How to Mine Ethereum Classic?

By Swati Kishore

Not many people are aware but the Ethereum Classic is the original Ethereum Blockchain. Hence, the persisting Ethereum Blockchain is a hard fork of the Ethereum Classic. This How to Mine Ethereum Classic guide will give you the lowdown on all it takes to reap profits from mining on the Blockchain. To get a comprehensive understanding of this Blockchain, you may read our A Beginner’s Guide to Ethereum Classic article.

In brief, the split of the Blockchain was the consequence of a disagreement among the larger Ethereum community post the 2015 DAO massacre. The developers who disapproved of the split, kept the existing Blockchain running, and this is what we have as the Ethereum Classic.

You may also read: 10 Differences Between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic

Can I mine Ethereum Classic?

Just like Ethereum, the Ethereum Classic is also proof of work cryptocurrency. Hence it can be mined, and the best part is that the Ethereum Classic is more suitable for miners using GPUs as compared to ASIC rigs since the network difficulty is much lower in Ethereum Classic.

Ethereum Classic mining hardware and software

To mine Ethereum Classic one needs the same hardware as well as software needed to mine any proof of work coin. To start off, you will need to have a crypto wallet that can store Ethereum Classic. Make sure yours is an ETC Wallet, and not an ETH wallet. Coinomi, Exodus, are some of the few that you can use. Higher end Nvidia graphics cards such as the 1080i are the preferred choice as compared to AMD GPUs as they are less powerful. You should have at least 4GB RAM. It can be achieved through multiple GPUs which can be combined to form one mining rig. The Claymore Dual Ethereum Mining software is viable for the mining of Ethereum Classic. It has versions available for both Linux and Windows, and can also be used with AMD GPUs as well as Nvidia. The software supports dual mining, hence it comes handy for when you become an experienced miner, then you can mine both Ethereum Classic and Decred together.

Conclusion

The nanopool configuration makes Ethereum Classic mining very simple. You need not more than 20 minutes to get everything set up and running. If you need an even quicker solution you can download the GUO client from the MinerGate where you can start mining in less than 5 minutes. One amazing thing about about mining Ethereum Classic is that the hash power required to be profitable is relatively low owing to the low network difficulty of the ETC coin. At current prices, a strong gaming personal computer would give you profitable mining. Also, if you are interested in purchasing the currency, then you may read our How to Buy Ethereum Classic article.