Cryptocurrency mining is painstaking, expensive, and only sporadically rewarding Why should I mine? By mining, you can earn cryptocurrency without having to put down money for it. That said, you certainly don't have to be a miner to own crypto. You can also buy crypto using fiat currency (USD, EUR, JPY, etc); you can trade it on an exchange like Bitstamp using other crypto (example: Using Ethereum or NEO to buy Bitcoin); you even can earn it by playing video games or by publishing blogposts on platforms that pay its users in crypto. An example of the latter is Steemit , which is kind of like Medium except that users can reward bloggers by paying them in a proprietary cryptocurrency called Steem. Steem can then be traded elsewhere for Bitcoin. In addition to lining the pockets of miners, mining serves a second and vital purpose: It is the only way to release new cryptocurrency into circ...