Free Power for cut of Mining in California

[msj219]

Hello all,

I'm just another cryptohead who got into mining last year and sadly had to turn off my rigs due to my local high power costs and heat issues (built myself a 56x gpu farm before stopping).

Anyhow, I've recently come across a very interesting deal with one of the larger power companies out here in California for an allocation of 1000 AMPS for nearly free.

Sounds to good to be true? Maybe it is, the specifics still need to be worked out but the offer is real due to some other business arrangements my partner has with the power company for another company of his.

Now why am I here?

I am considering outfitting a warehouse big enough to house rigs for the 1000 AMPS.

I've started crunching the numbers and even at the current lower costs for equipment due to the market crashing, it's really hard to justify putting money into building fresh rigs when the market looks extremely bearish and we are likely heading lower.

I was watching one of VoskCoin's recent videos and noticed his power costs are nearly 50% of what he is earning at the moment and I'm sure for others it's even worse.

Anyway seems like there is definitely a market for providing in a sense subsidized power (zero power costs) for a % of the mining that is less than what it would be for most smaller operations that can not afford to run their rigs anymore or are not very profitable.

It would help some of the smaller miners keep their miners running and they would make more than they would with paying electricity costs.

My partner and I would obviously benefit from being able to take advantage of this offer we have on the table.

Open to ideas and discussion, feel free to PM me or post in this thread.

[1714104166]

1714104166

[1714104166]

1714104166

[1714104166]

1714104166

[1714104166]

1714104166

[suchmoon]

This sounds dangerously close to "cloud mining", which is prone to scams of all sorts. You may want to be more specific about what it is that you're offering. If this doesn't make sense for you to do it yourself with free power then I can't see how it would make sense for someone else to pay you.

[msj219]

hey it's not a scam...

basically I have an offer for 1000 AMPS of power because of another power contract with the same company.

I personally have not been running my machines these days as my electricity is high (0.15 cents) and it's just not profitable at all.

I'm guessing others are in the same position and unable to run or running at a loss for the moment.

Even with the power being free, with the market how it's behaving and the fact that a capitulation scenario is definitely possible with the current bear market we are in.

I can't really with good reason suggest someone to invest into hardware right now even though gpus are much cheaper than a few months ago.

However this power is up for grabs and I'm able to get it if there looks like there's demand for such a service.

I'm thinking something like a open warehouse and ppl can store their rigs there and we'll run them, would need some kind of software or maybe our own pool to keep track of whats mined?

I have been spending the last few days thinking of ideas while running cost projections and thought why not post in the forums and see what other more seasoned miners think.

[suchmoon]

So it's basically hosting? Charge per amp or kWh and you won't have to worry what your customers are mining.

Still there are many ways for this to go wrong - for both sides. You're taking some random GPU rigs (cooling nightmare and unknown fire hazards among other risks) and customers have to trust that you're not gonna have a "landlord dispute" or some other issue.

I think it would be far easier to focus on Bitcoin miners or build your own GPU farm, at least that's what I would do. 1000 amps is only ~$500k in GPUs or ~$100k in Antminers.

[tim-bc]

1000 amps at what voltage? Energy should be measured in joules, kwh, mwh, btu, etc. 1000 amps by itself is a meaningless measurement in terms of the amount of energy they are providing.

[msj219]

yea I suppose it would be similar to hosting, the machines can mine whatever the miners want and should be able to be remote run by the miner, we could help with maintenance needs if issues arise.

it's definitely going to have some kinks to work out.

basically I can provide power at 0 kwh cost, 120 or 240v, up to 1000 amps

the cost instead of power is % of the mining.

and it would be housed in a warehouse in California, it's a major city.

[suchmoon]

the cost instead of power is % of the mining.

What if your customer wants to mine a worthless shitcoin?

[DireWolfM14]

What part of Cali are you in?  I would want to visit your facility before taking you up on your service, if you're cool with that.

[DireWolfM14]

the cost instead of power is % of the mining.

What if your customer wants to mine a worthless shitcoin?

What does he care if his pot-grower "friend" is stealing from PG&E?

[suchmoon]

What does he care if his pot-grower "friend" is stealing from PG&E?

Even if power is free (or "free") there is still overhead cost. So charging a % of mining revenue when mining revenue could be 0 or close to it sounds like a disaster. Another disaster would be if the fee is set to e.g. 50% of mining revenue and there is another crypto boom like last December. Sane customers would pull out possibly leaving the OP in the red with the warehouse lease etc.

Not to mention that it's unenforceable short of making everyone mine to OP's pools/proxies.

[OgNasty]

Sounds to good to be true?

Now why am I here?

Yes, it is too good to be true.

I won’t speculate on your motivations.

[msj219]

@DireWolf, The facility will be right in LA, it hasn't been setup yet just feeling things out, would need to make sure there will be enough demand for such a service before moving forward with anything.

@suchmoon, the fee wouldn't be 50% of cost as that would make it pointless and I'm not here trying to gouge people. I came to this forum because I have a unique opportunity and thought I'll share and see if there's something that can be done with it as I'm one of I'm sure many whom have turned off their machines.

Also, there's good chance we will put our rigs as well, maybe do 25% ours, 75% lease space/power, not sure any of the specifics yet, just got the power deal in place for now.

[DireWolfM14]

Please don't take my skepticism as a personal insult, there are way too many scammers out there, and I'm not smart enough to avoid them all.  But, this makes me even more curious.  What kind of business gets a sweetheart power deal in one of the most expensive electricity markets in the world? 

I work for a manufacturer that supports people who's lives are made livable by our products.  We have clients using our products and equipment in attempts to cure cancer.  In my opinion we provide some of the most noble services to all of humanity, and do you think PG&E cuts us a deal? Ha!

So tell me, what kind of business can convince PG&E they deserve free power?

[msj219]

Direwolf,

no offense taken, I'm sure there are lots of scammers out there and please don't take offense that I'm not really looking to publicly disclose all the specifics of the arrangements we have but it is all verifiable and this is a $60m warehouse facility that has the main power contract that the 1000 amps is coming out of and you can come see it in person in LA if need be.

the numbers need to make sense before anything of substance is done, as I mentioned for now just the availability of power is there, warehouses are easy to find..

obviously I considered just building our own rigs or buying asics, both have gone down in price quite a bit... but the possibility of lower lows is too big of a risk imo to purchase equipment at this time as they are rapidly dropping in price.

just something that's been on my desk for a few weeks now and the best solution I could come up with is, perhaps looking for miners who have turned off their machines due to power costs it the right way to go and it's a win/win for both parties if the (mining profit share) - (facility overhead) = (x) and that x allows us to recover initial costs for the facility ideally within a year.

[tim-bc]

... this is a $60m warehouse facility that has the main power contract that the 1000 amps is coming out of and you can come see it in person in LA if need be.

the numbers need to make sense before anything of substance is done ...

Yeah same strat here! I just stuck a miniUSB transformer into my TI-84 so it would output 1000 amps _{^{at 2 mV}}

Unfortunately it sucked all the power out of the calculator so I wasn't able to check if all the numbers made sense