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I've been helping keep my bedroom warm each night this week by mining ethereum on my RTX 2070 - made about $6 net so far. The fact that I'm benefiting from the

• reducesuffering 6y ago
  You're probably spending much more on the electricity used than the $ from ETH. You're probably better off buying a real heater...
  • jakeinspace 6y ago
    You'd think so, but that's not the case. Electricity is only running me around 7 cents / kWh, so when I say "net" I mean it. Ethereum is up 7x over the last year, and is largely driving the surge in GPU prices - if it weren't currently profitable, nobody would be buying modern GPUs for mining it. Regardless, even if I were losing money, 100% of the waste heat from my computer is doing actual useful work in heating my room. No electric space heater would be more energy efficient at that, although it would be quieter and put out more heat per unit area.
    • SilverRed 6y ago
      A heat pump would be far more efficient if you have the ability to install one in your room.
      • jakeinspace 6y ago
        That's definitely true, but would be a significant additional cost. I'm just supplementing the gas furnace, which is controlled by a single thermostat. I could bump up the temperature for the whole house, but my room just happens to be particularly drafty, with 3 older bay windows which need to be replaced.
  • chillacy 6y ago
    Electricity to heat conversion is 100% efficient by definition (entropy), so it’s theoretically no worse than if OP bought a plug in electric heater afaik.