What's Actually Profitable to Mine in August 2026? Live Numbers, Coin by Coin
Every figure below is computed from this site's live network data as of August 16, 2026, using the flagship hardware we track for each algorithm. Prices and difficulty move daily — treat this as a snapshot with a method you can re-run, not a promise. Each section links to the live calculator that recomputes the numbers in real time.
"What should I mine?" is the question every calculator on this site exists to answer, so twice a season we sit down and answer it explicitly, coin by coin, with the current numbers. The August 2026 snapshot has a clear surprise at the top, a fallen favorite at the bottom, and a lot of nuance in between.
The Snapshot
| Coin / algo | Reference rig | Revenue/day | Net @ $0.10/kWh |
|---|---|---|---|
| LTC + DOGE (Scrypt, merged) | Antminer L9 · 16 GH/s | $14.30 | +$6.24 |
| Bitcoin (SHA-256) | Antminer S21 XP · 270 TH/s | $8.90 | +$1.12 |
| Monero (RandomX, CPU) | Ryzen 9 7950X · ~20 kH/s | $0.93 | +$0.45 |
| Bitcoin Cash (SHA-256) | Antminer S21 Pro · 234 TH/s | $5.10 | −$3.33 |
| Kaspa (kHeavyHash) | Antminer KS5 Pro · 21 TH/s | $4.01 | −$3.55 |
The Winner: Scrypt Merged Mining
An Antminer L9 pointed at any AuxPoW-enabled pool earns Litecoin and Dogecoin simultaneously for one electricity bill, and right now that combination is the best risk-adjusted deal in ASIC mining: roughly $14.30/day of revenue against $8.06/day of power at $0.10/kWh, for a break-even rate around $0.177/kWh — the highest tolerance of any ASIC we track. The composition of that revenue deserves attention, though: about $12.35 of it comes from the Dogecoin side and only ~$1.96 from Litecoin itself. You are, functionally, buying a Dogecoin mining machine that pays a small LTC dividend — which means your margin is exposed to a famously sentiment-driven asset. If DOGE halves in price, the L9's advantage over Bitcoin hardware largely evaporates. Our merge-mining guide from June covers the mechanics; the LTC and DOGE calculators track the split live.
The Asterisk: Zcash
Run the raw numbers on an Antminer Z15 Pro (840 kSol/s, 2,650 W) at today's ZEC price near $487 and you get a figure that looks like a typo: roughly $67/day of revenue against ~$6.40/day of electricity at $0.10/kWh. The ZEC rally that began in late 2025 has made Equihash ASICs, on paper, the most profitable machines in proof-of-work. We deliberately keep it out of the main ranking, and the reason is instructive: paper margins like these never survive contact with the market. Z15-class hardware is effectively sold out worldwide, resale prices have inflated to match the yield, and every unit that comes online pushes Equihash difficulty toward restoring ordinary margins. If you can source one near list price, it is the trade of the year; if you are paying a scalper triple for it, you are buying last month's profitability. Sanity-check any quote against the live ZEC calculator before wiring anyone money.
The Fallen Favorite: Kaspa
Kaspa ASICs were the ROI story of 2024. In August 2026, a flagship KS5 Pro earns about $4.00/day against a break-even electricity rate of just $0.053/kWh — meaning it loses roughly $3.55/day at typical home rates. Network hashrate kept climbing while the KAS price did not follow, and the arithmetic is unforgiving. If you already own the hardware and pay industrial rates below five cents, it still runs in the black; as a new purchase, the numbers no longer support it. The KAS calculator updates the break-even daily.
The Steady States: Bitcoin and Monero
Bitcoin remains what it has been all year: a thin-margin, efficiency-gated business where the newest 12 J/TH machines clear about a dollar a day at $0.10/kWh and everything older needs progressively cheaper power — our companion analysis walks the whole hardware table. Monero stays the sensible on-ramp: a Ryzen 9 CPU most readers already own nets about $0.45/day at $0.10/kWh, with a break-even near $0.19/kWh — the highest electricity tolerance of anything in this snapshot, because there is no capital cost to recover on hardware you already have. Ravencoin, Ethereum Classic, and other GPU coins round out the bottom: single-card daily revenue is now measured in cents, and we cannot honestly describe them as income at any common electricity price — they are accumulation plays for people who want the coins.
How to Use These Numbers
Rankings like this one age fast — that is not a defect of the analysis but the nature of proof-of-work, where every profit opportunity summons the hashrate that closes it. Use the snapshot to shortlist, then model your actual electricity rate, pool fee, and hardware price in the side-by-side comparator before committing to anything. And apply the test that separates mining from gambling: if the machine only pays off assuming the coin's price rises, you are not evaluating a miner — you are evaluating the coin, and you could buy it without the noise, heat, and depreciation.
Use our real-time calculator with live difficulty and prices.
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