Zcash Mining Guide
Miners play an important role by helping validate transactions and securing the Zcash network through “Proof of Work”. Zcash mining can be a fun and rewarding hobby but keep in mind the cost to begin mining can be high and with crypto markets always volatile there are no guarantees of future profitability.
To mine Zcash you will need a specialized machine known as an “ASIC”. ASIC stands for Application Specific Integrated Circuit. After you have an ASIC you will need to join a mining pool.
No. Zcash used to be minable with GPU, but since special hardware (ASIC) was made mining with CPU and GPU is no longer profitable.
Not anymore. Between 2016 and 2018 GPU mining was profitable, but after the ASIC was introduced in 2018, ASICS now hold majority hashpower on the network.
No. Zcash uses the Equihash algorithm. You cannot use Bitcoin SHA-256, Scrypt, Lyra2REv2, EtHash or other ASICs to mine Zcash.
Equihash is the Zcash mining algorithm. Equihash parameters are 200,9 and mining with Equihash is measured in Solutions per Second ( Sols/s )
This depends on many factors such as: 1. Cost of your electricity 2. Zcash network difficulty 3. Type of hardware 4. Your pools luck 5. Market prices
A Sol (solution) in Zcash is basically the same has a Hash (Hashrate) in other coins. The top Zcash ASIC (Antminer Z15) makes about 420,000 H/s (420 Kh/s)
There has been discussion of Zcash moving to Proof of Stake in the future, but there are no concrete plans or timeline. Keep an eye on this thread for news.
Once you have your Zcash mining hardware you will want to join a pool. Below are the most popular pools on Zcash
