Nowadays, cryptocurrency is a common feature of society, where almost anyone is able to get involved and increasingly make use of it in everyday life. The thing is, crypto does not just get printed like normal money, in fact, the process could not be more polar opposite. As decentralised and encrypted assets, it makes sense that computers are involved in their distribution to the general circulation, and the way in which this occurs is through crypto mining. If you are not familiar with cryptocurrency, the above information may be a little confusing, however, taking what we have already mentioned and developing it a little further, these assets do not require banks to authenticate payments or transfers and therefore secures the flows of the currency, embodying the future of payments big and small, commercial or personal.
Going back to the idea of mining cryptocurrency, which is what we will be investigating today, it is important to mention right away that it is probably not going to be for everyone, yet this is not to say it will not be for you. In short, it involves the use of computers to solve mathematical problems the likes of which would not be cracked by mathematicians regardless of their skill level. The responsibilities of a crypto miner do extend beyond the introduction of new digital assets and include monitoring roles in order to ensure the integrity of the currency is protected. For those of you who are prospective investors intrigued by this market, in this article we will look into the costs involved, the potential benefits, and also the future developments that may take place in the industry and introduce new opportunities for investment.
Costs involved
For the purpose of clarity and consistency, we will use Bitcoin as a benchmark for all of the criteria we will discuss today so that the relative data and statistics can be applied to other crypto, so you are able to ascertain the viability of an investment like this. Firstly, Bitcoin mining has traditionally been energy intensive, an automatic indicator of high costs, couple this with the Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chip required nowadays, costing from within the hundreds of dollars up to the tens of thousands, there is a variety of ways your final equipment and running bills could end up looking. From the get-go we can see this is not a cheap investment, and with prices in the crypto market being as dynamic as they are, this is always subject to change. It has been reported that currently to mine one BTC it could cost between US$11,000 and US$19,000 which is a lot, however, the value of Bitcoin did reach US$64,000 in April this year, demonstrating that there are profits to be found.
Benefits
The profit to be found from mining crypto can be seen as a benefit on the surface, but the energy intense methods and amount of effort that goes into undertaking such a task nullifies this a little. So, instead of focusing on profit alone, we will look a little more into some of the other benefits to be found from investing in a crypto miner. Initially, the time it takes one block of BTC to be mined is 10 minutes, and bearing in mind one block is 6.25 Bitcoins, this is a rather rapid pace for such a valuable asset. There are some countries where industrial electricity is at a reduced rate or subsidised in order to attract business and stimulate economies, making mining Bitcoin a potential investment to look out for in developing nations looking to find foreign investors to maintain growth rates year on year as your chances of success are greater wherever running costs can be lowered.
Future developments
The final factor that makes crypto mining an interesting investment prospect for the future is climate change, taking centre stage in global affairs and highlighting environmental issues with Bitcoin. In turn, there is room left behind for innovative tech companies to develop new ways to mine crypto without contributing to the problem. Due to this, Bitcoin ceases to become the focus in this instance, as other cryptocurrencies are able to compete, perhaps not in value, but at least in terms of sustainability, which, in the long term, may raise the potential returns associated with mining such alternatives. Ethereum is another large cryptocurrency and has previously used the same mining method as Bitcoin, yet, times are changing, and Ethereum is moving to Proof-of-Stake mining which could cut energy use by 99.95%. If this comes into being, this could be just the start for more sustainable mining of cryptocurrency, and perhaps investment in this new wave of mining could one day provide extremely healthy returns.
If you are interested in finding out more, contact us today. Our team of global citizens at Creimerman would be extremely happy to help, and as we aim to always help our clients find success in their personal and business ventures, we would love to make you the next.
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