Beginner vs Expert BTC Miners: Key Differences

Beginners often trip up when they first get into BTC mining. 1. When they can't buy an asic miner, they search for cloud mining options online, which usually ends in disappointment since they aren't profitable anymore. 2. They find cheap asic miners online, only to end up with a broken machine or fall for scam sites with offers that are too good to be true. 3. They don't think about their electricity costs before buying a Bitcoin miner. 4. Some look for free electricity all over the place, leading some to steal electricity, which can end with arrests. 5. They skimp on wiring, which often leads to sockets catching fire. 6. They store their mined BTC in a hot wallet or on an exchange. 7. They buy hardware without doing their homework, and some models are way more durable than others. Now, for the Experts: 1. Expert miners focus on long-term mining; they know the value of securing the network and aren’t in a rush to mine and sell. They really respect the idea of holding, just like solid investors do. 2. They get the risks of joining mining pools. They don’t just pick any pool but choose the best ones since some pools offer better chances for rewards. 3. They don’t mine directly to an exchange. Instead, they understand the risks and prefer to use the best decentralized, non-custodial BTC wallets. 4. These miners have incredibly strong mindsets. Even when BTC prices drop significantly, they keep mining as long as they can cover the electricity costs.

FWIW, hot wallet can meet those criteria. Fee and payment reward structure (such as PS and PPLNS) also matters. There aren't many mining pool where you can connect to them only using Bitcoin address anyway. These days, many pool expect you to create account.

Modern ASICs consume a lot of electricity. A beginner miner can at most buy several ASICs to install at home or in a garage or elsewhere. And then he will need a location where there is inexpensive electricity and the ability to install ASICs. Not everyone has such opportunities and the legislation of many countries prohibits mining without registration and permission. ASICs are now like industrial equipment, large companies have direct contracts for fast warranty service, and if one of several ASICs breaks down for a beginner, he will receive high-quality service for a very long time.

The real difference between beginner and expert miners are their finances and connections. If you do not have finances and connections, you stay a beginner for almost your whole life but expert miners are on another level. There is a big mining company called Bitfury in my country, they have connections with our oligarch and years ago, they managed to force the government to create an exclusive tax-free zone for Betfury, which means that they import miners and any type of other equipment without paying taxes, this is basically a heaven zone. They also receive electricity at an extremely cheap price, it's so cheap for them that the government forced us to pay for increased prices. Bitfury pays 1/3 of what we pay but they use lots of electricity, more than some of our towns. In 2021, they used 433,6 million kilowatt-hours.

In Russia, electricity for citizens costs an average of 4-5 cents. There are regions where 1 kilowatt costs 2 cents, and there are regions with a price of 8 cents, but this is the price for a voltage of 220 volts. You can buy large volumes of electricity at a voltage of 10,000-15,000 volts, build your own transformer substation, but your price will be 60% less. There is no other way to get a cheap price for electricity. You will not be able to get such discounts in the household network for electricity transmission.

how do some pools have increased chances of earning more? if this was the case -- there would only exist a single pool in the entire world, assuming the pools have the same fee (most do) and do not have a broken code or do transactions biased blocks, every pool has the same exact chance of earning the same exact rewards. What matters in choosing a pool is first their integrity and secondly reliability, people who check 1 week's luck for x pool and say it paid more than y pool do not understand how mining works. 4. Miners are set of people with the strongest mindset that I know, even when BTC value is down a lot, these people keeps mining as far as the electricity bill is still affordable.

I am still grinding away at it. If it were up to me I would lock this thread.