Since the transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS), ethereum cannot be mined and miners are now dedicating their hashrate to different PoW chains. Since ethereum can no longer be mined, the most profitable PoW consensus algorithms are Kadena, Scrypt and Cuckatoo32. Five days ago, before The Merge, the consensus algorithm Ethash was the most profitable, as the top miner brought in $79.53 per day in profit. Today’s top mining rig, with Ethereum out of the picture, accrues approximately $69.41 per day mining chain.
Today’s top 7 mineable PoW algorithms include Kadena, Scrypt, Cuckatoo32, Blake2B-Sia, X11, Equihash and SHA256
According to the latest data from asicminervalue.com, the PoW consensus algorithm is no longer the most profitable consensus scheme to mine since the Paris upgrade triggered Ethereum’s merger. Since September 15, Kadena has become the most profitable consensus algorithm this year. Bitmain’s application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining rig, the Antminer KA3, fetches an estimated $69.41 per day with electricity costs of $0.12 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Miners mine the PoW blockchain Kadena (KDA) and Antminer KA3 produces an estimated 166 TH/s.
Kadena’s network hash rate is around 0.21 exahashes per second (EH/s) or 212.8632 petahashes per second (PH/s). The second most profitable consensus algorithm using an ASIC mining rig is Scrypt, the consensus scheme associated with litecoin (LTC) and dogecoin (DOGE). Besides DOGE and LTC, a handful of other digital asset networks such as guardian (XVG) and digibyte (DGB) also leverage Scrypt. Today’s top miner, Bitmain’s Antminer L7, can get an estimated $13.09 in daily profit. The top three miners under Antminer KA3 are all Scrypt miners produced by Bitmain.
Below Kadena and Scrypt, the third most profitable PoW consensus algorithm is Grin’s Cuckatoo32. The best Cuckatoo32 ASIC miner can get an estimated $7.48 per day in profit. Under Cuckatoo32, consensus algorithms include Blake2B-Sia, X11, Equihash and SHA256. The SHA256 consensus mechanism is utilized by crypto networks such as bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), bitcoinsv (BSV) and namecoin (NMC).
SHA256 is the seventh most profitable consensus algorithm and a BTC miner exploiting an Antminer S19 XP with 140 TH/s gets about $2.60 per day. With Ethereum removed from the equations, people can still mine Ethash coins like ethereum classic (ETC), but the best Ethash mining units make little profit compared to when people could mine ether.
At the time of writing, Bitmain’s Antminer E9 with 2.4 gigahash per second of Ethash hashpower is earning an estimated $0.45 per day. On September 12, the same machine mined Ethereum (ETH) producing $53.45 per day, according to statistics recorded by asicminervalue.com. Innosilicon’s A11 Pro ETH miner, with 1500 megahashes per second (MH/s), is not profitable and daily use leads to a loss of $3.03 per day. Five days ago, on September 12, the same machine made $30.09 per day in profit.
What do you think of the seven best minable consensus algorithms since Ethereum dropped PoW? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman is the news editor at Bitcoin.com News and a financial technology journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
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