As the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and the most popular blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract functionality, Ethereum is a very attractive investment with a huge potential for growth. Just like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Ethereum can be mined using specialized hardware and software, but the mining of Ether, a cryptocurrency whose blockchain is generated by Ethereum, comes with its own peculiarities one should be aware of to achieve the largest possible profit.

Where Are Ethereum Mining ASICs?

In 2017, a company called HMiners announced three powerful ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) mining rigs capable of mining Ethereum. “Using the H2U Miner, H4U Miner, and Rack Equipped with 5 x H4U from the company, many users have already been able to receive a 100 percent return on their investment within just one month,” claimed HMiners in their press release.

If you’ve ever read about Ethereum’s mining algorithm, the possibility to achieve a 100 percent return on investment within just one month probably sounds too good to be true to you. Well, that’s because it was, as many people found out first-hand after HMiners was confirmed to be a scam.

The reason why there are no Ethereum mining ASICs is the fact that the Ethereum mining algorithm has been designed from the ground up to be ASIC-resistant.

“The benefit from creating specialized hardware for the algorithm should be as small as possible, ideally to the point that even in an economy where ASICs have been developed the speedup is sufficiently small that it is still marginally profitable for users on ordinary computers to mine with spare CPU [and GPU] power,” states the proposed specification for the mining algorithm for Ethereum 1.0.

Ethereum developers accomplished the resistance to ASICs by creating a mining algorithm that consumes nearly the entire available memory access bandwidth and allowing anyone to introduce a large number of contracts into the blockchain specifically designed to hinder certain ASICs.

What’s the Best Way How to Mine Ethereum?

With ASICs out of the question, Ethereum miners are left with only one profitable way how to mine Ether: GPUs (Graphics Processing Units). Compared to CPUs (Central Processing Units), GPUs offer a much higher hash rate, which is the measuring unit of the processing power of the Ethereum network.

The good news is that GPUs are very easy to set up and start mining with. While there are specialized cryptocurrency mining motherboards that make it possible to mine using several GPUs at once, you can just as well start with a single consumer-grade GPU to test the waters before you upgrade to something better.

Besides a suitable GPU, you will also need an Ethereum software miner and the command line interface geth (available for Linux, macOS, and Windows) to control it. The ethminer, which is an actively maintained Ethereum GPU mining worker, is your best bet. It supports OpenCL, CUDA, and stratum, offering standalone executables for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Although ethminer is a command line program, it actually doesn’t take much to learn how to use it.

As a solo miner, you should definitely join an Ethereum mining pool otherwise mining will be more like a lottery for you than a steady source of revenue. The high-performance Ethereum mining pool ethermine is a great choice because it offers instant payouts and a low fee of just 1 percent. It’s available globally, and you can connect to it using ethminer by following the instructions on the official website of ethermine.

Best Ethereum Mining GPUs

Both AMD and Nvidia offer several GPUs that are highly suitable for Ethereum mining. To calculate just how much you can earn with a GPU, we recommend you use this online mining calculator, which allows you to input your card’s hashing power, its power consumption, and your cost per kWh to calculate your daily, weekly, monthly, and annual profit.

Nvidia GTX 1070 Founders Edition

• Price: $749 on Amazon.com
• Hash rate: 27 to 31 MH/s
• Power consumption: 150 W
• VRAM: 8 GB
• Compatible miner: ethminer

Despite consuming only around 150 watts of electricity, the Nvidia GTX 1070 Founders Edition can mine at very respectable 27 MH/s out of the box and at up to 31 MH/s when overclocked. Unfortunately, the massive demand for this excellent graphics card has increased its price from $400 to $749, and used GTX 1070s disappear from eBay nearly instantly. But if you can find it on sale or you don’t mind paying the steep price, the Nvidia GTX 1070 is a great way how to get started with Ethereum mining.

AMD RX 480

• Price: $600 on Amazon.com
• Hash rate: 24.5 to 28 MH/s
• Power consumption: 150 W
• VRAM: 8 GB (4 GB version is also available and gives 21 MH/s)
• Compatible miner: ethminer

Even though the RX 480 is one generation behind AMD’s current product line, it actually is better for some cryptocurrencies than the new RX 580. The only problem is that the RX 480 has been discontinued for quite some time now, making it hard to come by. That said, there are still many gamers with the RX 480 who will eventually upgrade to something better and probably put the card up for sale. Without overclocking, the RX 480 mines at 24.5 MH/s, and it can achieve up to 28 MH/s when overclocked, all while consuming only 150 watts of power.

• Price: $600 to $700 on Amazon.com
• Hash rate: 29 MH/s
• Power consumption: 185 W
• VRAM: 8 GB
• Compatible miner: ethminer

The successor to the popular RX 480 offers even better mining speed and only slightly higher power consumption. The biggest downside of the RX 580, apart from its inflated price, is its poor cooling efficiency. Avoid RX 580s with a single fan at all cost. We recommend the ASUS RX 580 8 GB Dual-Fan OC Edition, which provides doubled airflow for 3-times quieter mining. Expect to mine at around 29 MH/s.

Nvidia Titan V

• Price: $3,999on Amazon.com
• Hash rate: 70 to 82 MH/s
• Power consumption: 185 W
• VRAM: 12 GB HBM2
• Compatible miner: ethminer

When it comes to raw hashing power, no graphics card can beat the new Nvidia Titan V and its 620 Tensor cores capable of delivering over 100 teraflops per second. Of course, it doesn’t really make sense to spend $3,999 on the Titan V when you can get three GTX 1070s for much less and achieve even greater hashing power. The Titan V only makes sense if you intend to use it for other tasks besides mining, such as deep learning or playing Roblox once it finally comes to Linux.