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The DigitalX Mintsy service has been available for a bit already (currently in beta), but we haven’t checked it until recently when we decided to register and give it a quick look. It essentally combined multiple services into one with some nice features and also some integration with the Cryptsy crypto currency exchange. What you get at Mintsy is a service where you can mine with your own mining hardware, you can sell your hashrate ot rent from other users for mining various algorithms or you can purchase a contract for mining hashrate to mine SHA256 or Scrypt-based crypto currencies or with other words cloud mining. It is all integrated into a clean and useful interface with a user friendly wizard intended to help bnot so advanced users to get started. So far, so good… things do really look like promising, or at least until you take a deeper look and do some math.
We are going to be focusing on the Mintsy Contracts which are essentially giving you cloud mining hashrate for a limited time – 1 month, 3 months or 6 months. The contract price includes all fees, so you do not pay anything extra for maintenance for example, but still the process are a bit higher than you would consider them profitable and worth investing into. Here is a quick example, if you buy a SHA256 mining contract for 100 GHS with a 30 day duration you would have to pay $19 USD for it, but with the current market condition mining for Bitcoins you would be earning just about 0.0317 BTC or about $7.2 USD at the current exchange price. Longer term contracts and for more hashrate do seem a bit better in terms of return of investment, though they are riskier, but you would still end up a bit short on what you have paid and that is if the market conditions remain as they are at the moment. The good thing is that you have the ability to mine in a pool and a coin of your choosing and soon there will also hopefully be a market for contracts where you should be able to sell them to other users if you decide to get out earlier. The situation with the Scrypt mining contracts is slightly worse, so the return of investment there and the risk is even higher.
It is up to you to decide where to invest and how much if you are interested in mining contracts, but for the moment we do not plan to go for any of the mining plans offered by Mintsy. As for using their mining pools or using the rig renting or leasing functionality, there are also better and more advanced services focused on either of these available that we would prefer.
- Published in: Tests and Reviews
- Related tags: Cryptsy, digitalBTC, DigitalX, DigitalX Mintsy, mining contracts, Mintsy
MandelDuck, the developer of the free game SaruTobi that awards player with real Bitcoins for playing, has released a new game with Bitcoin Tipping feature called Game of Birds. This is kind of a parody mimicking the Game of Thrones franchise in its name, but the game actually does not have anything to do with the popular TV series, nor it is just another Flappy Birds clone. It is actually a fund and engaging game that requires some logic thinking and some experimenting until you reach the best way to free a trapped little chick from the bad owls that surround it. To free the little chick and let it fly away free you need to use different kind of bombs to get rid of the bad owls, but beware there are some more bad things around you – hungry Foxes, Zombie viruses and deadly Wild Fires. Then there are also some Bitcoins that you can spot scattered among the levels, collecting these award you with real Bitcoin tips that are currently in the form of 100 bits or 10000 satoshi per tip.
The previous game SaruTobi relies on the Xapo online Bitcoin wallet, so you have to enter your email address that is also the username for your wallet to get the Bitcoin tips. In their new game called Game of Birds the developers apparently decided to go for an alternative, s o they are using the Coinbase online Bitcoin wallet instead. In order to be able to receive Bitcoin tips while playing the game you will have to enter your Coinbase username which is also the email address that you used to register at the service. In order to get your Bitcoin tip or 100 bits (10000 satoshi) while playing the game all you have to do is destroy a Bitcoin coin that you see in the level you are playing.
The new Game of Birds game is only available for iOS devices, just like SaruTobi, as MandelDuck is developing games for the Apple mobile platform, so unfortunately Android owners will not be able to check the game out. Do note that it requires iOS 8.1 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, but is optimized for iPhone 5, iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus. A word of warning, the game can be addictive, so be careful as you progress through the different levels the difficulty also increases. So just have fun playing and enjoy the real Bitcoin tips you can earn while you have fun playing the game.
– For more information and to download and try the free game Game of Birds for iOS…
- Published in: General Info
- Related tags: Bitcoin free game, Bitcoin game, Bitcoin iOs game, Bitcoin iPad game, Bitcoin iPhone game, Bitcoin mobile game, Bitcoin rewards, bitcoin tipping, Bitcoin tips, BTC tipping, BTC tips, Flappy Birds, Game of Birds, Game of Thrones, GOB, MandelDuck, SaruTobi
As Bitcoin popularity and usage continues to grow and along with that it is becoming harder and harder to be mined at home due to large scale mining farms all across the world. Furthermore the things get harder for home miners due to many ASIC manufacturers stopping to sell hardware to end users and focusing either on their own mining farms or supplying large mining operations such as KnCMiner and Spondoolies-Tech. Other companies getting bankrupt due to various reasons leaving just BitMain as pretty much the only Bitcoin ASIC miner supplier offering up to date hardware and shipping to home miners as well as mining farms. This turns users’ attention to cloud mining services, but these can be risky as we’ve seen from our own experience testing many such services over time. The two most significant risks with cloud mining services are them turning out to be a scam and running away with your money or the services turning unprofitable and stopping to mine as they are not able to cover the hardware maintenance costs. We’ve already seen many examples of both, but we’ve also seen some that are still here and continue to operate as we have been using them long term for about a year or so. We have listed the services we’ve been using long term below along with some that we’ve started testing more recently and we are seeing some good potential in them.
Using for a long time already:
– Genesis Mining is one of the most serious entrants into the cloud mining world that we’ve been using for about 12 months already. The company is trying to be open and transparent regarding its mining operations including their hardware suppliers to counter the mistrust issues. Daily payouts, transparency, multiple ways to purchasing cloud mining hashrate. Here is a special promotional code that is giving you 5% discount for every purchase you make – CryptoMiningBlog5.
– Bitcoin Cloud Services is a more anonymous cloud mining operation that we started using about the same time as Genesis Mining, though it is apparently over a year old now. Have changed their initial offer from 5 years to 1 (currently promotional 2 year contracts), but are still here and pay out mined earnings on a daily basis, offer attractive pricing and anonymity is a plus for some people.
– ScryptCC is the oldest cloud mining services we are still using – over a year and a few months already. It looked promising and worked fine unless you had an issue and needed to deal with support from the start, so we’ve had some mixed feelings about it initially. They are still here and still paying out, recently had some data center electricity issues that resulted in a few days downtime and lower profitability for a bit, but it seems that things are apparently resolved now.
Started testing these more recently:
– Mining Sweden is a relatively new entry in the cloud mining scene, starting as a smaller mining operation and with big plans to grow with the help of its users promising to share a part of their own profits. The service offers Mining Shares that are only for cloud mining and VIP Shares that give you not only cloud mining hashrate, but percentage of the profits of the operation. The service also offers users to buy BitMain AntMiner S5 ASIC miners and have them hosted in their data center. Could be a good long term investment as things seem to be working pretty well so far. Here is an extra 10% discount code from the regular prices that you can use, just enter ms10 during checkout
– GigaHash is another new and interesting entrant in the Bitcoin cloud mining scene. It is another small mining operation that is scaling well, started as a private mining investment and after that offering cloud mining services to broader audience. Currently sold out all of the available existing hashrate, but offering pre-orders for the new hardware that is coming to them in a couple of days.
– HashFlare is another new service that has recently launched apparently operated by a Bitcoin ASIC manufacturer, but a bit controversial one – HashCoins. So far it seems that the service is working just fine and is paying out, but be careful with larger investments in cloud mining hashrate here just in case. If you want to try it out, here is a promo code for 5% off for purchases over 250 GHS – HF15SMMR5P2 or 20% off for purchases over 2500 GHS – HF15SMMR20P2.