Crypto Mining Explained: Which Coins Are Worth Mining

An ASIC is built for one hash function. A SHA-256 machine mines bitcoin and its forks and nothing else; a Scrypt machine mines Litecoin and Dogecoin; a kHeavyHash unit mines Kaspa. There is no switching between algorithms on the same hardware.

This is why algorithm choice is really a hardware purchase decision. Before buying any miner, confirm which coins share its algorithm, because that set defines every market you can ever sell hashrate into.

SHA-256 hosts by far the most hashrate, the most hardware competition and the deepest resale market. Margins are tight and difficulty climbs relentlessly, but liquidity is excellent: the coin you earn is bitcoin, and the machine you own has buyers worldwide.

For most operators this is the default choice. Efficiency discipline matters most here precisely because competition is fiercest, which is why current-generation hydro and air flagships dominate professional fleets.

Scrypt machines such as the Antminer L7 and L9 mine Litecoin while simultaneously earning Dogecoin through merge mining, which means two revenue streams from one unit of electricity. That dual income has historically made Scrypt hardware competitive with bitcoin machines.

The trade-off is a smaller hardware market and fewer model choices, so pricing can be volatile and spare parts less abundant. Buy Scrypt hardware when the dual-coin revenue and your power price genuinely beat SHA-256 alternatives.

Monero's RandomX algorithm is deliberately memory-hard and ASIC-resistant, which keeps mining accessible to ordinary CPUs. It is the realistic entry point for anyone who wants to mine without industrial hardware, though earnings per machine are modest.

Treat CPU mining as participation and learning rather than a business. The economics rarely justify buying hardware specifically for it, but running it on machines you already own can make sense.

Check three things: daily revenue per unit of hashrate at current prices, how liquid the coin is when you need to sell, and how fast difficulty has grown over the last six months. A coin with attractive revenue but no liquidity is a trap.

Then confirm the hardware has a secondary market. Owning the only machine for a dying algorithm means both your income and your resale value can go to zero simultaneously, which is the classic way altcoin miners lose money.

Running a bitcoin fleet alongside a smaller Scrypt or kHeavyHash allocation spreads exposure across difficulty cycles and can smooth revenue. It also means part of your income arrives in assets that behave differently from bitcoin.

Keep it deliberate: diversify because the underlying economics stand up on their own, never because a new coin is marketed as the next big thing. We stock SHA-256, Scrypt and kHeavyHash hardware and will quote delivered pricing per terahash on any of them.