All figures are a snapshot from 24 October 2026 (about 19:30 UTC). Mining revenue changes daily with coin prices, network difficulty and fees.
The most profitable crypto to mine depends on your hardware class and your electricity price. No single coin is best for everyone. On our 24 October 2026 snapshot, bitcoin (with an efficient SHA-256 ASIC) and Litecoin plus Dogecoin merged mining (with a Scrypt ASIC) were profitable only with cheap power, around $0.05–$0.08 per kWh. Monero remained the main CPU coin. For high-end GPUs, the top earner was Pearl (PRL), a new chain launched in April 2026. Rankings like this can flip within weeks, so use the method below to check today’s numbers.
Key takeaways
- Profit = (your hashrate ÷ network hashrate) × coins issued per day × price − electricity − pool fees. Every input moves daily.
- Electricity decides most outcomes. In our snapshot, a modern bitcoin ASIC made money at $0.05/kWh but lost money at a typical US residential rate.
- GPU “top coins” are often small, new or illiquid tokens. A calculator can show revenue you couldn’t actually sell for.
- CPU mining (Monero) earns cents per day. It’s only worthwhile on hardware you already own and run anyway.
How crypto mining profitability is calculated
Calculators such as WhatToMine and hashrate.no all use the same basic formula:
Mining income depends on coin price; our Kaspa (KAS) price prediction offers speculative scenarios, which should never be treated as reliable.
- Your share of the network. Divide your machine’s hashrate by the total network hashrate.
- Coins issued per day. Multiply blocks per day by the block reward. Bitcoin produces about 144 blocks a day at 3.125 BTC each since the April 2024 halving, plus transaction fees.
- Price. Convert the coins to dollars at the current market price.
- Costs. Subtract electricity (watts × 24 ÷ 1,000 × your $/kWh) and the pool fee, typically 1%–3%.
The result is a snapshot. It assumes difficulty and price stay where they are today, which never happens. Network hashrate usually rises over time as new machines arrive, so the same machine earns fewer coins each month. That’s why miners also track payback period and the next halving. For a bitcoin-specific breakdown, see is bitcoin mining profitable?
Most profitable ASIC coins (24 October 2026 snapshot)
We used 24-hour average network difficulty and block rewards from WhatToMine (network hashrate for Kaspa) and prices from CoinGecko at about 19:30 UTC on 24 October 2026: BTC about $80,450, LTC about $56, DOGE about $0.077, KAS about $0.036. We applied a 2% pool fee. Dogecoin’s difficulty adjusts every block and swung widely that day, so Scrypt revenue estimates vary a lot with the averaging window a calculator uses. Machine specs are manufacturer-listed figures as reported by Hashrate Index and ASICMinerValue.
| Example machine (spec) | Coin(s) | Revenue/day | Profit at $0.05/kWh | Profit at $0.08/kWh | Profit at $0.12/kWh |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antminer S21 Pro (234 TH/s, 3,510 W) | Bitcoin (SHA-256) | ~$8.29 | ~$4.07 | ~$1.55 | ~−$1.82 |
| Antminer L9 (16 GH/s, 3,360 W) | Litecoin + Dogecoin merged (Scrypt) | ~$7.09 | ~$3.06 | ~$0.64 | ~−$2.59 |
| Antminer KS5 Pro (21 TH/s, 3,150 W) | Kaspa (kHeavyHash) | ~$3.40 | ~−$0.38 | ~−$2.65 | ~−$5.67 |
What the table shows:
- Bitcoin is still the deepest, most liquid mining market, and efficient machines around 15 J/TH can make money at industrial power prices. At $0.17/kWh, a typical US home rate, the same S21 Pro lost about $6 a day in our snapshot.
- Litecoin and Dogecoin are mined together through merged mining, so one Scrypt ASIC earns both. In our snapshot, DOGE made up about four-fifths of the L9’s revenue.
- Kaspa was a GPU coin until dedicated ASICs arrived in 2023–2024. With today’s network hashrate and price, even a recent KS5 Pro was underwater at $0.05/kWh. That’s a good example of how fast a once-popular coin can turn unprofitable.
- Zcash. WhatToMine’s ASIC list ranked Equihash (Zcash) machines near the top on our snapshot date, after ZEC’s strong 2025–2026 price run. Equihash ASICs are a niche market, so check availability and payback carefully.
Hardware choices are compared in our best bitcoin mining hardware guide.
Best crypto to mine with GPU
Since Ethereum moved to proof of stake in September 2022, GPU miners have had no dominant coin. They hop between smaller proof-of-work chains. On 24 October 2026 (about 19:30 UTC), hashrate.no’s current estimates for an NVIDIA RTX 4090 at $0.10/kWh ranked:
If you would rather buy than mine, our guide on purchasing RVN on exchanges covers wallets and the trade-offs against mining.
One long-standing name among consumer-GPU coins is Ravencoin; our Ravencoin (RVN) profile explains its asset-issuance purpose and the risks of mining it.
| Coin | Algorithm | Est. revenue/day | Est. profit/day at $0.10/kWh | Liquidity note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pearl (PRL) | PearlHash (matrix-multiplication PoW) | ~$7.68 (24h average ~$9.73) | ~$7.01 | Mainnet April 2026. Daily emission is large relative to trading volume |
| Quantus (QUAN) | QPoW | ~$5.74 | ~$5.03 | Very small market |
| Parano1d (NOID) | NOID | ~$3.45 | ~$2.75 | Very small market |
| Qubitcoin (QTC) | Qhash | ~$1.87 | ~$1.25 | Thin trading |
| Epic Cash (EPIC) | ProgPoW | ~$1.90 | ~$1.19 | Thin trading |
Older favourites such as Ravencoin (KawPow), Ergo (Autolykos) and Ethereum Classic (Etchash) earned far less per GPU on the same date. Mid-range cards earn proportionally less than a 4090 and often can’t cover home electricity costs.
Before you chase the top line, check liquidity. hashrate.no showed Pearl’s daily emission at roughly $2.13 million against about $3.54 million in daily volume. Its estimated revenue per card also fell about a fifth below the 24-hour average within the same day. If many miners sell at once, that revenue may not be realisable at the quoted price. Coins with only a few thousand dollars of daily volume can’t absorb meaningful selling at all. Building or buying a rig is covered in our crypto mining rig guide.
Most profitable coin to mine with CPU
Monero (XMR) uses RandomX, an algorithm built to favour general-purpose CPUs over ASICs. Using the same snapshot (XMR about $603) and WhatToMine’s 24-hour average difficulty, a CPU producing about 21.5 kH/s earned roughly $0.86 a day after a 2% pool fee, before power. That hashrate is about what Kryptex lists for a Ryzen 9 7950X. Assuming about 200 W at the wall, profit came to about $0.62 a day at $0.05/kWh, about $0.29 at $0.12/kWh, and roughly break-even at $0.17/kWh.
Other RandomX-family coins (Zephyr, Tari’s RandomX side, QRL and others) pay similar or less and have much thinner markets. CPU mining makes sense for learning, supporting Monero’s decentralisation, or using spare cycles on a machine that’s on anyway. It doesn’t make sense as a reason to buy hardware. To benchmark your own CPU, run XMRig’s built-in benchmark with huge pages enabled.
Crypto mining profitability: why the “best coin” changes weekly
- Price swings. A 20% move in a coin’s price moves your revenue by 20% the same day.
- Difficulty adjustments. When a coin looks profitable, hashrate floods in and each miner’s share shrinks. Bitcoin adjusts every 2,016 blocks. Many smaller coins adjust every block.
- New hardware. When ASICs arrive for an algorithm, as they did for Kaspa, GPU revenue collapses.
- Halvings and emission changes. Block rewards fall on schedule. Bitcoin’s next halving is expected around 2028.
- Fee spikes. Bitcoin revenue can jump temporarily when on-chain demand surges.
Pools affect results too. Payout method (PPS+, FPPS, PPLNS), fees and minimum payouts all change what you take home. Our bitcoin mining pools guide explains them.
Hidden costs that calculators leave out
Calculator profit figures cover electricity and pool fees only. Real-world mining has other costs:
- Hardware depreciation. ASICs lose resale value as newer, more efficient models arrive. A machine that pays back in two years on paper may be worth little by then.
- Cooling and noise. Air-cooled ASICs run at around 75 dB and dump kilowatts of heat. Ventilation, fans or air conditioning add to the power bill.
- Uptime and repairs. Hashboards and fans fail, and every hour offline is lost revenue.
- Hosting fees. If you colocate machines, hosting providers charge an all-in rate per kWh that is usually higher than industrial wholesale power.
How to check the most profitable crypto to mine yourself
- Note your exact hardware hashrate and wall power draw. Measure with a plug-in power meter, don’t rely only on the spec sheet.
- Find your real electricity rate on your bill, including delivery charges and time-of-use pricing.
- Enter both into WhatToMine, hashrate.no or a pool calculator, and set the pool fee.
- Sort by profit, then check each top coin’s 24-hour trading volume and which exchanges list it.
- Recheck weekly, and calculate payback assuming difficulty rises, not stays flat.
Mining income is generally taxable as ordinary income at the coins’ market value when you receive them, and selling later creates a separate capital gain or loss. More bitcoin how-tos live in our bitcoin guides hub.
Running these checks needs reliable inputs, and our walkthrough of mining calculator inputs and payback explains why the headline profit figure is usually too high.
FAQ
What is the best coin to mine at home?
At typical US residential power prices (around $0.15–$0.20/kWh), most mining loses money. If you already own a gaming GPU or a strong CPU, small chains or Monero can cover electricity, but earnings are usually a few dollars a day at best. Cheap or free power, such as surplus solar, changes the picture.
Is bitcoin still the most profitable crypto to mine?
For efficient ASICs on cheap power, bitcoin is the most reliable choice because of its liquidity and stable difficulty. Other coins can briefly pay more per watt, but they carry price and liquidity risk. In our 24 October 2026 snapshot, an S21 Pro earned about $8 a day before electricity.
Can you still mine Ethereum?
No. Ethereum switched to proof of stake in September 2022, so ether can no longer be mined. GPU miners moved to proof-of-work chains such as Ethereum Classic, Ravencoin, Ergo and newer coins. None has replaced Ethereum’s scale or liquidity.
How accurate are crypto mining profitability calculators?
They’re accurate for the moment you check, based on current difficulty and price. They can’t predict future difficulty increases, price drops, hardware failure or downtime. Treat the figure as an upper-bound estimate, and stress-test it with lower prices and higher difficulty.
Crypto is volatile and risky; this is education, not financial advice. Do your own research.
