Bitcoin has gained a lot of popularity nowadays, everyone is talking about bitcoins.
All this attention is especially because it’s price has gone through the roof! Though there are still a lot of people who are unaware of cryptocurrencies, and how they work.
What is Bitcoin?
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and a payment system worldwide.It is the first decentralized digital currency, as the system works without a central bank or single administrator.It was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.It is an open source software. This means, that no person, company or country owns this network just like no one owns the Internet.
The system is peer-to-peer, that is, users can transact directly without an intermediary like a bank, a credit card company.Transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called the blockchain.
What is Bitcoin mining?
Just like anyone can join the Internet, anyone can help to verify and record payments into the blockchain. This process is called mining.In mining, users offer their computing power.Miners are rewarded with newly created bitcoins and transaction fees.
Currently, miners receive 12.5 bitcoins every 10 minutes. This halves every 4 years. The next halving will happen in mid-2020.
How to mine Bitcoins in India?
Now the question is, how you can mine bitcoins in India? There are mainly two ways by which you can mine bitcoins-
1.MINING BY OWN HARDWARE
How to mine Bitcoins in India?Is bitcoin mining legal in India?
Bitcoin mining can be done by a personal computer, tweaked a bit especially for cryptocurrency mining.It requires basic software and some specialized hardware.
When mining began, regular PCs were fast enough to generate bitcoins. That’s the way the system was set up and it was easier to mine in the beginning.It becomes harder to mine as more bitcoins are generated. Over the last few years, miners have had to move on to faster hardware in order to keep generating new bitcoins.
It was found that graphics cards were more efficient in executing these tasks than the conventional CPU processors.So that multiple GPUs are assembled together are used to mine.
New faster hardware is being created by various mining start-ups at a rapid rate dedicated to mining only and with a price tag of full mining rig starting with approx $3000.
The software required to mine is very straightforward and easy to use and is open source, meaning free to download and run.
A miner needs a bitcoin wallet which is an encrypted online bank account. The problem is, as in most bitcoin scenarios is that, a lot of wallets are unregulated and are more prone to attacks.Late last year, hackers stole some $1.2 million worth of the currency from the site Inputs.io. When bitcoins are lost or stolen they are completely gone, just like cash. With no central bank backing your bitcoins, there is no possible way to reimburse your losses.
The second piece of software needed for Bitcoin mining is the mining software itself.One of the most popular software available is GUIMiner.When launched, you don’t need to do anything the program begins to mine on its own and it looks for the magic combination that will open that padlock to the block of transactions. The program keeps running and the faster and more powerful a miner’s PC is, the faster the miner will start generating bitcoins and start getting back their investment made for the hardware.
2.CLOUD MINING
How to mine Bitcoins in India?Is bitcoin mining legal in India?
Credit:bitcoin.com
If you don’t want to buy all these expensive hardware and worry about setting it up and all, then cloud mining for you.It is gaining a lot of popularity nowadays as it is a great option for mining.
Some companies like Hashflare, Genesis and Bitconnect have set up so-called farms to collectively mine cryptocurrencies for individuals unable to assemble their own machines, for a fee.Individuals can now spend as low as $2 to start mining, and these companies assure fixed returns every month which makes it a great option.
Is Bitcoin legal in India?
Even as economies like Japan and Russia move to legalize the use of Bitcoins, India, despite being at the cusp of a digital revolution is yet to officially recognize the cryptocurrency.
As per now, we can say that Bitcoin is neither legal nor illegal in India.