How Much Ethereum Can You Mine in a Day with a 3080?

I’m still learning a lot about the fascinating phenomenon of cryptocurrencies. The first cryptocurrency, known as Bitcoin, was introduced in an open whitepaper by an enigmatic figure known only as Satoshi, whose real identity has never been established. What was once a theoretical and technical experiment in a small internet niche has developed into a multibillion dollar, internationally recognized industry. Nowadays, there are hundreds of different cryptocurrencies, each offering a marginally different interpretation or application of the initial idea. But Bitcoin continues to rule the crypto world, with Ethereum coming in a distant second. (Note: Although I refer to Ethereum and Ether interchangeably in this post, Ether is the official name of the cryptocurrency on the Ethereum network.)

To give you an idea of how popular Bitcoin has become, its current market capitalization is more than $1 trillion dollars. Tesla, an automobile manufacturer and the seventh-largest public company in the world by market capitalization, disclosed during its most recent earnings call in 2021 that it made more money in the first quarter from purchasing and selling Bitcoin than it did from car sales!

I don’t know enough about the regulatory landscape, the workings of cryptocurrency markets, or their prospects to speak intelligently about their investment merits. Rather, my intention was to simply enjoy myself and explore the potential benefits of mining on a four-year-old, self-constructed home computer intended for PC gaming.

Cryptocurrencies are not physical assets. Instead, they are digital rewards. Blockchain technology, a decentralized ledger of transactions hosted on a peer-to-peer network, is used by cryptocurrency networks. The concept is that when a transaction is made on the network, users donate their processing power to verify the transaction and add it to the blockchain permanently. The participants receive a certain quantity of cryptocurrency from the network in return for contributing processing power to this task.

In plain English, this leads to the creation of cryptocurrency “mining,” as all cryptocurrencies are incentives for taking part in a network. In essence, processing power can be employed to verify network transactions (i e. “solve puzzles”) and obtain coins as rewards for doing so. The term Proof of Work, or PoW, refers to this type of mining. Other crypto networks employ methods like Proof of Stake and Proof of Space, but we’ll talk about those later. Though this is a very basic explanation, it should be clear that anyone with a computer can theoretically perform proof of work. It is important to note that, in reality, large-scale cryptocurrency “mining” takes place mostly in China, using warehouses filled with specialized hardware. If you’re trying to mine on your home computer, you won’t be replacing your 9 to 5 job anytime soon.

However, this doesn’t stop people from trying, and more people than ever are attempting to get a piece of the action as the price of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum soars in 2020 and 2021.

Past 1 year price history of Ethereum as of 5/16/21. Yes, that is an 1,800% increase over the past year. And you thought stocks were in a bubble?.

Mostly because I saw a friend mining Ethereum, I made the decision to do the same. Additionally, Ethereum had the highest profitability when I first started. And finally, mining Ethereum with consumer computer hardware is still feasible, unlike mining Bitcoin, which practically now requires specialized devices called ASICs to mine profitably.

The specifications of my home computer, which I actually built four years ago in March 2017, are as follows:

Prices were at time of purchase in 2017. Including a few cables, fans, and accessories, the total cost came to about $1200. It has functioned flawlessly for the past 4 years. Even after four years, it still functions incredibly well, so I don’t see any need to upgrade it anytime soon.

It turns out that the GPU, or graphics processing unit, is the best device for carrying out the type of computation required for Ethereum mining for a variety of technical reasons. I had a GeForce 1070 GTX, which is regarded as an upper-mid tier graphics card. At the time, the GeForce 1080 Ti, which retailed for $699, was the top GPU. The most expensive graphics cards are often more expensive than the entire computer. They are also almost completely unnecessary for regular office work. However, the GPU is the single most crucial part of the entire computer for any PC gamer.

GPU prices typically soar during a cryptocurrency boom since they are so good at mining cryptocurrencies. Computer stores around the nation are currently practically sold out of GPUs, and used GeForce 1070 GPUs, like the one I have, are selling on eBay for between $400 and $500, which is more than they originally cost when they were new. When it comes to old and preowned computer hardware, this would otherwise be unheard of. The most recent wave of high-end GPUs, the RTX 3000 series, are currently nearly completely sold out everywhere and are being resold for thousands of dollars at enormous markups.

Since this is not a guide on cryptocurrency mining, I will skip over some of the specifics. I found it relatively easy to start mining. Research is required, and having some computer experience—including with the command line interface, or CLI—is undoubtedly beneficial, but in-depth technical knowledge is not required. Considering I had no prior knowledge, it took me about three hours to complete all the research and set everything up. I downloaded the proper mining software for my GPU, adjusted the appropriate commands, made a crypto wallet (a location to safely store your cryptocurrency), and joined an Ethereum mining pool (a group of miners who pool their computing power to increase the chances of mining successfully).

When mining Ethereum, “hash rate,” or essentially how quickly your hardware can complete the required operations, is used to calculate speed. I could achieve a speed of about 26 to 27 million (mega) hashes per second, or MH/s, with my GTX 1070 graphics card. But I discovered that doing so resulted in the card becoming extremely hot and the cooling fans roaring at a decibel level that was quite loud. Therefore, I used the widely accessible free tuning software to increase my card’s core speed by approximately 2010 percent. I ended up getting a speed of around 23 MH/s.

In contrast, some specially designed AISC mining rigs have the capacity to mine at speeds of up to 1000 MH/s, or 1 GigaHash/s. And hundreds or even thousands of these machines can be operated by specialized mining operations.

It’s not easy to convert 23 MH/s into Ethereum coins because the blockchain network’s “difficulty” rises with time, requiring progressively more processing power to solve each issue. In April 2021, a 24-hour run of 23 MH/s produced an estimated 0 00073 Ethereum per day, or about 0. 022 Ethereum per month.

The market price of Ethereum obviously determines how much that is worth in US dollars. While most cryptocurrency prices are extremely volatile, in April 2021, one Ethereum was worth about $2,500 USD. Thus, my computer’s estimated monthly mining yield would be $55.

TRex mining software is using my GTX 1070 at roughly 23 MH/s while using 107 watts of power.

Of course, running the computer 24/7 incurs additional electricity costs. The screenshot above shows that when mining, my graphics card uses between 100 and 110 watts. When mining, my entire computer uses about 200 watts, so if I left it running nonstop for a month, it would use 144kWh of electricity. With my current service, the total cost of electricity is 14 cents per kWh. This translates into $20 in electricity expenses, bringing monthly profits down to $35. Since this assumes that my computer would never be used and draw no power if it weren’t for mining, the actual cost of electricity would be lower. In fact, I discovered that as long as I’m not doing anything that requires a lot of graphics, like playing a game or rendering a video, I can mine and use my computer normally with no discernible difference.

Enough with the calculations. Let’s see if all of this actually works. I started mining on April 28 and reached the first payout on May 15 after surpassing the mining pool’s threshold. This represents 17 days of mining. Although I wasn’t quite sure what to anticipate, on May 15 I did, in fact, get paid into my own Ethereum wallet:

So in 17 days, I mined 0. 01748 Ethereum. In the end, this was a little better than my 0 estimate. 022 Ethereum per month. My updated estimate, using my actual mining rate, is that I would mine roughly zero. 03 Ethereum per month. Once more, the value of this mining is clearly based on the price of Ethereum in the market. Remarkably, the price of one Ethereum increased from roughly $2,500 to $3,800 over the course of these 17 days. As a result, mining Ethereum was considerably more profitable than I had estimated. My projected monthly mining income, assuming Ethereum stays at $3,800, would be $117. My monthly earnings, deducting $20 for electricity, would be $97.

In plain English, this leads to the creation of cryptocurrency “mining,” as all cryptocurrencies are incentives for taking part in a network. In essence, processing power can be employed to verify network transactions (i e. “solve puzzles”) and obtain coins as rewards for doing so. The term Proof of Work, or PoW, refers to this type of mining. Other crypto networks employ methods like Proof of Stake and Proof of Space, but we’ll talk about those later. Though this is a very basic explanation, it should be clear that anyone with a computer can theoretically perform proof of work. It is important to note that, in reality, large-scale cryptocurrency “mining” takes place mostly in China, using warehouses filled with specialized hardware. If you’re trying to mine on your home computer, you won’t be replacing your 9 to 5 job anytime soon.

So in 17 days, I mined 0. 01748 Ethereum. In the end, this was a little better than my 0 estimate. 022 Ethereum per month. My updated estimate, using my actual mining rate, is that I would mine roughly zero. 03 Ethereum per month. Once more, the value of this mining is clearly based on the price of Ethereum in the market. Remarkably, the price of one Ethereum increased from roughly $2,500 to $3,800 over the course of these 17 days. As a result, mining Ethereum was considerably more profitable than I had estimated. My projected monthly mining income, assuming Ethereum stays at $3,800, would be $117. My monthly earnings, deducting $20 for electricity, would be $97.

The specifications of my home computer, which I actually built four years ago in March 2017, are as follows:

In contrast, some specially designed AISC mining rigs have the capacity to mine at speeds of up to 1000 MH/s, or 1 GigaHash/s. And hundreds or even thousands of these machines can be operated by specialized mining operations.

Mostly because I saw a friend mining Ethereum, I made the decision to do the same. Additionally, Ethereum had the highest profitability when I first started. And finally, mining Ethereum with consumer computer hardware is still feasible, unlike mining Bitcoin, which practically now requires specialized devices called ASICs to mine profitably.

How Much Ethereum Did I Mine in 1 Day? | How Much Income?