I have been mining Monero for a few months now. Not to say that the mining has been profitable – in fact it is not really that profitable. And it seems that mining at 2miners, the reward rate does seem very inconsistent. Sometimes I do get the rewards but at times even half a day can go by without any block reward (XMR). Perhaps it is because there are that less miners in the 2miners Monero pool or something but it can be rather frustrating for the miner.
Then I read about MoneroOcean and their algo switching miner program (basically a modified XMRig that does benchmarks for different algo and use the most effective one) which is supposed to set your miner to the most profitable algo for your rig. Yes Monero is supposed to be ASIC-resistant and they do use a number of algorithms to help fight against ASIC mining. If I am not wrong, the developers even change these algorithms frequently to ensure that there is no ASIC miner being made for Monero mining. Cool right? Do note that I mainly CPU mine, so the hashrate depends mainly on my processor(s). I have one sad rig using the new generation Ryzen and a few older ones. They seem to be working fine but the inconsistency at 2miners really irks me. So now I started changing all my rigs to the MoneroOcean pool.
And yes the consistency has improved quite significantly. I am getting rewards constantly. Of course the rewards per block found is much less as MoneroOcean has way more miners and rewards are shared. They are also a pool! However MoneroOcean have way more hashrate to compensate. As to whether it is more profitable – well it is pretty hard to say exactly but I think it has improved. Not by a lot but still a slight improvement. Their modified miner is supposed to fine the best algo for your computer right? And you should only use their modified miner which can be downloaded from their website. At the time of writing, their pool fee is 0% and the only way they make money is via withdrawal fees. Even their modifier miner is free without any donation to the developers. I will update this in a few months time to give you guys a fuller picture on the profitability.
As to the interface and user friendliness of MoneroOcean? The interface is okay. Nothing crazy to shout about. Gives you everything you need to know in one page. But the web interface is pretty slow and sluggish. Probably because I am in Singapore and their servers might be located far away. 2Miners however did not give me any issue though. Fast and responsive. When I refresh, the page refreshes nearly instantly. But seriously if you come back from work and you are hoping to see at least something in your rewards but discovered that no blocks have been mined – your morale and the will to keep on mining pummels. I think I will just stick with MoneroOcean if the rewards remain more consistent.
Yes my hashrate is pathetic but I usually CPU mine. Don’t really have lots of the newer computers with the latest processors at hand. I take it as an hobby. And it helps to secure the network as well. And those Ryzen processors seem to be doing a better job than Intel processors in getting those high hashrates. Not too sure why though. It could simply be the Monero algos being designed for AMD processors rather than Intel. If you are serious about Monero mining, there are plenty of guides out there to optimize mining. Seems that memory and memory timings also factors a lot when doing Monero mining. But I won’t go through the details here. And no, I will not recommend solo mining. It will probably take very long time to even hit a block and that means even less consistency! Always join a pool when mining.
Do note that if you are thinking of making profit with Monero mining, you should not only concern yourself with the hashrate, you should also be wary of electrical costs in your country. If you are living in Singapore with high electricity bills, you will most likely not make any profit at all. In fact, you could be making a loss after deducting costs. So please beware. I also mine with Nicehash using my graphics card. Mining ETH but getting payout in BTC with Nicehash. It is a GTX 1660 Super.
Update 4-Jun-2021: Yes the returns for MoneroOcean is better than 2Miners. Have gotten nearly over 30% more rewards than in 2Miners.
