Detailed Guide on How to Mine Zcash (ZEC) (2024)

Why You Should Mine Zcash

Let’s get to the best part of Zcash – anonymity. Zcash’s network encrypts all transactions by users, including their data, to make sure the process is completely incognito. Miners carefully check for cases of double spending, so they can easily prevent them. By validating transactions, miners are helping to keep the network more secure. In return, they receive ZEC coins in the form of a reward. Doesn’t it sound like a sweet deal?

Another plus is that the coin is very user-friendly. The GPU mining option allows even newbies to be able to easily mine it.

Best Way to Mine Zcash

When we’re talking about the best ways to mine Zcash, there’s no doubt that ASIC mining will outperform GPUs. While the algorithm for ASIC miners is fixed and cannot be changed, with video cards you can choose to mine different coins and using different algorithms. Now, if you find a good offer for Nvidia GPU, don’t hesitate to choose it over the AMD alternatives. When comparing those two, NVidia is certainly better. Further on in the article, we’re going to show you a list of top ASICs and GPUs available on the market for mining Zcash.

Finally, in order to get the most out of mining the Zcash, we recommend you join a pool. Mining pools combine miners’ hash power and thus increase their efficiency, so they’re able to provide frequent incomes. Sounds great, right?

What You Need to Start Mining Zcash

With Zcash, you can use your existing computer for ZEC mining or you can also assemble a dedicated, custom one. Even though laptops can also be used to mine, they aren’t as effective as a desktop PC. Here are the basics you need to have covered if you want to start Zcash mining:

• Hardware – ASIC or GPU
• A Zcash Wallet
• Internet Connection – min 1MB/s with preferably no Traffic Limitation
• Enough Electrical Network Capacity for your prefered Setup

In this article we have focused on every single aspect in details, so keep on reading and find out more about them.

What Else You Need to Consider?

Mining ZEC normally consume a lot of electric power and generate tropical heat. You need to have prepared with at least a fan or better, an air conditioning system, to cool down your devices. You can find more in-depth information on the topic here.

Furthermore, to be able to receive the Zcash mining reward and operate with your coins, you should prepare a wallet – there are plenty of GUI ones on the market. We recommend, that you visit our crypto wallets page, to make the best decision for yourself.

Make sure you carefully choose between solo mining and pool mining. We don’t recommend the first option because it’s going to take you a lot of time and it’s also a big investment. What’s more, it doesn’t guarantee fast results. Mining in a pool combines the miners’ resources and generate a big amount of hashing power. This leads to significantly more frequent short-term earnings.

Another tip from us – always compare the features of multiple mining pools before you pick one.

Now that you’ve chosen both a pool and a wallet, you can proceed with the configuration of your hardware.

Best Choice of Zcash Mining Hardware to Buy

Bitmain has released a new cryptocurrency mining hardware, dedicated to the Equihash algorithm, which is used by the privacy-oriented Zcash. It is called Antminer Z9 mini. This is your best choice of hardware to mine Zcash at the moment. But we realize that perhaps it’s not easy to get, so there are other options like Innosilicon’s A9 ZMaster.

If you want to be able to change algorithms or just want to stick to using GPUs, you can pick from some of the most profitable boards from the list below.

We recommend the Bitmain’s Antminer Z9 Mini, which outperforms all the GPUs on the market by hash rate and energy efficiency.

This Antminer Z9 Mini can mine some coins based on the Equihash algorithm like Zcash (ZEC), Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Bitcoin Private (BTCP), ZenCash (ZEN) and Hush (HUSH). This is the first ASIC ever to be released for mining these coins. One reminder though, some of the coins may fork the algorithm to prevent ASIC mining on their network. Also, by looking at it, ASICs are probably going to completely replace GPUs, at least for the Equihash algorithm.

In any case, we’re about to look into both GPU and ASIC configuration setups, so keep on reading.

Setup Hardware and Software / Configuration

This section is going to present you the ultimate guide on how to setup and configurate your Zcash miner.

Let’s First Review the Steps for ASIC Miner Configuration

Zcash GPU Mining Setup

If you want to stick to GPU mining, then you will need to choose the proper ZEC mining software, depending on the hardware you plan to use. Here are some options to check:

• EWBF’s CUDA – Nvidia GPUs (Windows/Linux)
• Nheqminer – Nvidia GPUs (Windows/Linux)
• Claymore Zec Miner – AMD GPUs (Windows/Linux)
• Optiminer – AMD GPUs (Windows/Linux)

For our GPU configuration guide for Windows, we are going to use ClaymoreZecMiner for our mining software. Claymore has a long-standing reputation for optimizing miners. That, plus the fact, that it improves the hashing rate considerably, are the reasons for us to download and use it. It charges a 2.5% developer fee. The miner works for the developer for 90 seconds every hour. The fee of this pool is justified by the increased performance.

Zcash Cloud Mining

Well, if you don’t want to bother with all the configuration explained so far, your best option is cloud mining. This means that a third-party contractor will offer to do all the work for you, not free of charge, of course. You sign a contract and pay the fees, which differ depending on the service. Really pay attention to those fees and the offered conditions. Your profits should outweigh the costs you’re paying. Some of the best cloud mining providers for Zcash at the moment are:

• hashflare.io
• minergate.com
• nicehash.com
• eobot.com

We have also pointed out some benefits of Cloud Mining below:

• 01. You get almost immediate results
• 02. The payouts are in any cryptocurrency
• 03. It enables you to mine Zcash without dealing with the noise and the heat
• 04. It’s a great way to mine coins without having to invest in a hardware

Zcash Calculator

As any other user, you should be excited about how much you’re able to win by mining. We’ve created Zcash mining calculator, which allows you to roughly estimate your ZEC mining rewards. Some fields are automatically filled in (current market conditions and the currency’s parameters), but others – you should fill in manually. The required information is your hashrate, power consumption, electricity costs and pool fee. When you press the ‘Calculate’ button, you’re going to see results showing your earning for an hour, day, week, month or year. If your profits don’t cover your costs, you should consider changing your pool.

Disclaimer: Please note that your profitability depends on the network difficulty and the coin price which are always fluctuating. The result output of the calculator is a very rough estimation of what you’re can win and applies only for the current moment.

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