The cryptocurrency market seems to look good again especially if you have an additional video card. With the rise of prices in the crypto market, it is now possible to make a profit by mining Ethereum (ETH) on a home GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).
A lot of GPU crypto miners were put out of the market during the ‘Crypto Winter', but those days seem to be over and there is hope to make a profit again. Mining of Ethereum (ETH) has become significantly more profitable since the 2nd of April when the price of Ether (ETH) spiked by 80%.
According to recent charts, an Ethereum miner can make about $0.022 each day for every Mhash/s, an increase from $0.014 about 9 weeks ago.
Gpu Miner's 2018 Struggles
The Managing Director of Easy Crypto Hunter, a GPU mining provider based in the UK, Josh Riddet, said that the recent cryptocurrency rally has enabled small standalone miners keep afloat.
The bear crypto market of 2018 forced many miners to shutdown operations and in some cases sell off all their GPUs.
In Europe and North America, GPU miners spend significantly more on electricity bills than crypto miners in Asia.
“Profitability dipped to the point of being difficult to justify on 12p [around $0.15] a unit of electricity and stayed tough for a long time,”
Asic Mining Effect
The emergence of ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) mining rigs like E3 of Bitmain made mining on the Ethereum blockchain even more difficult, which in time pushed many GPU ETH miners out of the market.
Cryptocurrency miners with more flexible equipment (nomadic hash) moved to cryptocurrencies which offered higher returns like Grin and Ravencoin.
Progressive Proof-of-work
The core team of the Ethereum blockchain have started working on a new mining algorithm dubbed Progressive Proof-of-work (ProgPow) which is built to reduce the effectiveness of ASIC mining equipments and maximize the effectiveness of GPU miners, making mining equally accessible to the broader crypto mining community.
Though there is no stated timeline for the launch of the ProgPow algorithm, it will definitely have a huge impact on the Ethereum blockchain.
Riddet stated :
“It’s essentially like pressing the reset button,ProgPoW will have a very positive effect on profitability.”
Josh Riddet also believes that the mining activity increase on the Ethereum blockchain, which has risen since the 2nd of April to about 27Thash/s is due to GPU miners coming back on the Ethereum blockchain after months away.
Tribalistic Hash
The CTO of Core Scientific, a blockchain and AI infrastructure provider, Kristy- Leigh Minehan, believes that the Progressive Proof-of-work algorithm will be in the advantage of the Ethereum blockchain on the long run.
Stating that miners who are loyal to Ether (Tribalistic hash) would not seek profit on other cabins but stick to Ethereum. She stated :
“The nomadic hash will return with the change,”.
In addition she said:
“If Ethash [the present mining algorithm] is kept, the tribalistic hashrate will be forced to leave due to increasing unprofitability.”
Mining Resurgence
Josh Riddet predicted that this new algorithm (ProgPoW) would cause “a big resurgence in GPU mining” as more small and independent GPU miners will migrate back to the Ethereum blockchain. Adding:
“we're hoping we'll create a public renaissance for mining”
