2020 has finally come to an end, which means it's time to prepare for next year. We have conducted a survey among our user base to find out what exactly prevented profitable mining in 2020, what life hacks worked, and so on.

We’ve gathered all the data received from both small and large farm owners and we’re excited to share the results with you

Planning ahead

Here are the main goals most popular among miners:

1 place to increase mining income
2 place to purchase new, more efficient equipment
3 place to enlarge the farm
4 place to reduce costs

When mining what are your main tasks and goals at the moment

* Hereinafter, we took into account the responses of both English-speaking and Russian-speaking miners.

Users set these goals not only for 2021, but for the future as a whole. Let's take a look at how it’s possible to achieve them.

Increasing income from mining

There are several ways to increase income:

Optimise the performance of your GPU rigs by finding the balance between higher hashrate and lower power consumption. Higher hashrate will increase your income, while lower energy consumption will reduce your costs. This can be done by using the Scheduler feature of Hiveon OS (we will provide more details a bit later).
Overclock your ASICs with Hiveon ASIC firmware. Again, you can increase your hashrate and your income will grow as well. For example, the firmware for the S17 Pro can increase the hashrate up to 85 TH/s (with liquid cooling). In turn, the maximum hashrate for the stock firmware is only 50.3TH/s. Read more about how much you can earn with the Hiveon ASIC firmware here.
Choose a pool with minimum fees. By the way, Hiveon pool has no fees and we also pay transaction fees. The less you spend on paying commissions, the more you get. Another important point — when mining on a pool, you will receive payments more often than when mining alone. This means that your income will be more stable.
Choose the most profitable and stable coins. For instance, ETH is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies, and its value does not fluctuate too radically. Other examples may include GRIN, BEAM, ETC, and RVN (do your own research as their values tend to fluctuate).

Purchasing more efficient equipment

New efficient equipment can be hard to get, and you should keep in mind the fact that ETH is going to switch to PoS sooner or later. This means that no hardware will be required for mining this cryptocurrency, and if you buy something new right now, your equipment may not be paid off by the moment the switch happens. However, if you still would like to get new equipment, take a look at NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti.

Farm enlargement

Farm enlargement means potential growth of income. However, managing a large number of devices can be challenging. Hiveon OS is here to help:

Use flight sheets to create different combinations of wallets, pools, coins and miners. Switching between them takes just a couple of clicks. More information can be found here.
Create farms — in this way you will be able to apply actions to workers in bulk (to the entire farm at once).
Use tags to easily distinguish problem workers, label devices with certain nuances, and separate customers in one farm (this is useful if you are a mining hotel owner, and will give you the opportunity to apply actions in bulk).
Track statistics for farms and specific devices to stay on top of power consumption, hashrate, temperature, and more. All statistics can be exported.
Hiveon OS can be installed on devices massively — this is much easier than installing the system on every single worker.
Perform various actions in bulk (for example, applying a flight sheet or changing the overclocking profile).

Reducing costs

There are several ways to reduce mining costs:

Use Hiveon ASIC firmware. First of all, when using it, you can use Hiveon OS for free. Secondly, the autotuning function will tune the already “tired” chips, so that they will consume less power and work more efficiently. Thirdly, the firmware can reduce power consumption in general.
Use the Hiveon OS downvolting function — in this way your rigs will consume less power.
Use the Hiveon OS Scheduler feature to switch the modes automatically. This can be useful if, for example, electricity is cheaper in your area at night. Thus, you can set up the devices to work in the downvolting mode during the day, and at night they will overclock and bring you more income.
Use the Hiveon OS autofan feature — it will automatically maintain the right temperature of your devices. They will not overheat, which means they will not be idle, and you will not have to spend money on repairs or even buying new devices. Temperature watchdogs can also help you avoid overheating and its unwanted effects. We also recommend that you take care of the ventilation in the room — this way your devices will “live” longer, and, again, you will spend less on repairing them.

Problems of the year 2020

In 2020, miners had to face various problems, and it's not just about the coronavirus:

1 place excessive energy costs
2 place mining difficulty
3 place ineffective software
4 place coronavirus
5 place Bitcoin halving

What obstacles are you currently facing

Lots of users also came up with their options, and here are the most popular ones: ETH DAG-file size, high hardware cost, hardware problems, future switch of ETH to PoS, and overheating. Let's see what it is possible to do with these issues

Excessive energy costs

Scary electricity bills are one of the most popular problems among miners. But there is a way to deal with it, and we have already mentioned how to do this.

Mining difficulty

Unfortunately, increase in mining difficulty is an integral process, because there are more and more miners. There is no way you can influence this factor, but you can increase income and reduce costs. Depending on your situation and circumstances, you can try to enlarge your farm, reduce power consumption and get rid of inefficient equipment.

Ineffective software

It is hard to recommend something here, as things highly depend on algorithms and cards. However, here are several recommendations for ETHASH:

T-Rex miner for NVIDIA;
TeamRedMiner / lolMiner for AMD;
lolMiner for hybrids (both AMD and NVIDIA in the same rig).

Coronavirus

Unfortunately, here we can help only with the following recommendation: wear masks, wash your hands more often and keep social distance. It would be also useful to refrain from traveling. Take care of yourself and stay healthy.

Bitcoin Halving

Every 210,000 blocks, or roughly every four years, the total number of Bitcoins that miners can potentially win is halved. This process will end with a total of 21 million coins, probably in the year 2140.

The ETH DAG-file size

Yes, DAG-file has grown in size and we are about to reach Epoch 385, but there is a solution that doesn’t require buying new equipment. You can switch to another coin and sell it in exchange for ETH. We wrote about this in detail in this article.

Minning epoch

High cost of equipment

In 2020, we published an article on how to choose the right ASIC, and these tips are still relevant today. In any case, remember that mining is also a business and you need to come up with a plan, especially if you are going to start from scratch. Do your own research to find the best options that will meet your needs and requirements.

Problems with equipment

The main factors leading to problems with devices and their subsequent repair are overheating and virus infection. How to avoid overheating, we will tell you literally in one of the following paragraphs. Above, we also mentioned the Hiveon OS autofan function and temperature watchdogs. As for viruses, details can be found in section "Mass infection of ASICs with a virus".

It is also worth mentioning the autotune function — using it, you will extend the life of worn out ASIC chips, and improve their performance.

Future switch of ETH to PoS

It's not that scary. This won't happen anytime soon, so for now, you can safely continue mining ETH on your current hardware. You can find out more details in this article.

However, don't forget about EIP-1559 (Ethereum Improvement Proposal). Its adoption is likely to take place in 2021. EIP-1559 will deprive miners of the commission income, which, on the one hand, is positive for Ethereum itself, but on the other hand, it will negatively affect your profit.

Overheating

Here are several basic recommendations that you should follow in order to avoid overheating:

Make sure your hardware is as dust free as possible.
Make sure ambient temperature is as regulated as possible.
Make sure your hardware is able to dissipate heat properly.

It would be also wise to replace thermal pads and paste regularly, but keep in mind that you do void your warranty if you add or replace these yourself.

Disappointments of the year 2020

Most of the users provided their own answers, and here are some of them: the growth of the ETH DAG-file, the high cost of equipment, the lack of new video cards. Among the options we proposed, the places were distributed as follows:

1 place obsolescence of miner models
2 place purchase of not very profitable devices
3 place mass infection of ASICs with a virus

What was your disapointment

We have already provided some info regarding the growth of the DAG-file and the high cost of equipment. Now let's figure out what to do with the other disappointments.

Lack of new video cards

Unfortunately, there is just not enough supply to meet the demand at this point of time. We have recommended NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, and you can try looking for it, but remember that it is important to do your own research and to consider your specific situation.

Obsolescence of miner models

It is impossible to recommend a universal model that will not get obsolete at some point. Therefore, you should do your due diligence and keep in mind the following long-term factors when looking for hardware:

Cost;
Lifespan;
ROI;
Backup plans.

Purchase of not very profitable devices

Again, it is crucial to do your own research and to keep in mind the long-term factors like ROI of the hardware. By analysing the information about the equipment, you will be able to understand if it meets your needs or not.

Mass infection of ASICs with a virus

One infected ASIC can infect the entire farm, resulting in downtime and loss of income. Worst of all, some viruses are very difficult to get rid of, so it is easier to prevent the problem than to deal with it. Thanks to the digital signature, the Hiveon ASIC firmware provides reliable device protection. It can even help cure an already infected worker. In turn, Hiveon OS constantly monitors the status of your devices, and if one of them suddenly “catches” a virus, you will immediately receive a notification and be able to take the necessary measures. We recommend using both Hiveon ASIC and Hiveon OS — this way you will ensure reliable protection of your devices, and even save some money.

Events of the year 2020

Now let's move on to more positive statistics and talk about the main events of 2020. Our users highlighted the following: the rise in prices for cryptocurrencies, the purchase of more stable and efficient equipment, the transition to Hiveon OS, DeFi, consumption optimization, enlarging and cloud mining. We are happy for users who have managed to reduce energy consumption, enlarge their farms, buy more suitable equipment and increase income due to higher prices. And thanks for choosing Hiveon OS! Now let's talk a little more about DeFi and cloud mining.

DeFi

For the decentralized finance industry (DeFi, works on the basis of open source smart contracts), 2020 has been a challenging year — full of ups and downs. In March, the system suffered a severe blow, which led to a collapse of cryptocurrencies. New projects, tokens, and products have been launching at an impressive rate, and all this excitement has put an overload on the Ethereum blockchain. However, now everything is back to normal, and next year we can expect the next stage in the development of DeFi. But you have to be careful — there are a lot of fake tokens on decentralized exchanges, so if you try to earn on DeFi, you may lose money. You should also consider the volatility of cryptocurrencies.

Cloud mining

Cloud mining means renting computing power from online websites. That is, you can mine even without buying and installing equipment in your house. There is also no need to configure devices, worry about overheating and noise reduction, pay electricity bills, and so on — all these issues are resolved by service representatives. This is very convenient, but there is also a risk of "cooperation" with scammers. In addition, the rental amount may gradually rise due to rising costs, or may initially be too high. Another risk is the sudden termination of the provision of services (for example, if something happens to the service). Anyway, if you decide to try cloud mining, choose a reliable service. For example, IQ Mining or Bitluck. And, again, do your research and be careful!

Rating of websites and channels

We also found out what websites and services miners use. So, here are the top 10 resources and the top 10 YouTube channels (based on the results of the survey among miners dated December 9, 2020).

Top 10 resources

Hiveon OS (website + Telegram channels)
Nicehash
WhatToMine
Messari
CoinMarketCap
Etherscan
Crypto Mining Blog
Mining Club
BitcoinTalk
Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptomining/, https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherMining/, https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/, https://www.reddit.com/r/gpumining/, etc.)

Top 10 YouTube channels

Mining 2021: What To Expect

So, what conclusion can we make? What to prepare for in 2021?

First of all, take care of your hardware — you still need it, as ETH hasn’t switched to PoS yet. Therefore, provide your equipment with virus protection and ventilation, avoid overheating. Consider buying newer, more efficient devices, if possible. Another crucial point is the reduction of energy costs. We mentioned how to do this, and given the fact that electricity prices are unlikely to go down, we recommend using our tips. Thirdly, overclock your devices, use custom firmware — these methods will increase hashrate and income. And, obviously, be cautious and look for the information considering your specific situation — this knowledge will help you to make right decisions, choose proper equipment, and so on.

Do not forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay tuned for all industry news and monitor the most important events (for example, the process of the ETH switch to PoS).

The cryptocurrency prices tend to increase, and large companies start entering the mining industry. The value of Bitcoin has exceeded $28000, and its price has been growing stably since September. All these facts give us hope that the year 2021 will be rather favorable for miners even in spite of the coronavirus pandemic and economic uncertainty. At the same time, thanks to the collected data, we are ready for the challenges — we know how to avoid and to deal with difficulties. Let's face the new mining year together!