Bitcoin Forum

So I would love some input from you guys about the following. I have been using valuehash.com to host my miners for some time and love their service. What I don't like is the US Customs fees that I have to pay and due to the tax increase I keep owing more. Myself and a few investors were thinking about starting a mine in Kosovo where we are friends with the government and can get low electricity 2-4 cents. Ontop of that there is no import duties cheap labor and real estate is also cheap. As far as the the temperatures go there the average temperature through the year is in the 50's and in the winter often goes below zero. In the summer it can spike up to 80f on occasion but for the most part 70f is the high. The humidity is decent but using any modern airfilters will help with that but on the plus side the humidity is also during the cold months which is a plus. So evap cooling should be viable during the hot months. As far as stability and harmonics of the grid we would be looking at a system setup by seegco power to fix that as many mines in this part of the world often have downtime due to the grid.

As far as our business plan it would be to host our own miners in this facility and then once ironed out offer a hosting solution to others. The benefit we see by doing this is A we control our mine and benefit from low power costs and no duties on importing machines. Then for our customers they benefit off 5-8c electric prices and also the no import taxes too. We of course would benefit on the price a little but depending on how we setup the pricing but that would be used to help in paying for the rent and for staff to be on site and other costs associated with the mine as well as paying off the equipment such as pdu switches and firewalls and all the other electrical equipment.

I would like to have some input from you guys as to what you think is best. I also was thinking of trying to do an ico gigawatt's style but on a smaller scale to scale fast but I am not sure about this as that would require a lot more work and scaling a lot faster than I imagine but is viable none the less.

Thanks guys and keeping mining!

~Taserz

You mentioned 'US customs fees,' so my post is presuming you are a U.S. citizen. Are you friends with the government already, or do you plan to 'befriend' them? As if you can't get that 2–4 cents, you will be in the 5–6 cents range (industrial electricity price), which is still low but higher than your expected costs.

The 'no import duties' part is not clear. Mining equipment are cleared through customs as Computer Parts and, as far as I know, these are not import duties free (it'd be great if someone from Kosovo can confirm whether this is true or not). Not only is there 10% import duties but also an 18% VAT on goods that are not essential (i.e., luxury goods which include computer parts). Unless the 'friendship' with the government will also help, you are going to pay for one or the other. The low electricity costs and fine weather are good factors nonetheless.

I like that you thought about humidity and power as well. Read this for further insight about humidity solutions for mining: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2360781.0.

Unfortunately, GIGAWATT has failed to achieve its goals due to mismanagement, unprecedented delays, and market downtrend/mining unprofitability. They declared bankruptcy not so long ago, so I'd advise against such move (ICO and presenting mining to others) until you get completely established. The most crucial part of this business (mining/hosting solutions) in order to work/take off is pricing and execution.

If you can get 2 cent power you don't need to host for other people.

you can simply buy used s-9's and set up shop.

Everyone says that but I rather not have to deal with machines shitting the bed and swapping hashboards around. Granted if 2cents is confirmed that is the plan to put a bunch there until better equipment could be found. Then again my few dozen s9's have been through the gauntlet and are probably more prone to issues since they have been through some extremes and most people report better longevity than the batch I got. But investing a lot of money into s9's for long term is really not smart as net gen hardware will spike the current difficulty over time and the margin for profit will be lower and the power capacity could be better used on more efficient faster machines. (I am not 100% on how many mw's are available I know when we were looking in the Ukraine we were able to get up to 50mw but not the best rates guaranteed was kind of a grey area kinda thing.


US Customs fees is important because with the trade war the increased tariffs really increase the price of these machines by a lot.

Only plan on doing this if our rates are where we expect them. It is less of a gamble if we can lock in or guarantee really low prices.

Yeah we are working out specifics to guarantee how taxes work but it will do with this creating jobs as there is more to the project as well.

Thank you for the link about humidity solutions. I feel most people overlook this but humidity is important if you want to use evap cooling effectively like how it is done in many mines I have visited or have been apart of.

Yeah I agree maybe start small than attempt a GIGAWATT but the goal would be to prove the concept BEFORE an ico. That was just something I wanted to add.

Focus on your power rate and hook up and go from there.