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Ask HN: Economics of Bitcoin Mining?
My brother, a semiretired hydropower engineer, has a client with 750 kW of generating capacity that because of regulatory snags he can't connect to the grid. He's interested in whether it makes economic sense to use the power to mine bitcoins and what the total lifecycle costs would be. Are there good resources for exploring options--which I imagine run from to full DIY to turnkey solutions to mining as a service--and costs?
- wmf 5y ago750 kW sounds perfect for a container. https://thecoindad.com/ https://thecoindad.com/ https://ezblockchain.net/smartbox/ https://ezblockchain.net/smartbox/ https://bitfury.com/crypto-infrastructure/blockbox https://bitfury.com/crypto-infrastructure/blockbox The hard part is coming up with ~$3.5M up front and actually getting anything due to the supply chain.
- mitchbob 5y agoThanks for the suggestions! In addition to the hardware, I understand that a low-latency internet connection is a must for mining. The turbine is in a remote location, so satellite internet is probably the only option, and even the fastest satellite internet (Starlink) has about 3X the latency of fixed broadband. Is this a deal killer?
- wmf 5y agoAFAIK latency only matters when a new block is found and the pool has to send new work to the miners. Losing, say, 100 ms out of every 10 minutes sounds negligible but maybe it's worse than that. Given that you're talking about a multi-million-dollar installation, a tower with a long-range Wi-Fi link may be practical. Starlink also has the problem of waiting months to receive the equipment.
- mitchbob 5y agoTIL about long-range Wi-Fi; thanks again!
- sushsjsuauahab 5y agoNormally its more cost effective to just simply spend the money on coins now, but it sounds like you have electric power lying around. If you don't have money for purchasing mining machines, perhaps you should arrange for renting out your power to someone who does. Or you could grow weed!
- elamje 5y agoI've been seeing this executed a lot in the energy sector in TX. Lots of remote locations running on excess energy. Highly recommend to get connected to people that understand these projects - feel free to reach out if you'd like to speak with anyone that's done one of these projects.