Re:Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable A...
by mparr4 on Monday July 10, 2017 @12:09PM
(#14737189)
> hardware needs to run 24/7
Why?
Re:Bitcoin's Price Surge Is Making Hobby Mining Profitable A...
by simias on Monday July 10, 2017 @12:18PM
(#14737286)
It doesn't need to but given that the difficulty is ever increasing if you only mine, say, 1/3rd of the time you're at a disadvantage compared to 24/7 miners.
Now if the price of solar electricity is completely free and bitcoin doesn't crash then mathematically there'll come a point when you'll break even but it might take a long while as the mining rewards keep dwindling as difficulty increases while you spend most of your time not mining. Eventually your miner hardware or solar panels will need maintenance and that will increase your costs.
You'd have to do the math to see how long it'll take you to break even, but something tells me that it won't be nearly as competitive as those server farms using cheap hydroelectricity.
Mostly they're concentrated around cheap hydroelectricity, with major mines in Labrador (2c/kwh), Central China (varies, but <4c/kwh), and Georgia (unknown, bitfury likely has a special deal with the local government). A few exceptions are Northern China (coal grid @ ~3c/kwh) and Iceland (geothermal @ maybe 5c/kwh, this isn't too clear either).
Solar panels are not effective for bitcoin mining, because hardware needs to run 24/7 (a shitload of batteries are needed) and the upfront cost is high.