4 ms·

You also have to constantly update your mining equipment, because it becomes obsolete within months.

celticninja 10y ago
Months is probably inaccurate mainly because new equipment is not released that often. You may need more equipment to maintain your share but not necessarily updated equipment. Further updated equipment usually helps alleviate the energy usage which in these cases is not as relevant.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  The miners I've known don't usually throw everything out. They expand or maintain with new gear when appropriate, and 'expire' the oldest stuff when space gets tight. You're right about the electricity point - replacement schedules are often dictated by power per watt, since improving that expands margins. If power is free or subsidized, hardware costs are a larger part of expenses and it becomes tempting to buy more older gear instead of less fancy stuff. (As an aside, miners are a great place to buy computer parts for that reason - I've known several unloading last year's GPUs dirt cheap. The hardware is run into the ground, but I've seen "if it craps out call me and I'll replace it" deals.)
  - celticninja 10y ago
    I cant imagine many people are still mining on GPUs, not since ASICs have become the norm and unfortunately a bitcoin mining ASIC is pretty useless outside of mining for bitcoins.
rtkwe 10y ago
Isn't the main reason that they become 'obsolete' is because their cost to run (pretty much just electricity and per unit cost of the miners themselves) exceeds the expected pay out (their relative hash rate). So by running where electricity is much cheaper older machines that have been discarded can still make sense to run.
- rudolf0 10y ago
  Really depends. CPU mining is like trying to mine a diamond with a toothpick and will only get worse. If your machine isn't above at least some threshold (unless you have a massive farm of them), you're really just wasting CPU cycles and heat.
  - rtkwe 10y ago
    Yeah it doesn't magically make _any_ mining technique profitable again but it does shift the math back towards slower/less efficient ASICs being viable to use instead of just being a waste of money. From the article it sounds like they're using 300 of the Antminer so they're not trying to run CPU or GPU mining not sure where it falls on the current profitability range, I'm not that deep into BTC.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Months is probably inaccurate mainly because new equipment is not released that often. You may need more equipment to maintain your share but not necessarily updated equipment. Further updated equipment usually helps alleviate the energy usage which in these cases is not as relevant.

Bartweiss 10y ago
The miners I've known don't usually throw everything out. They expand or maintain with new gear when appropriate, and 'expire' the oldest stuff when space gets tight. You're right about the electricity point - replacement schedules are often dictated by power per watt, since improving that expands margins. If power is free or subsidized, hardware costs are a larger part of expenses and it becomes tempting to buy more older gear instead of less fancy stuff. (As an aside, miners are a great place to buy computer parts for that reason - I've known several unloading last year's GPUs dirt cheap. The hardware is run into the ground, but I've seen "if it craps out call me and I'll replace it" deals.)
- celticninja 10y ago
  I cant imagine many people are still mining on GPUs, not since ASICs have become the norm and unfortunately a bitcoin mining ASIC is pretty useless outside of mining for bitcoins.

rtkwe 10y ago

Isn't the main reason that they become 'obsolete' is because their cost to run (pretty much just electricity and per unit cost of the miners themselves) exceeds the expected pay out (their relative hash rate). So by running where electricity is much cheaper older machines that have been discarded can still make sense to run.

rudolf0 10y ago
Really depends. CPU mining is like trying to mine a diamond with a toothpick and will only get worse. If your machine isn't above at least some threshold (unless you have a massive farm of them), you're really just wasting CPU cycles and heat.
- rtkwe 10y ago
  Yeah it doesn't magically make _any_ mining technique profitable again but it does shift the math back towards slower/less efficient ASICs being viable to use instead of just being a waste of money. From the article it sounds like they're using 300 of the Antminer so they're not trying to run CPU or GPU mining not sure where it falls on the current profitability range, I'm not that deep into BTC.

deleted 10y ago

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