A few weeks ago I wrote a review about mining Bitcoin on Hashflare (read it here and the update here.) This time I decided to dip my toes into ETH mining on Hashflare.

Quick Background About Me

If you have read my previous reviews, feel free to skip.

Who am I and why take my advice? My basic details are in my bio, but apart from that, I hold a bachelors degree in Computer Science, with a major in artificial intelligence and a minor in mathematics. I have been a part of 3 startups, worked for world’s largest public company and currently manage a team of top level developers who use the latest technology and apply it to real world applications for one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world. Additionally, I have spent a long time mining cryptocurrency on GPU and CPU rigs. Most recently mining Ethereum, Electroneum, and SiaCoin.

Why Cloud Mine?

This is the question I get asked the most. And, for me, it really came down to 2 main reasons. First, it’s easy. You set it and forget it. Second, the cost of GPU hardware is too much and hardware is scarce. If you really want to mine cryptocurrency cloud mining is the easiest and one of the cheapest way to get started.

If you’re looking to mine to just get coin, the best way is to buy it on an exchange. If you want to start learning about mining and earn crypto currency, this is a simple start.

Setup and Contract

Hashflare really does make it easy. After you have created your account, you simply select what type of contract you want (they are all 1 year.) Then you determine how much hash power to purchase and pay. Currently the cost per MH/s is $2.20 USD. It really is that simple. By default Hashflare will allocate your purchase 50/50 between Dwarfpool and EthereumPool, both have low fees.

Purchasing is as simple as sliding the bar.

Fees

Here is where Hashflare really makes cloud mining attractive. They have zero maintenance fees for ETH mining. This means you can more easily forecast your expected earning over the life of your contract.

My Setup

For the purposes of this article I purchased 10 MH/s of hash power from Hashflare. This is not a lot, nor would I recommend buying so little. But, full disclosure, I have multiple dedicated GPU rigs dedicated to ETH mining and the 10 MH/s here is for the purposes of the article.

My Actual Dashboard

Earnings Forecast

Off the bat, Hashflare will provide you a forecast of earnings. As with Bitcoin mining, I feel they are a little to optimistic which is why I use coinwarz.com’s calculator. As you can see, my $220.00 USD investment (assuming price stays and difficulty stays) will pay me back my initial $220.00 in 192 days with a total profit after cost of $416 Earning me a total of 0.35 ETH after 1 year of cloud mining.

But let’s be realistic. We know difficulty will increase, so we can safely say we know we will not earn as much ETH as predicted. But, what we do not know is the price of ETH one year from now. That’s the wild card. If ETH doubles or triples in value that’s great! If it stays the same, not so great as our profit will shrink because we do not earn as much ETH as we thought. Even worse, ETH loses 50–60% of its value and our $220.00 investment loses money.

Coinwarz Forecast

Elephant In The Room — POS

The major unknown at this time is how ETH converting to Proof-of-stake during the Casper fork will affect our 1 year contract. The exact date of ETH going to POS isn’t known. If it happens before our contract ending, we do not know what will happen with the remaining of our contract. Do we get a refund? Is it a cost of doing business? we do not know.It’s a risk you need to consider. Read more about ETH POS here and here.

Is it worth it?

No one can predict the future, so what do I think is a reasonable expectation for the year?After 12 months expecting to have ~0.5 ETH is realistic. I do think ETH will continue to increase in value and my investment will have paid off. So yes, it’s worth it.

At time of writing, there is no reinvestment option with ETH mining, so the earning are pretty fixed.

Finally, I do think ETH mining on Hashflare is a great option for someone who is really interested in mining and wants a simple place to start. Mining ETH on Hashflare to ‘get rich’ is not the way to go. There are more profitable ways such as mining BTC on Hashflare.

If you find this helpful and want to take the next step and start cloud mining yourself, please use my referral link to Hashflare here.

https://hashflare.io/r/DC1C2DA1

Note: I do not have any personal interest in Hashflare. I’m just a customer.