How to choose and set up your first ASIC miner: 6 steps

Cryptocurrency mining can be a tricky business for beginners. One of the first obstacles one faces is choosing the most suitable miner for their purposes. In this text, we share our years of experience to give you step-by-step advice on how to choose your first ASIC miner so you can start mining cryptocurrencies today. In doing so, we'll go from initial idea to purchase and getting it up and running.

Step One: Decide whether you want to mine at home or industrially.

The first option is to mine at home. This is profitable if you have photovoltaics on your plot or property, or are considering buying one. Electricity is very difficult to store and has to be utilised. For example, there are services that will connect your photovoltaic system to the grid and you will become the electricity supplier for your neighbours. You pay the stock market price, net of certain charges. Of course, to operate a miner is much more profitable, and therefore a large number of people reach for it. However, if you don't have photovoltaics or another source of cheap renewable electricity, mining at home is not profitable in most cases.

In this case, industrial mining, in a foreign datacenter, would be more suitable for you. For example, Coin Factory operates a datacenter in the United Arab Emirates where clients pay as little as $0.075 per kilowatt. This makes mining possible almost overnight, even for those without access to cheap electricity. All that is needed then is to select suitable industrial miner. These are among the most expensive, but also the most profitable. Models range from €3 000 to €10 000. The price also depends significantly on the price of the cryptocurrency.

We won't be analyzing individual models within this text, but whether you want to mine at home or with the use of hosting, you can find the best and most profitable miners in our article here.

Step two: Evaluate the value of your investment

The moment you have chosen your mining system, it's time to decide the amount of your investment and whether you will finance it yourself or with a loan. Of course, there are occasions when this advice changes. It is best to write to us on WhatsApp or email and ask: at +420 777 007 065 or info@coin-factory.cz. Our intention is not to sell you a miner at any price, even if it is not profitable, but to help you start your own mining business empire.

When it comes to home mining, choosing your first ASIC miner for a beginner can be an investment of an order of magnitude smaller. Why? Because the best and most expensive miners, such as the Antminer L9 or Antminer S21+, should not be running at home if you want to make optimal profits. They need professional supervision and also suitable conditions, such as low dust levels. That's why for home cryptocurrency mining, if you're solving how to choose the best ASIC miner, you usually choose cheaper models, for example from Avalon. Again, we refer to our article with the best miners for 2025. In this case, you can count on an investment from €5 000 to €10 000. Of course, there exist much cheaper models, but their return period is longer and therefore their operation in domestic conditions is not optimal.

Once you have an idea of your investment, you can proceed to the next step.

Tip: Want an approximate estimate of your miner's return on investment? In our previous article we presented the calculation formula. Unfortunately, we can't give you a specific amount because the return changes from hour to hour. If you want a more accurate estimate, email us at info@coin-factory.cz and we will calculate it for you.

Step Three: Choose an algorithm and a cryptocurrency to mine - or a combination of the two.

You probably already have an idea in your head of what cryptocurrency you'd like to start mining. The most popular choice is of course Bitcoin (SHA-256), but Litecoin and Dogecoin (Scrypt) are also very profitable, as are alternative options like Kaspa, Ethereum Classic, Kadena, Nervos and others.

The first question you'll probably ask yourself as you read this article is: which one is most profitable? The truth is that it varies significantly. For example, in mid-2025, it was extraordinarily profitable to mine Aleo, with profits of up to $50 per day. However, most alternative cryptocurrencies have lower-power miners and are therefore more suitable for home mining and not ideal for datacenters. If you want to mine industrially, this reduces the selection to just a few cryptocurrencies, among which Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin are by far the most profitable.

But there is one more element to keep in mind when choosing your first ASIC miner - diversification! Just like when investing in cryptocurrencies or stocks, a well-balanced portfolio of miners is helpful. Of course, most cryptocurrencies follow bitcoin, but this is not always necessary.

If I were to speak from my experience, for example, two miners on Bitcoin and one on Litecoin and Dogecoin (like L7 or L9) can be a good choice. It all depends on how on the level of risk you are willing to take.

Step Four: Select or create an environment to install the miner

We already have a pretty solid plan to select the first ASIC miner. Now we need to start taking real, tangible steps. This step is difficult, so be careful. Again, whether it is a domestic or industrial mining operation is important in choosing the right environment.

Domestic mining

When mining domestically, the most important thing is to ensure heat drainage. Even small miners work almost like direct-fired heaters. The miner should be placed in an environment where the heat can be effectively drained - for example, in a chamber or smaller room in the cellar. This is essential because of the risk of overheating, which has a negative impact on the life of the device. However, always keep an eye on dust levels to maintain the maximum possible life of your miner.

A Silent Box from our range may also be suitable. The Silent Box significantly reduces the noise of the miner (from 75-85 dB to 40-60 dB) while allowing warm air to be routed to the heated part of the house. Due to the soundproofing, you can also operate the miner in an area closer to the living area without interfering with comfort. If you plan to vent warm air near animals, such as near a den, make sure the outlet tubes are not too close. While many pets appreciate the hot air, the fur can be harmful to the unit. Therefore, the tubes should contain appropriate filters and be out of reach of the animals.

To summarize: you must always be aware of heat, air and noise. Heat and airflow are necessary, while noise can be customized to your personal situation - for example, depending on whether you have children or not.

Industrial Hosting

It is necessary to choose the hosting correctly when doing industrial mining abroad. We have already published a very detailed guide here.

In short: when choosing a hosting for cryptocurrency mining, don't just consider the price of electricity, but also the relationship between you and the provider, its credibility and the experience of other miners. The biggest mistake you can fall into is to choose a very cheap hosting in Nigeria, for example, and find out in a year that due to poor maintenance your miner is 30% less efficient.

If you do not follow this advice, there is a real risk that you will never return your investment in the miner because of poor maintenance. For more information about our hosting in the UAE, click here.

Step 5: Selection of a specific model according to the investment and purpose

Now we have a good plan on how to proceed with the selection of the first ASIC miner. Now we need to select a specific model. Let's put all the information we've talked about until now on paper, for example.

Take a look at our offer of miners. If you're looking specifically for home miners, you can find it here. Then just go through each model and use our calculation formula (with the understanding that if you cover all your electricity from a renewable source, the price per kWh will be €0) to calculate the price/performance ratio compared to the potential profitability. It's very easy, because on the page of each miner offered you will find the exact efficiency of the unit. The more expensive models are usually more efficient.

It is very similar when choosing a miner for industrial mining with hosting. The only thing to remember is the operating conditions for the miner. For example, in our datacenter we accept miners with a minimum power consumption of 2500 W. The number of units is not important. The maximum consumption depends from case to case, but as a guideline the limit per machine is about 4000 W. Some datacenters are not able to accept such miners. All details about our hosting, including terms and conditions, can be found on our website.

Step Six: Install the miner

The final step: your own functional miner

Hardware installation:

• Check the area once more.

• Connect the power supply. The ASIC miner usually needs a separate power supply.

• Finally, connect the Ethernet cable - this is usually included in the package.

After connecting the device to the network, find out its IP address (e.g. via a router or using an application like "Advanced IP Scanner"). Enter the IP address into your browser - this accesses the web interface of the miner. You can also find many tutorials on YouTube that can be useful.

Set up mining: you then set up mining - i.e. the mining pool and the cryptocurrency wallet. For each miner in our offer, we select the best mining pools according to our experience. The selection is therefore very simple, just join. Some home miners even have mobile apps that work over Wi-Fi.

Cryptocurrency wallet: When creating one, the app will show you a so-called seed - a secret phrase. Note it down on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope and store it in a safe place. Never (!!!) share the seed with anyone, not even your family. Anyone with access can steal all your cryptocurrency. This step is absolutely crucial. You will then enter your wallet into the mining pool interface.

Maintenance and monitoring: once the miner has been running, it must be regularly monitored and maintained. This includes monitoring temperature, environmental cleanness (especially dustiness) and other operating conditions

That's it - now you know how to select and operate your first ASIC miner!