The heyday for mining established cryptocurrency has all but come and gone. These days you seriously need to know what you’re doing if you want to compete with the big boys. Industrial-scale operations have driven many enthusiasts to look for opportunity in smaller coins in hopes of catching the next big trend.

We’ve covered cryptocurrency mining in quite some detail previously on CoinCentral. However, we thought it was about time to see how two cryptocurrency heavyweights stack up in the mining department. This is Bitcoin mining vs Litecoin mining.

Before jumping into the differences, here are some important cryptocurrency mining factors to consider if you plan on getting your feet wet:

Specialized mining hardware is designed to run at the limit and, as a result, uses up a lot of electricity. It’s no surprise then that the greatest number of miners are found in countries with cheap electricity. These machines also run particularly hot and cooling your precious equipment becomes an issue in warmer climates.

To stay competitive you need to have the latest hardware and software. Furthermore, you need the expertise to ensure that your rig is working at optimum capacity. Investing in mining equipment also means putting in the time to educate yourself. Finally, it’s important to consider all the fees associated with mining on either the Bitcoin or Litecoin blockchain.

Bitcoin Mining

Let’s Shake on It – Coming to Consensus

Both Bitcoin and Litecoin use proof-of-work to validate and secure transactions on their networks. Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 algorithm to achieve this. The secure hash algorithm is a function which is commonly used in blockchains and was pioneered by Bitcoin.

Bitcoin mining is considered more complex than Litecoin mining because of the algorithm differences. Over the years more and more computing power has been committed to securing the Bitcoin network. As a result, the Bitcoin mining difficulty has increased dramatically until the present day.

Bitcoin was designed to confirm transactions at around 10-minute intervals. And to keep this time steady, the difficulty has increased so that more computing power doesn’t upset the predictable transaction speed of the network. Unfortunately, this also means that unless you have the latest hardware you’re probably going to have a tough time turning a profit in this market.