What Are Advantages & Disadvantages of Bitcoin Mining? (Pros and Cons)

Bitcoin miners are not the people with shovels and picks, but instead, they own sophisticated computing environments. The miners make sure to be the first to verify transactions and earn rewards in Bitcoins.

Bitcoin mining is the reason behind bitcoins being circulated in the market. The most important benefit is that it confirms and assures that the transaction is safe and makes it trustworthy.

It is cheap and friendly to be a miner of bitcoin rather than becoming an underminer. 

Bitcoin mining has been criticized by climate activists and environmentalists for not being nature friendly. The mining process consumes so much energy that it is more than that of many countries.

• The increasing number of miners in the world made the algorithms more difficult for mining bitcoin as the difficulty of blocks increases with every new miner. With millions of miners around the globe comes a lot of machine-solving puzzles that would take a lot of energy.

• There is also a risk of investment as what if a miner can not solve the puzzle and get no reward. Equipment and gadgets worth a lot of finances will go in vain.

• ASIC chips and their increased efficiency is also a factor for carbon footprint and environmental effects.

• The mining process keeps using power 24 X 7. It accounts for 90 percent of the total cost involved in the mining of bitcoin, which is quite a lot for harming the climate.

• Regular personal computers and laptops are not enough for mining, and it needs special systems that are very costly. Miners organize a lot of ASIC systems for solving a hash. Working on regular systems will find nothing, and a miner can not crack a hash with it.

• A strong, uniform, and continuous internet connection is needed all the time for efficient operation. Going off the internet does not stop the mining process, but it indeed increases the time.

• The total cost in mining includes system price, internet and infrastructure, and electricity. Minting bitcoin by self is a very risky job as it has a very high probability of failure. There is not a sure shot that a miner will earn rewards even after putting in a lot of money, time, and energy. And in any way bitcoin prices fall, it is a deal of loss.

If any country depends on fossil fuels for energy requirements, it is a severe issue as mining will consume a lot of electricity. There are many miners using renewable sources of energy for mining, but it remains an issue of worry.