Legacy coal power plant in a developing world to get cheap electricity.
Ask HN: What equipment's/setup do I need to mine Bitcoin at home?
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Re: Ask HN: What equipment's/setup do I need to mine Bitcoin at home?
#12To mine one Bitcoin per day, you would probably need double-digit million dollar worth of equipment and use as much energy as a 30,000 people town.
Is this surprising when a single coin is almost $51k? Perhaps a better question is how much equipment does it take to mine a single coin over the course of 6-12 months.
Re: Ask HN: What equipment's/setup do I need to mine Bitcoin at home?
#13Interestingly, I was just looking at the requirements for mining ETH. But I still don't know why I'd ever need a ETH coin (other than as a store of value). Why would someone buy a ETH coin from me? I may be talking nonsense, but if for example, my employer decided to switch from paper wageslips to an ETH contract, would I need ETH to execute that contract and receive my wage?
Maybe, that would depend on whether you or your employer is initiating the transaction. It would cost ETH to execute though, yes.
Re: Ask HN: What equipment's/setup do I need to mine Bitcoin at home?
#14It would be less expensive to buy Bitcoin than to mine it from your home.
Re: Ask HN: What equipment's/setup do I need to mine Bitcoin at home?
#15The biggest problem you'd have is energy cost. Bitcoin (and proof-of-work cryptocurrency in general) mining is very competitive which means the profit margins are super-thin and you're competing with people who get their energy very cheap, possibly even illicitly.
About the only way at this point is to find as much free power as possible. Failing that, $0.07 seems to be about what hydro costs. But going any where near there, you'll find other miners and MSFT and AMZN and Google are already there.
Re: Ask HN: What equipment's/setup do I need to mine Bitcoin at home?
#16> 3) Is it possible to create "smart" algorithm to reduce computing cost per bitcoin?
I think this is equivalent to the problem: "how can I calculate SHA-256 hashes more efficiently?"
This is an open problem in cryptanalysis. Is it "possible"? I think so, but it's a very complex computer science question. I would say: "it is probably possible, but extremely difficult to the point that it might be impossible."
Re: Ask HN: What equipment's/setup do I need to mine Bitcoin at home?
#17Drawing large amounts of electricity can raise suspiciouns. Such as law enforcement suspecting you run a marihuana/hemp operation.
I recommend against mining for different primary reasons though. It is speculation and bad for the environment.
Re: Ask HN: What equipment's/setup do I need to mine Bitcoin at home?
#18To mine one Bitcoin per day, you would probably need double-digit million dollar worth of equipment and use as much energy as a 30,000 people town.
Is this surprising when a single coin is almost $51k? Perhaps a better question is how much equipment does it take to mine a single coin over the course of 6-12 months.
700 th/s will get you about 1.25 btc a year. That at say 13 th/s a miner asic, at a cost of $800 per asic works out to ~$44k upfront and then each asic burns at least 1k/hour for about another $37k if you get power at 7 cents/kw. Then add cooling and data.
Re: Ask HN: What equipment's/setup do I need to mine Bitcoin at home?
#19First, be in 2011...
Re: Ask HN: What equipment's/setup do I need to mine Bitcoin at home?
#20Lol, you are retarded.