Mining Bitcoins Yourself
The Bitcoin Gold Rush has reached its late stage. That means it is very difficult (and expensive) today to mine Bitcoins. While it was possible to mine Bitcoins with a desktop PC back in the day, nowadays Bitcoin mining is done through specialized hardware which uses ASICs (application-specific integrated circuit chips). Their prices are soaring (just like shovels were during the Gold Rush), they consume a lot of electricity, and despite their incredible hash-computing power (compared to desktop PCs), the probability of solving the hash and creating a block to get Bitcoin rewards is miniscule as the competition is extremely stiff with companies deploying whole farms of mining hardware.
Pool Mining
If you’d still like to try your luck and start mining, it is best to join a mining pool. A mining pool connects many miners into a single network node and when the pool is successful in creating a verified block, the Bitcoin reward is redistributed to all the miners who participated in the hash computing. The size of the reward for each miner is proportional to the computing power (hashes/second) they provided. The first mining pool was established in December 2010.
Cloud Mining
Another way to secure enough power without having to operate the mining hardware at home is to rent the hash power from a remote datacenter which owns the mining hardware. Be wary however, because many Bitcoin cloud mining companies are fraudulent. We can recommend Genesis Mining and Hashing24.
