Instead of buying and maintaining your own infrastructure and hardware, you can rent mining power in the cloud. Various providers are offering their services. Worth comparing prices and services.
In other words: No complex setup of hardware and software, no loud coolers running in your basement, or even worse, in your bedroom: This is all located and managed remotely in an appropriate data center.
So why should I consider cloud mining or not?
You should because:
- No noisy fans at home
- No increased electricity bill
- No expensive new miner to invest into
- No equipment to get rid of when mining profitability ends
You should NOT because
- Lower profits: As you delegated the system management, there is some fee involved
- Opaque mining operations
- Risk of fraud(!)
- Less control (and fun and learning experience)
Types of Bitcoin Cloud Mining
Usually we talk about three forms of remote mining available at the moment:
- Leased hashing power: Rent an amount of hashing power without owning/renting a dedicated physical/virtual equipment. This is the most popular form of cloud mining.
- Hosted mining: Renting mining hardware that is hosted by the provider.
- Virtual hosted mining: Rent a virtual private (standard) server and install your own mining software on it.