If you’ve been trading in the cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, you may have, by now, reached the point of having to choose between mining Bitcoin on your own or opting for the cloud mining option.
As a novice, the technicalities can leave you completely baffled. You suddenly find yourself buying expensive equipment and software or comparing bitcoin cloud mining contracts.
Don’t worry. We are here to break it down for you. We’ll explain cloud mining starting with the basics. This article also includes our recommendations for the 10 best bitcoin cloud mining contracts. So, stay with us.
Is Bitcoin Like Real Cash?
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. That means it is a kind of digital currency. To be more accurate, it is a form of payment. Bitcoin was first introduced in the year 2009 and has since then grown in popularity. Owing to its rapidly rising value, numerous people are exploring Bitcoin as a profitable investment option.
Bitcoin is not like physical cash available for use as notes or coins. The balances are recorded on a ledger. The ledger is made available for public access and viewing. Thus, it is quite a transparent process. Besides, secured by cryptography, Bitcoin is impossible to counterfeit and hence provides a good amount of security.
Can You Mine Bitcoin On Your Own?
Yes, you can. But we do not recommend it. You’d ask why.
The answer is simple. Your desktop computer falls short of the processing power requirements of cryptocurrency mining.
Bitcoin mining uses super-specialized computers. Mining is a process of solving puzzles and equations to earn Bitcoin. Miners verify blocks of transactions, which get added to the “Blockchain”. The Bitcoins they receive are their reward for processing these transactions.
Bitcoin is quite different from traditional currencies issued by their respective governments. Currencies such as the dollar or the euro cannot be printed arbitrarily.
That is not the case with Bitcoin. New units of Bitcoin are generated every 10 minutes. With Bitcoin, it is all in the code. To generate and earn new Bitcoins you need to crack the code and that needs hashing power. Mining also helps secure the Bitcoin network. It is difficult to attack, intercept or fake the network.
The process of mining requires a great amount of processing power. Not just that, you will also need to purchase expensive equipment too.
Bitcoin is not like physical cash available for use as notes or coins. The balances are recorded on a ledger. The ledger is made available for public access and viewing. Thus, it is quite a transparent process. Besides, secured by cryptography, Bitcoin is impossible to counterfeit and hence provides a good amount of security.
What Do We Mean By Cloud Mining?
Probably, the two likely questions in your mind at this stage are: what is cloud mining, and what sets it apart from mining on your own.
Clouding mining involves mining currency from a larger pool. Data centers lease mining equipment to individuals. Cloud mining is also called cloud hashing.
This format of cloud mining is much like a user buying a share of hash power. As soon as you buy mining power, you get added to a mining pool. Cloud mining, therefore, is based on a shared revenue system. Profits are divided across all pool members. In order to start cloud mining, you need to sign up for a Bitcoin cloud mining contract and create an e-wallet.
Also, you need to understand that cloud mining is of two major types:
- Hardware leasing: You can lease mining hardware situated at a data center.
- Hashing leasing: You can lease a certain amount of hash power.
There Are Numerous Advantages Of Choosing Cloud Mining.
As already mentioned above, mining involves the use of expensive equipment. Not just that, the demands for high processing power result in exorbitant electricity bills. Data centers are able to afford both as they do not rely on the price of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a highly volatile cryptocurrency. They instead make money by renting out equipment. This is the service or maintenance fee a miner pays to the data center.
The electricity bills can really add up in the long run. However, when renting equipment from data centers you needn’t worry about it. Neither do you have to bother about maintenance and up-gradation of equipment? It is taken care of by the data center.
The equipment also generates a large amount of heat, requiring continuous cooling. With equipment situated in a distant facility, you don’t have to put up with the annoying sound of the fans running in the background.
Bitcoin, or for that matter most cryptocurrencies, are highly unpredictable in their value. While at present Bitcoin has a very positive projection, if in the future, it becomes unprofitable, you can give up Bitcoin mining and trading without a thought. You wouldn’t have to worry about losses incurred against equipment and software purchases.
Also, by signing up for a Bitcoin cloud mining contract, you can start mining from the word go. As the setup is already in place, you do not have to deal with long wait periods. To add, with data centers upgrading their equipment on a regular basis, you have access to the latest, high-tech equipment. Cloud hashing is also beneficial to people who aren’t too tech-savvy.
Free or Paid Cloud Mining? That’s the real question.
We’re all on the web to make an extra buck or two. And free money always sounds enticing.
But then, you may have also come across reviews of free services being limited in their features or being riddled with bugs and glitches, which may make it difficult for you to choose. In order to choose, you need to first understand the free and paid cloud mining formats.
Using blockchain technology, Bitcoins are earned by solving puzzles. Thus, the more you play, you boost your Bitcoin earning potential.
Paid Cloud Mining Sites
As is evident from the name, paid sites offer paid Bitcoin cloud mining contracts. They either have fixed or variable contract timelines starting at low as 24 hours. Their contracts are structured around different hash rates. The hash rate stipulates the amount of power the rig supplies, directly affecting the amount of Bitcoin that can be mined at a particular time.
Some companies also let users customize their Bitcoin Cloud Mining contracts. Customization is not restricted to choosing the hash power or the cost only. It also extends to deciding the time period for which one would like to be locked in a contract.
Cost is a major factor when reviewing paid clouding mining contracts. In fact, it may be viewed as one of the drawbacks, especially if you are just starting out and do not have a big budget to invest in Bitcoin mining. The flat fee paid matches the amount of hash power requested. They can be pricey, but a higher hash rate translates to a better Bitcoin earning potential. It also means that users will start noticing a quicker and better return on investment compared to a free cloud mining contract.
Free Cloud Mining Sites
Free cloud mining sites attract users with their “no-initial payment” feature. Thus, you can start investing with no initial fees or for a very nominal amount. It is a great option for small cryptocurrency investors, newbies, and those looking for short-term investments.
Free cloud mining takes really long to get profitable. The reason being free cloud mining is not really free. While you do not have to pay an initial fee, you will soon have to pay a percentage of your monthly revenue to the hosts allowing you to lease their hardware. This commission is in addition to electricity and maintenance charges.
Scamming is another issue associated with free cloud mining sites. Though not all free cloud mining services are fraudulent, the scammers hide among the genuine ones. Their sites display fake proof of work and excessively positive reviews that may be too good to be true.
To filter the trustworthy free cloud mining sites from the scam sites, you need to pick up recommendations from genuine review sites. We recommend online forums as they carry unbiased reviews of varied cryptocurrency mining providers. They also expose the fake ones.
The bottom line: A free cloud mining site is good to start out and stick with till you learn the ropes. But as you advance in the game, and look to increase your earning potential from your cryptocurrency investment, we recommend switching to paid cloud mining.
Choosing a Bitcoin Cloud Mining Contract
The huge variety of Bitcoin cloud mining contracts can leave you in a fix when making a selection. Here are a few factors that can help you pick.
Reviews & Reputation – The cloud mining service you choose should have a good standing and reputation. Operations such as signing up, Bitcoin mining, and support should be easy and hassle-free.
The company shouldn’t be looking to make a quick buck out of swindling people. Always do a background check before you sign up for a Bitcoin cloud mining contract. Read up multiple reviews on varied sites. It will help make an informed decision.
You can also use our recommendations for trusted and affordable Bitcoin Cloud Mining Contracts.
Price – Price is also one of the deciding factors when choosing a cloud mining service. The tariffs can be as low as $10 a month. The price you will pay also depends on the type and amount of mining machines you would rent or the processing power you need.
Nonetheless, individuals already using Bitcoin cloud mining contracts claim that they are at least able to recover the amount invested, if not more.
Check the following heads for pricing: how much will you be paying per GH/s or TH/s, what are the services fees you need to pay, are the service fees charged as a one-time or recurring payment, and what is the ROI timeframe.
Transparency – This is yet another very important requirement when choosing a cloud mining company. Users should be clear about the company’s operations, the breakup of fees, and commissions if any. Ask the company to provide proof of work. Verify the proof of work and statistics from other business sites whenever possible.
Trading in cryptocurrencies securely also involves choosing reliable e-wallets. You need an e-wallet to stash all the Bitcoins you have earned. It is like a bank account where your cryptocurrency sits until it can be exchanged for hard cash or used to complete transactions. There are privately-owned and hosted wallets. The former is a better option.
Best Bitcoin Cloud Mining Contracts
A cloud mining service company based in California, USA, Eobot began operating in the year 2013. Their user base boasts of more than 2.2 million members with a daily active user count of a few hundred thousand.
Eobot is one of the free Bitcoin cloud mining contracts on the market; however, they also offer paid plans for cloud mining at a nominal fee.
Eobot is not as popular as other Bitcoin cloud mining contracts in the world of cryptocurrency, but it does have quite a few reviews to vouch for it. Security is one of the plus points of working with Eobot. Logging in is highly secure thanks to its two-step authentication. Logging in into one’s account requires an email-provided code in addition to the agreed password. It also notifies the account holder of any unauthorized access to the account from an unfamiliar IP address.
The Bitcoin cloud mining service is the best option for amateurs. A neat and well-designed layout makes it easy to find your way around the site. The inbuilt calculator also lets you draw up an estimate of your daily profit in relation to the hash power you purchase.
Eobot allows users to trade in cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin too, thus offering a diverse investment portfolio. These include LiteCoin, Ethereum, Golem, DogeCoin, Ripple, Dash, and Ethereum Classic. Eobot offers only two cloud mining contracts to users in terms of duration – 24 hour or 10 years. You get mining updates every 60 seconds. Enjoy a daily cryptocurrency reward thanks to Eobot Crypto Faucet.
The only negative highlighted by most Bitcoin cloud mining users is the lack of concrete information about the company behind Eobot. It chooses to go anonymous, not mentioning the details of their physical address or including photos on their official website. Contracts can be purchased by paying with Bitcoin or using Epay. you can start as low as $10.
The cryptocurrency platform Hashflare has been in business since 2015. The site has grown by leaps and bounds recording monthly traffic of 1 million visitors.
The site specializes in 5 major cryptocurrencies namely DASH, ZCASH, Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin (BTC), and Litecoin (LTC). That’s a good number of cryptocurrencies to trade-in.
On the Hashflare platform, miners are given access to pools. They vary based on their hash rate. Thus, miners can choose to enter a pool based on hash rate requirements and personal preferences. You can opt for the one that is most profitable.
As a pool clouding mining solution, the profits earned get divided among all the members in the pool depending on the hash rate purchased.
Hashflare offers users SHA 256 mining contracts as well as scrypt mining contracts. There is a minimum purchase of 10 GH/s for SHA 256 and 1MH/s for Scrypt. Hashflare’s Bitcoin mining contracts allow you to start small. Their maintenance fee is set at $0.0035 per 10 GH/s of SHA 256 coins and $0.005 per 1MH/s. Hashflare does not charge miners maintenance fees for cryptocurrencies ZCASH, DASH, and Ethereum.
They use high-tech modern equipment ensuring fast processing and low downtime. Their data centers are built to accommodate thousands of miners at the same time. You can start mining as soon as you complete registration and pay the maintenance fees. You can expect to get your first payout within 24 hours.
A transparent payout process coupled with real-time mining statistics lets you keep track of the profit made. This includes a break up of the actual amount earned as well as that paid by way of commissions and maintenance fees. Hashflare offers different payment methods. Not only this, on their site you can check out pictures and information on their data mining centers.
Genesis Mining is one of the key players in the field of Bitcoin mining. They have earned a reputation as being the largest and one of the oldest cloud mining platforms for Bitcoin. Genesis Mining has over 2 million customers as part of its user base.
What does that mean? Great Bitcoin cloud mining contracts backed by years of experience. That coupled with the ability to handle large volumes without a system crash. Genesis Mining provides daily payouts to customers in their e-Wallet.
There are several other features that make Genesis Mining a practical choice. It has an easy-to-use interface and gets you started with Bitcoin mining almost immediately.
The hash power you purchase can be used to mine different cryptocurrencies. This also helps spread the risk across investments.
Genesis Mining gives miners the opportunity to choose from three different pricing plans. The rates are decided according to the cryptocurrency coins you trade-in and the hash power you need.
If we do a price comparison, Genesis Mining is on the upper end of the pricing scale for cloud mining contract providers. However, their customer support and maintenance services justify the cost.
Hashing 24 has been offering Bitcoin mining services since the year 2012. Their website was set up in 2016.
The company does not have its own data mining centers. It uses the equipment of yet another well-known name in the cryptocurrency industry, BitFury. BitFury uses ASIC chips to lease hash power to customers. The high-tech ASIC chips offer the best performance and highest level of efficiency. They handle all the backend for you. The industry’s best technology reduces downtime to the minimum.
If you are worried about the authenticity and reliability of Hashing 24, you can look up the BitFury website. They mention Hashing 24. The data centers are based in Iceland, Norway, Canada, and Norway.
The high level of flexibility gives Hashing 24 an edge over its competitors. Compared to other Bitcoin cloud mining contract platforms, there are no fixed contracts at Hashing 24. One can invest in Bitcoin mining for as long as they want. They can also choose to exit when they wish to. Besides, customers can select their hashing power, mode of payment, and Bitcoin cloud mining contract. The company also pays its customers on time.
What we also liked about Hashing 24 is how it reduces the learning curve for newbie miners. They’ve included a demo mode. This tool lets you replicate a cloud mining contract so that miners can forecast their profits and choose the most lucrative contracts. It also helps understand important concepts associated with cryptocurrency mining. One must not that this is only an estimate and should not be treated as an accurate figure as chances are that it may vary depending on the prevailing price of Bitcoin.
Hashing 24 offers an auction feature too in the event that their open-end cloud mining contracts are all sold out. This feature allows you to buy hash power from existing customers should they be willing to sell. Hashing 24 charges a maintenance fee of $0.00003 per GH/s per day.
The only drawback of Hashing 24 is the single-cryptocurrency trading. They trade in Bitcoin (BTC) only.
This cryptocurrency mining pool is trusted by over 3,500,000 users online. The unique selling point of this cloud mining service is that it has made provisions for multi-currency or merged mining. Merged mining refers to the ability to mine different cryptocurrencies simultaneously in the same pool without it affecting the mining performance.
In addition to its Bitcoin cloud mining contracts, Minergate also offers customers software that they can purchase and install to mining cryptocurrencies on their own. Minergate gives customers several reasons to choose them: there is a diverse range of cryptocurrencies to choose from. One can mine Ethereum, Bitcoin, Monero, Litecoin, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum Classic, Monero Classic, ZCash, Bytecoin, and Grin. Miners get access to the most advanced technology for cloud mining promising the best performance and efficiency.
Despite cloud mining being a slightly complicated and technical process, Minergate simplifies it for newbies. It boasts of a highly intuitive user interface. To add, you can pre-decide the daily investment amount. Minergate also prides itself on its security system, providing the highest level of data protection.
On the site, one can get a detailed break up of the costs. The calculators also help you draw an estimate of the profits. They charge a flat-rate maintenance fee. Minergate also runs an affiliate program giving miners a flat 65% of the profit for referring friends to the Minergate cloud mining platform.
The Bitcoin cloud mining contract provider Hashnest is under the wing of Bitmain. Bitmain is most sought-after for its Antiminer lineup. It also boasts of hosting one of the largest cryptocurrency mining pools called Antpool.
Hashnest started functioning in 2014. The company is headquartered in China. Their mining farms are housed in numerous other countries across the world. These mostly include countries that charge less for electricity.
The company specializes in renting out hardware for mining. Thus, they host popular miner brands such as the Antiminer S17, S15, Z11, Whatsminer M21S, M20S. Backed by one of the biggest names in the hardware mining industry, they also quickly restock their miners. You can verify the status of their data-mining centres by reviewing the photos uploaded on their official website.
At the time of writing this piece, Hashnest supports four major cryptocurrencies only namely Bitcoin, ZCash, Dash, and Litecoin. It promises to add more in the future. Signing up for a Bitcoin cloud mining contract with Hashnest is extremely beneficial as they offer open-ended contracts. This means you can trade for a lifetime provided you keep up with their contract regulations. It is great for long-time mining. However, it has very stringent policies in place as far as the termination of contracts is concerned. Hashnest states that it shall terminate contracts if the daily payout is less than the maintenance fee for 10 consecutive days.
On the Hashnest site, miners can also take advantage of PACMiC V5. It stands for Pay Accelerated Cloud Mining Contract. This is a special contract that significantly reduces the payback time frame. What does that mean? No long waiting periods before you see a return on investment.
Hashnest offers its miners a daily payout. The cloud mining service also provides users a feature to purchase and sell hash rates on the trade market.
NiceHash is slightly different in its format as compared to other cloud mining companies. It is a marketplace that brings together buyers and sellers engaged in Bitcoin trading. At NiceHash, one can buy the required hash power on demand. Thus, this Bitcoin cloud mining plan does not tie you to a long contract, but instead, you pay as you go. You can cancel your subscription to their service anytime you want.
Similarly, sellers desiring to sell hash power to cash in on a quick profit can use the platform to look for interested buyers. Getting started with NiceHash simply requires you to connect the miner to the mining pool. At NiceCash, you can trade in popular cryptocurrencies such as Litecoins, Dogecoin, Bitcoin, Darkcoin, Vertcoin, etc. The site is easy to use, profitable and risk-free. The profitability calculator helps you compare the potential earnings on your hardware. The autopilot feature allows you to take advantage of idle computing power. NiceHash also offers users a mobile app to give them access to and continue mining while on the go.
Pricewise, this Bitcoin cloud mining service turns out much cheaper than its competitors. You can head to the NiceHash official website to review the prices of their services.
There is one major limitation. Bitcoin and fiat are the only two approved currency units for payouts.
Free Bitcoin Cloud Mining Contracts
The list above gives you the names of paid cloud mining contracts. But in case you’re looking for free sites to start with, here are the names we recommend.
- MinerFarm: It is one of the top competitors in the free marketplace. It is easy to use, offers good customer support, and allows for quick withdrawals. New members are rewarded with free 100Gh/s when they register. MinerFarm offers members an option to upgrade if they need more processing power.
- Multimining: With a free and paid cloud mining version available, you can choose what is most suitable for you. Multimining gives users a registration bonus of 30GH/s for life. users can also earn more crypto by way of referrals.
Is Cloud Mining Profitable?
That’s a resounding yes! The use of high-tech, high-performance mining hardware increases the profitability of cloud mining. However, it is unrealistic to expect results overnight.
Most cloud mining companies take between 12 to 16 months to break even. Beyond that, you will earn a good profit. The waiting period varies for each company.
The profitability of Bitcoin cloud mining also depends on the price of cryptocurrencies. If the value of Bitcoin rises, so will the profits you see on your investment. Profitability with cloud mining also depends on how much you are willing to invest per month. A bigger budget increases the earning potential by providing more hash power.
Watch out for Scams!!!
Given the popularity and high earning potential of Bitcoin mining, there are hundreds of fraudulent and scam sites. These are only there to make quick money by cheating people. So choose a trusted provider.
For a long time, cryptocurrencies were unheard of. Even if people knew about it, they were too skeptical to invest. However, today, more and more people are getting involved in cryptocurrency investments either as a matter of peer pressure or to generate a passive stream of income. Whatever you choose the best bitcoin cloud mining contract is one that offers flexibility, high hashing power, and a good return-on-investment.
