Ethereum mining put my apartment in SF to about 88 degrees last summer.
Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]
41–50 of 188 posts
Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]
#42This reminds me of a story; a buddy of mine during my college days lived in a solitary townhome adjoining a million-watt microwave emitter room. The thing produced enough waste heat to warm the apartment in the dead of winter, even with all the doors and windows open, plus the adjoining warehouse which was several times the volume of the dwelling. I was envious at the time, although now I wonder about the health impl…
He lived in a house like this?
https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/1/18/Th...
Your description makes it sound like the most bizarre mixed use building. Townhouse/industrial equipment shed/warehouse is quite the combo. I can't imagine how they classified that for tax purposes or what the land was zoned for.
Assuming the actual emitters were high above his head and fairly directional then it probably wasn't a health nightmare, the heat would have mostly been waste heat from transformers, but it's probably not ideal.
What did he do in the summer? I guess it's school so he wouldn't be there for the hottest part, but there is still part of August and September as well as May and possibly June.
Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]
#43Towards the end of the video, the owner makes a point that this democratic distribution of mining power instead of large miners controlling the network is a good idea. Curious to hear more about this -- does anyone know good writing re: Democratic / distributed benefits of mining?
The bitcoin protocol is somewhat at odds with the desired goal of distributed mining. Only 1 entity gets the reward of mining a block, and only 144 blocks are mined per day. You are encouraged to join the strongest pools to have the highest chance of making money. According to blockchain.info, the top 6 mining pools control 75% of the market.
Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]
#44Towards the end of the video, the owner makes a point that this democratic distribution of mining power instead of large miners controlling the network is a good idea. Curious to hear more about this -- does anyone know good writing re: Democratic / distributed benefits of mining?
Probably the worst outcome is easier 51% attacks: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Majority_attack Note that from this perspective, a mining pool is effectively a single miner - so a Serbian miner might not actually help, depending which pool it's attached to.
> Note that from this perspective, a mining pool is effectively a single miner....
That isn't really true. A pool operator who tried to abuse their position to carry out a 51% attack against the interests of the pool members wouldn't retain their majority for long. Individual miners would switch to a different pool, or simply shut down their hardware. Conscientious pool participants could also scan the blocks they're asked to work on to detect such attempts before they are carried out, though I don't think any of the standard pool software does that yet. To sustain a 51% attack for a meaningful length of time you would have to own the hardware, not just manage it for others.
Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that the premise of Ethereum?
It's not. It still uses proof of work, for now at least. They say they want to implement proof of stake. THAT will be interesting, but I want to see if they ever get there.
>They say they want to implement proof of stake. THAT will be interesting
what's so interesting about that? there are plenty of proof of stake coins already.
Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]
#46Hm, I've politely ignored bitcoin for a long time, but I live in a cold climate and do make some use of electrical heating. Is there a good user-friendly miner setup I could use to supplement a space-heater? I assume a low-power linux box running some bitcoin-oriented package with a bunch of asics shoved into the USB ports?
Try this linux pendrive for gpu mining
https://ba.net/zcash-eth-miner-os/
Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]
#47>$460 a month
The rig looks kinda tiny even for a pooled mining setup with such output.
Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]
#48I can attest, I have a 9 card mining setup which pulls around 330w per card 24/7. In the summer when it was 70-80 degrees outside it was enough to keep a large basement in the 90s, plus the rest of the house uncomfortably warm. I had to purchase an AC to keep the place livable.
Now that winter is coming around I look forward to the extra heating.
There seems to be discussion in these comments about mining for the purpose of heating a home, but the heating is a bonus. You're making money AND saving on energy, that's the important part.
Plus, in my opinion, a constant heat source like a mining rig is preferable to an older cycling central system which can be slightly disturbing as it loudly cycles on and off throughout the day...
Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]
#49How much are they paying for power?
For some reason, I never thought of this before, but electricity costs are included in my office lease. I should be mining all the time!
Re: Bitcoin mining heats homes for free in Siberia [video]
#50Of course, it would be cool if Bitcoin didn't require throwaway computation. Then we could use this computation for something that's actually valuable, like protein folding, or something, and still make use of the waste heat.
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