Why mining Zcash pays more than Bitcoin in 2026 – and what about Monero

Mining Zcash in 2026 is significantly more profitable than mining Bitcoin: the Antminer Z15 Pro earns roughly CZK 700 net a day in hosting, the Bitcoin Antminer S21 Pro+ about CZK 100 (as of 18 Oct 2026). Zcash and Monero have their own algorithms and their own difficulty, so their income does not develop the same way as Bitcoin's. Monero, however, has no ASIC miners – it is mined on processors, so it cannot be compared directly with Bitcoin machines.

Summary

• Zcash (ZEC) is mined with the Equihash algorithm, Monero (XMR) with RandomX – both independently of the Bitcoin network's hashrate.
• At today's difficulty and an electricity price of CZK 1.13/kWh, the Z15 Pro earns roughly seven times more than the S21 Pro+.
• The Z15 Pro breaks even up to an electricity price of around CZK 11.7/kWh – the cost of energy hardly matters for it today.
• Monero is designed to resist ASICs and is mined on CPUs. Bitmain cancelled its X9 Monero miner before launch.
• Higher income also means higher risk: lower liquidity, its own volatility and a rapid influx of new miners.

How big the difference in profitability is

Today, 1 kSol/s on Zcash earns 0,93 Kč a day and 1 TH/s on Bitcoin 0,84 Kč. We converted this to specific machines from our range at an electricity price of 1,13 Kč/kWh (the cheapest hosting location).

The figures apply as of 18 Oct 2026 at today's difficulty and price. In the original version of this article (data from the end of June 2026), the difference at a price of USD 0.07/kWh was even bigger – the Z15 Pro was then earning roughly thirty times more than the S21 Pro+. Today, at the same electricity price (about CZK 1.5/kWh), it is around ten times. The ratio changes with the price of both coins and with difficulty.

Why Zcash develops differently from Bitcoin

Zcash runs on the Equihash algorithm and has its own difficulty adjustment, independent of how much hashrate there is in the Bitcoin network. A block is produced roughly every 75 seconds, and since the halving in November 2024 the reward has been 1.5625 ZEC per block, part of which goes to development funds.

Bitcoin miners, on the other hand, face pressure from both sides: since the 2024 halving the block reward is only 3.125 BTC, and difficulty keeps rising in the long term. Miners with expensive electricity are switching off older machines, and some large companies are moving capacity to artificial intelligence – we write about this in our article Mining 2.0: how AI is changing mining.

And what about Monero?

Monero uses the RandomX algorithm, which is deliberately designed to run best on ordinary processors (CPUs), not specialised chips. A block is produced every 2 minutes and the reward is permanently 0.6 XMR per block (so-called tail emission), so mining does not depend on halving.

Bitmain did announce the Antminer X9 Monero miner, but withdrew it before market launch – you will find the details in our news article Antminer X9 cancelled. Monero is therefore mined mainly on CPUs today, and income is calculated differently from ASICs. We don't yet have live data for Monero; check the income in a pool calculator for your processor.

Is it worth switching from Bitcoin to Zcash?

This is not universal advice to “sell your BTC ASICs and buy ZEC machines”. Zcash has its own volatility, its market is less liquid, and Equihash ASICs don't sell as easily as Bitcoin machines when closing a position. High income also attracts new miners – Zcash difficulty can rise quickly and the difference will shrink.

Diversification does make sense, though. If you have cheap electricity and spare capacity, it is worth recalculating the economics for your specific conditions: current difficulty, coin price and the actual electricity price. You will find current figures for all machines on the ASIC miner profitability page, and machines can also be placed in hosting.

What next

• Zcash miners – our range of Antminer Z15 machines with a calculation of today's income.