Cloud Mining is the participation in a cryptocurrency networks mining process by renting out equipment and electrical power from cloud provider. Cloud mining is beneficial to the greater ecosystem because it provides an easier way to participate in the networks consensus and help secure the network with greater amounts of computational power.
Mining is notorious for its complicated setup processes and loud constant noise. Cloud Mining brings the benefits of outsourcing the technical complexity and maintenance of mining hardware to a service provider. It also bring the added benefit of joining a mining pool for more even distributed rewards. It is typical that providers will have contracts arranged with expiration time horizons of 1 year and above.