Bitcoin Forum

ArsTechnica just posted a story about Dave Carlson who says he's 'slightly below' his target of 7-10 percent of the world's mining power! He's running more than 1.4 million BitFury mining chips out of Washington state. The company has less than 10 people and Carlson owns about 5,000 bitcoins. He didn't even get his first rigs up and running until July 2013. Quite an accomplishment!

The full story's here: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/meet-the-manic-miner-who-wants-to-mint-10-of-all-new-bitcoins/

wonder how the drop in price will hit his bottom line?

Clearly a good investment as it's already throwing off free cash flow.  But his fixed expenses are high and will only increase as difficulty rises (assuming he wants to mine the same proportionate amount).  He'll need Bitcoin to keep increasing in price in order to continue to stay mining, otherwise they'll be a lot of rigs for sale.

Cost of the operation. electric, loan repayments (unless its all paid for) rent etc. 4 months ago BTC was worth 2x what it is now, its a big chunk to lose.

He's aiming to mine 10% of new coins...

I think it's all paid for... Here's a quote from page 2:

"I figure I spent about $1 million building the existing facility and racking and deployment of the mining hardware, and then we probably spent in the range of $2 million to $3 million on the hardware itself," he said. Rent is another $8,000 a month, power $40,000 a month. "I think we spent probably $3 to $5 million dollars total on the operation. It's paid itself off [in bitcoins] many times over already."

This is really important..not.

I love it , a goal of mine too , haven't broken past 1% yet at any given time :) Keep up the good work neighbor.

old news.. a couple weeks ago we already worked out that the $8m income versus (at the time) the $650 btc price worked out as 11%-12% of coins. something a little over 2.7btc per block out of 25btc.


if he did not add any more miners in the last 2 weeks to keep up with difficulty changes, he would now be making less percent of block rewards. and with prices nearing the $500 area his value of that reward is now also 23% less.

if he managed to stick with 11% mining reward. then just the price drop wold make that $8m value per month would now be around $6m a month.

the time between the interview and today the difficulty went from 4 billion to 5 billion. (25%) so if he has not bought more miners.. then his monthly value due to less then 11% of block rewards now being just above 8% (2btc per block) would mean his new income $4.32m based on todays price

There are always people in the world who overdo everything.

I personally look at it like he's taking advantage of a unique point and time in history. If I could do the same, I'd definitely be doing it...

So he gets 360 bitcoins a day that don't seem right?

Not really.

2.5btc a block=10%... which does add up to 360 a day
2 weeks ago he was on above 2.7btc a block, but now, probably less (nearing the 2btc a block area)

if you meant the fact that he is making 2.5btc vs thousands of people making dust amounts. well, just like the lottery "you have to be in it, to win it"

if you cant afford 10% of the worlds mining equipment then you wont get a 10% reward

I thought it was 10% of the total BTC, originally is 10% of new coins.

You're wrong he's aiming to mine 10% of coins

And in about month and a half, he will be making 1/2 of what he is today due to the difficulty change.

 ;D and then, difficulty rise ...  :-*

Well if I had the money I would probably do the same thing

Clearly a good investment as it's already throwing off free cash flow.  But his fixed expenses are high and will only increase as difficulty rises (assuming he wants to mine the same proportionate amount).  He'll need Bitcoin to keep increasing in price in order to continue to stay mining, otherwise they'll be a lot of rigs for sale.

Clearly a good investment as it's already throwing off free cash flow.  But his fixed expenses are high and will only increase as difficulty rises (assuming he wants to mine the same proportionate amount).  He'll need Bitcoin to keep increasing in price in order to continue to stay mining, otherwise they'll be a lot of rigs for sale.

Not necessarily, not what people have the vision and courage to do such a thing. ;D ;D

If he motivates 20 people to do the same thing, then will any of those make money?

The problem is these operations put a lot of downward pressure on the price because they NEED to sell to keep themselves afloat.  Hobbyists who spend a couple thousand bucks of free floating capital for fun don't need to recoup anything.  Therefore, they never HAVE to sell for less than what they think a bitcoin is worth.  It'll be interesting to see if there is a lull in incentivation for big farm miners because of this.  This price drop could be short term, but trends like these need some real big news to break free.  I am ok with micro-transactions at this price, but I'd feel a little cheated if I were selling large amounts of bitcoin at this price.  Who knows what they do, though, maybe they saw this coming and sold at the top and are hoping to ride out long term for a while.

Why not? The maths seems right. Morally, he risked $5m of his money, so deserves some reward.

As just were said: what is it now? it's a big chunk to lose.

Alt coins will die soon (many of them)

He will be hurtin once btc hits 2$ again.... soon enough.

Bring it on.
How soon....?

I guess everyone would love to make such wager.

that man is insane.  ::) he could also soon be a billionaire

you probably dont have a seven digit loan of liquidity either

Impressive, go big or go home is clearly his way of thinking. I dont think he will be able to keep up with his goal of having 10% of all mined coins but either way he's going to be even richer than he already is.

no , lol , I don't need loans to have that kind of skin in the game. join us :)

He already said it paid for itself many times over again, so he made his initial 5 million back plus many times more for profit.

Then he would have done better by straight buying BTC.

go big or go home
I love that attitude.
Getting the start up money (for anything) can be a big issue for some people.

This guy is my hero.