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According to the digital age, the cloud has a bright future ahead of it. Those who were terminated from yesterday's mining could be seduced by today's cloud. Subjected to animated debates within the community because of the Ponzi pyramids built around it, the history of the cloud goes before a long experience where cloud mining will finally interfere. Turnkey solutions that are ideal for an audience new to cryptoactives but whose contours will have to be addressed. For now, let's move the pawns towards a paradigm shift in mining. Let's decompose.
The origins of Cloud Mining
Definition
Before going into the details of what cloud mining is, it is worth laying down a short definition in order to understand what this famous cloud mining is.
The activity of cloud mining consists in renting a quantity of computing power to a company in order to mine cryptocurrencies.
As a reminder, cryptocurrency mining is the activity of validating transactions on the blockchain network thanks to powerful computer called miners.
In return, the miner is paid in cryptocurrency.
Context
We are therefore at the beginning of the 2010s, cryptocurrencies and mining are still young and very little democratized but the first signs of interest are starting to emerge. At this time, it is possible to mine with your own computer, but the operation requires some computer skills. And then very quickly, the world of mining is going to experience an acceleration with a turn taken in 2013. This year of 2013 marks the history of bitcoin and mining on several levels. It is first during this year that we know the first two peaks in the price of Bitcoin : between January and April 2013, bitcoin will rise from $13 to over $250 before collapsing to $60 at the end of April to bounce back and reach the symbolic $1,000 mark in December 2013. An eventful year then.
But price volatility is not the only interesting element that we are seeing in 2013. In the same year, we see the birth of several small companies that will change the world of mining forever: Bitmain and Genesis Mining.
Bitmain is today the world leader in the design of Asics mining computer, which are designed exclusively for cryptocurrency mining. The company was born during the first bull run of 2013, riding the wave that its Dutch counterpart Bitfury had taken in 2011.
Genesis Mining is the world leader in cloud mining. Often criticized for numerous scandals, it cannot take away the fact that it was a pioneer in this market.
The birth Cloud Mining
After the creation of bitcoin, many players understood quickly that cryptocurrency mining could become a very lucrative activity and progressively, the idea of having machines dedicated to this activity spread. It is in this context that companies like Bitfury or Bitmain appear. But two problems will then arise : first, that of computing power. Producing more requires more power and having more power requires more investment. Deploying a mining farm comes at a cost. Then, even if more and more investors wish to join the adventure, mining remains at this time, reserved to the most tech-savvy people, an important barrier to entry that will long slow down the adoption of cryptocurrencies.
It is in this context that Genesis Mining comes up with the concept of cloud mining : the rental of computing power. In this way, you have access to the cryptocurrency mining revolution, for a lower investment, without the contraints linked to hardware and regardless of your geographic location. A system that will quickly attract investors and allow Genesis to finance the development of new farms. Cloud mining is launched.
Why choose Cloud Mining ?
Cloud mining is an often misunderstood investment solution.
While searching on the internet, we realized that the opinions were often very positive or very negative. Without taking a position, we will in the following paragraphs present the advantages and disadvantages of this solution in order to define, finally, today, to whom this mining formula is addressed.
Advantages
We mentioned some of them earlier when we explained how cloud mining came about. Here, we have selected the main advantages of this solution:
- Start with a reasonable investment
We believe that this is the main advantage of Cloud Mining. Becoming the owner of a mining machine is a relatively heavy investment that is not within everyone's reach. Cloud mining allows to redistribute the cards and makes access to mining possible from a few dozen euros.
- Mining without contraints
Having a miner running around the house requires some accommodation. You have to maintain your machine, make sure it is always in a healthy environment... With cloud mining, you can forget about all these constraints.
- No noise pollution
Mining is a relatively noisy activity, over 70 decibels for the Asics. In these conditions, without a cellar, garage or adapted room, the whistling of the Asics will quickly become unbearable. Cloud mining saves you this hassle.
- No increase in your electricity bill
It is no secret that mining consumes energy. Moreover, if you are interested in mining, knowing the price of your Kwh is the first question you should ask yourself. If you realize that you are paying a lot for it, having your machine is not an option and then cloud mining may be the answer to your expectations.
Disadvantages
After listing the main advantages of cloud mining, let's tackle these disadvantages. Cloud mining is not the perfect solution, there are indeed some disadvantages to keep in mind before investing.
- A sulphurous reputation
Indeed, cloud mining suffers from a rather bad reputation in the crypto universe. It can be explained by several points: first of all by the number of scams, often in the form of ponzi schemes that have used this mode to deceive a large number of investors. Beware in the choice of your supplier. (Namely, Meria offers cloud mining offers...).
- Having your mining machine offers better performance
While cloud mining allows for lower investment costs, it is often more profitable to have your own mining machine. The company that sells cloud mining must also find its account there and therefore, necessarily, compared to the power, you will pay more for cloud mining, which is quite logical after all.
- You do not own the harware
You have to be aware of that. The person who owns his machine has a physical asset in his hands. If they wish to stop his activity as a miner, he can resell his equipment. He has an additional guarantee, unlike someone who invests in cloud mining.
Who is it for ?
Having listed the advantages and disadvantages of cloud mining, we should now be able to determine more precisely who this form of investment is for.
Generally speaking, people who are interested in cloud mining offers are those who :
- do not wish to allocate too large a budget to mining or do not have the necessary funds to acquire a mining machine
- do not have an environment adapted to mining (electricity too expensive, lack of space, living in hot regions,...).
- want to take a first step in mining, as a test before going any further.
In conclusion
Cloud Mining is today an alternative to traditional mining well known by the crypto community. Often criticized or misunderstood, this alternative has many advantages, including the ability to invest reasonable amounts of money to allow the most novice to gradually learn the world of mining.
Of course, it is necessary to take into account the aspect of profitability that we have not mentioned here. The profitability of cloud mining depends essentially on the price of cryptocurrencies and the difficulty of mining (the number of miners working on the network). These two factors are constantly changing, making yield projections very complicated.
Since 2017, Meria offers a cloud mining service for Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Grin and Bitcoin.$
If you need more information about these solutions, please do not hesitate to contact our team..
