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A comment on Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages. Parent comment

Re:Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages by rlpb on Wednesday November 03, 2021 @10:37AM (#29095249)
You might say that a regular electric heater is 100% efficient, converting every unit of electricity into exactly one unit of equivalent heat.

Crypto mining hardware is >100% efficient, as it's exactly as efficient as an electric heater, but also generates revenue. Over time, others make more efficient crypto mining hardware, reducing the yield from yours. This causes your "efficiency" to gradually reduce down to 100%, but no lower.

However, nowadays we have heat pumps, which are also more efficient than our 100% benchmark, and produce additional useful heat.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages by hvis on Wednesday November 03, 2021 @10:41AM (#29095320)
> Crypto mining hardware is >100% efficient

It also makes the hardware depreciate (simply with the passage of time, but also because of the particular usage), which in practice effects the balance and can easily turn the monetary efficiency into negative.

[ Parent | on HN ]