Is it Profitable to Mine Bitcoin in 2019?

It has become very competitive and expensive to mine Bitcoin than Ever. The BTC mining difficulty has hit a new record high at about 7.93 trillion. The figure represents a 7% increase from the previous number of 7.45 trillion. Bitcoin adjusts its difficulty after every 2,016 which is about 2 weeks.

Bitcoin Mining Close to Impossible

The developers of Bitcoin created a mineable cryptocurrency which adjusts its difficulty to limit the amount of coins in circulation. This particular feature is meant to keep the cryptocurrency valuable by maintaining scarcity. The difficulty factor - a number representation of how hard it is to mine one block keeps readjusting after every two weeks cycle.  

Recently, it reached a new record of 7.93 trillion. This figure made it almost impossible to mine BTC for small scale miners. This number is calculated based on the amount of computing power deployed on the general network. Developers say the readjustment ensures the block production interval for the next period remains constant at every 10 minutes.  

Since difficulty factor is adjusted based on the amount of computing power deployed on the network, fewer computer powers means the figure falls down. When new miners join the network, the difficulty increases proportionality.  

Graphical representation of mining difficulty factor from 2009-2019 ( www.coinwarz.com)

Bitcoin was designed to be a mineable currency for everyone initially. In 2009 it was possible to mine BTC from a basic home computer. The increase in difficulty factor made it impossible now. Expensive energy intensive ASICS are currently used for mining. But still they aren't sufficient enough to create a profit for the miner.  

Mining profits have been shrinking over the years. To highlight the patterns, coinidol published an article earlier when the index was at 500 Billion. The energy intensive nature of BTC mining has been a crucial matter over some time now.  

What is Really Profitable Today?  

Early before cryptocurrency enthusiast could make money mining Bitcoin. The gold rush period stopped and only corporations can afford to mine the cryptocurrency. Even mining pools still provide a couple of dollars annually to its users, it's also dwindling. Although profits is phasing out users still earn Bitcoin from other avenues.  

There are very many ways to make some profits from cryptocurrency in 2019. One of the most obvious is trading cryptocurrency. However, users should know that cryptocurrency trading requires a lot of practice. Users are advised to gain sufficient trading skills using dummy accounts before putting in real money.  

    

Bitcoin Price chart for the last 24 hours (source: Coinbase.com)  

As seen in the chart above, BTC is steadily gaining value implying that trading bitcoin during this bull run is a better idea.

According to Anton Makarchuk, the CMO of CryptoUniverse, the Eurasian largest multifunctional cloud mining service, who has been working in the company from the beginning and has strong knowledge in mining processes, “mining Bitcoin remains profitable so long as a given miner has the ability to satisfy needs that are crucial to mining.”

He told Coinidol:

“There are several of them:

1. access to electricity at the minimum possible price. In Russia electrical power costs about 5 cents. You can still find sites in Russia willing to provide electricity at less than 5 cents per kW, which brings down expenses
2. a well-maintained array of the highest-capacity equipment from the leading manufacturers of mining equipment
3. knowledge or technical experts to ensure that the equipment can operate properly, the software is up to date, and a connection is maintained with the mining pool.

These factors taken together solve the cost issue. As a result, garage mining loses its appeal, and miners band together in mining hotels, since it’s difficult to secure an income by mining at home. 

As for which cryptocurrency is most profitable to mine, we are constantly monitoring various altcoins. Nevertheless BTC and LTC continue to lead the pack: the technology for mining these coins has already been fine-tuned, and there is no need to come up with new mining methods.  

Bitcoin is the most liquid coin, meaning it is easiest of all to convert to fiat currency, unlike altcoins. The standout coins of 2019 include Grin Coin and Dogecoin. These currencies are good candidates for GPU mining.

Overall, currency mining is generally a long-term investment that requires building up significant infrastructure. Mining altcoins, unlike Bitcoin, involves brand new setups that require resources and time. Bitcoin is a long-term deposit, the digital equivalent of gold.”