In a new report, Cointelegraph Research explores the current state of the mining ecosystem, including its economics and technological developments. The report also features new approaches to opening up Bitcoin ( BTC ) mining to retail investors, including GoMining’s gamification of Bitcoin mining using non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
The impact of Bitcoin halving on mining profitability
Historically, the Bitcoin network’s hash rate has been volatile but has been growing exponentially. Significant deviations from this trend occur when miners are forced to upgrade to newer, more efficient hardware before each halving event and shut down older mining rigs after the halving event.
While Bitcoin’s total hash rate has been growing exponentially, the performance of individual mining devices has improved more slowly. For example, the Antminer S19j Pro, released in July 2021, currently accounts for 34.3% of the total network hash rate and has a maximum hash rate of 100 TH/s. The latest Amtminer S21 Pro, released in March 2024, has a hash rate of 234 TH/s.
Energy efficiency, another essential feature of mining hardware, has been improved from 29.5 J/TH on the S19j Pro to 15.0 J/TH on the S21 Pro. However, the Antminer S21 Pro costs over $6,000, putting it out of the reach of most retail investors.
GoMining’s gamified approach to Bitcoin mining
With traditional mining too expensive to enter due to capital costs and expertise, retail investors must seek alternatives. Cloud mining is one option, which allows individuals to rent processing power from a remote server and use it to mine Bitcoin.
GoMining takes a different approach by letting users permanently own a certain amount of Bitcoin hashrate, rather than renting it. GoMining tokenizes the hashrate generated by miners in the company’s data centers and mints it into non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with different energy efficiency and power characteristics.
Since these NFTs are tradable and transferable, the concept is known as liquid Bitcoin hashrate.
The GoMining project has a native Gomining Token (GOMINING) backed by a deflationary mechanism and a wide range of use cases, including NFT upgrades, all of which are covered in Cointelegraph’s report.
Click here to get the full report from Cointelegraph
GoMining offers two modes to earn NFT rewards: Solo Mining and Pool Mining. The Solo Mining mode provides guaranteed results and is based on the characteristics of the NFT used for mining. The Pool Mining mode mimics real-world mining practices, allowing users to start their own pools or join existing pools to compete for block rewards. Mining pools are internal to GoMining and rely on collaborative efforts, allowing users to potentially earn more than solo mining mode.
