Once upon a time, back in 2010, you could mine Bitcoin on a basic laptop while doing just about anything. Net a couple of bucks while going about your day. That was the dream. Mining was a pastime, a hobby, something you did in your spare time. In those days, competition was low, and block rewards were high—each mined block netted 50 BTC. Back then, that was chump change. To what, well, we’ll get to that in the next couple of sections and give you the tale of Bitcoin Pizza Day.
But for now, just envision that. While going about your day, you could have made what today amounts to millions of dollars. Yup, you could have owned your own island. Talk about the biggest FOMO quandary in the world.
But like any gold rush, the game changed fast. Is it still profitable? Depends on where you lived, the hardware you have, and the tenacity of your ambitions. Right now, crypto mining is a high-stakes industry, where professional miners run warehouses full of hardware, competing for fractions of a Bitcoin. In this era, those same miners are no longer wasting their time—they simply can’t afford to waste the electricity and the bandwidth.
That’s why, if you want to get into mining in 2025, you need to be strategic about your hardware choices—because the difference between profit and loss is measured in efficiency, power consumption, and hardware lifespan. So, how do you choose the best mining hardware for maximum oomph? Let’s break it down.
Every May 22nd the world of crypto mining marks an occasion —- Bitcoin Pizza Day. Why? Well, in 2010 the first real-world transaction was enacted. This was a breaking point. It showed that Bitcoin wasn’t what some folks believed - a fad and that you were buying nothing - but an actual currency you could convert to practical and tangible goods.
What happened? Well, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz ordered a pizza. Pizza’s worth, about $40 with a tip.
Laszlo was running low on cash, so he called the pizza joint and asked if he could pay in crypto. In Bitcoin to be exact. After some finagling and a lot of back and forth, the place relented — after all, the pizza was already there.
Laszlo wired them 10,000 BTC. And the first Bitcoin transaction was recorded.
It marked a momentous day for BTC. It also haunted Laszlo for the rest of his life. Why? Today, that pizza would be worth about $1.1 billion dollars.
Let’s get this out of the way: crypto mining isn’t some digital free-for-all where you set up a laptop and watch the coins pour in. It takes a lot of time. It’s a bit like the actual California Gold Rush that helped expand the US.
In what way? You go out West, with some gear, into a dreadful place full of outlaws. You buy yourself a Colt. Head out into the unforgiving heat and start shifting through miles of riverbed. You start to pick at the ground hoping to strike a vein. Meanwhile, you’re dehydrated, barely holding on, and knowing tomorrow it’s going to be the same thing.
It’s a blood sport. It’s the Squid Game of the digital world — one of tech, heat, and kilowatts—where the right gear is the difference between profit and just, well, noise and heat.
And that gear? That’s what we’re here to talk about: bold, blazing, electricity-sucking beasts known as crypto mining hardware.
Crypto mining hardware is specialized computer equipment that solves cryptographic puzzles to validate blockchain transactions. Do it right, and you get paid. Do it wrong, and you just pay the electric bill — and that sucker is going to come up and leave a gaping hole in your wallet.
It’s like playing the Hunger Games —your rig competes against others to process blocks. The first one done gets the crypto. The rest? Well, they get those sent off with the cannon fire — their bodies shipped back to their district. There is no do-over.
In 2024, the global hash rate for Bitcoin mining hit 600 EH/s (exahashes per second), up from 250 EH/s in 2022. Translation: competition is insane, and in this Thunderdome-like area weak setups will get you killed.
So yeah, the hardware matters.
Here’s the simplest version you’ll get without falling into a whitepaper:
That solving power is measured in hash rate, which essentially tracks how many guesses per second your rig can crank out. The higher the hash rate, the better your odds of winning the block race.
But here’s the twist: speed without taking into account energy consumption is akin to just setting your money on fire. Because these beasts hog a lot of heat. And energy. To what extent? Well, some crypto setups actually doubles down as a bathhouse.
How? They submerge, in a protective covering, their hardware into the same water they then use to heat the bathhouse. It’s a two-fold affair. On one hand, they heat up their pools and save on electricity, while also keeping the equipment cold and getting more juice out of them. But see, it’s that type of creativity that makes winners in this game.
That’s why picking the right mining hardware is as much about performance as it is about energy consumption. It’s less “fastest wins” and more “fastest without bankrupting your utility bill.”
Picking your setup depends on three things: what you want to mine, how much you're willing to spend, and how high your local electricity rates are (hint: if you live in Germany, maybe sit this one out).
It’s important to take into account your kWh — anything above $0.05 and you’re paying with fire. So take that into notice.
This was how Bitcoin started—on CPUs. Just your average home processor doing its thing. Back then, you could mine Bitcoin with a basic setup. Today? That same rig won’t earn enough to cover the dust on your keyboard.
CPUs are still relevant for privacy-focused coins like Monero (XMR) that are specifically designed to resist ASIC domination.
James, a cybersecurity pro in Oregon, mines Monero using a rack of undervolted Ryzen 9 CPUs. ROI? Minimal. But it offsets his beer fund and keeps his home office a few degrees warmer in winter.
That little letter “C” instead of a “G” makes all the difference. Let’s talk about that “G”.
GPUs, or graphics cards, became the backbone of altcoin mining. They’re flexible, powerful, and—bonus—still useful outside of mining. Gamers, video editors, and AI developers all want them, which means they hold resale value.
Go over to your local stock app and click on NVIDIA. Notice how that company went into overdrive. Crushing it one market turn at a time? Rising in value. Well, it’s because along with INTEL and others, they create GPU graphic cards. Crypto mining, along with the AI revolution, basically made them billionaires.
Graphic cards are great for coins like Ethereum Classic, Ravencoin, and Ergo. In 2025, an RTX 3090 can still hash at over 100 MH/s. That’s no joke.
Yes, they guzzle power, but if you’re clever with undervolting and airflow, they can still be profitable—especially in regions with cheaper electricity.
Application-Specific Integrated Circuits, or ASICs, are made for one thing only: mining.
You can’t game on them, you can’t train a neural network on them, and you definitely can’t sell them to a gamer if Bitcoin crashes.
But they’re efficient KAIJUS. Think of it like the Godzilla of the bunch. The Antminer S19 XP, for example, clocks in at 140 TH/s and runs at just 21.5 joules per terahash. That’s lightyears ahead of older units.
Let’s take into account this scenario: a Texas-based mining warehouse runs hundreds of S19 XPs using immersion cooling and $0.03/kWh energy. Their estimated ROI timeline? Under seven months—assuming Bitcoin doesn’t nosedive.
Remember what we said a few paragraphs above — It's a tightrope act. Getting the right speed while also finding a way to bring down your energy consumption. That's why solar panels, and other Green Energy initiatives are hot right now in the crypto mining community.
Field-Programmable Gate Arrays are customizable and efficient, but tricky to set up. You’ll need to configure the logic circuits yourself—or at least run someone else’s firmware and hope it doesn’t brick your device.
FPGAs are rare in modern mining, and honestly? Unless you love firmware, this is a rabbit hole better left to hobbyists with a masochistic streak.
Now that you’ve seen the options, how do you actually choose the best hardware for crypto mining? Let’s talk shop.
Spoiler: It’s not about getting the cheapest machine or the one with the flashiest specs. It’s about ROI—Return on Investment. And that means looking at hash rate, efficiency, cost, cooling needs, and resale potential.
The hash rate determines how many guesses your rig can throw at the puzzle each second.
If you’re mining Bitcoin, you’re looking for terahashes (TH/s). For smaller coins, megahashes (MH/s) might be more relevant.
For example, the Antminer S21 XP pushes out 270 TH/s. That’s beast mode. But you’ll also pay a beast of a price for it—around $8,500 or more.
Mining rigs eat power like Pac-Man on Red Bull. Efficiency is measured in Watts per TH, and trust me, every decimal counts when you're running a 24/7 operation.
Older rigs like the Antminer S9 draw up to 85 J/TH—practically vintage compared to the S19 XP’s sleek 21.5 J/TH.
If you're paying more than $0.12/kWh for electricity, this stat is the line between profit and slowly going broke.
Buying the cheapest miner might save you money now but cost you more later. Cheap rigs often use more power and mine less crypto.
Smart miners look at ROI over 12–18 months, not just sticker price.
For example, let’s create a character called Sarah — and put her through Hell. Sarah in Quebec picked up a second-hand ASIC for $900. Looked like a bargain—until it ran her $130/month in electricity and barely cracked any BTC. Her words? "I could’ve just bought Bitcoin and slept better."
Mining rigs produce absurd amounts of heat. If you're running even a modest setup, expect your space to get, well, toasty.
Options:
Fun fact: immersion can cut power waste by up to 40%. Bonus: it looks awesome — think of those cool little immersion pools from the Tom Cruise film Minority Report.
Here’s where GPUs win: even if mining tanks, you can sell them to gamers or developers.
ASICs? You’re stuck with it — and there’s no divorcing it. If Bitcoin’s mining difficulty spikes or price tanks, they’re just expensive door stops or fancy decorative gear.
So if you're not sure how long you’ll be in the game, cryptocurrency mining hardware that holds resale value might be the smarter play.
Congrats, you’ve picked your poison. Now let’s talk about squeezing every satoshi out of it.
Each hardware type has its preferred tools:
These tools allow you to fine-tune and customize hash rates, monitor performance, and even switch coins on the fly if profit margins change.
Overclocking increases your hash rate—but at the cost of heat and power draw.
Undervolting reduces power usage while trying to maintain performance. The best setups find a sweet spot between the two, often boosting efficiency by 15–20%.
Pro tip: test slowly. One voltage tweaks too far and you'll be rebooting all night.
Solo mining sounds heroic. It’s not. Unless you’ve got a warehouse full of ASICs and free power, you’ll be lucky to mine a block this decade.
Pool mining combines your hash rate with others, giving you smaller but regular payouts. Popular mining pools like F2Pool, Slush Pool, or Ethermine are the go-tos, depending on what you’re mining.
Let’s be real, it's a hard hard hard world out there for the lowly miner: the Wild West days of crypto mining are as dead as, well, Sergio Leone westerns. In the MCU world - where Ennio Morricone has no place - it’s less “laptop in the garage” and more “data center in Turkey.” But that doesn’t mean the game’s over—it’s just changed.
If you’ve got cheap electricity, efficient gear, and the patience to tune your setup, mining can still be a lucrative side gig — why side gig? Because unless you have a lot of money you’ll only make small portions of cash. Not “buy a Lambo next week” profitable—but “cover your power bill and stack some sats” profitable.
More importantly, it gives you skin in the game. You’re not just buying crypto—you’re earning it. Block by block, puzzle by puzzle, hash by hash.
And yeah, sometimes your rig overheats. Sometimes you wake up to a red error screen and a fan whining like a banshee. But when it works? When you hear that subtle tick of coins landing in your wallet?
Feels good.
So whether you’re going all in with ASICs, experimenting with GPUs, or CPU mining Monero from a closet in Montana—just remember: this is a grind. But it's a grind with purpose.
And hey, worst case? You’ve built a really expensive space heater.
Pickaxe Mining Inc. © 2025
Pickaxe Crypto Mining does not sell or offer investment products, financial advice, or tax advice. Our services are limited to the sale of crypto mining equipment and hosting solutions. Customers should conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial and tax advisor before engaging in cryptocurrency-related activities
