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The excitement with Chia was really something else. It was supposed to be the "green" crypto, because crypto is in a bad enough state that "buying exabytes of h

The excitement with Chia was really something else. It was supposed to be the "green" crypto, because crypto is in a bad enough state that "buying exabytes of hard drives" is considered the green approach. I guess some people managed to make money in the very early days, but it's been a long time since it's made any sense as a profit-maker. Right now, 200TB earns you just under 26 USD/month. Who are these people that can afford 200TB of storage but need money so bad that $26/month is exciting?

gruez 1y ago
>I guess some people managed to make money in the very early days, but it's been a long time since it's made any sense as a profit-maker. Right now, 200TB earns you just under 26 USD/month. Who are these people that can afford 200TB of storage but need money so bad that $26/month is exciting? Mining profits always trends towards zero. To make actual money (or any at all), you need massive economies of scale, lean operations, and advantages compared to your competitor (eg. cheap source of HDDs or electricity).
ndriscoll 1y ago
You can get refurb drives for $10/TB, so if you had cheap electricity or excess solar or something and somehow had the network connection to receive that data in a reasonable time, that's over a 10% annual "dividend yield". Not bad at all.
- HPsquared 1y ago
  There are probably better ways to many money from cheap electricity.
- pessimizer 1y ago
  You'd have to calculate this in drive-hours for it to make sense at all. Those drives won't last long enough to pay for themselves at that rate, even assuming that the per TB return on this failing cryptocurrency that you hear nothing about remains steady for a decade.
diggan 1y ago
> Who are these people that can afford 200TB of storage but need money so bad that $26/month is exciting? I'm guessing the $26/month figure you've calculated is based on the current price of something? I'm also guessing whoever is doing that right now, has calculated that the price would move in a particular direction, maybe then it makes more sense (in their mind).

gruez 1y ago

>I guess some people managed to make money in the very early days, but it's been a long time since it's made any sense as a profit-maker. Right now, 200TB earns you just under 26 USD/month. Who are these people that can afford 200TB of storage but need money so bad that $26/month is exciting? Mining profits always trends towards zero. To make actual money (or any at all), you need massive economies of scale, lean operations, and advantages compared to your competitor (eg. cheap source of HDDs or electricity).

ndriscoll 1y ago

You can get refurb drives for $10/TB, so if you had cheap electricity or excess solar or something and somehow had the network connection to receive that data in a reasonable time, that's over a 10% annual "dividend yield". Not bad at all.

HPsquared 1y ago
There are probably better ways to many money from cheap electricity.
pessimizer 1y ago
You'd have to calculate this in drive-hours for it to make sense at all. Those drives won't last long enough to pay for themselves at that rate, even assuming that the per TB return on this failing cryptocurrency that you hear nothing about remains steady for a decade.

diggan 1y ago

> Who are these people that can afford 200TB of storage but need money so bad that $26/month is exciting? I'm guessing the $26/month figure you've calculated is based on the current price of something? I'm also guessing whoever is doing that right now, has calculated that the price would move in a particular direction, maybe then it makes more sense (in their mind).