Cryptocurrency mining is one of the most lucrative means of making money with crypto, as it continues to attract interest from people across the crypto space. This explains why the hash rate continues to rise in Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, the two most popular cryptocurrencies. Mining is an important component of cryptocurrency growth as it defines the functioning of the blockchain and increases opportunities for investors. If you’re a crypto enthusiast, you must have thought about the idea of venturing into crypto mining. It offers crypto enthusiasts the opportunity to earn passive income daily. Sometimes it’s the desire to be part of the prestigious miners, even if profitability is not assured. But more importantly, anyone interested in crypto mining needs to acquaint themselves with the cryptocurrency they intend to mine, the mining apparatus required and the benefits of mining pools depending upon the coin they intend to mine.
In this article, we analyze and list the best cryptocurrencies to mine in 2022, and how to mine them. These cryptocurrencies can be mined with minimal investments.
1. Bitcoin (BTC)
As the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin continues to be the top choice amongst crypto miners across the world. At the time of writing this article, the Bitcoin price was US$20,550. Despite its price dropping over the last few months from a high of US$65,000, crypto enthusiasts are still optimistic about Bitcoin’s future. Currently, the BTC mining reward is 6.15 BTC per block, which is expected to be halved to 3.125 after four years. It must be noted that Bitcoin mining is one of the most difficult and resource-consuming, especially with the high energy needed to mine a single block.
The first thing to do when mining BTC is to set up your Bitcoin Mining Hardware, create a dedicated Bitcoin Wallet, and configure your mining equipment. At this point, you are set to start mining your Bitcoin.
2. Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum has gained a reputation for its innovative smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps). Mining ETH, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, can be quite lucrative. At the time of writing this article, ETH was trading at $1,181.63. The current Ethereum mining reward stands at 2 ETH per block.
Ethereum uses the Ethash hashing function, and you can use CPU and GPU devices to mine it. Ethereum mining is lucrative because the more people try to mine a single coin, the more profit each of them will make. This is partly because each block reward is halved or tripled and the coin reaches its total supply faster. It is important to note that the cryptocurrency has converted to Ethereum 2.0 following its swapping of the consensus algorithm from proof of work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS). However, miners can still use the PoW consensus mechanism to mine.
There are many methods of mining Ethereum, including GPU, CPU, ASIC mining, and pool mining. Among the listed mining methods, pool mining is the best method as it allows miners to pool resources that would allow them to make more profits.
To successfully mine through mining pools, you can select the mining pool, create a crypto wallet, select mining software, create a BAT file, and start mining.
3. Monacoin (MONA)
MonaCoin (MONA) is a fork of Litecoin, whose PoW hashing algorithm makes it one of the most profitable cryptocurrencies to mine. At the time of writing this article, MonaCoin (MONA) was trading at US$0.49. As a lesser-known cryptocurrency, MONA is a lot easier to mine than its more popular counterparts like Bitcoin or Ethereum. This makes it a lot more profitable cryptocurrency to mine than many popular cryptocurrencies.
Mining MonaCoin is not complicated as all you need is a secure hardware wallet and a hardware device to handle the mining process. You can use both Solo mining and Pool mining techniques. You can also use ASIC, GPU, and CPU machines to mine MONA.
4. ZCash
ZCash is a cryptocurrency that was created with a strong background of privacy, and it's one of the most lucrative cryptocurrencies to mine. The ASIC-resistant crypto is quite popular within the crypto community. The fact that you cannot use ASIC to mine it makes ZCash high-value crypto for miners. This also makes its price stable and reliable, which means it can make a good long-term investment for miners. You can mine ZCash through GPU, CPU, and ZCash mining pool. The latter is the best, and you can accomplish it by investing in mining equipment before you join a mining pool.
5. Monero (XMR)
Monero is another cryptocurrency that has gained a reputation for its focus on privacy. Based on the CryptoNote protocol, Monero uses the RandomX hash function and is ASIC-resistant. This makes it one of the most popular crypto to mine with a promising long-term prospect. You Can mine Monero with CPU, which means your Mac or PC is sufficient for your mining process.
6. Grin (GRIN)
Grin is one of the newest cryptocurrencies that came into existence in 2019. Unlike many other cryptocurrencies, GRIN does not have a maximum supply. It is another ASIC-resistant cryptocurrency, which enables easy mining with a simple CPU and GPU devices for regular cryptocurrency users. To mine GRIN, you do not need a huge investment as its hashing function applied in MimbleWimble will currently give you a mining reward of 60 GRIN per block.
7. RavenCoin (RVN)
Ravencoin is a fork of Bitcoin, and the cryptocurrency has gained popularity with crypto enthusiasts owing to its special features such as its secure crypto wallet, messaging, and RVN voting mechanism. RaveCoin is quite popular in many exchanges, hence attracting a high number of traders buying and selling it.
To mine RVN is easy as a miner can use its KawPoW protocol and X16R hashing function to execute the mining process. At the time of writing this article, its block mining reward stands at 5,000 RVN per block.
8. Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoin is a Bitcoin hard fork that has gained wide popularity within the crypto space due to its solid features and functionalities. It has been one of the best cryptocurrencies to mine with GPU for many years. Litecoin uses the Scrypt protocol, and its hashing function gives a reward of 12.5 LTC per block mined.
9. Bitcoin Gold (BTG)
This is another Bitcoin hard fork that has proved to be quite popular with miners. Bitcoin Gold uses Equihash which ensures it achieves a democratization goal disallowing the use of specialized mining equipment, which is the reason it was created. You can mine BTG with a GPU device, and the reward for mining is 6.25 BTGs per block.
10. Dogecoin (DOGE)
Closing our list is Dogecoin, which takes the lead as the easiest cryptocurrency to mine. Dogecoin is also very profitable to mine, as it uses the Scrypt mining algorithm. The best approach to use is to join the DOGE mining pool or use cloud mining. You will need to choose a DOGE mining hardware between CPU, GPU, and ASIC.
Final Thoughts
There are a lot of cryptocurrencies in the market today and the decision on which one to mine can be a hard task. From this guide, you can choose which cryptocurrency to go with if you decide to invest in mining. What matters is profitability, and the resources you have to make your mining journey easier. You may also decide based on what project interests you.
