Hashnest is a cloud mining product offered by Bitmain, a very familiar brand name in the ASIC world as they are best known for their Antminer series as well as the Antpool mining pool. Hashnest can seem very intimidating first, but if you are serious about cloud mining, it is really one of the only choices you should consider.
(Before you read any further, please be aware that the following is my opinion only based on my experience with the service. I have not been compensated in any way by Bitmain or Hashnest, and there are no affiliate links of any kind in this article. Do your own due diligence before signing up with any cloud mining program.)
Getting Started with Hashnest Cloud Mining
When you first open Hashnest, you will probably notice that right away, all the hash power is listed as “out of stock.” Instead what you need to do is go to the market page or tab for your miner of choice, most likely the S9 for Bitcoin or the L3 for Litecoin.
What you will see here is an incredible innovation in cloud mining – that being an open marketplace to freely buy and sell individual units of hash power. The system uses a bid/ask system that will be very familiar to exchange users.
From here, there is always a supply of hash power to purchase, and the price frequently changes. It takes some patience before placing an order if you want to secure a better deal for yourself. I also suggest that you watch the market for a few days, or review the price history to ensure that you aren’t buying when the prices are artificially high.
Hashnest Mining Fees and Payouts
Once you have secured your desired amount of hash power, you will likely be amazed to see that payments come in almost constantly.
Whenever a block is found, you will get a payout to your Hashnest wallet. For S9 hash power, you will get payments every 10 minutes to every 2 hours on average. The L3 is even more incredible, with payments coming in every 15 seconds to 10 minutes. With the app installed on my phone, I sometimes enjoy just refreshing my wallet to see the little bits of crypto filling up my account every few minutes.
Each individual block has a breakdown of your payout, including the maintenance cost. The page will also list what percent maintenance you are paying in comparison to your total payout. In my experience, the S9 has a maintenance fee of around 25%, and the L3 has an amazing 5% fee. This level of transparency is almost unheard of in cloud mining.
Cashing Out of Hashnest Mining
So what happens if you don’t like the service or just want to cash out? You can sell your hash power in seconds, and often you can even sell it at a profit.
Buying hash power has no fee, selling it has a 0.2% fee attached. In using the service, I have found that sometimes selling hash power when the price goes up, and then re-buying when it drops can be more profitable than the mining itself.
What about when the mining becomes less and less profitable?
You can still sell your shares, but the value will drop. At the moment, hash power shares are still available for the S7 Bitcoin miner, but with their fee ratio at almost 50% now, not many people are buying them, thus the price is much lower per gigahash.
When the S9 becomes or starts to become obsolete, you can sell your shares and recover some or possibly all of your investment if you act quickly enough. With a service like Genesis or Hashflare, your initially invested money is gone.
The final – and quite amazing – last major benefit of this service is that if you own enough hash power to represent an entire miner, you have the option of cashing out your hash power and having them send you one of the actual miners. You’ll pay a shipping fee, (about $50 plus whatever it costs to get to you) and it will be a used model, but cool nonetheless.
I’m not entirely sure if this is only an option once the machine is at or near its end of life or if this can happen any time, but it’s a very interesting proposal regardless.
Downsides of Hashnest Cloud Mining
So what are the down sides to the service? There are a few, but not many.
The first thing you will likely notice is that both the web site and app have numerous spelling errors. In the wallet, the word balance is spelled as “Blance,” among other various typos.
Second, the market for hash power can sometimes become grossly over-priced, and so you may find yourself needing to wait for several days or even weeks for the market to cool down.
When I started using the service, a single S9 gigahash was going for 0.00005 or so BTC (about 12 or 13 cents USD at a $2500 Bitcoin). It is now 0.000065, or $2.86 USD, based on a much-higher $4400 Bitcoin. I already sold my hashes for a nice profit, and am waiting to buy back in once the market cools.
Another issue that won’t affect everyone is that Hashnest for some reason won’t accept crypto deposits if it detects your IP address as coming from New Jersey. It’s odd but not entirely unique.
Finally, as the service is located in China, and thus behind “the great firewall,” the site can sometimes become unresponsive. This has only happened to me periodically, though, and generally, the site and app are both functional under most conditions.
To summarize, is Hashnest perfect? No, of course not. But having the ability to buy and sell hash power on an open market, as well as possibly redeeming said hash power for an actual miner is what makes it a game-changer, and something that should not be overlooked.
The Good
- 20-120 or more individual payouts per day
- No withdrawal penalties, just standard network fees
- You can buy and resell hash power on an open market, a game-changing innovation
- Buying more hash immediately increases your payout on the next block, no waiting for 24-48 hours
- Lowest fees in the industry, between 5% for the L3 and 25% for the S9 on average
- Total transparency on how your income is calculated
- You can redeem your hash for hardware (check the site for details)
The Bad
- Difficult to use, sometimes off-putting website full of typos
- Website can be slow to load, deposits sometimes unusually slow to confirm
- Sometimes market prices for hashpower can get ridiculously overheated
- No deposits from NJ IP addresses, NJ users will need a VPN
- S9 hash must be bought with Bitcoin, L3 with Litecoin
- No Fiat/Credit cards accepted, crypto only
The Ugly
- As this site is based in China, if the Chinese government suddenly wants to make Bitcoin illegal, this site will disappear in seconds along with your investment. It’s unlikely, but it’s a non-zero chance.
- Buying whole machines new seems to be almost always out of stock, seems unfair for those who buy whole machines at lower prices first and then resell the hash for a profit
- Some people really don’t like Bitmain as a company and accuse them of shady practices and favoritism to Chinese Bitcoin mines, take this with a grain of salt though as most is just conjecture
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