Review: HashCows’ Mintcoin paying multipool

Multipools that switch between mining the most profitable coins are fairly common, trading these coins and paying miners the proportionate amount of Bitcoin.

Just recently, a few Proof-of-Stake coin have started doing the same thing in order to offer miners a way to still mine their coin. It also means there are repeated large buys of coins that can help keep values up.

Mintcoin recently received one of these multipools due to HashCows. I’d not used a multipool before, and only really mine with my GPU to learn about it and have fun, but given my interest in Mintcoin I decided to check it out for myself.

Very well setup…

The people behind HashCows have sure done a good job with the way their website is arranged, and the way in which it functions. There’s a real nice and simple guide to getting started mining with the pool for those who require it — and you just select Mintcoin as your payment option instead of Bitcoin should you wish.

The statistics page show everything you need to know, and the header is constantly updated with details about the current coin that is being mined. The FAQ also does its job well for those with a query.

You can also customise how different coins are handled. If you’d like to keep a certain coin, rather than having HashCows exchange it to Mintcoin, it’s as simple as unchecking a check box and entering the wallet address for that particular coin.

It’s certainly a very nice layout, and has the right content and options to make it easy for everybody who wants to get involved.

A smooth and pleasant experience…

Once you’re up and running with the mining, the experience remains just as enjoyable. Unconfirmed Bitcoin amounts mined are displayed, as well as those which have been confirmed. Once each day, this amount is converted into Mintcoin provided you’ve chosen that option.

I went to bed last night with an amount of Bitcoin showing, and this morning there were my first ‘mined’ Mintcoins sat in the balances page of my account on HashCows.

I clicked the “cash out” button, and within 10 minutes those Mintcoins were showing up in my wallet. In fact, it was likely even faster than that as my client was a little behind and took those ten minutes to fully sync-up with the blockchain.

I’d definitely recommend trying it…

While the ethical positions of using a multipool are often questioned by many coin communities (particularly those who have had problems because of them), if you want to still earn Mintcoin with your mining rig it’s your only option besides choosing coins to mine and tradint to MINT for yourself.

Doing so is extremely simple to do thanks to HashCows. I was also impressed by the amount I managed to mine with my very old AMD graphics card. The profitability switching certainly seems to do a good job.

The experience trying it out for myself was a very positive one — and it’s therefore no surprise that several proof-of-work coins’ communities that are at a high difficulty are also calling for similar pools.

Have you tried ‘mining’ Mintcoin yet? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.