While good ETC mining hardware needs to have a high hash rate, efficiency is just as important.

An efficient ETC miner means that you pay less in electricity costs per hash.

To improve your efficiency, there are also companies that will let you order hardware from their warehouse and run the miners for you.

You could also cloud mine bitcoins, though these deals are usually scams. Both options are also a lot less fun than running your hardware!

ETC is based on blockchain technology, a decentralized platform which takes power away from a central authority and gives it to the average person. Sensitive information is stored on the blockchain rather than large data centers, and is cryptographically secured. A vast amount of people, known as miners, all work together to validate the network, instead of just one person or government.

Some GPUs were made solely for mining ETC.

Eventually, technology was developed solely for mining, known as ASICs, or Application Specific Integrated Circuits. Their hashrates are significantly higher than anything GPUs are capable of.

With stellar performance comes a high price tag – the best ASIC chips will run you a few thousand dollars each. Upon creation, ETC blocks were confirmed by the average person using their desktop – once ASICs hit the market, things changed.

How?

ASICs rendered GPUs useless. ASIC developers, including Powpower, granted early access to large mining cartels rather than the average person.