Dogecoin shifting to proof-of-stake would be good for the environment, but what impact would it have on miners and ASIC manufacturers?

A change from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake (PoS) is rumored for Dogecoin.

Do I know if Dogecoin is switching to PoS?

No.

Do I believe it will go to PoS? Probably not.

But I love the “what if” game.

I try to predict where the market and the mining industry are headed as someone who works in the cryptocurrency mining sector and how that might pan out. The mining industry would be drastically affected if Dogecoin changed PoS or another aspect of how new blocks are created.

The options and their results are shown here.

Scrypt Mining Could Be Devastated

I won’t argue for or against Dogecoin switching to PoS. While it’s hard to determine if the recent rumors about the potential for a switch are true or not, they were enough to have Bitmain supposedly pause Litecoin miner manufacturing.

The larger question in my mind is, What occurs to miners if Dogecoin adopts PoS?

First, Scrypt mining would be devastated. Over 60% of the revenue from Scrypt mining is made up of DOGE. Any L3+, LT6, or Mini Doge Pro miner that isn’t using electricity that costs $0.04 per kilowatt hour would need to be unplugged right away if it were taken away.

For a while, the network would probably fluctuate erratically as older equipment miners struggled to decide whether to leave their ASICSs on or off. The apex Scrypt miner, Bitmain’s Antminer L7, would see its profitability reduced by nearly 75%, reducing profits to a whopping $4.83/day at $0.05/kWh.

What about the miners who lack access to industrial electric rates? You could make $0.72 per day using the L7 9050M, which recently sold for about $9,000, at a cost of $0.10 per kWh.

Yikes!

The likelihood of those who recently bought an L7 ever recovering their investment, let alone making any money, would be extremely low in the event of such a significant change.

ASIC Manufacturers Would Be Forced to Drop Prices, Further Impacting Their Bottom Line

The vastly reduced profitability would inevitably lead to the price of the L7 dropping quicker than it did during the COVID-19-induced crypto crash. Miners would expect the L7 to cost between $1,825 (12-month ROI) and $2,737.50 (18-month ROI) if miners were only charged based on the length of their expected ROI. This reflects a minimum price reduction of nearly 70%.

How quickly would Bitmain respond? Would they gradually lower prices week after week, as Goldshell has done with many of its miners in recent months? As customers witnessed the price of the miner they had just spent thousands of dollars on being repeatedly reduced, this tactic repeatedly left them with a bad taste in their mouths.

Or would Bitmain announce that they would keep charging fairly for miners as they have been doing lately?

The consequences of a Dogecoin PoS shift would primarily affect ASIC resellers as well. Many L7 miners are suppliers, so stores holding those would need to immediately mark them down significantly. However, based on their recent history of price-gouging customers, like charging $60,000 for a KD6 that is barely worth over $1,000 today, it’s doubtful many tears would be shed for them.

Scrypt miners from numerous home mines would saturate eBay and comparable marketplaces. It would be a race to the bottom as desperate miners tried to salvage whatever value was still in the chunk of metal that can now only be used as a doorstop or display piece if one is desperate.

It would continue to mine litecoin. There wouldn’t really be a choice, so those L7s would continue to operate because they would still be somewhat profitable. If a more effective Scrypt miner isn’t already under development, it’s unlikely that a new Scrypt miner that could compete with the L7 will be released on the market anytime soon. There are some rumors that Bitmain is developing a miner that would be better than the L7.

The switch to PoS has already caused a significant amount of disruption, and we’ve only looked at one part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. There would be a lot more issues and situations to think about.

How would that affect network security?

Would the yield from staking cause DOGE to eventually be labeled a security?

Would people embrace Dogecoin for the change or would they run away from what is currently the second-largest PoW coin by market cap?

My favorite what-if is now. Even though there are several possible outcomes for this option, it is unlikely and possibly even impossible.

What would happen if Dogecoin decided to develop its own mining algorithm instead of merging with LTC?

Innovation and Competition Are Healthy for Every Industry

What if there is a GPU mining renaissance? After the Ethereum Merge event, there’s a ton of really cheap GPUs available on the market. Those would get expensive really quickly. Mining purists would rejoice as they build their own mining rigs while trying to figure out how much DOGE they can stack. Though it wouldn’t last, it would be really cool to see. To be the first to market with an ASIC miner, the big three manufacturers Bitmain, Goldshell, and iBelink would compete fiercely.

Each of them would eventually have at least one ASIC miner available, and naturally, as time goes on, they’ll become stronger and more effective. The jumps and increases in difficulty would be ridiculous, and just like with Bitcoin

, it would eventually no longer be profitable to mine However, it could also lead to competition—something the ASIC manufacturing market desperately needs.

What if a door opens for another manufacturer or manufacturers to enter the market after the brief GPU mining renaissance? Currently, Bitmain, Goldshell and iBelink are the “big three,” and it’s really Bitmain, which has complete market dominance. Although Bitmain would probably prevail, what if someone else could be first to market, maintain that advantage, and establish themselves as a reputable and trustworthy ASIC manufacturer?

What if that business made the decision to hire additional miners and pay them fairly? To be fair, we do have to praise Bitmain once more for the pricing on its recent rollout of industry-changing miners. Reseller markups are still a problem, but that is a different subject. Perhaps this “new” competitor would adhere to the mantra that customer service actually matters. That might occur if consumers could get past their skepticism about the product’s dependability and the business produced a quality product. There are a lot of what-ifs there, no doubt.

A money-grab scenario for Dogecoin exists as an alternative. The project could go directly to Bitmain, Goldshell and iBelink and say, “We’re developing our own mining algorithm, which we’ll only give to you. How much money will you give us?”

What price would Goldshell be willing to pay to resurrect a business that has suffered numerous setbacks as a result of the most recent Bitmain altcoin miner releases? Or would iBelink fight tooth and nail to secure the manufacturing rights to the miner? IBelink recently unveiled the BM-K3 Kadena miner, which boasts 70 terahashes, a significant increase of almost 75% over the next closest model. However, the company can’t celebrate just yet because Bitmain will soon surpass that with the KA3, which will deliver 166 THs. How much would Bitmain pay to keep its market dominance if Dogecoin manufacturers made an offer?

No Change Could Be a Good Thing

What if DOGE chooses to simply continue with Scrypt mining?

The status quo is not that exciting, but it seems to be the most likely outcome. Sure, some changes might get approved by a vote, but Scrypt-based merge mining of Dogecoin and LTC is most likely to continue.

Bitmain is likely to continue pushing out L7 inventory before launching a more efficient Scrypt miner later this year AND In essence, two Mini Doge Pros in one box, Goldshell will release a Mini Doge Pro 2 for home miners. Numerous older models will probably be forced to permanently stop operating due to the impending LTC halving and the introduction of more productive miners.

The Goldshell Mini-DOGE is still a worth-buying Dogecoin ASIC miner.

The value of cryptocurrencies will increase and decrease. It’s likely that there will be another crypto scandal that no one anticipates but that, in retrospect, will be blatantly obvious. The sun will rise and set. Naturally, the majority of suppliers, particularly resellers, will continue to mark up miners and take advantage of loyal customers in any way they can.

Dogecoin’s future is impossible to predict, but the cryptocurrency sector is one of the few where anything can happen at any time.

Regardless of whether Dogecoin switches to PoS, the crypto mining landscape has always changed rapidly, and Scrypt mining is no different.

Change is coming.

The cryptocurrency market is growing every day. The two most popular coins were and still are Bitcoin and Ether.

Previously, an ordinary user could get Ether in two ways: buy it from another user on an exchange or make it himself. For the second method, one had to buy equipment and install certain software, as well as understand the actual process of mining Ether.

On September 14, 2022, the Ethereum network changed its algorithm. The most important consequence of this change was that it is no longer possible to mine ether. Blockchain switched to stacking, and the main “heroes” of the network are no longer miners, but the so-called validators – ether holders who have “blocked” their part of crypto coins.

Alternatives to mining Ethereum today
There is another way to make money from cryptocurrency. It is applicable to any cryptocurrency and to Ethereum in particular – it is trading.

OKX is a convenient trading platform for trading cryptocurrencies.
Dash 2 Trade is an original cryptocurrency project that helps to analyze the crypto market and earn from trading and investing.

The main ways to mine Etheram in the past

There were several ways to mine this cryptocurrency: in pools or solo. It is impossible not to mention the option of cloud mining – it was another convenient way to mine the cryptocurrency, without spending money on expensive equipment.

The most convenient way to mine Ether was to join a pool. Essentially, joining a pool is jointly mining a particular cryptocurrency. There are pools for a wide variety of coins, so miners all over the world are willing to join together to increase their likelihood of making money.

There are several profit sharing schemes in pools:

PPS – accounts for shares. As a result, a miner is rewarded for each one sent, although its value may be minimal. Great for beginners, such pools do not necessarily give the right solution to the problem, but the commissions in such pools are the highest.
PPLNS – counts only mined blocks. When the pool mines a new block, it makes special calculations and then divides the profit between all participants, but does not forget about the commission to the organizer.

Other mining pools

Considering that pool mining is the most reliable way to mine a block, you should be careful when choosing a pool. They work on different terms and with different ways of getting the reward – you should definitely check that before you join a pool. Almost all of them use special accounting systems, plus the pool itself always takes a commission on the final result.

Popular among users except OKX, are considered to be the following:

EthPool – the very first pool, the oldest. There was a time when it even rejected new users because of the high load.
Minergate – multicurrency pool. It is popular, but users sometimes complain about the impossibility to withdraw money;
Nanopool – a fairly young pool, but the number of participants in it is more than 400.
WeiPool – handy, simple interface, but it is a very new resource.
First of all, when choosing a pool, you should pay attention to its capacity and the number of participants. When mining cryptocurrency, it is important to understand that the complexity of mining is constantly changing, and to mine each subsequent block will be more and more difficult. It is recommended to choose only proven pools, so as not to run into scammers.

There are also some peculiarities of mining in pools, which should be taken into account: for example, the mandatory fulfillment of the pool rules. They are stipulated in advance, and a participant should decide if he is ready to obey the rules accepted in the system or not.

As a convenience, some pools offer to test the equipment and the pool, which usually takes 2-3 days and gives a complete understanding of whether a particular pool suits a miner or whether he should look for something else.

Solo Mining

It is risky to mine alone. You need to have sufficient computing power, and not every miner can do that. You will have to buy very expensive equipment to compete with the same.

Analysts say that solo mining is receding into the background and will soon be completely gone, but for now there are still enthusiasts who want to mine blocks alone. This looks profitable only at first, because in general it is almost unrealistic to mine alone, especially now. There is news on the Internet about some lucky people who mine an entire block for themselves, but these are just isolated cases.

To work solo, you can either join special solo pools (the commission will be about 1%), or create a pool yourself, if you have enough knowledge and skills. The advantage is that the self-made pool will open more statistics, which means that it is better to understand if you can get the reward and if you have enough power for mining.

The advantage of solo mining is obvious – you can get the reward only for yourself and not share it with others. That will not be the case with pool mining: there, the mining is divided among the participants according to a specific system.

If it still seems that solo mining is easier, it is better to use special programs.

Cloud mining

If there are problems with the purchase of equipment, and the current capacity is not enough for the stable work of the miner, then there is a way out – to use cloud solutions. It is no longer necessary to buy devices, you can simply rent them.

It’s convenient because you don’t have to think about repairs and electricity bills, as with your own equipment – companies that rent out computers take responsibility for any breakdown.

The problem is the price – if the price of a crypto coin falls, then cloud mining becomes unprofitable. It is important for the rental company that the equipment tenant pays them money in any case, no matter how much the cryptocurrency is worth now.

Another problem in cloud mining is scammers; it’s very easy to run into them. Ideally, choose the service most carefully, choose long and try different firms.

The following companies are most often mentioned positively: IQ Mining, HashFlare and Genesis Mining. Experienced miners recommend evaluating services according to several criteria:

Profitability – calculate and check when the investment will pay off.
Profitability – to see if the final “gain” covers the costs.
Commissions – compare rate plans from different companies and determine the one that suits you best.
Reliability – whether it is easy to find reviews on the company on the Internet, whether they are true enough or look like bought.
You can also look at some unique features or services that the company offers its tenants.

What was required to mine Ether?

Each of the mining methods had its own characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. Ether could be mined even on laptops, not to mention desktop computers, but you had to take care of the power and other technical things beforehand.

Purse for Etherium

To store the coin, it is worth opening a wallet suitable for Ethereum. There are two kinds: stationary and online.

To work with the first one, you will need to download a special application to your computer and install it. These wallets guarantee high reliability, but they have a disadvantage – there is no way to get into a wallet from another device.

Online wallets are quite common among miners. You can choose a suitable site and register on it. The main thing is not to forget your login and password, so you can always access your wallet at any time and any place. Most often, online wallet can work with a variety of cryptocurrencies – it is convenient.

Mining equipment

Unlike bitcoin, there was no special equipment for mining ether.

Therefore, miners used the following for crypto-mining:

A video card. The RAM had to be at least 2 GB, but otherwise, any one was fine. It was possible to combine two of them to increase performance. It was recommended to use AMD cards.
Power supply. Mining consumed a lot of energy and it was recommended to buy a powerful unit.
Equipment for cooling the farm. Large firms purchase special cooling systems, while at home it was possible to cope with improvised means – keep a window open all the time or install an air conditioner.
A farm at home is a huge strain on the wiring and constant noise. This, too, had to be taken into account when mining.

Ether mining software and computer software

The system for mining had certain requirements. It had to be running Windows 7 or higher, and the newer the better.

It was mandatory to update the video card drivers before mining, so that there were no unforeseen situations.

There were two most popular programs for mining Etherium:

Ethminer – about it was written above: stable, reliable, works both solo and with pools.
Claymore’s Dual Ethereum+Decred – it was considered convenient for mining several cryptocurrencies at once, but the service charged a fee of 1% of ether value.

Where to store ether?

Like any other cryptocurrency, ether can be stored in wallets. There are several well-proven services:

Official Ethereum;
MyEtherWallet;
Coinbase Wallet;
Dash;
Trust.
To say that cryptocurrency is stored in a wallet is not quite right, rather it is stored in a blockchain. You could say that it is an analogue of a ledger, where it is clearly spelled out which part belongs to whom.

Advantages and disadvantages of mining

Ether mining had its advantages and disadvantages.

The former include:

Easy immersion in the mining process;
constant updating of the software;
the promise of the currency;
transparency and security;
protection from hackers for the user.
The second most common are:

floating rate – at the beginning of the year it was high, and now it is gradually falling;
arising technical problems with different pools;
overheating of equipment, particularly graphics cards.
Otherwise, the disadvantage can be considered as a large investment before the start of mining – not everyone can afford it, and to reach the payback period was not for everyone.

Course outlook and forecast

The cryptocurrency is considered promising on the market, despite the current drop in its price. At the same time, the coin is breaking records – for example, in the fall of 2021, its price was $5000, and this is not the limit.

The rate is volatile and is affected by several factors: the relations between Russia and Ukraine, as well as a tightening of monetary policy in the United States. It should not be forgotten that in its history, the cryptocurrency market has fallen many times, but then recovered and rates went up.

Experts predict the growth of Etherium up to $26,000 in the short term – by the end of 2022 or early 2023. So far, their predictions are not confirmed in reality, but everything can change in one day.

At the same time, there are other analysts who believe that the currency will continue to fall. The creator of the coin, Vitalik Buterin, also says this. He says that the period when the coin will fall for months, and in the near future we shouldn’t wait for the rate to increase. Such a time in the market is called “cryptocurrency winter”.

All this did not prevent the miner from earning from mining. On average, it was possible to get about 125 rubles per day. Ether is also profitable because it has a large area of application, unlike the same Bitcoin. It is now used for DeFi and NFT.

It is predicted that the currency will start to grow again and the rate will be high. However, unfortunately, it will not be possible to earn money by mining anymore.

BTC touched an annual high of $21,095 on Jan. 13, according to data from the BizTrust terminal.

The spike in BTC continues in 2023, as it is the first time BTC has surpassed $20,000 since the FTX crash in early November. Bitcoin is currently witnessing an uptick in bullish momentum following a strong rally across the cryptocurrency market following a positive Consumer Price Index (CPI) report. Bitcoin’s recent rally is creating higher trading volume levels and higher social engagement.

BTC started the week close to the $17,000 mark after hovering around the $16,000 area since mid-December. Bitcoin is currently trading at $20,867, up 22 percent from last week’s $16,900. Still, BTC is near the lower end of a brutal bear market compared to November 2021, when it broke $65,000 in market cap.

Is the Bitcoin Bear Market Over?

Although the market is still in a bear market compared to last week, investor sentiment is improving. According to the Fear and Greed Index, a cryptocurrency-specific indicator that uses five weighted sources to measure sentiment, investor perception of the market is at a new monthly high.

Bitcoin prices are now above the important psychological mark of $21,000, so many analysts and traders are voicing their opinions on where BTC prices are headed next. Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at forex market maker Oanda, said that “$20,000 was once considered a troubling low, but now could represent a sign of recovery.

Bitcoin trading volume remains a concern

Bitcoin prices have not yet recovered to pre-FTX bankruptcy levels, but reached above $21,095 on Jan. 13 for the first time since Nov. 8, 2022. Despite BTC’s recent strong rally, some analysts believe BTC prices need to stay above $21,000 before the current bullish trend can be sustained.

Glassnode’s analysis based on BTC price versus volume data says, “The new bullish trend from January 1 pushed bitcoin to the $186,000 to $189,000 level, but a crossover to $19,000 is needed to gain new trading access around $19,000 to $21,000. Resistance is expected around these levels as Bitcoin faces a medium-term downtrend. If the price fails to break the trend line, we expect a pullback to the $16-$17,000 area.”

BTC trading volume of less than $18,000 indicates weak activity on current on-chain and centralized exchanges (CEX). The largest volume and overall activity appears to be around the $16,000 level, suggesting a firmer bottom than the current price range. Bitcoin’s rally could be limited to $21,095 due to low volume around levels above $21,000.

Is this just a bear market rally?

As Bitcoin continues to face headwinds including a macroeconomic crunch leading to mass layoffs at exchanges, Gemini and Genesis legal issues, and the possible formation of a U.S. House Crypto Subcommittee. As well, Bitcoin’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) currently indicates that BTC is overbought. According to the RSI analysis, a sharp downtrend could develop as the price corrects.

TraderSZ says that macro markets are also at major resistance levels. The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) is at a key support level, meaning that risky assets like Bitcoin could start to sell off if the index rallies. Bitcoin remains correlated to stocks, and the SPX Mini Futures Index is also showing signs of a pullback.

BTC may have a hard time reaching higher levels as bitcoin investors follow TraderSZ’s advice to take profits.

Historical Data Suggests Bitcoin May Have Hit a Macro Bottom

Bitcoin is currently below its 200-week moving average, and according to independent market analyst Rekt Capital, the price may have hit a macro bottom based on historical data. Historically, the “death cross” level indicates a bottom at $23,500.

Independent market analyst HornHairs cited historical data from 2015 to estimate how long it would take for bitcoin to hit new all-time highs. hornHairs said, “The bull market from 2015 to 2017 lasted 1,064 days, matching the bull market from 2018 to 2021 that lasted the same number of days. If traders matched the 2017 to 2018 and post 2021 bear markets with the current market, bitcoin would need 1,001 days to reach new all-time highs.”

Despite the current conditions and the strength of the current price breakout, Bitcoin has proven many technical analysts wrong in the past. Risk-averse traders may want to consider paying close attention to the increase in trading volume as the price rises as an indicator of whether bitcoin will eventually return to a bull market.

Twitter, under Elon Musk, is reportedly struggling to retain ad revenue, but advertisers continue to alienate Twitter, and GroupM, the world’s largest ad-buying company, has reportedly cut ad spending on the platform by 40 to 50 percent.

Twitter executives are desperate for new sources of advertising revenue as last year’s confirmed ad placements come to an end. some Twitter employees have even hinted to ad buyers that they may not be able to keep their jobs unless they spend more money on Twitter.

Twitter executives have reportedly told advertisers that for now they will have to adapt to the unpredictability of Musk’s actions as the company’s chief executive. However, advertisers prefer less controversial content when placing ads.

Since Musk became Twitter’s CEO, Twitter has been trying to open up new revenue streams. Late last year, Twitter began charging $8 a month for the Blue V certification service. There are also reports that Twitter executives are considering an online auction of certain blocked accounts to raise more money.

Musk borrowed heavily from banks in the previous deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, and Twitter is now facing increasing interest payments.

Before Musk took over last October, advertising was the most important source of revenue for Twitter. Since Musk took over, however, major global ad agencies such as Apex and IPG have advised their clients to suspend advertising on Twitter.

In mining you can find a source of passive income in dollars, taking into account that the returns we get in the crypto we mine. Step by step how to mine and what is needed.

The exponential growth of cryptocurrencies in recent years followed by the low electricity costs in our country, compared to the rest of the world, have made mining profitable and many people have been interested in participating in this activity that adds new participants every day. But with so much data at our fingertips, many users, mainly the less experienced ones, may not know where to start.

The simplest (but not necessarily the most profitable) way is to pay a company to add mining plates to your existing infrastructure. In that case the management and maintenance of the miner is completely in the hands of the contracted company and, having previously agreed on the percentages, the revenues are divided between both parties.

On the other hand, there is a more profitable way to engage in this activity, which is by assembling your own rigs (this is the name given to the set of components assembled to mine cryptocurrencies).

Although it is a task that may seem complex, with information and a knowledge base, users and investors can (and do) build their own rigs.

The necessary components are basically the same as for a desktop computer. The difference is that one or more video cards are used and no cabinet is used. The list of devices to be used is thus composed as follows:

Rig structure (where all components will be assembled).
Motherboard (main board where all devices will be connected).
Processor + RAM memory (basic devices in any PC).
Power supply (it will provide electric current to all devices).
Pendrive/Hard disk (the mining system will be installed here).
Risers (adapters that allow connecting video boards to the motherboard).
Video boards: They will be in charge of performing the mining work.

Once the components are assembled, they need to be configured together with a wallet to which the mined cryptos will be sent. They will be constantly generating income as long as they are turned on and connected to the internet. All this applies to the mining of cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Ravencoin, Ethereum Classic, among others.

Bitcoin mining requires dedicated devices specifically for that purpose called ASICs which are much noisier than conventional video boards and consume more power. They are already assembled and it is only necessary to configure them.

It is worth mentioning that for these options presented there are multiple variants such as companies that sell the rig assembled ready to connect in our home, companies to which we can take our rigs and offer housing service (hosting), etc..

Regardless of the alternative used, a source of passive income in dollars can be found in mining, taking into account that the returns are obtained in the crypto we mine and can be sold at the price of the day.