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Yeah I was looking more at building a separate (off grid) solar + battery power system for mining and the costs there. Over 10 years it'd give me significantly cheaper power (assuming 10 years out of gear that claims to last 20) than I can get elsewhere, but it's a LOT of up-front cost that I'm still not sure beats just buying the crypto I'd otherwise mine outright.
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Running a full node is extremely easy as was mentioned. I started setting mine back up yesterday.
Took a fetch from a web server, an install, and launching bitcoind on my home server. Since yesterday it's up to block 413600... so it's taking quite a while to actually get caught up (as in, probably will take more than 24 hours) but hey, I have a ton of storage on that server, and it's already running 24/7.
CPU and RAM needs to seem to be more substantial than I remember, but I think that's just because it's in catch-up mode. If I recall correctly from when I used to run a full node, once it's settled it's pretty minimal.
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its worked out that there is about 80exa of 'farms' and upto 60exa of smaller groups. which is why you see the hashrate peak at 140exa but drop to 80-90exa because hobby miners are jumping in and out at a whim.
Overall a great response thank you. And that quote right there ^ is exactly the kind of thing I was curious about. Assuming accuracy, that means that really only about 60% (rough number at that 140exa) is actually these few big mines that I was referencing, and almost 40% is made up of much smaller. Assuming those numbers are correct, that paints a much better picture than what's easily assumed these days. Thank you again! |
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Wallmart and Bitcoin miners, simply not a good comparison in my opinion.
A big business that leverage the economies of scale and efficiencies that can only be gotten by being global, massive, and having a huge backing to make it impossible for smaller operations to function or profit? Seems like a pretty good comparison... |
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I think that by starting the topic about the pools I derailed my own point before I got a chance to make it, and hey that's on me.
Ignoring pools, who really owns most of the hashrate out there? Is it these 10,000 individual miners (I question how many their actually are, I'd love to see numbers if anyone has done the research there...)?
Or is it say, 10, or 20, or 100 huge mines? That was the point I'm trying to make. Even if there are 10,000 people all mining at home, their entire combined hashrate is likely today (and certainly in the future as difficulty and power requirements go up and margin continues to go down) a rounding error in the scale of total hashrate.
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there's this "cartel" of big mines that effectively verify all the money. Those full nodes just keep a record of it.
first of all why do you use the term "cartel" here? secondly miners do NOT verify anything. they are only performing a tedious task of computing hashes. it is the nodes that verify transactions. You can't send or receive bitcoin unless one of these big mines agrees that you did by putting it in a block.
if a miner rejects a transaction, another one picks it up. if a pool rejects a transaction then miners leave that pool for another one. if things get bad and a large number of miners turn malicious the nodes would create a fork and turn their millions of dollars investment into bricks by changing the mining algorithm. in other words miners are kept in line by the nodes. I was quoting someone else who stated that mining is "cartelized" - was simply sticking with the wording they used. It's the miner's who are completing blocks and therefore stamping transactions as part of the "permanent record" so to speak. Like you said, right now if a pool proves to be malicious (or even gets too powerful, as we've seen in the past) then the smaller miners can choose to jump ship to another pool. As mining continues to have higher and higher requirements due to the ever-rising difficulty and the proliferation of these mega-mines, there are fewer and fewer who can make that decision to change in any meaningful way. |
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OP, mining is cartelized towards the biggest mining farms, but the network itself is still decentralized/censorship resistant, thanks to the people around the world who continue to run/maintain their full nodes. More full nodes = more security.
This I guess was my point - there's this "cartel" of big mines that effectively verify all the money. Those full nodes just keep a record of it. So there's still a small number of entities (these large mines) that have the control over bitcoin's transfer. You can't send or receive bitcoin unless one of these big mines agrees that you did by putting it in a block. If they all went away yes the small miners would pick up the slack, but odds are (statistically speaking) it's one of these few big mines verifying everything. We've repeated the same mistakes already made with the rest of the economy. Walmart killed the local stores. Chain restaurants killed the local cafes. Big mines killed the ability to mine. |
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We haven't seen a significant dip in difficulty with the halving yet (though it's a bit early to tell). So that guesstimate was based on the difficulty increases remaining roughly what they've been historically. It's very likely that in the next week everything could change. Part of the fun of being around during "The Halving" lol
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I'm well aware of how pools work.
But Most of the hashrate ON those pools is provided by a very small number of very large mining operations. Yes there are thousands of smaller miners also but their contributions are comparatively minute.
And yes some people are able to mine from home still, but like you said it's a smaller number, and they're having to step up their own operations quite a bit.
I guess that was my point. Anyone can't just mine and have it be profitable anymore. An average person can't just decide they want to be a part of this and start mining bitcoin (and see any kind of real result) without it requiring significant investment, and living in the right place with the right electricity rates.
Maybe I'm just old and nostalgic for the olden days when you could fill up a USB hub with USB stick miners and have it feel meaningful.
On the other hand, it's pretty cool that this has been going on long enough to feel nostalgic about!
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Honest question... we have 10 pools making up like 90% of solved blocks according to https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/mining/pools/ and https://www.blockchain.com/pools (not sure the validity of these, but they seem to agree). But even if it's not QUITE that desperate, with the mega-mines making up the vast majority of hashrate, and the effective impossibility of the "casual home miner" to even mine at a break-even rate, how is this really decentralized anymore? I came in when it was CPU and then GPU mining. Anyone could start mining and make a small amount of bitcoin, and it wouldn't cost thousands in electricity, it really felt like it was "the people's" but now it's just giant corporations that control it all. A few things first - yes, I know there are altcoins but this is about Bitcoin specifically. And yes I know some of the hashrate of those huge pools are made up of individual miners, but I'm willing to bet it's a very small fraction. So all that being said... 1) Is this as concerning to anyone else as it is to me in terms of the future of Bitcoin 2) Is there a possible future that I'm not seeing right now where it goes back into the hands of thousands / millions of people around the world who each have a meaningful share 2.a) When I say meaningful share I mean in relation to each other, not the overall 2.b) Right now, the disparity in hashrate is nearly as bad as the disparity in wealth we already have in the world 3) Right now there are ~900 bitcoins mined a day (please check me on that number if I'm misremembering the math) and transactions only add ~15 to that. Do we expect an order of magnitude rise in transactions / transaction fees (which have already risen and greatly reduced the use of bitcoin as a means of cheap money transfer) to magically happen? 4) How does that happen when a majority of bitcoin are held in exchange/wallet services cold wallets and so likewise very centralized (and transfers between users on those services don't go through the blockchain)? I realize maybe this sounds all doom and gloom, I'm just honestly curious how others feel about all this. I see time and again people touting how Bitcoin will survive because it's decentralized, but as you can see above, it's really not. It was designed to be, and has the ability to be, but that's not the same as actually being... |
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900A @ 220? Jesus... you powering a small neighborhood or something? lol. Guess that resolves the power concern.
As for how much it would mine - at the current difficulty it would be 1 BTC. But difficulty will rise, and the new line of miners coming this summer, I'd guesstimate you're closer to seeing 0.5BTC out of it in the first year, then maybe another 0.25 the following year, maybe 0.1 in year 3?
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Oh I totally get the hobby thing - I was just saying with a $6k investment there's no way to make $8k/yr (even before expenses) - the hashrate arms race continues as it has for ages since FPGA/ASIC mining first showed up. If the goal really is 1 BTC per year, what I suggested is the best way. If it's "I want to mine because it's fun, and it can offset most of the costs of me having fun" well that's another discussion altogether. That just doesn't line up with the FOMO comment earlier though.
In terms of best miner to buy, it's always been either the first of the new ones that aren't out yet (if you're fine waiting, which you said you might be) or the most efficient miner you can get RIGHT NOW to get mining before difficulty continues to rise.
The S19 Pro can be bought new from Bitmain and is shipping - looks like it's going to be a beast, but it's so hard to say what's going to happen between now and August in terms of difficulty increases (especially with the halving that just happened and the assumed drop that we didn't see yet). An S17e can be purchased and ships in the next month, that's a lot less "risky" in terms of difficulty increases. 6 of those would cost ~6k and would get you 360TH/s but do you even have the power necessary to run 6? That's around 20KW or roughly 90-95A of 220v power you'd need available (and at $0.10/KWh around $1500/mo in electric bills).
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To buy your first year's BTC you only need about what you have in cash right now. To get next year's BTC, take the money you would have spent on energy for a year, and additional mining gear (to keep up with difficulty increases) and there you go, etc.  |
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Really appreciate the responses!
Unfortunately where I'm at the cheap power deals don't exist... $0.24/KWh is about the best we're able to get sadly... Now we do have solar, and right now kick a good bit back to the grid but if we were to mine that would stop happening which means 16+hours a day of mining we'd be paying that ridiculous power rate. I could only mine during daylight hours haha, but in reality I guess it's just not meant to be here...
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Hey all, Not sure anyone here remembers me (it's been years probably since I've been around) but used to have a decent little mine, and even ran a few small group mining efforts ages ago (like over 5 years ago, so eternity in bitcoin time). Sold my miners and cashed out most of my bitcoin and moved on with life. Then all of a sudden it hit me again... And I went back and bought up some bitcoin. And I went and looked at some miners, and some calculators. And what everything tells me is that it's impossible to buy a miner and mine without losing a ton of money. Granted our electricity rates in the SF Bay Area are stupid high, but even halving them it seems like it's impossible to buy a machine, mine with it and ever break even. So that led me to the age-old question, why do you choose to mine bitcoin with aging, rapidly depreciating miners vs. just buying bitcoin? For the cost of 1 Antminer I can buy more bitcoin than it will ever mine me... Honestly not trying to say this in a hostile manner - I'd just love to hear people's reasoning because I'd LOVE an excuse to justify getting back into it |
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Looking for someone in the San Francisco Bay Area that wants to buy the whole lot for cash or BTC. Everything in good, working condition. I'll also throw in a PSU (Corsair RM650 I think it is), and an Antminer U1 if you want just for kicks Looking for ~$1000 for everything. |
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If any of you want to feel better...
As of my latest electricity bill, I'm paying $0.43/KW/H
Yes, 43 CENTS per KW/H. Didn't realize this until I took a much closer look at my bill. I pay both a generation fee AND a transmission fee...
I have at-most a couple more months until I'm out and probably won't buy back in.
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Dell also sells other useful things, not JUST their computers (which you can like or hate at your whim)...
Tempted to buy an Xbox One from them...with bitcoin...because I can. And yes, I just followed "useful things" up with video games.
And those saying how is it better than a credit card since I have to give my address / name still?
With a credit card I give you my name, my shipping address (includes zip code), and my credit card number, and allow you to PULL money from me. And in doing so, you have everything you need to pull more of my money in the future without me knowing (until the bill comes in or the alarms go off)
With Bitcoin I give you my name, my shipping address, and then I PUSH money to you. And you can never touch my money again. Even if they're hacked, they may get my name and address, but my money is still mine.
That is the biggest and most important difference. You're never giving the access to your money away, you're simply sending money to them.
Credit cards, checks, they all have the necessary information to get more of your money if someone wants to be devious enough. Bitcoin doesn't.
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