Cryptocurrency mining is a process of verifying transactions and adding new blocks to the blockchain network. It is estimated that the remaining bitcoins will be mined by 2140, and when the Bitcoin supply reaches 21 million, miners will no longer receive block rewards but will instead earn revenue from transaction processing fees. Bitcoin supply is limited to a final limit of 21 million, which is determined by the source code and cannot be changed. GPUs are commonly used for mining cryptocurrencies, and they can last for up to 3 years or even 10 years.
However, when Ethereum switches to staking, mining difficulty will increase significantly due to the “difficulty bomb”. ASICs are much more efficient than GPUs and are used in large farms to mine popular cryptocurrencies. It takes about 12 seconds to mine an ETH with a 2 GPU mining rig. Although there are other Proof of Work cryptocurrencies that can be mined with consumer hardware for profit, miners may have to switch to other coins due to increased competition.
If you have one GPU, you can expect to mine half of all the blocks in the network. Mining cryptocurrencies requires running a GPU at full load for a long time, which can cause it to overheat and eventually fail. ASICs are specifically designed for mining certain cryptocurrencies and can produce more hash rate with less electricity. China's crypto mining ban has demonstrated that a large part of total Bitcoin mining came from certain regions of China.
This shows that centralization is still an issue in cryptocurrency mining, and miners may need to look for alternative options if they want to continue mining cryptocurrencies profitably.
