©Shutterstock/LuckyStepDue to the infancy of the cryptocurrency mining space, many news sources in the space can be misleading, downright inaccurate, or even propagate bought-and-paid-for content without a sponsored label. A recent study found that many of the top cryptocurrency news sites were posting sponsored content — essentially ads — under the guise of news.
This kind of misinformation makes it important to stay plugged into the community and various other peer-based resources: don’t trust, verify. Check out the following list of resources to stay up with current cryptocurrency mining events:
- Bitcoin Talk: Use Bitcoin Talk to inquire into almost any cryptocurrency topic, including (but definitely not limited to) mining. Despite the name, it’s not just for bitcoin anymore. You’ll find many different cryptocurrencies being discussed. For example, it is where most popular alternative cryptocurrencies were announced prior to launch.
- Bitcoin subReddit: The bitcoin subreddit provides a great forum for lots of breaking news and current events and provides a window into the current sentiment in the community. It’s not all serious stuff, though; you’ll find plenty of memes, jokes, and other nonmining content, so do surf lightly.
- Bitcoin Beginners subreddit: The bitcoin beginners subreddit is an even better resource for recent entrants into the ecosystem, providing plenty of great information for newbies.
- CoinDesk: CoinDesk is a decent news source in an industry riddled with faulty cryptocurrency news outlets. It also provides exchange rate data from a variety of different cryptocurrencies.
- CoinJournal: CoinJournal is also a good source for cryptocurrency-related news, but clearly separates press releases from news articles so users can differentiate public relations from journalism.
- Bitcoin Magazine: Bitcoin Magazine has long been a reliable news outlet in the cryptocurrency space. Although print releases of the magazine stopped years ago, it still provides good and consistent news coverage on its website.
- Merkle Report: The Merkle Report curates a wide variety of relevant content from various news sources in the cryptocurrency space. It offers a good one-stop shop for news across the industry.
- Messari: Messari has a ton of cryptocurrency-focused data, research, and news from across the industry. It also offers a periodic daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on current trends.
- Block Digest: Block Digest is an excellent source of news in the form of a weekly podcast that features various community members discussing and digesting news and headlines from the Bitcoin space.
- Stack Exchange: The Bitcoin Stack Exchange has a large trove of questions answered by other cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Anyone can post a question or an answer. If you are looking for specific insight, chances are someone has already answered the question you may have.
Why current events are important for cryptocurrency mining
Cryptocurrencies and blockchains act as an immutable record of data, indisputable information that is accessible to anyone with the tools and knowledge to look for it. This isn’t the case with off-chain data, such as current events and news in the space, which is why it is very important to stay up-to-date on accurate information from reliable sources if you intend to mine cryptocurrency.Current events affect what’s going on in the mining space. They can affect the value of the cryptocurrency, and thus, in response to fluctuation in the value, the network hash rate, your percentage of the network hash rate, the amount of blocks you’ll mine, and ultimately your loss or profit.
There is plethora of news sources in the cryptocurrency mining space, but not all can be trusted. Some peddle misinformation with the intent of misleading you. Staying up to date on the latest and greatest in the cryptocurrency mining industry is crucial to your continued success in the space.Reliable content is the best defense against spin and distortion from those that would lead you astray. Without information, you may find yourself mining a cryptocurrency without much future value, or on the uneconomical side of a blockchain fork.
In any event, as a cryptocurrency miner, you will will have the best chance of success if you stay current with developing information.