Heat and noise: ASICs generate a significant amount of heat and noise. It might take a considerable amount of time to recoup the initial investment, especially when considering increasing mining difficulty and electricity costs. For example, an Antminer S19 may cost around $7,000 to $10,000. Initial investment: The upfront cost of purchasing ASICs can be quite high. The electricity cost alone would be around $280.8 (($0.12/kWh * 3.25kW) * 24h * 30 days), not including cooling and other related expenses. Suppose your residential electricity cost is $0.12 per kWh, and you run an Antminer S19 for a month (30 days). High electricity costs can quickly erode any potential profits from mining at home. Residential electricity rates are typically higher than those available to large-scale mining operations. For instance, the Antminer S19 consumes around 3,250 watts per hour. High electricity costs: ASICs consume a significant amount of electricity. This increased efficiency means that ASICs dominate the mining landscape, making it hard for home miners to compete. For example, popular ASICs such as the Bitmain Antminer series or the MicroBT Whatsminer series are much more efficient and powerful than CPUs or GPUs used in the early days of Bitcoin mining. Specialized hardware: Bitcoin mining now requires Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), specialized hardware designed specifically for mining. In the ASIC-age, mining Bitcoin at home has become increasingly challenging and is generally not considered cost-effective for most individuals due to the following factors: How much Bitcoin will I mine right now with hardware X?. If you have understood all of the above, please feel free to check out There might be some altcoins that can still be profitably CPU/GPU mined and traded for Bitcoin thereafter, but I am not sure whether even they are worth it when you factor in your time investment. If you produce a power surplus or use the ASIC to replace electric heating, hey, you might be one of that exceptions I mentioned going in. stealing from your neighbors, or you'll be paying for it next year when your landlord increases your rent to cover the higher power bill. in a dormitory), you're either privatizing profits by socializing costs, i.e. If you're not in a particularly advantageous position, you will be quickly pushed out of the market.Īlso see: Why does mining profitability tend towards zero? If you're not paying for your power, someone else isĪnyway, if you're "not paying for your power", because it's included in rent (e.g. When the difficulty rises, it drives out the least cost efficient mining operations, in turn increasing the profitability of the remaining miners. The additional mining power increases the difficulty for all which in turn reduces the profitability. The mining market tends to reach an equilibrium: While it is very profitable to mine, there is room for investments. Chances are that your investment will outdate before it pays for itself – even when you are just looking at cost of acquisition and have no cost of power. The problem with that is that every step of miniaturization comes with a leap in power efficiency, quickly obsoleting older generations of ASICs. Currently, we are reaching 16nm technology (Oct 2016), which is already pretty close to the general state of the art. Greater mining power in one hand does have some slight advantages which adds to their more efficient processes.įinally, ASIC miners have been catching up quickly technologywise: Every few months new chips get announced moving the scale down a few more nm. Corporations are building mining centers in regions with very cheap power, and filling them with millions of USD worth of ASIC miners. Meanwhile, ASIC mining has gone industrial. It's a waste of time, even if you don't pay for power. With CPU or GPU you will never collect a sufficient balance with a mining pool that you could even get paid out. Your graphics card will be running full blast to churn out a few hundred Mhash/s, your CPU maybe a few dozen. The Bitcoin network has more than 1.7 Ehash/s (Oct 2016) now which is 1,700,000,000,000 Mhash/s. Generally, it's not worth your time and effort to mine at home! (Some exceptions may apply.) Age of ASIC miningĬPU mining has been unprofitable since 2011, GPU mining just slightly later.
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