During this years’ summer, you may have started to hear people and the news talking about the Cryptomarket and Cryptocurrency. These terms may be new to a vast majority of people, but they have actually been around for a few years, pointing back to 2009 with the creation of Bitcoin. The reason you’re hearing about them is due to record highs being posted in May and early June. Bitcoin reached around $3000 per coin, and Ethereum posted a record of $417.21 during June. Just last December one Ethereum coin only cost $6! With these huge gains, more people wanted to invest and reap the same benefits, causing the once little known cryptocurrency world to hit the mainstream.
WHAT EXACTLY IS CRYPTOCURRENCY?
Simply put cryptocurrency is digital currency.
WHERE DO YOU GET THEM?
There are two ways to get your hands on these coins. First, you could purchase them, or you could mine them. However, buying coins isn’t the most user-friendly experience, with some sites having problems due to traffic. But it is still very similar to buying and trading stock in the stock market. To get coins from mining you must first have a “Mining Rig”. This is a computer that uses graphics cards or the CPU to mine. There are also specially developed machines call ASIC machines that can mine coins. The coins have different algorithms, so depending on what coin you want to mine will depend on which hardware route you will take.
WHAT IS MINING AND HOW DO YOU DO IT?
First, mining is setting up your computer or ASIC machine to use its computing power to support the network’s transactions. Your computing power is used to validate and process transactions where your coin is being used. Each time a transaction occurs, they must pay a transaction fee, which will then be evenly distributed to miners on the network. This is based on the amount of work their machines did to support said transaction.
To actually start crypto mining, you must first choose your chosen hardware. Then, once you research which coin you want to mine, you download and run specialized software to begin mining. A simpler way is to use Nicehash miner, which once downloaded, all you have to do is click mine and the program will mine the most profitable coin for your machine and automatically turn it into Bitcoin for you. Depending on which coin you’re trying to mine, you’re also going to need a wallet to store your coins in, as leaving them on an exchange or anywhere on the internet is risky. Each coin has wallets you can download locally onto your machine or smartphone. You can also buy external hardware wallets that provide an extra layer of security for your coins.