereum Classic (ETC). While ETC represents the remains of the “original” Ethereum still working on old blockchains, meaning, no new updates compatible with ETH are available for ETC users, now, Ethereum has shown to be better on many fields. It’s constantly being updated, has higher hash-rate than Ethereum Classic. Moreover, it is being supported by around 200 corporations worldwide that are being part of EEA (Enterprise Ethereum Alliance).
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1. Bitcoin
Since we are talking about coins and cryptocurrencies in general, of course, the Bitcoin would still be at the top of the most profitable coins and cryptocurrencies to mine in 2018. Although as we have already said earlier, mining Bitcoin is getting more and more complicated, it is nevertheless still the cryptocurrency of the highest value.
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