Mining Profitability of Zcash (ZEC) and Ethereum (ETH) Is Now Pretty Much the Same

7 Nov
2016

zcash-calculator

After the initial craze due to the scarcity of Zcash (ZEC) coins and the big demand the prices has skyrocketed, but now with the slow start of mining progressing and the total block reward almost at 4 ZEC things are starting to stabilize. The initial crazy high profit for mining and selling Zcash coins seems to be over and at the moment mining and selling ETH or ZEC does bring almost the same profit for some GPU miners, though not for all. Miners with older AMD Radeon 79×0 and 280X GPUs still have higher profit mining Zcash than Ethereum, but for users with RX 480 for example things are already on the line to switch back to Ethereum. Nvidia seems to be currently lagging as far as performance optimizations for Zcash go, so the profitability there could be better for another algorithm or mining for another perspective in the long term crypto coin might also be a viable option.

You can keep track of the current profitability with the help of some useful mining calculators like the ones provided by CryptoCompare for both Zcash (ZEC) as well as for Ethereum (ETH) along with a few other popular coins such as Ethereum Classic (ETC), Monero (XMR), DigitalCash (DASH) and Litecoin (LTC). Make sure you set the correct hashrate your mining hardware is providing for each algorithm to make a proper calculation as different GPUs do provide different hashrate for the various algorithms. Do note that Etheeum Classic might also turn out to be pretty profitable alternative as well for some video cards that are still providing higher hashrate for the Ethash algorithm.

Claymore’s Zcash AMD GPU Miner v1.0 Now Available for Windows

4 Nov
2016

claymore-zcash

Claymore has just released his new miner targeted at Zcash (ZEC) miners and only for Windows at the moment, probably making it the fastest AMD OpenCL GPU miner at the moment for Windows OS. Do note that the miner is free, but there is currently a developer fee set at 2.5%, meaning that every hour the miner mines for 90 seconds for developer. According to Claymore this initial release is only for recent AMD video cards only: 7xxx, 2xx, 3xx and 4xx, 2GB or more and it does not support Nvidia GPUs with only Windows x64 binaries available at the moment for download.

A bit something about speeds with the new Zcash miner from Claymore, they are higher than what other Windows GPU miners were offering prior to the release of this miner (there are apparently faster Linux miners like SilentArmy’s V3 for example). A stock AMD Radeon 280X seems to do about 44-45 H/s, AMD Radeon 290X does a bit more at about 46-47 H/s, AMD Radeon 370 does about 35 H/s, AMD Radeon RX 480 does about 40-41 H/s in our initial tests. Feel free to share your hashrate results in the comments below if you do try the new miner…

– For more details and to download Claymore’s Zcash AMD GPU Miner v1.0…

Some Updates for the Available Zcash (ZEC) Cloud Mining Options

3 Nov
2016

genesis-zcash-hashrate-new

Starting with Genesis Mining who have once more upgraded the Zcash cloud mining hashrate for their existing customers by another 25%. This means that everyone that has already purchased Zcash cloud mining hashrate from them got a nice boost in performance and amount of mined ZEC for free. Furthermore, new customers purchasing Zcash cloud mining hashrate will also get a boost in the hashrate they purchase, however the mining for new contracts purchased at the moment will start on December 1st and not immediately, so pretty much after the slow start for the mining ends.

The new Zcash (ZEC) cloud mining prices are the following after the last upgrade with 25% improvement in hashrate – 0.75 H/s for $29 USD, 7.5 H/s for $280 USD and 75 H/s for $2600 USD. These are up form 0.6 H/s, 6 H/s and 60 H/s for the same prices thanks to the hashrate improvement that apparently the company has achieved in their mining recently. Also don’t forget that you can use our special discount code during checkout to get 3% off the regular prices for Zcash mining hashrate, just enter CryptoMiningBlog5 as promo code during checkout to take advantage of the better price offer.

– For more information about the Zcash cloud mining pre-order from Genesis Mining…

hashflare-zcash

Another cloud mining service provider that has been available for quite some time already as well – HashFlare has also announced their plans for offering cloud mining hashrate for Zcash (ZEC). They have already started the presale of mining contracts with a price of 4.20 USD per 0.1 H/s with the launch of mining planned to start before 21.11.16, so you will be able to catch some of the slow start mining period as well. Each of their Zcash cloud mining contracts will last for 1 year (from activation) and will not have any additional fees as everything is apparently included in the price.

Their prices are now a bit higher than the above alternative since the latest announcement of hashrate upgrade, but there is an active promotional code for them as well that is following a recent Halloween promotion going for all knids of cloud mining hashrate being offered. You can use the promo code HF16HLLWN10 to get a 10% discount from the regular price of $4.20 USD per 0.1 H/s for the EQUIHASH cloud mining hashrate being offered at the moment. Do note however that this discount code will be valid only until 06.11.2016 23:59 (UTC +0) when the promotional offer will expire.

– To check out the new HashFlare Zcash (ZEC) cloud mining hashrate available for pre-order…

nicehash-zcash

Besides the ability to rent and lease hashrate for the new Equihash mining algorithm being used by Zcash (ZEC) NiceHash is also offering what they call Fast Zcash Cloud Mining Contracts. These are 24 hour mining contracts, but with a large amount of hashrate that you are getting for this short period of time. This is an interesting alternative to long term cloud mining contracts, but probably not the best one for the moment while we are still in the slow start of mining for Zcash. Still a nice alternative to have to long term contracts as well as to traditional renting of hashrate where the price may vary and here you have a fixed price for the day.

Another popular service for renting and leasing hashrate, namely Mining Rig Rentals has yet to introduce support for the new algorithm used by Zcash (ZEC), so for the moment it is not interesting option for people that are all into Equihash. With the big interest however we are not going to be surprised if they don’t take much time to also introduce Zcash support in the next days.

top