Hi all,
I've been hoping to set up a small 'learning' mining operations (profit is not a major motivation, but I wish to understand crypto a little more). However, it seems there is no clear list of the legit sites that sell miners. I'm hoping to go with scrypt because that seems like it would be a cheaper way in.
I had considered DRK but cannot figure out what I'd need for x11.
I'm located in Europe so shipping is an issue (i.e. any European specialist miner shops?).
Thanks.
You want mining for fun? Don't buy an ASIC (specialized chips, either SHA256 or Scrypt has them), but a GPU. With ASICs you're stuck to one mining algorithm, aka, there's nothing new to keep your interest & curiosity piqued. ASICs are only good if you know how to scale large and well and get some profit from it.
Before ASICs you had GPU and CPU mining. Many new coins have new algorithms (X11, cryptonight, M7, quark, etc....) that don't have ASICs.
Your best bet would be to start there. If you don't have a strong GPU around, try playing first with some CPU-only coins like MagiCoin (XMG).
You could buy a GPU afterwards if you understand the tricks of CPU mining. My advice would be a GTX750TI (Nvidia), small card that's easy to set-up and to me, is still the best bang for the buck. If you want something stronger, get a GTX970 (Nvidia) or an used AMD R9 etc...
If you have a strong GPU already, you can start mining X11 and all the other GPU algorithms.
I myself am a miner for fun. I once bought SHA256 ASICs but ditched them because of too much headaches/crashes for too little fun ^^
