It costs $26,000 to mine one bitcoin in South Korea — and just $530 in Venezuela

[alyssa85]

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/the-cheapest-and-most-expensive-countries-to-mine-bitcoin.html

Bitcoin mining is costing South Koreans a lot of money.

Mining just one bitcoin in one of the world's biggest digital currency markets costs $26,170, according to data released by lighting and furniture firm Elite Fixtures.

The Elite Fixtures data also showed that Venezuela is the cheapest country in which to mine bitcoin. It costs $531 to mine the world's best known virtual currency there. Some Venezuelans have turned to bitcoin mining for survival in the economically struggling South American country.

The Elite Fixtures study analyzed electricity prices from 115 different countries, using data provided by governments, utility firms and the International Energy Agency. It worked out the price of power consumption based on averages from three popular cryptocurrency mining rigs.

[mahibul49]

mining cost related with electricity cost.venezuelas electricity cost is lower than south korea and the cost of mining one bitcoin prove that bitcoin is legit and future.

[bit-freedom]

The difference in mining cost is really the major decision making point for mining bitcoin. I will rather relocate my mining equipments to mine at such a low cost.

[Realist247]

mining cost related with electricity cost.venezuelas electricity cost is lower than south korea and the cost of mining one bitcoin prove that bitcoin is legit and future.

No...this is proof of a recipe for disaster/collapse.

[Bolt Brownie]

Are you sure about the $26,000 to mine one bitcoin in South Korea? I heard the average cost to mine bitcoin around the world is about $3k. Of course it depends on electricity costs, but looking at that image $3000 looks like a fair estimate about the average cost to mine one bitcoin. The high and low values you've mentioned really look strange though. $530 in Venezuela and $26,000 in South Korea look like big outliers to me, but maybe your information is correct.

I know Venezuelans have turned to bitcoin because of the inflation in their country, but being able to mine them at those prices would make them very rich, so those values are still very strange to me.

[bug.lady]

The difference in mining cost is really the major decision making point for mining bitcoin. I will rather relocate my mining equipments to mine at such a low cost.

Because you already have your equipment.

The decision whether to mine bitcoins needs to include a lot of variables to show a full picture. Electricity costs is one of them, there is no doubt about it, but equipment costs, cooling costs (again: electricity+equipment), difficulty forecast, price forecast, they are all very important. And while you cannot do much with future difficulty or price, it doesn't seem fair to take the equipment cost out of the picture.

Equipment is not free in Venezuela!

[BitcoinHodler]

yes. it is also pretty expensive to mine bitcoin in New York LOL. but you don't hear them talking about that. and i really doubt that it costs that much to mine bitcoin in either of these places.
and last time i checked bitcoin was illegal in Venezuela. they are mining it but illegally.

[bug.lady]

Are you sure about the $26,000 to mine one bitcoin in South Korea? I heard the average cost to mine bitcoin around the world is about $3k. Of course it depends on electricity costs, but looking at that image $3000 looks like a fair estimate about the average cost to mine one bitcoin. The high and low values you've mentioned really look strange though. $530 in Venezuela and $26,000 in South Korea look like big outliers to me, but maybe your information is correct.

I know Venezuelans have turned to bitcoin because of the inflation in their country, but being able to mine them at those prices would make them very rich, so those values are still very strange to me.

I fully agree with you, I also doubt that underlying information and the analysis is accurate. It is very simplistic, doesn't include the costs of equipment, and as you point out, it is even falsified with what we can observe with our eyes: with Venezuelans not being the richest folk on the planet!

[Kingofbitcoin12345]

Venezuelans government suffers from economic crisis that’s why the government subsidies the electricity cost of the its citizens and they find cryptocurrency as an opportunity and alternative for the country to gain income in a much easier and hassle free investment.. I don’t have much information about South Korea and its mining cost and maybe I don’t even care to know as they’re one of the reason of a recent dropped of bitcoin price..

[onnz423]

Electricity costs vary from country and are often related to the general cost of living. Some quick research indicates that in South Korea, power consumption is not billed in a linear fashion, but in some  pseudo-exponential way, whereby tripling power consumption leads to a 10 fold increase in the bill. Obviously for high power miners this becomes a problem. Though I wouldn't say it is necessarily accurate to say it costs $26,000, as one could still set up their own solar array even in South Korea.

[winyau8888]

I do not know how accurate the information is. But if mining one Bitcoin cost that much why don't I just buy one? Or just mine other undervalued coins? It is non-sense to keep talking about mining Bitcoin. B'coz all we know we will never mine one unless we have a miner field.

[alyssa85]

Are you sure about the $26,000 to mine one bitcoin in South Korea? I heard the average cost to mine bitcoin around the world is about $3k.

Electricity costs in south korea are expensive. They have a lot of demand from big businesses like Samsung, and the more demand the higher the electricity costs.

In places like Venezuela where there is not much industry, electricity is cheaper.

[MostafaGamal]

A remarkable statistic, showing the difference between countries in the cost of electricity and the impact on mining
So mining not the best choice for all people.

[Flodner]

Interesting, good to see Ukraine and one of the best countries to mine Bitcoin!
But I think data is not complete, from Ukrainian miners I heard that Canada and Georgia have cheaper electricity
In the article there is no data and no link to electricity costs

[Scorpion]

There's definitely a huge craze for Bitcoin in South Korea and it's getting popular for Venezuela because their citizens want a secure way to get a store of a value. But wow, if you're a Bitcoin fan in Venezuela that's great news to hear.

[Patatas]

There's definitely a huge craze for Bitcoin in South Korea and it's getting popular for Venezuela because their citizens want a secure way to get a store of a value. But wow, if you're a Bitcoin fan in Venezuela that's great news to hear.

- They will certainly adopt easier to cryptos as the government policies in Venezuela are pretty harsh and if you are up to date with with the last protests they had against the governments you'd know  why they are against the system.This gives a massive open market to bitcoin.

On topic,the mining stats took me by surprise.The mining costs will be significantly lesser in rural areas and suburbs as they're relatively dependent on the electricity charges.

[ramdav]

Time to go mine in Venezuela!

[Hexah]

I couldn't wait to see a bitmain site on Venezuela to mine some bitcoin. But probably there might be some people out there right now digging up to it surprisingly that it has low cost to mine a single bitcoin.

[Washball]

As Venezuela is a bankrupt country, the population is so poor that they cannot afford the equipment for mining. So, those who are mining bitcoin must have had some money to buy this mining equipment, or they are not the poorest people in Venezuela. As the government is looking for ways to make money with cryptocurrencies, it's very likely these miners have connections with the government. As electricity is very cheap, because it's subsidized, mining should be very profitable in Venezuela.

[John Langut]

A country needs a source of income whether it be raw materials, energy, labor, knowledge or in this case, block rewards.

Bitcoin could be a good turn of events for Venezuela, if they'd set up a state-run mining operation and fairly distribute the rewards to its citizens.

Better yet would be if Venezuela gave their citizens ASICs and let them keep the rewards.

How it probably will turn out: foreign Bitcoin miners strike a deal with the higher ups, cheap energy in return for a small part of the profit ending up in someone's pockets.