The Mining Guy

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  • How to Mine Bitcoin Indirectly – Exchanging ZEC for BTC

    It’s tough to be a Bitcoin miner these days.

    Global political unrest as well as a huge surge in demand for AI-associated data centers have driven energy prices higher.

    And we all know that mining profitability hinges on affordable energy.

    Meanwhile, Bitcoin mining difficulty has not eased up.

    Looking at the 3 year hashrate, it is not at an all-time high, but it has remained roughly stable since the Fall of 2025.

    3-year bitcoin mining hashrate chart

    And looking at the 3 year difficulty chart, it basically mimics the hashrate. Not at an all-time high, but roughly where it was in late 2025.

    3-year bitcoin difficulty chart

    This chart shows global energy prices in USD per KWh. Not a pretty picture for commercial or residential miners.

    Global energy price trends in USD per KWh

    At the same time, Bitcoin’s market cap has grown, and it seems to be the crypto currency that is the closest to becoming mainstream. It’s price performance hasn’t been great lately, but some would regard it as the safest and least volatile, relatively speaking.

    So if mining Bitcoin isn’t profitable, is there a better way to go about it?

    Is there a way to mine Bitcoin indirectly?

    One option is to mine the coin of your choice, and then exchange it for Bitcoin.

    This can be done fairly easily, at least for some coins. And for fairly low fees.

    Exchanging ZEC for BTC

    When I mine ZEC, I routinely leave some of my holdings in my ZEC wallet, but then exchange some of them for Bitcoin to diversify my crypto portfolio.

    Lately, I’ve been using Flashift.app. The process is simple, but there are a few steps. Let me see if I can outline them:

    1. I go to the exchange area on Flashift – https://exchange.flashift.app/

    2. I choose swap From ZEC to BTC in the two drop-down boxes, and I type in the amount of ZEC I want to exchange in the type-in field. In the example screenshot, Flashift is suggesting FixedFloat is my best exchange option, and shows what the exchange rate and fees will be at current coin prices.

    Flashift screenshot 1

    3. I hit the button “Swap via FixedFloat” to proceed, and it brings up the wallet screen. Here I paste my BTC wallet for the “To” address. I skip the ZEC wallet adress, and instead on the next screen a QR code is presented. Accessing the QR code with my ZEC wallet (I use Zodl) then gives me the option to authorize the transaction and proceed.

    Flashift screenshot 2

    4. A few minutes later, the transactions have processed on the blockchains, and I have successfully turned some Zcash into some Bitcoin.

  • Antminer Z15 Overheating – how to fix a Z15

    I wanted to give you an idea of how I go about cleaning and re-applying thermal paste to an Antminer Z15.

    Disassembly of the Z15 is pretty routine.

    I unplugged the connections to the hash boards, as well as the connection to the control board.  At that point, the power supply can be set aside.

    Usually you would have to take a small screw out and pop off the top cover, but this Z15 is old and was missing the top cover when I bought it.

    After that, you can remove the screws at the back of the unit, 6x that are holding the hash boards to the rear cover, and 4x that mount the rear cover to the case at each corner.

    The hash boards can then be slid out of the case.

    Each hashboard has 3 large heatsinks.  Each heatsink has 4 screws.

    I remove the four screws from each heatsink, unthreading them a bit at a time to avoid warping the hashboard.

    I use cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol to take the old thermal paste off of both faces – the back of the heatsink and the top of the chip.

    I re-apply thermal paste, then set the heatsink back in its spot.

    When I torque the screws, I do that by hand a bit at a time and cross back and forth, again just trying to evenly tighten the heatsink down without warping the board.

    This is tedious work, but it’s not hard.

    Although I don’t show it in the video, I use the britles of a soft paintbrush to clean dust and debris out of the fins of the heatsinks.

    Drop a comment below with any tips or suggestions.