Introduction

    People are constantly looking for ways to make easy money (especially on MC-Market).
    To some, $5 is nothing. To others, $5 is a lot.
    There are a lot of monthly subscriptions that I'm sure some of you are paying for. $5/mo for Spotify, $10/mo for Netflix, $4/mo for Amazon Prime, $5/mo for domain + hosting, $3/mo for XBL, and so on.. Making $5/day will easily cover these costs, possibly saving you $150*/month.
    * - Results may vary.

    Considering there are a lot of gamers on MC-Market, I figure some of you have some decent GPUs. I have a GTX 980 Ti, which makes me about $5 USD every 24 hours.
    For those less-tech-savvy: if you cannot run Minecraft at 60 FPS, your computer isn't very powerful and you will not make much money doing this.

    Most of you have probably heard of Bitcoin, and how you can mine them.
    The method I will be discussing does not involve you directly mining BTC, but instead renting your computer's power (CPU and GPU, mostly GPU) as a part of a cloud mining, "hash rental", service.
    If you are familiar with BTC mining, Nicehash's service is similar to how a stratum pool works, but again, you are not mining the coins, just renting your computer's power to buyers.
    The nice thing is that no matter what algorithm your computer is running, you get paid in BTC.
    The application we will be using automatically switches algorithms based on which one is most profitable at the time for your setup.
    Additionally, the miner can be setup to only run when your computer is idle. This is great if you're on and off your computer throughout the day.
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    Introducing, Nicehash. Buyers place bids on hashing power, and whoever bids the highest gets the most priority. Buyers can set a cap of how much hash power they want (so they don't spend all their BTC on unwanted hashing power). Since the payment per hash power varies due to this auctioning system, you are able to earn more money when the mining application automatically switches between algorithms to whichever is most profitable (has the highest bidders when compared with your computer's hashing capabilities).

    If the above introduction isn't enough, feel free to check out Nicehash's website. They have a great FAQ section that should answer all your questions, or feel free to post below or PM me if you have any further concerns.

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    Getting ready

    If you're viewing this thread, I'm going to assume you already know a little bit about Bitcoin and how it works, and that you already have a wallet address. If you aren't familiar with Bitcoin, you might want to do a little research beforehand.

    If you don't have a BTC wallet address, I personally recommend Blockchain.info. Blockchain has a phenomenal system, including all the security features you could possibly ask for.
    This is the only registration you will need to do, because Nicehash's system uses your BTC address as a username to keep track of how much you've mined.

    Ex. My mining profile: https://new.nicehash.com/miner/1K3cpegBFefgpods5vvWSv1nDzWgf7S99E
    (This is Nicehash's new panel. The new site and mining client look amazing, but it's still a little buggy. I would recommend sticking with Nicehash's production site and client to avoid any issues and for an easier experience with configuring the mining client).

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    Setting up the miner

    Once you have a BTC wallet address ready, all you need to do is download the Nicehash mining client, available here: https://www.nicehash.com/?p=nhmintro
    It's a portable application and there's nothing to install. Just unzip it and run the "NiceHashMiner" executable.

    Your first time running it, it will detect your CPUs and GPUs, and it will download 3rd-party mining applications that will interface with Nicehash's GUI. These will be ~300 MB, so it might take a few minutes to download, depending on your internet speed.

    You should have something that looks like this:
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    The first step is to set your "Service location" and "Bitcoin Address". Obviously, pick whichever service location is closest to you, and enter your Bitcoin address, not mine. (If you enter mine then I'll be getting all your BTC, which I won't mind :tup:).
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    The "Worker Name" doesn't really matter. It can be used for distinction between multiple computers that may be running for the same Bitcoin address. It will be shown publicly on your Nicehash mining profile. In other words: don't put any personal information in your "Worker name".

    Depending on how good your CPU is, you may or may not want to enable CPU mining. I do it anyways because it increasing my profits by about 10-15%. You can enable CPU mining by clicking the checkbox next to your CPU:
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    Before you start mining, you'll want to run benchmarks on all the algorithms. Not all GPUs are created equal (Nvidia = CUDA, AMD = OpenCL). Similarly with CPUs, and since buyers are paying different amounts for different algorithm hashes, running one algorithm could make you $5/day, while another could make you $0.05/day.

    You're going to want to run a standard benchmark on all algorithms, as shown below:
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    Since benchmarks are time based (standard benchmark is 20s PER ALGORITHM on CPUs and Nvidia GPUs, and 180s on AMD GPUs), it could take 3 mins (Nvidia GPU) to 30 minutes (AMD GPU) to benchmark all algorithms.
    Just let it do it's thing, avoid running any CPU or GPU intensive tasks while benchmarking. You want accurate-as-possible benchmarks so that way the auto-switching profitability feature works the best on your machine.

    After benchmarking, you can close any excess windows that opened, and you should be able to see your results, as shown:
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    I've highlighted the highest rated BTC/Day algorithms: NeoScrypt, Lyra2REv2, Lbry, and Equihash. These are the highest paying per my hash speed on my PC at the time, so I should expect to see the bulk of my payout being generated from running these algorithms.

    We can almost start our miner now, but first we need to change some settings.
    NVIDIA P0 State - If you have admin access to your computer and you're using an Nvidia GPU, you may want to utilize this feature to slightly increase your hash speed.
    Start Mining When Idle - If you're able to leave your computer turned on and logged in while you're not at the computer, this is the goldmine. After 60 seconds (configurable in the 'Advanced' tab), if you haven't moved your mouse or done anything with your keyboard, the Nicehash application will automatically start the miner for you. Once it detects mouse or keyboard activity, it halts all miners so you won't even notice any performance loss.
    Minimize To Tray - Speaks for itself. Instead of having to keep the program running in your taskbar, you can minimize it to the system tray (left of Time/Internet icons).
    Hide Mining Windows - Due to a bug with "Start Mining When Idle", you need to enable this option. Otherwise when it starts mining, it may detect the miner as system activity and just halt.
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    You can Save and Close your settings, and you're all set to go.

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    You're all set

    Just make sure to keep this application running in the background, and when your computer is idle you'll start making money.

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    You can see your stats at the bottom of the application, or click the link to view your stats online:
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    Payouts are daily for BTC >= 0.1, and weekly for BTC >= 0.01.
    I've been getting around ~0.002 BTC per day, so I'll get my payout most weeks.
    (Although I started halfway through the week so I missed the first payout chance).

    Obviously running your CPU and GPU all day may have adverse effects due to excessive heat. I'm not responsible if your computer melts because you overclocked your CPU/GPU without having proper cooling.
    Some of the miner applications do have temperature cutoffs, so if you hit 90 Celsius it will stop. That's just an example and cannot be said for all. Just be careful.