NiceHash is the only known and trusted marketplace for buying and selling hashing power. It connects sellers and buyers of hashing power in one place and it's also a well-established brand in the world of cryptocurrencies.
If you are owning mining rigs or want to utilize the power of your PC, laptop or even a server, you can download NiceHash Miner and start earning Bitcoins right away. No special configuration or contracts are needed. It is totally anonymous as you don't even have to register. Buyers of hashing power are paying you in Bitcoins in exchange for your hashing power, which is currently used to mine the most popular ZEC (Zcash). Now, there are more than 30,000 miners that are mining Zcash with NiceHash and together they are providing more than 1,000 kSol/s!
On the other hand, if you don’t own the equipment, NiceHash allows you to buy hashing power from miners mentioned above. Meaning, NiceHash works as a cloud mining service as well.
The main difference between NiceHash and other cloud mining services is in the fact that you can buy massive hashing power and spent it for mining in short amount of time, without long term contracts. This means that you don’t have to wait for months or years to see a return, but you can use desired hashing power in 1 hour, 24 hours, a week or maximum 14 days. It’s up to you for how long you want to mine.
The prices of buying hashing power are very dynamic – NiceHash itself does not set the prices, those are set by the buyers as they bid on the marketplace. If there is more competition (more orders) the prices goes up and if there is less competition (fewer orders) the prices goes down. This also means that the sellers (miners) will earn more or less depending on the status of the market.
For mining Zcash (ZEC) you can choose between three different approaches.
1. Fast 24h ZCash Cloud Mining Contracts
If you don’t want to bother yourself with finding the pool to mine Zcash (ZEC), calculating limit, and monitoring the marketplace, you can buy one or more 24 hour long contracts (that is very similar to fixed orders described below). There are four plans you can choose from. When you choose a plan, all you have to do is enter your Zcash t address and the mining can start. The pool pays out ZEC every 5 minutes, starting from 0.001 ZEC.
If NiceHash is by some chance unable to provide you a hashing power or their pool is not responding, they refund you the remaining funds you have not yet spent on the order. You can also cancel the contract at any time.
2. Fixed orders with optional limit value
If you want to have more control over the limit or hashing speed and you want to mine on any pool of your choosing, you can place a fixed order. The price of the fixed order is already set (calculated in regard to demand and offer), all you have to do is save your favourite pool, set the speed you want to spend in the day of mining and the amount of BTC you will pay for your order (this is the value that determines the maximum number of BTC you will spend on the order). Approximate duration is calculated in real-time as you change the speed and amount.
3. Standard orders with bidding on the price
Last option is the most dynamic and competitive option for buyers. You can control the price and bid on it. On the other hand, others can outbid you with the higher price and you will lose some miners. If you stay without miners, your order will be on idle until miners will be available again. You can increase the price for your running order (and that does not change the maximum amount you will spend on the whole order!) to get more miners. Similarly, if you think that the price can be decreased and you will still keep the miners, you can also do that. With limited you control what is the maximum speed you are willing to take. The amount is again the amount of BTC you will spend on your order.
All three types of cloud mining allow you to monitor your mining and view detailed statistics. Now, all you need to do is register new account and deposit some BTC to it and you are ready to mine Zcash.