There's something curious happening in the dedicated hosting world today. Thanks to currency miners, there is a current lack of servers available for lease.
How the heck does one thing impact the other? It goes something like this: new currency companies are offering profits (affiliate marketing) to people that can use computers to verify transactions.
Since there's a newfound interest in any new digital currency, there's a flood of people renting out servers. Are all the servers gone? Not quite; but many popular server options are now being hounded by currency miners.
What's a Currency Miner?
Let's use Bitcoin as an example here, though there are many other new currencies popping up. Using a computer with a Bitcoin mining program, users can run the program, which then runs a number of calculations. Whenever a return value has been found (meeting the right criteria), users are rewarded with one Bitcoin. The same is true for any other new digital currency – and there are plenty of them. Think of currency mining like you would gold mining – looking for currency in the computer mines instead of the ground. It's all relatively the same thing, though.
Since people want to grab as much digital currency as they can, servers are being rented out left and right, and this is causing that server issue mentioned above. With people buying out server space by the handful, it's really hard for hosting companies to keep up with the current demand. So, you see, there's a shortage of servers right now thanks to digital currency – and people betting that these new currencies will be worth a lot in the near future.
Is Currency Mining Worth It?
It all depends on how you look at it. If you think digital currency like Bitcoin or Primecoin is going to be a worthwhile investment, go ahead and rent out servers as you see fit. But, do keep in mind that you may not get a return on that investment if your digital currency proves to be worthless in the long run. It's all rather like the Wild West in the digital currency market right now, and that means that finding a server to rent may be harder than it once was.
If you currently own a hosting company, should you rent out to currency miners? Really, this kind of mining benefits companies that have servers for rent, but you may be missing out on some prime long-term clients if you do go along with the craze. For the time being, anyone seeking to currency mine will have a hard time finding a server for rent.
Of course, if you're just looking for a dedicated server option that's not about currency mining, you can find lots of excellent reviews here on our site. Take a look at what we've come up with, and let us know if you have any questions!
