Bitcoin mining in its early days could be likened to a gold rush. The relative anonymity and peer to peer electronic payment transfer capabilities made it attractive.

Couple this with the ability to mine using a regular computer, and the sometimes outrageous profits, and BTC mining became a promising new frontier.

Tech enthusiasts and hackers were among the first groups to dabble into the new Satoshi Nakomoto creation. But as the market grew, bitcoin mining difficulty increased, essentially raising hardware requirements and power consumption, and lowering profitability.

Investor enthusiasm in bitcoin has faltered in the past year in the face of increased international regulations targeting cryptocurrencies. The huge price drop also shook investor confidence. And, the present price swings don’t offer much hope.

Now, according to data compiled by Anything Crypto, Zcash (ZEC) beats other Proof of Work coins such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) in mining profitability. This is based on current difficulty levels.

According to the site, Zcash miners using the Antminer Z9 mini can expect to make returns of about $8,000 within two years. Ether mining comes in second at $2,800 using the Antminer E3, within the same period.

Bitcoin miners using the GMO B2 rig, which is considered to be the most worthwhile ASIC, would be able to rake in about $1,500 in about two years. Based on these calculations, ZEC beats BTC mining profitability by more than four times. Mining difficulty predictions were factored into the calculations.

The Zcash cryptocurrency was developed in 2016 with the aim of providing greater anonymity to users than Bitcoin. It works by publishing payments on a public blockchain and users have a privacy option to conceal the amount transacted, the sender, or recipient.

Utilizing the Equihash hashing algorithm, its first ASIC, the Bitmain Antminer Z9 mini, was unveiled in May. It boasts a maximum hash rate of 10ksol/s and has a power consumption of 300W.

There’s already a growing number of individual mining projects cashing in on ZEC’s mining profitability, which boasts an overall value of about $666m.

That said, Bitcoin and Ether have a greater market value than Zcash, but also have a huge number of corporations with immense resources dedicated to mining, not to mention the mining pools.

This makes profitable BTC mining much more difficult and pits ZEC as a great alternative for individual miners before huge corporations start to muscle in.

Featured Image Credit: Mercati24

The post Zcash Cryptocurrency Mining Is Four Times More Profitable Than Bitcoin appeared first on CoinCentral.

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