Bitcoin is a commonly known thing around the ones who even keep up with the latest technologies sporadically. The world’s first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has taken over the world by storm and opens up a new technology wing that is Blockchain. Bitcoin gives you a very high exchange rate, and not to mention, because of this, digital currency is here to stay. So, how do you get Bitcoin? You can either purchase Bitcoin, or you can “mine” it.
However, you need to remember specific points, whether you choose any of the paths mentioned above to acquire Bitcoin. Here are they:
– Choose the right Bitcoin mining hardware, i.e., ASIC miners
– Select the mining software that matches your needs
– Decide whether you are going solo or joining a pool
The next question is, what is Bitcoin mining? In the Bitcoin mining process, the transaction is added digitally to the Blockchain, a publicly distributed ledger that holds every bitcoin transaction history. The mining process uses dedicated hardware (e.g., ASICs, FPGAs) for processing power and software applications to manage rigs or competitive mining computers. In this process, high-powered computers solve complex computational math problems. These problems are incredibly complex, so they cannot be solved by hand. To explain more, the miners digitally add transaction records to the Blockchain. As an incentive to mine and their contribution to the network, the miner is rewarded Bitcoin’s block.
It is a twofold result-
– As the computers solve the complex math problems on the Bitcoin network, they generate new Bitcoin.
– By solving computational math problems, bitcoin miners make the bitcoin payment network secure while verifying its transaction information.
Related post – What is Blockchain technology?
What is Bitcoin Mining Software?
For Bitcoin mining, you need four basic things –
– Competitive mining computers (rigs)
– Low-cost power supply
– Mining software
– Mining pool membership
Now, where does Bitcoin mining software sit among all this? Bitcoin Mining software is specialized tools that use computing power to mine Bitcoin. The Bitcoin mining software works in conjunction with Bitcoin mining hardware, which are specialized computers built to mine cryptocurrency. The software directs how you connect your hardware with your mining pool.
So, if you’ve decided to get into Bitcoin mining, here are some of the best Bitcoin mining software you can get started with.
Best Bitcoin Mining Software
1.CGMiner
Best of versatility
The crypto community considers CGMiner as the best Bitcoin mining software on the market due to its incredible versatility. CGMiner is open source and written in C, runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It also supports three types of mining hardware: GPU, FPGA, and ASIC. This mining software is easy to set up, can detect new blocks in advance, has remote interface capabilities, and can scale to a hash rate of any size without any delay.
2.MultiMiner
Best for Ease of Use
Are you completely new to cryptocurrency? Definitely, starting with mining would be a little daunting for you! Since most of the mining software is command-line based, it will not help you either. So, it would be best if you had something easy to use. There comes MultiMiner as a solution that is easiest to use. MultiMiner is a desktop-based open-source application that comes with many exciting features:
– Supported on Windows, Mac, and Linux
– Compatible with mining devices ASIC, FPGSA
– You can automatically scan and detect mining hardware details with it.
– Using the underlying mining engine, you can detect available mining hardware.
– You can choose the coins to mine
– Automatically detects network devices.
– It can monitor and control MultiMiner rigs remotely.
– At any given point in time, you can get the option to automatically mine the lowest difficulty and most profitable cryptocurrency with the help of MultiMiner.
3.BFGMiner
Best for Customization
If you are looking for customizable Bitcoin mining software, then BFGMiner is the right choice for you! The tool is written in C and a modular FPGA/ASIC miner. It comprises of features like:
– Dynamic monitoring, clocking, fan speed control, and remote interface capabilities.
– It has built-in stratum
– Consists of getwork proxy server
– Stable working service due to heavily threaded separated code. Its watchog thread can restart idle threads, so the machine does not crash even if they fail to respond.
– Supports ‘getblocktemplate’ decentralized mining protocol
– Pre-emptively generate work before the completion of existing work
– It can simultaneously hash on popular mining algorithms, like Scrypt and SHA256d. Besides, it can mine multiple cryptocurrencies at the same time.
4.BTCMiner
Best Cloud-based mining software
BTCMiner is a cloud-based mining software. If you have a Bitcoin wallet and address, the FPGA mining hardware, and an internet connection, then you can mine cryptocurrency on the software.
Here are the features of the software:
– Dynamic frequency scaling / overclocking based on error measurement, i.e., BTCMiner automatically chooses the frequency with the highest valid hashes rate.
– Cluster mode: one software instance can control many FPGA Boards (up to several hundred, limited by the number of USB host controllers)
– Hot-plugging: new FPGA Boards can be added/removed during runtime
– Stale reduction by Long Polling and block monitoring
– Backup server / pools
– Possibility of enumeration of FPGA Boards and cluster partitioning using that numbers
– Power save mode after 5min inactivity per command.
– Temperature monitoring and overheat shutdown (USB-FPGA Module 1.15y rev. 2)
– Overheat protection by shutdown if error rate increase too much
– Logging
– The package is Open Source.
– Ready-to-use Bitstream, i.e., no Xilinx Software or Licence required
[Ref 1: https://opencores.org/projects/btcminer]
5.Easyminer
Best GUI Front-End For Multiple Tools
As mentioned earlier, most of the cryptocurrency mining software is a command-line based. Hence, managing them becomes a chore. Easyminer is an exception in this category, which is graphical and open-source mining software using which you can mine your Bitcoin.
Features of Easyminer:
– Supports minerd, cudaminer, ccminer, cgminer, and ASIC mining for Bitcoin.
– Supports gatework mining protocol as well stratum
– Mining can be done both solo and pooled
– EasyMaker comes with a dedicated “Moneymaker” mode dedicated to the mining of LTC on its own stratum pool.
– Easyminer comes with paranoid security features. It uses the NHIL (Network Hardware ID Layer) protocol to provide an extra layer of security for the pool stratum and wallet architecture.
– It’s worth mentioning that Easyminer only works on Windows
More information: https://www.easyminer.net/
Final Thought
It’s no surprise that cryptocurrency is a wonderful medium for secure, private, and stable payments. However, one of the disadvantages of Blockchain technology is it harnesses the power of computing. So, you have to do to earn some money. So, proper setup is a vital criterion here, no matter whether you are a solo user or a company that wishes to harness computing power for Bitcoin mining. It’s obviously not easy, nor is it intended to be. It’s all up to your budget, bandwidth, and amount of patience, and no one right solution works for everyone. If you want to do rapid mining of cryptocurrency, then no doubt, it is expensive. However, with the help of the right software, you can still get the job done. The trick is to have the right Bitcoin mining software that supports this.
So, what’s your thought on the Bitcoin mining software? Let’s know your opinion!