Frequently Asked Questions
You are able to mine Bitcoin and various altcoins directly via our mining allocation page*. The availability of cryptocurrencies you can mine depends on the contract you have chosen.
You must allocate your hashpower in order to determine the cryptocurrency received for your mining output. If no allocation has been made, the mining output will default to the following for the given blockchain algorithm:
SHA-256 contract - Bitcoin(*) “Exploretrwtrade Advanced Allocation” (special feature): It allows you to get mining outputs in many different coins even if they are not mined directly by a certain algorithm. For example, you can get mining outputs in BTC while mining with an X11 algorithm! That is possible by mining the DASH coin directly, which is then automatically swapped to BTC by our algorithmic framework. The Allocation function is designed for customers to receive delivery of their mining results in their preferred cryptocurrency. We call it “mining BTC the smart way”. The same technique is also used to get mining results in LTC with a SHA-256 contract, etc.
When you purchase an Ether mining contract, you buy a share of a GPU (“graphics processing unit“) to mine Ethereum. The hashing algorithm used to mine Ether is called Ethash (or Dagger-Hashimoto).
Ethash requires the so called DAG file in order to perform the calculations. This file grows over time, which means that more operations for each hashing operation need to be performed. This means that the effective hashrate decreases a little each time the DAG file grows.
This has to be considered when comparing the theoretical output of your hashpower. Online calculators do not take this into account.
Also, please keep in mind that some of our products have a maintenance fee attached.
Bitcoin and altcoin mining depends highly on the prices and network difficulties of the Cryptocurrencies that you are mining, which cannot be predicted. It would not “look right” if we would provide data on the mining performance and sell contracts at the same time. Therefore, we recommend all our clients to do their own research and do their own performance calculation.
For example, you might want to have a look at coinwarz.com. Remember that some of our products have a daily maintenance fee which must be deducted from the daily mining rewards.
Please note that the website is an independent source of reference and not related to Exploretrwtrade in any manner.
We do not publish a list of pools we are using. Our main criteria for a good pool are: reliability, fee structure and reject rate. Going forward we will solo-mine a few coins (and pass the fee savings to our users!).
Our internal policy is: “be a good crypto citizen”. This means, that we will at least use two different pools (in some cases we use up to four) for each coin. This is to preserve the decentralized nature of the crypto networks! If we become aware that a pool is getting close to 50% share, we will switch away from it and use a backup instead.
On the first glance one might think that buying miner X is slightly cheaper than hosted mining. However, there are a number of “hidden” costs related to purchasing and maintaining a miner that change the economics significantly:
Shipping costs: few merchants will cover this, but in most cases they will charge you extra.
Customs dues / VAT: if it is an international delivery you will likely have to pay customs dues and VAT; generally this has a huge impact on the total cost of your mining equipment.
Delivery time: when you pay for your device you have to wait until the miner is packaged and shipped; if it is held up in the customs this can take weeks. And during that time you cannot mine at all (“opportunity costs”). You have to wait and hope. And if the merchant has a stock shortage; it is you who has to wait. WithExploretrwtrade you pay and get your hashpower immediately online. No delays!
Costs for additional equipment: when buying miners from larger retailers you often have to buy additional equipment like an extra PSU that matches the electricity specs for your country, control units and specific shelves to store them efficiently. This adds up significantly to the overall price for hashpower.
Setting the system up: when the device finally arrived you have to assemble and configure it. Beginners often underestimate the amount of work and technical knowledge that is needed to bring the device up and optimize its settings. People that used the first ASICs spend days and weeks on it. In monetary terms this costs you twice: (i) your time and (ii) lost mining opportunity.
Maintenance: hardware failures, outages and crashes could lead to downtimes between seconds and weeks. If your unit breaks you have to return it and start from scratch (by the way: check the guarantee time of your miner; it is often less than a year). With Exploretrwtrade you have a guaranteed uptime of 100%: in case one of your units fails another unit will be switched over and start mining for you the very same second.
Electricity: having the machines at home not only brings heat and noise, but also an increase of your electricity bill; an important factor that many underestimate. Please do not get us wrong: we do not want to discourage anyone from mining at home! We are often asked about prices and realized that many users do not know about all the hidden costs. If you compare the true costs, you will notice that our prices are very competitive. We want to provide you the best possible mining experience, so that you can focus on mining your favorite coins (and we take care of the rest).
Some of our products have a maintenance fee attached. The maintenance fee covers all costs related to mining including, inter alia:
electricity cost
cooling
maintenance work
hosting services
The fee is fixed in USD but deducted from the daily mining rewards in the natively mined coin on a daily basis.
Exploretrwtrade allows its clients to mine different types of coins at the same time. You decide which coins you prefer and you can allocate hashpower accordingly.
Each mining algorithm is set up with a default delivery cryptocurrency. The Exploretrwtrade Advanced Auto-Allocation (in short “AUTO”) will apply to all cryptocurrencies which cannot be mined directly. In the user interface go to “Mining Allocation” and choose the hashpower allocation that is best for you. When you are done press “save allocation”.
Remember that the cryptocurrencies marked with (AUTO) are not directly mined, as mentioned in the “What coins can I mine?” section of this Customer Service page.
In order to get the mining output, please ensure to add your wallet address(es) to your Exploretrwtrade profile. Find out more details about how to add your wallet(s) in the next section.
