With less than 4 million Bitcoin (BTC) remaining to be mined to fill the maximum 21 million Bitcoins, enthusiasts in the field are scrambling to get a piece of the remaining coins.
Read more on what will happen once all the 21 million BTC coins have been mined here.
The advancement of mining hardware kicked out the use of graphical processing units (GPUs) in a bid to make more profits. To mine Bitcoin today, a miner must have an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) mining hardware. However, the ASIC miners are currently a challenge in the cryptocurrency industry, we discussed “Why ASIC miners are bad for cryptocurrency” in a previous post.
In as much as hardware mining devices are an important factor in mining Bitcoin so is the software used to mine BTC. Bitcoin mining software acts as the enabler to the mining hardware to complete the mining of the assets. Below we focus on the best Bitcoin mining software to use in 2019.
Outline
- Why you should focus on Bitcoin mining software
- Some of the best free Bitcoin mining software to use in 2019
-CGMiner
-BFG Miner
-Miner Server
-MultiMiner - Conclusion
Why you should focus on Bitcoin mining software
The Bitcoin mining software has two major functions in enabling the mining of BTC:
If you are an individual miner, the bitcoin mining software connects your rig to the Bitcoin network.
If you are mining with a pool, the bitcoin mining software will connect you to a mining pool.
However, if you are mining on a cloud, then the software is not necessarily needed by the miner. Some software has been built for cloud mining such as Miner Server.
Read more on the top 10 cryptocurrency mining pools in 2019 here
Here are some of the best free Bitcoin mining software to use in 2019
1. CGMiner
CGMiner ranks as one of the best, most popular and extensive free Bitcoin mining software available on the market today. The software supports ASIC/FPGA miners which support Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. CGMiner is a command line application written in C providing miners with a fast, efficient and cross-platform software. The application further provides full monitoring, fan speed control, API monitoring and remote interface capabilities.
CG Miner
The cross-platform application comes with a scalable networking scheduler that can scale to hash rate of any size without network delays. The platform also prevents the submission of stale work to the new block calculations and supports multiple mining pools with an intelligent crossover in case of failure of a pool.
Limitation- CGMiner offers excellent quality of mining to the users, but the text interface may be a hindrance to new miners adopting the application.
2. BFG Miner
Similar to the CGMiner, the BFG Miner is written in C and offers the users with a fast & efficient platform with dynamic clocking, monitoring and remote interface capabilities. The BFG Miner is a fork of the CGMiner hence the similarities. However, the BFG Miner offers a more customizable mining software that miners can tinker and tweak with to their preference and is made specifically for ASIC miners.
BFG Miner
The software further differs from the predecessor as it incorporates the getblocktemplate and a built-in stratum as opposed to the getwork template used by the CGMiner. Getblocktemplate makes the mining process more decentralized by assigning the creation of the blocks to individual miners instead of the pool.
Limitation- BFG Miner only supports ASIC miners which lockout GPU and other types of hardware from the application.
3. Miner Server
For those not ready to invest in the expensive ASIC miners yet, there is an option to mine on the cloud. Cloud mining does not necessarily require an application as you can directly go on to a website and start mining. However, there exist applications that assist users in cloud mining. We selected to explain the best in the pile, Mining Server.
The Mining Server connects the users to a pool of miners and mining rewards (block rewards) are then shared among the participants. Users will need to register to the pool and select a service package that starts off at 14 cents. The application offers a variety of packages where you choose the hashing power that ranges between 250GH/s to 600,000GH/s.
However, the site of Miner Server has been inactive for a while which raises questions on the legitimacy of the mining software. Do your own research before starting to mine on the site.
Limitation- Probably a cryptocurrency mining scam. Users need to be careful when selecting applications for cloud bitcoin mining.
4. MultiMiner
The MultiMiner is a fork from the BFG Miner and is widely regarded as the most user-friendly bitcoin mining software in 2019. The application directly configures with the hardware device installed on it and synchronizes the information to create a table with all details. The desktop application is full of features such as being cross-platform, ability to switch mining hardware and mining different cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin.
MultiMiner interface
Furthermore, MultiMiner has automatic detection of network devices, as well as the ability to remotely monitor and control other MultiMiner rigs.
Limitation- MultiMiner allows a number of platforms to connect including Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu. However, the connection to the other platforms except Windows requires some work.
Conclusion
Mining software is taking the wave in mining Bitcoin in particular as the ASIC miners continue to give up massive profits for the miners. The software listed above represent some of the many applications available for free for solo miners and those in mining pools to mine BTC. However, it is key to remember to check the actual functionality and compatibility of the software to your mining hardware before installation.
