CPU Bitcoin Mining at Home in 2025: A Beginner’s Passive Income Guide
- NiTya NanD
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
CPU Bitcoin Mining at Home in 2025: A Beginner’s Passive Income Guide
As of 2025, CPU mining is slowly but surely finding its way back—especially for users want to earn passive income at home (from CPU mining, that is) While it will never be a replacement for large scale GPU or ASIC mining, CPU mining has its place, especially as a way to mine relatively energy efficient and privacy focused coins.
Below is a guide that explains how CPU mining works, what type of hardware to use, potential to be profitable, and how to set up and go about mining Bitcoin or another CPU-mineable coin from your own home!
What Is CPU Mining?
CPU (Central Processing Unit) mining is the use of a computer's standard processor to solve cryptographic algorithms to earn a reward in cryptocurrency. While this method was once the standard methodology to mine Bitcoin when it first started, today CPU mining is mainly for mining coins that use the RandomX algorithm, the most popular RandomX coin being Monero (XMR).
CPU mining can be less of an initial investment (both on hardware and energy) than GPU or ASIC mining, and requires much less energy, which makes it a viable option for beginners (or hobby miners).
CPU Mining Hardware Requirements
To assemble a basic CPU mining rig, you need:
A motherboard
A CPU (for example AMD Ryzen 5900X, 7950X, or BD795M)
Memory (8GB or greater suggested)
Cooling (CPU cooler or fan)
PSU (Power Supply Unit)
Basic storage (SSD)
Power (from a socket) and an internet connection
Some compact mini-PCs/boxes with high efficiency (for example, the BD795M board) come with a preconfigured CPU, RAM, and cooling, which allow you to find set up and also reduce your energy consumption.
CPU Mining in Action: Efficiency Comparison
Here’s a general comparison of a few commonly used CPUs for mining:
CPU Model | Hashrate (kH/s) | Power Consumption (W) | Efficiency (kH/W) |
AMD Ryzen 5900X | ~10 kH/s | ~110–114 W | ~0.087 |
AMD Ryzen 7950X | ~15.3 kH/s | ~180 W | ~0.085 |
BD795M (Mini-PC) | ~13.5+ kH/s | ~80 W | ~0.168 |
Note: Your actual experience and results may vary based on your undervolting ratios, BIOS setup, and cooling configuration.
The BD795M mini PC is notably efficient in terms of hashes per watt, making it a very economical and performant machine for low-cost, low-energy mining.
Mining Software: HiveOS to NiceHash
There are two common methods to mine with your CPU, which are:
1. HiveOS (Linux-based)
HiveOS is a great choice for experienced miners. If you have multiple mining rigs, it allows you to control everything from a single dashboard. It supports multiple mining algorithms, and gives you real-time hash rates, temperature, and wattage information.
2. NiceHash (Windows-friendly)
NiceHash is an extremely easy-to-use mining platform for Windows users. Just download the software, conduct benchmarks, and start mining. NiceHash automatically chooses the most profitable algorithm and pays out in Bitcoin, however, you mine whatever coin NiceHash is powerful in the background.
➡ Download: https://www.nicehash.com
Profitability Analysis
I can say that around the middle of 2025, CPU mining still gives some passive income. For example:
A single AMD Ryzen 5900X rig (10 kH/s @ 110W) could give you relatively around $1.87/day (depends on coin price and network difficulty).
Four rigs could generate around $6/day total revenue.
If you take electricity cost off (~$1-2/day), you can see why the net income is appealing, especially if you decide to hold (HODL) the mined Bitcoin for a time.
You can also figure out the possible profits using the examples below:
NiceHash Profitability Calculator
WhatToMine CPU Section
How to Monitor Power
To figure out your true profitability, you will need to measure your system's draw. It can be easily measured using a plug-in power meter. Then you can compare it to the mining software stats for efficiency or ROI (return on investment) calculations.
In Conclusion
Although CPU mining will not allow you to wake up rich overnight, it can put you in touch with a very simple, low-risk way into crypto mining. It is good for those of us with spare CPUs or computers kicking around. If you are set up in an energy-efficient way with a couple of good choices of software you can still scale your way to have a modest but real passive income in 2025.
In any situation, the net profitability of CPU mining can change due to price volatility, your cost of power, and increased algorithm difficulty. But for the enthusiast and for the long-term holders, a way through CPU mining might be there—albeit often ignored.
Disclaimer:
Always keep in mind the legal, tax, and energy considerations of mining in your area before starting a mining rig, this document is for educational purposes only.
Let me know if interested in a follow-up article on Monero CPU Mining, Mining with GPUs vs CPUs, or a fully detailed step-by-step build guide.
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