at what point is a person considered a "respectable" miner?

[smracer]

I have 1200amp service.   I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing.   

[1713283902]

1713283902

[nedbert9]

Consider I'm living in a country where -20 is common in January.

-If you can heat your feets with your mining rig, you're just starting.
-If you can heat a room with your mining rig, you have a nice hobby.
-If you're starting to save on heating because you heat the house, you're serious dude.
-If you can heat a whole 4-story house, with people keeping the windows open because it's too hot, and having the oil company giving you refunds on your heating bill, I believe it is the point where you are "respectable".

seriously, i have only had to turn on the heat once for this winter, and it's because the internet was down!

Wish I had yall's problem. I have only been able to shut off my A/C for one day this Winter.

this is how i feel being in phoenix, power isnt badly priced... but AC will be working overtime! haha

and when its 125 outside not going to get much cooling going out there haha

Evaporative cooling FTW!  Dry AZ should be a great place for it.

[malevolent]

there are people with over 500 Ghash (pool owners you mean?) and I can only conclude that these are full industrial operations, either financed independently by already-rich Bitcoin enthusiasts, or blagged as a 'business plan' and financed by some hapless bank.

I'd say the *corporation* becomes a 'respectable' miner when they start making enough to invest in custom hardware, and I mean re-investment in R&D, not just buying as many FPGAs as they're allowed.

???

[BFL-Engineer]

... before the 50 to 25 BTC block reward wipes out many miners' profitability (i.e. mine - anyone in Europe with expensive electricity and GPUs will be underwater with 25 BTC block reward)...

I was wondering, if the reward goes down to 25 BTC instead of 50 BTC per block, then that will drive the bitcoin price up based on
scarcity law. Please correct me if I'm wrong...

[DeathAndTaxes]

I was wondering, if the reward goes down to 25 BTC instead of 50 BTC per block, then that will drive the bitcoin price up based on scarcity law. Please correct me if I'm wrong...

That is the 1 million BTC question.

While reward going down doe cut future supply and should be bullish to prices how much and how quickly is hard to gauge.  Remember the existing 10 million coins will still be available for trade.  Revenue in BTC will definitely be falling 50%.  Prices may rise but they likely will rise less than the 100% necessary for an "even trade" and the rise is more likely to be felt in the long term.

A miner in the short term likely will see a significant drop in revenue.  If block goes from 50 * $5 = $250 (today) to 25 * $7 = $175 after the cut the fact that prices will rise in the future may be of little comfort for the marginal miner.

Simple way to avoid that is to not be the marginal miner.  Marginal miners get squeezed out and difficulty falls boosting revenue of those who "survived".  Don't be the marginal miner.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I know nothing about domestic air-conditioning - I'd appreciate both American input (where air-con is AFAIK de rigeur in houses costing over $500k, if not substantially less) and also any English input (on pricing, planning issues, etc.).

$500K?  $50K houses in US often have central air especially in sothern states.

Your most economical option is a minisplit unit (somestimes also called ductless).  Far less cost and installation overhead than a traditional central air unit.  5KW ~= 18K BTU/hr.

It consists of three parts.


The upper part is mounts on the wall of the room you want cooled (cellar).
The square box with the fan mounts outside.  
You then just need to run insulated flexible copper lines to connect the two.  No ducts needed, and only about 1" hole in the wall to run the coolant and return lines.  The outdoor units need 220-240V and the indoor units are usually powered by the outdoor unit (electrical line runs along side the coolant line).

In the US at least a unit like this is <$1000.  Usually units this small are precharged so it is is literrally "hook up and go".  Might be a little involved for a DIYer but it is possible.  A normal "handyman" contractor should be able to handle this kind of job.  No real expert knowledge necessary (like w/ central air systems).

AC units tend to be ~300% efficient.  So removing 5KW of heat will require another 5/3 = 1.6KW of electrical load.

No idea on importing, installing, or code issues in UK though.  

One thing I would point out is that while FPGA use less electricity they still use some.  10GH/s @ 10 MH/W = ~1KW of heat.  Like running a space heater 24/7.  AC probably isn't necessary but if you ever expanded to say 30GH/s you are looking at 3KW of electrical load.

[BFL-Engineer]

I was wondering, if the reward goes down to 25 BTC instead of 50 BTC per block, then that will drive the bitcoin price up based on scarcity law. Please correct me if I'm wrong...

That is the 1 million BTC question.

While reward going down doe cut future supply and should be bullish to prices how much and how quickly is hard to gauge.  Remember the existing 10 million coins will still be available for trade.  Revenue in BTC will definitely be falling 50%.  Prices may rise but they likely will rise less than the 100% necessary for an "even trade" and the rise is more likely to be felt in the long term.

A miner in the short term likely will see a significant drop in revenue.  If block goes from 50 * $5 = $250 (today) to 25 * $7 = $175 after the cut the fact that prices will rise in the future may be of little comfort for the marginal miner.

Simple way to avoid that is to not be the marginal miner.  Marginal miners get squeezed out and difficulty falls boosting revenue of those who "survived".  Don't be the marginal miner.

However, FUD will shock the market. It is very likely that a bubble will form (like the one formed in May if I recall correctly). How high the bubble will go and
when it will burst is another question. Another interesting effect will be the velocity of price-decline after the burst. It may take months before the price comes
down to what it is Today ( if it ever stabilizes at this price, I expect that it will be higher ).

Another interesting effect is that certain people who have huge reserves in Bitcoin will see instant value increase in their assets. This will prevent them from selling,
since they'll be waiting for bubbles peak. This will decrease the number of Bitcoins available for trade, which in turn helps increasing overall market price of the
Bitcoin... Also, those who continue mining with GPU will expect revenue decrease and may stop mining ( if the bubble kicks in late ), which may reduce network difficulty
rate, unless it's componsated by miners who increase their processing power in preparation for the big-bang day.

I believe that many miners are already considering extreme processing power increase (2x minimum) to compensate for the expected revenue loss..

[nedbert9]

I was wondering, if the reward goes down to 25 BTC instead of 50 BTC per block, then that will drive the bitcoin price up based on scarcity law. Please correct me if I'm wrong...

That is the 1 million BTC question.

While reward going down doe cut future supply and should be bullish to prices how much and how quickly is hard to gauge.  Remember the existing 10 million coins will still be available for trade.  Revenue in BTC will definitely be falling 50%.  Prices may rise but they likely will rise less than the 100% necessary for an "even trade" and the rise is more likely to be felt in the long term.

A miner in the short term likely will see a significant drop in revenue.  If block goes from 50 * $5 = $250 (today) to 25 * $7 = $175 after the cut the fact that prices will rise in the future may be of little comfort for the marginal miner.

Simple way to avoid that is to not be the marginal miner.  Marginal miners get squeezed out and difficulty falls boosting revenue of those who "survived".  Don't be the marginal miner.

However, FUD will shock the market. It is very likely that a bubble will form (like the one formed in May if I recall correctly). How high the bubble will go and
when it will burst is another question. Another interesting effect will be the velocity of price-decline after the burst. It may take months before the price comes
down to what it is Today ( if it ever stabilizes at this price, I expect that it will be higher ).

Another interesting effect is that certain people who have huge reserves in Bitcoin will see instant value increase in their assets. This will prevent them from selling,
since they'll be waiting for bubbles peak. This will decrease the number of Bitcoins available for trade, which in turn helps increasing overall market price of the
Bitcoin... Also, those who continue mining with GPU will expect revenue decrease and may stop mining ( if the bubble kicks in late ), which may reduce network difficulty
rate, unless it's componsated by miners who increase their processing power in preparation for the big-bang day.

I believe that many miners are already considering extreme processing power increase (2x minimum) to compensate for the expected revenue loss..

Let's hope for a mild bubble.

BFL-Engineer, is BFL invested in BTC in the form of mining or just going the HW sales route?

[DeathAndTaxes]

By marginal, you mean less than 4Mh/Watt? Or less than 10Gh/s capacity?

I think all of us that are mining on hardware that has not fully paid for itself will be screwed.

Capacity is irrelivent.  MH/W isn't a perfect metric more like cost per PH.  Someone with $0.10 per kWh and 3MH/W rig is more efficient than someone with 4MH/W and $0.25 per kWh.  The goal is to have the lowest operating cost possible.  Since one can't usually change their electrical rate we focus on MH/W but what really matters is electrical cost. The highest cost miners will go offline first as they can't handle the pain and when they do difficulty will drop.  

The rig being paid off isn't as important to efficiency.  That being said having unpaid rigs can be more stressful and risky.

[The-Real-Link]

I was going to suggest any chance of using small window AC units but in a cellar that wouldn't work ;p.  Thanks for the insight into English mining though. 

@DAT yeah, the million BTC question for sure.  Of course difficulty change isn't factored into this again either.  It could spike up before the reward drop then plummet, making it easier to find blocks but agian, it's anyone's guess until it's upon us.  I think we can infer some "more-likely-to-happen" approaches and guesses but still, no one knows.

[PulsedMedia]

@DAT yeah, the million BTC question for sure.  Of course difficulty change isn't factored into this again either.  It could spike up before the reward drop then plummet, making it easier to find blocks but agian, it's anyone's guess until it's upon us.  I think we can infer some "more-likely-to-happen" approaches and guesses but still, no one knows.

Difficulty does not factor into your operating costs, it factors on the revenue side. So irrelevant to somehow forcibly include into the COSTS side of things, when it's REVENUE side

But how does one factor power costs when one pays annually, basicly getting interest free loan to pay it once per year AND doesn't need any kind of A/C AND first 7-8kW usage for 10months a year is "kinda free" in the sense that it replaces (more expensive, heating oil costs more for heating purposes than plain electricity here, thanks to taxes) heating
Does the first 8kW have negative cost then? *whistles*

[P_Shep]

I'm a disrespectful miner, bitches.