Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

The information listed on the mining profitability page is designed to help you decide which cryptocurrency is the most profitable to mine based on your mining hardware.

To get the most out of this information, we recommend you enter your mining hardware details in the fields provided: Hash Rate, Power Usage in Watts, and Power Costs. And then select which type of cryptocurrency to mine based on your mining hardware: SHA-256 or Scrypt.

If your mining hardware or mining rig consists of GPUs and/or CPUs, your most profitable option is to mine Scrypt cryptocurrencies. Therefore, you should uncheck the SHA-265 option.

If your mining hardware or mining rig consists of ASIC devices, your only option is to mine SHA-256 cryptocurrencies. Therefore, you should uncheck the Scrypt option.

Simply put, we evaluate the mining hardware that is currently available for purchase and delivery , which does not include hardware that can be pre-ordered. After identifying the mining hardware, we determine the average hash rates and power consumption for each of the hashing algorithms using a hardware budget of $1,000 USD.

With the release of ASIC devices the hardware available for the different hashing algorithms has changed significantly, therefore using a hardware budget is now the best way to compare profitability across multiple hashing algorithms.

We will continue to update the default hash rates and power wattages frequently so we can provide a better sense of the mining hardware and mining profitability markets.

The information is gathered from two primary sources; the cryptocurrency exchanges and the cryptocurrency client software or more commonly referred to as the coin wallet.

The coin wallet provides a JSON-RPC API, which allows CoinWarz to obtain the current difficulty, block count and various other pieces of information displayed on coinwarz.com.

The cryptocurrency exchanges provide public APIs, which allows CoinWarz to obtain the open bids (Bitcoin (BTC) exchange rates) and volume data for the given crypto currencies listed on coinwarz.com.

Using these two pieces of information and some simple math, we are able provide the profitability and estimated earnings information listed on the mining profitability page and the cryptocurrency calculator pages.

The current difficulty, exchange rate, exchange volume, and current profit ratio versus BTC are updated every 5 minutes. All other information, including the difficulty charts, exchange rate charts, and profit ratio versus BTC charts are updated every hour.

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In order for CoinWarz to list a cryptocurrency, we need to ensure the cryptocurrency is listed on one of the exchanges we currently support and the cryptocurrency is listed under a BTC market or can be traded directly for Bitcoin.

Most importantly, the cryptocurrency trade volume in Bitcoin (BTC) must be at least 1 BTC for the last 24 hours to even be considered.

We currently support exchange data from Bitstamp, Coinbase, and CoinGecko.

If you have a cryptocurrency that meets these criteria, use the contact form to send us the following information for the cryptocurrency.

Make sure to include the cryptocurrency name, website, hashing algorithm, the github.com repository link, a link to a forum announcement page on bitcointalk.org or cryptocointalk.com, and the list of exchanges.

To display banner ads on our website, you can either contact us for a custom deal or sign up as an Advertiser with Coinzilla and deliver your ads directly on our website.

You will need three items to start mining a cryptocurrency: mining hardware (CPU, GPU, or ASIC), mining software, and the cryptocurrency client or coin wallet .

However, deciding which mining hardware to purchase, which mining software to choose from, and if it is better to mine by joining a pool or to solo mine, is a much bigger question that is best left to be answered and discussed on BitcoinTalk.org. This forum has hundreds of knowledgeable members and a vast amount of forum posts all about this topic.

That said, here are some recommended links to help you get started mining some crypto currencies.

Mining Guides

Beginner's Guide to Mining Bitcoin (Applies to all SHA-256 cryptocurrencies)

Litecoin Mining Guide for 5xxx, 6xxx, and 7xxx GPUs (Applies to all Scrypt cryptocurrencies)

Mining Hardware

SHA-256 Mining Hardware

Scrypt Mining Hardware

Mining Software

CGMINER

BFGMiner

Mining Pools

Mining Pools Forum Posts

Cryptocurrency Client Software - Coin Wallets

Bitcoin

Litecoin

All Other Alternate Cryptocurrencies

If you are using an SHA-256 ASIC device, the ASIC manufacturer should be able to provide the nominal hash rate for the ASIC device. Therefore, you should refer back to the manufacturer of the SHA-256 ASIC device to determine the hash rate.

If you are using a Graphics Card (GPU) or CPU to mine SHA-256 or Scrypt cryptocurrencies you can find the typical hash rate value for a given GPU or CPU via the following links.

SHA-256 Cryptocurrencies (BTC, PPC, NMC, etc.)

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

Scrypt Cryptocurrencies (LTC, NVC, MEC, WDC, etc.)

https://litecoin.info/Mining_hardware_comparison

The short answer is, no.

Unfortunately is very hard to set a definitive value for stale/reject/orphan rates for a given coin and mining hardware configuration. For this reason, we do not account for stale/reject/orphan rates in any of the calculations on CoinWarz.

Even though it is very hard to determine a typical stale/reject/orphan rate for a given coin and mining configuration, there are still several factors that should be considered.

Cryptocurrency Block Time:

The faster a cryptocurrency's block time is, the higher the rate of stales/rejects/orphans will be as compared to cryptocurrencies with a slower block time. This is because there is only a very short period of time in which a block must be solved. And once solved, the cryptocurrency network (connected peers) must notify each other that the block was solved so they can all move on to solving the next block. The problem is that it takes time to send this block notification to the entire network. And this delay will cause shares submitted for the old block (or previously solved block) flagged as stale and rejected.

Furthermore, with faster block times the network has less time to transmit this information and now the global network latency becomes a critical factor in how high the rate of stales/rejects/orphans could be.

Difficulty:

Much like the block time, the lower the difficulty the higher the rate of stales/rejects/orphans there will be, especially considering it will be a lot easier for miners to solve a block. At a higher rate of blocks being solved, a strain or higher network load will be put on the cryptocurrency network's capacity to broadcast the block solved notifications in a timely manner, which may leave some miners still trying to solve a block that has already been solved and resulting in stales/rejects/orphans.

Mining Pools:

Mining pools can be plagued with higher stale/reject/orphan rates for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost is the cryptocurrency that is being mined by the pool. As stated previously, cryptocurrencies with faster block times and lower difficulty will have a higher potential for a higher rate of stale/reject/orphan rates.

Secondly, is the mining protocol being used. The Stratum Mining protocol can greatly reduce the stale/reject/orphan rates due to its low network overhead. Essentially there is less information that has to be transmitted over the network; therefore it is more efficient. Mining Pools that use the older Getwork protocol will always have a higher potential for a higher rate of stale/reject/orphan rates due to the higher network overhead of the Getwork protocol.

Lastly, is the mining pool's server capacity and network latency. If the mining pool is slow or the network latency is really high there will be a higher potential for a higher rate of stale/reject/orphan rates.

Mining Software:

Most mining configurations for CGMINER and BFGMiner, SHA-256 or Scrypt, are pretty standard across many cryptocurrencies. However, there are some additional configurations that will impact the stale/reject/orphan rates when using the older Getwork protocol. Scan time is probably the most critical setting since it defines the time to work on solving a block before giving up and requesting more work from the pool or crypto currency client (solo mining). For cryptocurrencies with faster block times, the correct setting for the scan time becomes very critical to reduce the rate of stales/rejects/orphans.

Always use the latest version of Mining software for CGMINER, BFGMiner, or any others.

When Mining on a Pool

1. For the quickest communication between your miner and the pool server, ensure you are connected using the Stratum Mining protocol.
2. Find a pool with the lowest network latency between your miner and the pool.
3. Find a pool that is fast, with good response times for the web site and pool stratum servers.
4. Ensure your mining software is configured correctly according to the pool's documentation for miners. Typically, the pool will provide the correct mining software configuration. If not, find another mining pool.
5. At all costs, avoid using a mining pool that only allows connections using the old Get Work mining protocol, especially if you are mining SHA-256 coins.

When Solo Mining

1. Ensure you have the cryptocurrency client connected to as many peers as possible so you can broadcast your block solution quicker than all the other miners trying to solve that block. This usually requires opening the P2P port (TCP port 8333 for Bitcoin) on your firewall and/or router for the given cryptocurrency.
2. Have the cryptocurrency client and the mining software on the same computer or on the same local network to reduce network latencies.

The adjusted hash rate uses the Scrypt hash rate value entered and then reduces the hash rate based on the N-Factor for the given cryptocurrency. The reduction calculation is based on the average hash rate reductions of 12 different GPU models.

Here are the calculations used for the corresponding N-Factors.

N-Factor	Calculation	Adjusted Hash Rate Example
2048	Scrypt Hash Rate * 0.45	1000 KH/s * 0.45 = 450 KH/s
4096	Scrypt Hash Rate * 0.10	1000 KH/s * 0.10 = 100 KH/s

Additional N-Factor adjustments will be added in the future.

We recommend using the Scrypt-N cryptocurrency mining calculators for the most accurate calculations.

The exchange rate displayed is based on a weighted arithmetic mean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weighted_arithmetic_mean) calculation using the open bids to total minimum BTC depth of 0.1 BTC.

In other words, we take all the open bids (in BTC) from highest to lowest that add up to at least 0.1 BTC, and then using these bids, we calculate the exchange rate using some simple math.

You would need to first exchange the cryptocurrency for a cryptocurrency that is exchanged to USD, like Bitcoin (BTC). All the coins listed on CoinWarz can be exchanged for Bitcoin (BTC), so we recommend exchanging your coins for BTC. Also, some cryptocurrencies can be exchanged to Litecoin (LTC).

To find a list of supported exchanges for a given cryptocurrency click on the coin name on the profitability list or choose the cryptocurrency from the “Cryptocurrencies” menu above.

Once you have exchanged your coins to Bitcoin (BTC), you can then choose where to exchange your Bitcoin (BTC) for USD. Bitstamp and Coinbase are a few exchanges listed on CoinWarz, but there are many other BTC to USD exchanges. We recommend using Coinbase.

You can calculate the USD value for any cryptocurrency by using the Bitcoin (BTC) to USD exchange rate and the cryptocurrency's Bitcoin (BTC) exchange rate.

Use the following calculation:

(Cryptocurrency to BTC Exchange Rate) x (BTC to USD Exchange Rate) = USD

For Example, the Litecoin (LTC) to Bitcoin (BTC) exchange rate is 0.03 at Cryptsy and the Bitcoin (BTC) to USD exchange rate is $1,000.00 USD at Coinbase, therefore using the calculation above, the USD value for 1 Litecoin (LTC) would be $30.00 USD.

0.03 (LTC/BTC) * 1000 (BTC/USD) = 30 USD