If you have been involved in the mining of cryptocurrencies, I am sure at some point or the other you would have considered joining NiceHash.

NiceHash is a marketplace for crypto mining, housing a lot of premium miners. Here blockchain projects and miners come for sourcing additional computing and hashing power. Through a nice combination of strong infrastructure and easy to use mining software, NiceHash has created a strong presence in recent years.

The question I will try to answer through this review is, does NiceHash deliver all that it promises to the users?

If you have to define NiceHash in a single statement, then it is a digital marketplace where a user can buy and sell the processing power of a computer. In the terminology of cryptocurrency, the processing power is commonly referred to as hash rate or hashing power. You can look at it as an exchange panel where Bitcoin can be extracted in exchange for computing power. Even a person with a small machine for gaming can sell out hashing power from it. And for a person who does not want to spend a large amount of money on buying mining hardware can opt for can simply buy hashing power and start mining. NiceHash began its journey in April 2014 and that’s a significant amount of time to gain expertise in cryptocurrency exchange and mining. The statistics which work best in their favor are that they are the biggest marketplace for hash power, with over 3.3 million served orders, 170,000+ miners, and BTC payout of more than 181,000.

With such promising numbers, the task of winning the loyalty and trust of enthusiasts of cryptocurrency from across the world becomes easier. Other factors contributing to NiceHash becoming so successful is how easy it is to use and the low fees users need to pay. For miners who are just starting out, this is a great advantage. Using state of the art technology, NiceHash has placed servers in various parts of the world, thus providing great delivery and infrastructure. Once the users get registered, they get a BitGo wallet which is ensured and secure, for depositing BTC.

By catering to both sellers and buyers of hashing power, it boosts the user base. This also gives an opportunity for buyers to become sellers and vice-versa, depending upon their requirements. For buyers, they need to undergo the registration process before they can start ordering hash power. The sellers need not do so as they can remain anonymous and start selling without registering on the platform.

A buyer has the option of choosing his/her preferred cryptocurrency for mining from a long list of 34 unique algorithms, which include Blake, SHA-256, Scrypt, X13, X11, X15, Equihash, and many others. As a user, you may pick the algorithms which seem most profitable, and for payments, it is done in Bitcoin.

To get started, you have to first narrow down on the mining pool which you would like to become a part of. The next step is depositing Bitcoin, the minimum you have to deposit is 0.01 BTC, and then you are ready to visit the marketplace of NiceHash for placing the order. The option is there to choose between the EU or U.S. marketplace and then specifying the most amounts you are ready to pay. There is one thing you should know, irrespective of the cryptocurrency you are going to mine, the price that you will get to see will always be in Bitcoin.

For a seller of hashing power, NiceHash makes the job very simple, regardless of the rig you have. You can decide to choose between selling hashing power from either GPUs, ASIC rigs, or a whole farm. The option to pick your algorithm and narrow down on a server’s location is also there for mining.

The servers of NiceHash are operational in Chennai, San Jose, Chennai, São Paulo, Honk Kong, and Tokyo. For extracting the highest performance, one must choose the city which is closest to their location.

One of the most important factors in mining is high profitability. NiceHash does try to ensure that its miners achieve that. They have a handy tool for this, named a Mining Profitability Calculator. All you have to do is plug in the hardware you will be using and input the cost of electricity in your area. The calculator will predict the amount you can generate using the service, over any stipulated time frame, like a day, a week, or a month.  

All the hardware needs not to be profitable but considering that it relies on Bitcoin prices, there may be a case where the price will be so high in the future that selling the hash power will lead to profitability in the time to come.

NiceHash does not offer any rigid plans for subscription, you may start with the price you are okay with. The quoted prices are on a basis of BTC per day, and you may create contracts that will be valid for more than a day or less than a day. The fluctuating prices are because of the market rates of coins, along with the hashing power which is being utilized for a particular algorithm. The price list is refreshed at a period of 10 seconds, relying on the data they receive from multiple exchanges and networks.

For buyers, there are a couple of options for buying hash rates –

Standard bidding – Using this method, you may place the order at low prices, but there will be chances that someone will outbid you, thus forcing you to increase the bidding amount. Regardless of that, this is still the most economical technique when bidding to get hashing power

Fixed bidding – Fixed bidding suits best to those who are aware of their costs, and are not willing to mess around altering their orders and bids. The initial price stays higher, but it remains fixed for the contract’s whole duration. In case the prices do go up at a later stage, you may end up having a sweet deal. The fixed orders are restricted to 24 hours and are also limited in terms of hashing power, at 50%. This is done to maintain the availability of hashing power for bids of standard nature.

There are a couple of things you should be careful with. Some of the pools have the option of customizing the difficulty setting of a worker. In general, it’s the password of the worker. In such a scenario, you have to input d=12394, in the section allocated for the password, if the verification box in the pool displays the minimum difficulty level of the pool as 12394. Another is that NiceHash's responsibilities lie as far as delivering hash power to a particular mining pool, and does not extend to the reward amount achieved from the payouts or the pool.

NiceHash is likable, considering how easy and simple it is to download the software and configure it in a matter of 15 minutes or so. For a buyer, it even gets better as obtaining a large amount of hashing power in a short duration is a piece of cake. For those who are just starting in the world for cryptocurrency mining or are looking to do it more as a hobby, NiceHash is a great option.