Bitcoin Forum

Cheap electricity and relatively low corruption in the country is one of the key indicators for any kind of industrial work; but main is to identify the best, top 10 at least best locations in earth for altcoin mining.

I, as a representative of altcoin mining industry in Georgia, consider Georgia as one of the best places on earth for altcoin mining, but it is interesting to hear what are other options.

In Georgia electricity is quite cheap: 5-6 $ cent/kwh and country is doing quite well in World Bank's Ease of Doing Business rating.

USA - if you move to one of the 3 Central Washington State counties with the cheapest power cost in the country.
 Can easily get under 3 cents/kwh


 Perhaps Kuwait, *IF* you are a native or have a real good connection there, as electric is super cheap by report to a degree you could AFFORD to A/C your miners.

Really? Washington State can offer under 3 cents/kwh?  :o

Kuwait is extremely hard.

Island with it's geothermical electricity, quasi free and it's cold wether to refresh the miners.

how does low government corruption help mining altcoins?  ???

where i live it's only 0.025$/kw try to beat it (some regions where i live 0.018$/kw)

if there are zero regulations also?

I also consider Georgia (my home country) as a best place for not only alts but for mining.
You should mention that it's not as easy to get 5-6 Cents per KWh, unless you are consuming above 300KWh. But, there's a big but also, under proper management and under good connections you are able to get your own power plant, small or medium one, last couple years governmental structures are working and in fact supporting people to run power plants, there are some regulations of course, but it's relatively easy to do it. Also consider that there are  more than 25k (yeas! 25 fucking thousand) rivers in Georgia, not all of them are capable to handle power plants, but hey, 25.000+! So My voice goes to Georgia the country!

china electricity prices are very low and maybe New zealand.
European zone is very expensive. Dont run miner if u are living in there. :)

I hear that a lot on China, but people are skeptical about prices on electricity. Do you think you can get lower than 5 $ cent per kWh in any part of China?
What then about business environment.

EU, yes, it is I expensive. I leave in Georgia, which is straight in the middle of Europe and Asia; we run here pilot mining project and our electricity bill is not exceeding 5 $ cent per kWh and it looks actually quite efficient. But I believe there will be in the world somewhere cheaper electricity  :D So we want to explore that.

We are preparing now for ICO (http://goldenfleece.co/index.php/ico-details/) to raise funds for our mega mining datacenter in Georgia but for the future we look for alternative markets. For example, we are looking into opportunity to develop datacenter in Singapore.

Well, that helps everything and any kind of business, don't you agree?  ;D  ;D

Well, i am living in asia and the price of electricity in my country is about 0,05$/KW, so it is worth mining coins here

Agree, 300 kWh is min that you shall consume to get cheap electricity in Georgia, but our goal is to built mega mining datacenter so we definitely will consume far above 300 kWh electricity  ;D  We are running now pilot project in Kakheti for altcoin mining and our electricity bill do not exceed $ 5 cent kWh.

We are actually preparing for ICO to raise funds for the mega mining datacenter (http://goldenfleece.co - do not comment about web-site  :D we are in the process to upgrade it  :D ). Our project is called Golden Fleece (first Georgian altcoin) and we plan to build the mining datacenter on the land of Colchis in West Georgia; and yes we use green energy as a source of electricity for altcoin mining. You are right there are lots of HPP opportunities in Georgia but we target to use solar and wind power as well (but not big portion of our consumption).

What do you thing about Singapore?

it is same in my country as well, in Georgia  :D but which country you are referring? and why it is better to do mining in your country but not in Singapore for example or I don't know, in any other countries; challenging you  ;D  ;D

Number one for sure goes to Russia , they have sub 5 cents power in many places , some regions/cities in far east near Monstrous hydroelectric dams have as low as 2 cents + its cold weather that is a huge plus for mining of course :)

In Eastern Europe :  Moldova , Pridnestrovie autonomus region that is subsidized (helped) by Russia : 5 cents . World Fastest internet with 1Gbit fiber coverage  . Best country in Europe bar none :D . A massive hydroelectric dam from Dubosar , built by USSR , providing plenty of green clean energy to entire region .

 

As not only Georgian but as business mind person/project, I will defenitly stay away from Russia. Especially when 5 cent is exactly same what Georgia offers or Asia as folks here are saying. Russia favours Vitalik of Ethereum  ;D so they probably rather give room for Ethereum blockchain servers rather then altcoin mining of yours or ours  :D


We focus on quite a big datacenters, our recet project of Golden Fleece mining will consume as much as 20MW electricity (our calculation proves this capacity) and I am pretty sure this big plant in Russia without lobby from the FedRusGov will not be possible.
Well, our project depends on funds raised during the ICO which starts on 15 August; we target to raise $50ml (yes 50 ml!) but if we raise less funds we still for sure will build the smaller one that of course will consume less electricity. Our current pilot mining project runs just fine and elecricity bill never goes above 5 cent per kwh. 

Moldova is an interesting idea; thanks. Do you know anyone doing altcoin mining in moldova?

Mind if I ask were are you from? and also why Kakhetia? It is the hottest region of Georgia, in summer temps reaches sometimes 40+ degrees, also there are not as many rivers as in other regions, also wind tourbins may have troubles running, the only option for green energy is solar. Why not to consider other regions? The higher you go from the sea level the cheaper electricity gets, plus there are some support from government if you use local labor and tons and tons of stuff consider. As for myself Kakhetia not seems an option for me, I'm running several data centers in Tbilisi and Kazbegi region also, some for myself and global customers hostinh service, some for local clients.

China.. maybe

 I presume you mean Kuwait is extremely HOT. It's also dry though so evap cooling would work well - if water is available enough.


 There are 3 County PUD in Washington State that offer less than 3c / KWH all costs included rates - Chelan and Douglas counties are close to that on RESIDENTIAL and SMALL business rates, their mid-size and large business rates are less.
 Grant county is close to 4.5 for residential/small business, but once you get above 200KW into the large business rate they are in the 3 or under range as well.

 These 3 counties offer the lowest rates in the country by quite a bit - the next lowest areas in the US I'm aware of barely dip under 5 cents/KWH for INDUSTRIAL level rates.
 All 3 have local power rates subsidised quite a bit, as they all have considerable hydropower via large Columbia River dams and sell off the excess power to outside areas - mostly the Seattle/Tacoma area but at least some as far away as California and they make enough over production costs on those long-term contracts to be able to sell to locals for less than cost of production.


 For reference, the Grand Coulee dam is located partly in Grant County, partly in Okanogon County (it dams the Columbia River, which forms the boundary for the 2 counties in that area), but is owned by the Federal Bonneville Power Administration - and provides ZERO power to Grant County as far as I know (it's power output tends to get shipped a lot farther away).


 There are quite a few areas that have 1 GB service, or fiber backbones with even higher data rates available throughout the world, it's getting fairly common any more for mid-to-high pop density areas.
 All 3 of the Central Washington PUDs mentioned above have a "fiber backbone" that runs alongside their power transmission network with a primary usage intend of remote meter reading.
 Access to it is provided to customers via local ISPs and "terminator boxes" that offer 100 Mb Ethernet by default but do have "higher speed" fiber ports available as an option, as well as linking into the power meter(s) for the location the box is at.

Nah, there is no country like Serbia. Here almost every house have few rigs.
They put them even in sleeping rooms :)
Electricity is for now very cheap, lots of peoples are experts to make and maintain mines.
And we have very long tradition with mining. Lots of peoples have rigs even before bitcoin
start, because they use them to decode mobile phones...

hm, interesting about Serbia. What is the lowest possible price for electricity per kwh you can get there? In which town?
What about legal side? Is it easy to set up company and start mining for foreing nationals?

But what people are decoding that much ?  ;D  ;D

Yes, it is extremly hard (and expensive) to arrange cooling system in place where even water is an issue. If you compare it to Georgia with this regard, Georgia is definite winner.

However, Washington is something to explore further. What about taxes? Is not it making the project expensive?
Thanks a lot for sharing so many details for all of us. 

After successful ICO of the GFL (Golden Fleece) (and we are pretty sure it will be succesful), we will finalise developement of the mining datacenter in Georgia by January 2018. But we are not going to withdraw heavily funds from the company genrated after the mining; we rather invest in mining in other country.

So far East Europe seems a winner in those posts (+Washington).

Is anyone here interested in investment in alctoin mining in your country? If yes, in what scale? (well, this is topic for other forum-window but anyway; say just shortly).  We van discuss details in private conversation later.

Post soviet countries are mostly best for mining. Even in some of those countries governments provide free electricity for the citizens. And if you have opportunity to bring hardwares from dubai. Everything may be very cheap and nice.

True. That's why we are doing it in Georgia first; and meanwhile we have to decide either re-invest in Georgia or invest in other country.

Iceland - cheap or free geothermal power generation and cold climate for free cooling

Do you know what is electricity price there?

It makes sense to be multinational .  Simple reason is a country may destabilize and having a second country gives you backup.

Obviously this is more true for a larger company.  You mention you may have as much as 50 million to invest So I would say that is big enough to consider 2 locations each one in a different country.

A second comment on being diverse would be to say have some BTC mining gear.  Avalon 741's are reliable and with dirt cheap power  5 cents or less having 5 or 10 % of your gear with them gives you a backup if alt coins have a massive crash.

If alt coins were to crash BTC could explode in value so  40 million in alt coin gear and 10 million in btc gear may be a good mix for you.

No, do you? Not much from what ive heard. The heat could used for home heating and laundry too.

No, never heard.

How hear could be used for e.g. laundry?
We are speaking for mega mining datacenters which as you can imaigen is located in big seperate building specially built for servers and necessary equipment.

Absolutley agree. But we focus now on our ICO and let's see how it goes http://goldenfleece.co/index.php/ico-details/

We have our ICO dedicated topic seperatly and will be greatful if you visit and share your thought there on our project. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2040790.new#new
I do not want to bother people too much speaking on our project in this window.

Bulgaria:
- it's in EU, so transfers FROM SEPA-enabled exchanges are cheap (depends on the bank you use, outgoing are not that cheap, but there are banks using SEPA, like UniCredit, and most others also allow SEPA if you go in their office; or you can use TransferWise for moving money)
- EU VAT deductable, so you can pay it here whenever something goes out of your inventory
- income and corporate tax is flat 10% if your money come here. If not - you don't care.
- no requirement to have anyone working in the company as you can work in it as a manager on a contract
- electricity base cost is about than 0.09 EUR, with company contract you can get much lower and deduct VAT
- cheap property to rent or buy
- cheap labor if you want people working on it
- some PC hardware stores already specialized in building mining rigs (hardwareBG.com) almost en masse, already built few larger projects
- cheap security - you can get it covered for literally few eur per month, depending on the scale, or you can just get few ex-cops for like 250 EUR a month
- cheap and very reliable internet connections, you can get optic and a mobile cell backup for few euros a month
- cheap accounting, a contract is 75 eur a month and they would do everything for you - you just have to send them any invoices, etc.
- very, very, very low chance on govt bullies, as they don't get anything high-tech at all. Which is why the IT is the only branch in the country that develops so well :D
- the country is stable, despite changing governments (well, last times it was just the same party coming back, as much as we hate it)
- higher temperatures only mid-summer, but on a large scale you'd use combined cooling solutions anyway
.
Not sure if you want to reside here, but if this is the case - it's among the cheapest countries in Europe. Low crime rate too.  

Not really much going on government level in regards of cryptocurrency, old school, so they don't get it. If anything they would impose same tax, but it's really hard to ever force you to declare unless you fill a bank account with transfers from exchanges...

Electricity price is one parameter, but then there's taxes (not all countries treat revenues from cryptos the same way), internet connection stability, electric grid stability, summer temperature, hardware price (VAT etc.)...all kinds of things.

In other words, if you pay 1ct/kW but all the rest is shit, it's not worth it  :P

Georgia is close to Bulgaria

So if possible op should look for a backup site there.

Yes, good option. Especially considering that "main" internet cable to Georgia across the Black Sea from Europe comes exactly from Bulgaria.

Any suggestion for possible partners in Bulgaria to go through financial figures and partnership? Send us private message.

Serbia, Bulgaria and Moldova looks interesting for Golden Fleece considering the geographical location; but as we all know in this era of technology (still we are in e-stone age) distance does not matter.

We are discussing joint project with Singapore based partner as well; but again that said top top top priority is to make successful our ICO that starts on 15 August!

Thanks for sharing so many details. Are you based in Bulgaria?

Of course, there are many things which matter, but electricity is big element  :-\
That's why we chose Georgia for our first mega project (absolutely attractive for altcoing mining), not only because this the land of Colchis and is our motherland  ;D
There are three big blockchain servers located in Georgia, run by Bitfury; even the State Registry of property/business is using their blockchain. Well, anyway, blockchain is different story then mining but linked  ;D  :D

I'm not into that, so can't help you with investment partner (not to mention anyone I could think of would have been approached already, I guess). If you are just looking for easier way in, the procedure for incorporation here is simple and doesn't even take a day, so I'd avoid having any Bulgarian partners if they are not in with half of the money. Or you can try asking the company I mentioned, since they would probably know whomever is interested in larger scale mining.

Yes, I live in the country, I mine on a very small scale, and I have a nice and completely unrelated business of my own. I've shared the details, because the country is often overlooked in favor of bigger economies in the region, which is strange, considering it's one of the top countries in the world for starting and running a business. It is not, however, among the top countries for doing business because of the state of the local economy, but you couldn't care less about that, as you are not going to sell anything here. IMO large scale investments need stable environment, and a country which is part both of EU and NATO, with fixed currency (and is expected to adopt the Euro in few years) that has among the best IT infrastructures in the world, simple tax policy, very low taxes and employee expenses, is as good as it gets.

We are not looking for investment partners so far in other countries but we rather need to explore market/s and study different options. Our intention is to be major investor using funds generated from Golden Fleece project.
That said, if we identify credible partner who will join our ICO for Golden Fleece (GFL) and we jointly work to raise funds, then we can develop mining facility in both countries simultaneously; e.g. we issued non-minable 100ml GFL coins and we may agree with partner to allocate 5 to 10 ml GFL for investment in mining facility of partner's country. Our ICO and price estimates could be found here http://goldenfleece.co/index.php/ico-details/

China, former Soviet Union, former Warsaw pact countries.
mining in EU is tough - electricity prices are high, taxes are high cost of living is high...
Baltic countries could be interesting, probably Estonia, having mostly friendly approach to crypto and since they have plenty of power from their dirty oil shale.
Lithuania is not a good option since the closure of their nuclear power station they depend on imports, maybe Latvia - dunno for sure.
I thought Bulgaria is good and people here confirm.
Georgia is awesome though, I agree on that.

Very true.
Bulgaria yes is an interesting option.

Thanks for compliments to my country. According to Geo-Greak myth: Jason and Argonauts adored Georgia and they did steal Golden Fleece from Colchis with which local people were collecting gold in rivers ;D  :D  We love Greek people and cannot flight to return Golden Fleece black; that's why in 2017 we created GFL (Golden Fleece) token to mine the altcoin (which nowadays is similar to collecting gold in rivers centuries ago)  :D  ;D

I dont know about georgia so much but i lived in several post soviet countries and they mostly do not receive any bill at all. Even in one of them government gives free gasoline to the citizen that have car every 3 months. ;D

$0.055

You might find this link for electricity and natural gas prices interesting.  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Energy_price_statistics

Bulgaria does look like a winner for electric costs based on what I just read there. I was curious about the costs in Romania, since I lived there for a few years (although not recently). About a decade ago Romania was ranked as the #3 country in the world for Hackers, right after the USA and China. Considering that it's a country with a mere ~21 million population I think that's pretty good evidence of the high technical savvy of the younger generations there. I know that crypto is quite popular there and you would easily find lots of people with some experience in it. The downside is that the country is extremely corrupt and the government is inept as well as being as crooked as a dog's hind leg. Electricity is quite cheap (industrial rates in particular), goods are accessible if you have the money to buy them, internet is fast, cheap and stable, and if you were in a city with a higher elevation (Brasov or Cluj-Napoca come to mind) the summer temperatures aren't that bad.

For drying clothes , sorry I thought this was a home setup

 Washington has no income tax (possible exception for Seattle, but that recent city ordinance is being legally challenged on the basis that it violates STATE law and does not apply to the 3 counties in question anyway).
 You still have to pay Federal taxes, but you're going to run into that anywhere in the US.
 Sales tax is kinda high, but no worse than many other states - I was paying the same sales tax rate when I was in Iowa due to a "local city sales tax" where I was living.

 Otherwise, no clue what you might be referring to on the "What about taxes?" question.


 Going by "country wide rates" doesn't WORK, too many large and even some mid-size and small countries have VARIABLE rates depending on where you are IN the country.
 The USA for example has rates that vary from a hair under 3 cents/kwh to over 30 (THIRTY) cents/kwh (I think Hawaii might be higher than that, but California gets to around 30 in at least some areas).
 Heck, the US has fairly wide variations within a STATE in most cases.


 Didn't KNC base their mining operations in Sweden or Norway somewhere, due to low hydropower cost + cool climate?

I didn't know Washington State didn't have State Income Tax.  Now I want to move. lol Cheap electric, no state tax, cool climate, presumably sparsely populated (if not on the coast at least)?  New York city is an albatross around the neck of my home state and it's just dragging all of Upstate NY down into the sewer with it more each year. :/

I live in Argentina and its really cheap mining here talking in large scales.

we are at the end of the America, we have around the same prices than in USA for the hardware. its free of taxes at import, with just a bit higher VAT, 10.5% for hardware here.

very cold weather in the south, you can choose a nice location like Bariloche, or if you like even more cold in the end of the World Ushuaia, you will find very cheap salaries and rentals for your operations because the inflation.

and talking to electricity that i think its the most important part.

if your consumption its more than 30 MW, around 40 rigs, you can purchase electricity directly to generators.

We have an entity who regulates the national price of the MWh, CAMMESA. http://portalweb.cammesa.com/default.aspx

currently the price its 240 ARS per MWh, thats 0.24 Argentine pesos per KWh, and 17.8 ARS its equivalent to 1 usd, so its 0.0134 per KWh, after that you have to pay carriage from the generator to your local distributor, thats another 0.01 usd per kwh i think, and some lot of taxes, that turn it from 0.03 to 0.04 usd per KWh,
 same as china or even cheaper, in fact that's why genesis mining were operating here for some time.

I am building as many rigs i can trying to reach that minimum consumption for purchase in bulk, i have 20 so far.. ::)

I've always wanted to visit Argentina. Cold weather (at least in the South or closer to the Andes), cheap electric, lots of beef grown there, and a language that's much easier to learn then most (in my opinion). :)

Taxes are not an issues in Georgia as well; you can develop mining in the Free Industrial Zone and do not pay ant tax!
But anyway seems Washington State can compete with Georgia (country)  ;D
That said, 5 $ cent per kwh in Georgia is like easy thing to get, but it is possible to sign a deal directly with some hydropower plant (if you prove that you are reliable partner) you can electricity somewhere between 2-4 $ cent. But you need to start paying 5 $ cent anyway and after track record that you are consuming stably several MW electricity, then you can negotiate for lower price (well not guaranteed though).

 Central Washington tends to have hot summer days but cool nights as it's a semi-arid near-desert climate, winters are cool but not super-cold normally (last winter apparently was the "worst on record for a few decades" per long-time locals, but by the Iowa standards *I* was used to it was a WARM winter and average on snowfall).

 Pop density is fairly low except for the SeaTac area and Spokane - largest city in the 3 counties area is a debate between Wenatchee and Moses Lake - Wenatchee wins if you include it's suburbs (most of which are on the other side of the Columbia in the next county over) but even WITH the suburbs I think it's under 40k total pop.

 We're not talking MONTANA level "sparse population", but it's certainly not OVERCROWDED like most of the East Coast or the LA and San Diego areas.

I bet east eu.
But some Chinese place their mining rigs right next to hydroelectric power station, which they can get electricity for almost free.
No one can beat them on profitability,..

 Quite a few folks in Argentina speak English or German, as I understand it - lot of immigration "back in the day" from both of those countries and quite a few Irish.
 

Venezuela is a crazy country, here you can mine and pay 1$ monthly for 10 Rigs, Electricity is almost free. But it is not a good country to live, The minimum wage is absurd, like 12$ monthly, and is hard to find food.

Wake up guys.. Thailand. Cheap electricity and better life  ;) ;)

How much the electricity in Thailand?

I see a lot of people voted eastern europe, just wondering how much per kilowatt in USD? This is really surprise me that eastern europe in the vote, I thought europe's electricity bill should be expensive, or am I wrong?

I think China or Russia or Ukraine

I am from Singapore.

It's very safe, great for business. However it's right in the tropics and you will not be getting dirt cheap electricity.

I'm not sure how much you will spend on power in datacenters but I doubt you can beat some of the rates quoted by folks here.

I think Asian countries, particularly China and other countries with low electricity cost. One of the main requirement in mining is electricity. So if the cost of electricity is very high, it will not be  ideal to mine. So the lower the electricity cost, the more profitable the mining is. I read that in China, the electricity cost is very cheap, and there are areas with actually free electricity.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/thumb/b/b7/Electricity_prices_for_industrial_consumers%2C_second_half_2015_%28%C2%B9%29_%28EUR_per_kWh%29_YB16.png/800px-Electricity_prices_for_industrial_consumers%2C_second_half_2015_%28%C2%B9%29_%28EUR_per_kWh%29_YB16.png

I live and work in Sweden at the moment. One of my assignments is to find datacenter tenants for a business park, which is a converted paper factory with 32 MW power available. The power price is the spot market price used in the official Nordic power exchange (i.e. the lowest possible).
Free cooling and 20000 square meters of cheap industrial floor space to exploit. I have been thinking of starting up large scale mining there myself for a while.
If you are looking for a site, this is probably one of the best in Europe at this time.

In Sweden, datacenters above 0.5 MW don't have to pay energy taxes. This threshold may drop in 2018 to 0.1 MW.
As you can see in the table above, it doesn't get much lower than this.

This is the map coordinate (Google maps)
https://www.google.se/maps/place/H%C3%A5frestr%C3%B6ms+F%C3%B6retagspark/@58.8055193,12.4248188,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x4644ea6cc45de4db:0x4e176b36d32b2d63!8m2!3d58.8055165!4d12.4270075?hl=en

I think that there are some good options in south america. I am in Venezuela and the electricity its almost free and dosnt matther how much is your consumption if you are in some industrial area you can use all the energy that you need; i have my rigs in a really poor area in Caracas and the goverment dont even measure how much you use and is totally free, you dont have to pay taxes or fees to import the hardware and with the hyper inflation you can make the best value of every dollar. Especially if you want to have a big scale operation its ideal you can pay cheap salaries and the rental of a good space even with AC so i see plenty of facilities here

This is a great link man ! thanks

In Georgia,The government is trying to encourage investors,they have created project about freedom business,that's why there are not strict regulations. The mechanism of doing business in this sphere in Georgia is very effective . the biggest expense  of this business is the cost of electricity, which is very competitive in this country  (and regulations are not strict) even with Iceland or Finland.So,Electricity consumption is less and everything is much easier.

Estonia is a nice place to do mining at. We, Estonians, like things that have something to do with IT.

For an example, http://blockhive.ee/ chose Estonia for its "friendship" with cryptos and the praise of information technology.

Cheap electricity and 12 months of "shit skiing weather" are also great plusses for mining :D

Must be Island. Electricity costs NOTHING there. The climate is cold so you can easily use it to cool the rigs, and they have like zero crime. I dont think crime excists there. And they have Dominos  ;D ;D

Well I would go for Iceland as a great country to do altcoin mining since their security it is one of the highest and life risks are low there. Otherwise if you don't care about life risks and are an adventurer there is no better country for mining altcoin/bitcoin then Venezuela ,India or China. The electricity price in these countries is like 0.008 usd/kwatt so it is almost like it is free electricity.

Iceland, that is why they have Genesis mining there. Electricity is so cheap there that Australians transport their aluminium ore to Icelandic factory for it's cheap electricity.

A few country offer some great electricity cost. I like canada, because of the cool weather also. And is also local to me. But i heard kuwuit is very good on electricty price. Somewhere around the 0.01-0.02usd per kwh. Lol even with the hot weather you can afford to run a good cooling solution 24 hours a day.
Im located in asia right now and best price i can get is under 0.10usd.

Iceland with taxes and all cost $0.12 per kw. So is not so cheap, now if you are talking about pre-contracts like the genesis mining did then that is a different thing, I mean while i pay 0.12 per kw, genesis pays 0.07 per kw.