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In this Blog Post I tested crypto mining for 24h. I also compared the profit with the electricity costs here in Germany. I used my gaming computer for mining.

How does mining work in a nutshell?
In Bitcoin mining, you use your computing power to solve complex math problems. Most of the time you only use your graphics card. The CPU is usually not profitable and only draws power unnecessarily. You process the transactions of other users with your computing power. As a reward, you get bitcoins or at least parts of a bitcoin.

The more miners are active, the less profit everyone has. However, since bitcoin is currently at a record high, this also means that each miner gets more money.

Software
As mining program I used NiceHash. It is very popular and used by many other users. The setup was very simple and took only a few clicks. You can download different algorithms in the software. I downloaded all of them right away. Then NiceHash decides for itself which algorithm is best for you and your hardware. I mostly used Octopus and daggerhashimoto.

Therefore, you don’t always mine bitcoin, but also other coins that are just more profitable to mine. Another popular coin is Etherum, for example.

Additionally, I set the power limit of my graphics card to 85% via MSI Afterburner, so the GPU doesn’t get as hot and consumes less power. This was important to me so that the card does not break down in the long run.

NiceHash will always pay out the money in Bitcoin. It is important to remember that the 2Factor authentication must be on already for at least 24 hours to transfer the money. If you have a Coinbase account, then the money can be transferred directly there.

Electricity prices based on Germany/Hessen
For me, one kilowatt hour costs about 0.2744€. My PC consumes about 280-300W with all monitors turned off during demanding mining. So mining costs me about 2€ a day.

To monitor the power consumption, I have a Fritz brand smart adapter. This has worked great. You could even export a table and embed it iregendwo. Cool.

Profitable? 24h test
How profitable is mining in Germany? With my RTX 2080 Strix I earned about 3.3€ per day. Minus the 2€ electricity costs, I would have a daily profit of 1.3€. The new generation of Nvidia graphics cards is much more profitable. Unfortunately the new graphics cards are hard to get, because they are very good for mining. You can calculate the profit here.

Conclusion
Compared to other countries, Germany has high electricity costs. It always depends on when you mined. Even if many forums say that the graphics cards do not break so quickly when they are undervolted, I believe that over a longer period of time you will eventually have defects. All in all, it is very interesting to try mining, but for me personally it is nothing, because the profit is simply too low. With a more powerful graphics card, it’s something else again.