In the mining industry chain, which link are you in?

Initially, we could mine Bitcoin using computer CPUs. Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, used his computer CPU to mine the world's first Genesis block. However, the era of CPU mining has long passed, and Bitcoin mining now is the era of ASIC mining and large-scale cluster mining. Looking back at the history of mining, Bitcoin mining has gone through the following five eras: CPU mining - GPU mining - FPGA mining - ASIC mining - large-scale cluster mining. As mining chips are updated, the mining speed changes, that is, the computing power changes. The computing power is the ability to mine Bitcoin. The higher the computing power, the more Bitcoins can be mined, and the higher the return.

It has also spawned a number of mining service industries, including mature industrial ecosystems in the fields of hardware, software, and finance. The relationship between mining ecosystem participants and them is summarized to form an industry map.

Mining industry ecological map:

The following is an introduction to the participants in mining:

1. Miners

Miners are the main body of the mining industry. Without miners, there would be no digital currency network. Other industry participants make profits by providing services to miners.

2. Mining machine and GPU manufacturers

ASIC mining machine manufacturers are mainly engaged in the research and development and sales of mining machine encryption chips. The current major ASIC mining machine manufacturers include Bitmain's Antminer, MicroBT's Shenma Miner, Canaan Creative's Avalon Miner, etc. The main sales targets of mining machine and GPU manufacturers are mining machine dealers, miners and cloud computing platforms. Mining machine and GPU manufacturers are the manufacturers of mining machines and are at the top of the industry. Every action of mining machine manufacturers will affect miners and other downstream participants in the industry, and even the entire digital currency network.

3. Mining machine dealers

Mining machine dealers are an important part of the mining machine transactions. They mainly engage in reselling mining machines at high prices after purchasing them from mining machine manufacturers or reselling second-hand mining machines, as well as the sale of mining machine accessories such as power supplies. Since mining machines released by professional mining machine manufacturers such as Bitmain are basically sold out in seconds, daily mining machine transactions are mostly between mining machine dealers and miners. Mining machine dealers are not only active online, but also have offline mining machine stores. However, since mining machine dealers mostly trade online, new miners need to be as careful as possible when buying mining machines online.

4. Mining machine firmware provider

Unofficial firmware for developing mining machines. Unofficial firmware usually adds overclocking and other functions. Mining novices are not recommended to use unofficial firmware. The mainstream control provider is okkong firmware.

5. GPU Mining Software

GPU mining requires the use of GPU mining software, which is connected to the mining pool. General GPU mining software has a 2%-3% profit withdrawal. The current mainstream GPU mining software includes Easy Miner, Miner, etc.

6. Mining

Due to the complexity of mining machine maintenance and the need for cheap electricity, small miners generally host their mining machines in large mining farms, which are managed and maintained by the mining farms, and the miners pay the mining farms for the fees. Large mining farms are generally built in places with low electricity costs and need to hire professional mining machine maintenance personnel.

7. Mining Pools

Miners connect their mining machines to the mining pool, provide computing power for the mining pool, and the mining pool will package the blocks. The resulting block rewards are distributed to the miners according to the proportion of computing power. The mining machines of the cloud computing power platform and the mining farm also need to join the mining pool to ensure stable income. The computing power of the entire Bitcoin network is close to 100E, and joining the mining pool for mining has become an inevitable choice for miners.

8. Cloud computing platform

Miners do not need to directly purchase mining machines and other mining equipment. The cloud computing platform will be responsible for the purchase, deployment and maintenance of mining machines. Users can directly obtain mining income by purchasing mining computing power directly. Cloud computing power has greatly reduced the threshold for miners to join the mining industry. It has become the first choice for more and more miners who want to try mining but lack large start-up funds and mining expertise. Cloud computing power platforms generally order mining machines directly from mining machine manufacturers, have their own mining farms, and sell cloud computing power contracts to miners.

9. Exchanges

An exchange refers to a trading platform between digital currencies, or between digital currencies and legal tender. It is the main place for pricing and circulation of encrypted digital currency transactions. Currently, the main exchanges include: Huobi, Binance, OKEx, etc.

10. Wallet

A wallet is a tool for storing digital currency. If miners do not want to trade digital currency directly after mining, they can store it in a stable wallet. When they need to trade, they can trade the digital currency in the wallet on an exchange.

Note: Since exchanges and wallets have large reserves of digital currencies, they have inherent advantages in conducting POS mining business.

Industry map divided by the order of contact after miners enter the market and service categories: