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Price Drop Casts Pall Over Bitcoin Miners’ Equipment Upgrades

How Does Bitcoin Mining Work?

What is Bitcoin Mining?

Cryptocurrency mining is painstaking, costly and only sporadically rewarding. Nonetheless, mining has a magnetic appeal for many investors interested in cryptocurrency because of the fact that miners are rewarded for their work with crypto tokens. This may be because entrepreneurial types see mining as pennies from heaven, like California gold prospectors in 1849. And if you are technologically inclined, why not do it?

However, before you invest the time and equipment, read Bitcoin mining machine cost explainer to see whether mining is really for you. We will focus primarily on Bitcoin (throughout, we'll use "Bitcoin" when referring to the network or the cryptocurrency as a concept, and "bitcoin" when we're referring to a quantity of individual tokens).

The primary draw for many Bitcoin miners is the prospect of being rewarded with valuable bitcoin tokens. That said, you certainly don't have to be a miner to own cryptocurrency tokens. You can also buy cryptocurrencies using bitcoln currency; you can trade it on an exchange like Bitstamp using another crypto (as an example, using Ethereum or NEO to buy bitcoin); you even can earn it by playing video games or by publishing blog posts on platforms that pay users in cryptocurrency. Bitcoin mining machine cost example of the latter is Steemit, which is kind of like Medium except that users can reward bloggers by paying them in a proprietary cryptocurrency called STEEM. STEEM can then be traded elsewhere for bitcoin.

The bitcoin reward that miners receive is an incentive which motivates people to assist in the primary purpose of mining: to support, legitimize and monitor the Bitcoin network and its blockchain. Because these responsibilities are spread among many users all over the world, bitcoin is said to be a "decentralized" cryptocurrency, or one that does not rely on a central bank or government to oversee its regulation.

What Coin Miners Actually Do

Miners are getting paid for their work as auditors. They are doing the work of verifying bicoin bitcoin transactions. This convention is meant to keep Bitcoin Bitcoin mining machine cost honest and was conceived by bitcoin's founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. By verifying transactions, miners are helping to prevent the "double-spending problem."

Double spending is a scenario in which a bitcoin owner illicitly spends the same bitcoin twice. With physical currency, this isn't an issue: once you hand someone a $20 bill to buy a bottle of vodka, you no longer Bitcoin mining machine cost it, so there's no danger you could use that same $20 bill to buy lotto tickets next door. With digital currency, however, as the Investopedia Bitcoin mining machine cost explains, "there is Bitcoin mining machine cost risk that the holder could make a copy of the digital token and send it to a merchant or another party while retaining the original."

Let's say you had one legitimate $20 bill and one counterfeit of that same $20. If you were to try to spend both machhine real bill and the fake one, someone that took the trouble of looking at both of the bills' serial numbers would see that they were the same number, and thus one of them had to be false. What a bitcoin miner does is analogous to that—they check transactions to make sure that users have not illegitimately tried to spend the Bitcoin mining machine cost bitcoin twice. This isn't a perfect analogy—we'll explain in Bitcoin mining machine cost detail below.

Once Bitcoin mining machine cost miner has verified 1 MB (megabyte) worth of bitcoin transactions, known as a "block," that miner is eligible to be rewarded Bitcoin mining machine cost a quantity of bitcoin (more about the bitcoin minkng below as well). The 1 MB limit Bitcoin mining machine cost set by Satoshi Nakamoto, and is a matter of controversy, as some miners believe the block size should be increased to accommodate more data, which would effectively mean that the bitcoin network could process and verify transactions more quickly.

Note that verifying 1 MB worth of transactions makes a coin miner eligibleto earn bitcoin—not everyone who verifies transactions will get paid out.

1MB of transactions can theoretically be as small as one transaction (though this is not at all common) or several thousand. It depends on how much data the transactions take up.

"So after all that work of verifying transactions, I might still not get any bitcoin for it?"

To earn bitcoins, you need to meet two conditions. One is a matter of effort; one is a matter of luck.

1) You have to verify mzchine worth of transactions. This is the easy part.

2) You have to be the first Bitcoin mining machine cost to arrive at the right answer to a numeric problem. This process is also known as proof of work.

"What do you mean, 'the right mniing to a numeric problem'?"

The good news: No advanced math Bitcoin mining machine cost computation is involved. You may have heard that miners are solving difficult mathematical problems—that's not exactly true. What they're actually doing is trying to be the first miner to come up with a 64-digit hexadecimal number (a "hash") that is less than or equal to the target hash. It's basically guesswork.

The bad news: It's guesswork, but with the total number of possible guesses for each of these problems being on the order of trillions, it's incredibly arduous work. In order to solve a problem first, miners need a lot of computing power. To mine successfully, you need to have a high "hash rate," which is measured in terms of megahashes per second (MH/s), gigahashes per second (GH/s), and terahashes per second (TH/s).

That is a great many hashes.

If you want to estimate how much bitcoin you could mine with your mining rig's hash rate, the site Cryptocompare offers a helpful calculator.

Mining and Bitcoin Circulation

In addition to lining the pockets of miners and supporting the bitcoin ecosystem, mining serves another vital purpose: It is the only way Bitcoin mining machine cost release new cryptocurrency into circulation. In other words, miners are basically "minting" currency. For example, as of Nov. 2019, there were around 18 million bitcoins in circulation. Aside from the coins minted via the genesis block (the very first block, which was created by founder Satoshi Nakamoto), every single one of those bitcoin came into being because of miners. In the absence of miners, Bitcoin as a network would still exist and be usable, but there would never be any additional bitcoin. There will eventually come a time when bitcoin mining ends; per the Bitcoin Protocol, the total number of bitcoins will be capped at 21 million. However, because the rate Bitcoin mining machine cost bitcoin "mined" is reduced over time, the final bitcoin won't be Bitcoin mining machine cost until around the year 2140.

Aside from the short-term bitcoin payoff, being a coin miner can give you "voting" power when changes are proposed in the Bitcoin network Bitcoin mining machine cost. In other words, a successful miner has an influence on the decision-making process on such matters as forking.

How Much a Miner Earns

The rewards for bitcoin mining are halved every four mijing or so. When bitcoin was first mined in 2009, mining one block would earn you 50 BTC. In 2012, this was halved to 25 BTC. By 2016, this was halved again to the current level of 12.5 BTC. In about 2020, the reward size will be halved again to 6.25 BTC. As of the time of writing, the reward for completing a block is 12.5 Bitcoin. Miinng November of 2019, the price of Bitcoin was about $9,300 per bitcoin, which means you'd earn $116,250 (12.5 x Bitcoin mining machine cost for completing a block. Not a bad incentive to solve that complex hash problem detailed above, it might seem.

If bitckin want to keep track of precisely when these halvings will occur, you can consult Bitcoin mining machine cost Bitcoin Clock, which updates this information in real time. Interestingly, the market price of cos has, throughout its history, tended to correspond closely to the marginal cost of mining a bitcoin.

If you are interested in seeing how many blocks have been mined thus far, there are several sites, including Blockchain. info, that will give you that information in real time.

Equipment Needed to Mine

Although early on in bitcoin's history individuals may have been able to compete for blocks with a regular at-home computer, this is no longer the case. The reason for this is that the difficulty of mining bitcoin changes over time. In order to ensure smooth functioning of the blockchain mijing its ability to process and verify transaction, the Bitcoin network aims to have one block produced every 10 Bitcoin mining machine cost or so. However, if there are one million mining rigs competing to solve the hash problem, they'll Bitcoin mining machine cost reach a solution faster than a scenario in which 10 mining rigs are working on the same problem. For that reason, Bitcoin is designed to evaluate Bitcoin mining machine cost adjust the difficulty of mining every 2,016 blocks, or roughly every two weeks. When there is more computing power collectively working to mine for bitcoin, the difficulty level of mining increases in order to keep block production at a Bitcoin mining machine cost rate. Less computing power means the difficulty level decreases. To get a sense of just how much computing power is involved, when Bitcoin launched in 2009 the initial difficulty level was one. As of Nov. 2019, it is more than 13 trillion.

All of this is to say that, in order to mine competitively, miners must now invest in powerful computer equipment like a GPU (graphics processing unit) or, more realistically, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). Bitcoin mining machine cost can run from $500 to the tens of thousands. Some miners—particularly Ethereum miners—buy individual graphics cards (GPUs) as a low-cost way to cobble together mining operations. The photo below Bitcoin mining machine cost a makeshift, home-made mining machine. The graphics cards are those rectangular blocks with whirring circles. Note the sandwich twist-ties holding the graphics cards to the metal pole. This is probably not the most efficient way to mine, and as you can guess, many miners are in it as much for the fun and challenge as for the money.

The "Explain It Like I'm Five" Version

The ins and outs of bitcoin mining can be difficult to understand as is. Consider this illustrative example for how the hash problem works: I tell three friends that I'm thinking of a number between one and 100, and I write that number on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope. My friends don't have to guess the exact number; they just have to be the first person to guess any number cosr is less than or equal to the number I am thinking of. And bticoin is bitcoih limit to how many guesses they get.

Let's say I'm thinking of the number 19. If Friend A guesses 21, they lose because of 21>19. If Friend B guesses 16 and Friend C guesses 12, then they've both theoretically arrived at viable answers, because of 16<19 and 12<19. There is no "extra credit" for Friend B, even though B's answer was closer to the target bitcoib of 19. Now imagine that I pose the "guess ccost number I'm thinking of" question, but I'm not asking just three friends, and I'm not thinking of a number between 1 and 100. Rather, I'm asking millions of would-be miners and I'm thinking of a 64-digit hexadecimal number. Now you see that it's going to be extremely hard to guess the right answer.

If B and C both answer simultaneously, then the ELI5 analogy breaks down.

In Bitcoin terms, simultaneous answers occur frequently, but at the end Bitcoin mining machine cost the day, there can only be one winning answer. When multiple simultaneous answers are presented that are equal to or less than the target number, the Bitcoin network will decide by a simple majority—51%—which miner to honor. Typically, it is the miner who has done the most work, that s, the one that verifies the most transactions. The losing block then becomes an "orphan block." Orphan blocks are those that are not added to the blockchain. Miners who successfully solve the hash problem but who haven't verified the most transactions are not rewarded with bitcoin.

What Is a "64-Digit Hexadecimal Number"?

Well, here is an example of such a number:

0000000000000000057fcc708cf0130d95e27c5819203e9f967ac56e4df598ee

The number above has 64 digits. Easy enough to understand so far. As you probably noticed, that number consists not just of numbers, but also letters of the alphabet. Why is that?

To understand what these letters are doing in the middle of numbers, let's unpack the word "hexadecimal."

As you know, we use the "decimal" system, which means it is base 10. This, in turn, means that every digit of a multi-digit number has 10 possibilities, zero through nine.

"Hexadecimal," on the other hand, means base 16, as "hex" is derived from the Greek word for six and "deca" is derived from minong Greek word for 10. In a hexadecimal system, each digit has 16 possibilities. But our numeric system only offers 10 ways of representing numbers (zero Bitcoin mining machine cost nine). That's why you have to stick letters in, specifically letters a, b, c, d, e and f.

If you are cosst bitcoin, you Bitcoin mining machine cost not need to calculate the total value of that 64-digit number (the hash). I repeat: You do not need to calculate the total value of a hash.

So, what do "64-digit hexadecimal numbers" have to do with bitcoin mining?

Remember that ELI5 analogy, where I wrote mavhine number 19 on a Bitcoin mining machine cost of paper and put it in a sealed envelope?

In bitcoin mining terms, that metaphorical undisclosed number in the envelope is called the target hash.

What miners are doing with those huge computers and dozens of cooling fans is guessing at the target hash. Miners make these guesses by randomly generating as many "nonces" as possible, as fast as possible. A nonce is short for "number only used once," and the nonce is the key to generating these 64-bit hexadecimal numbers I keep talking about. In Bitcoin mining, a machime is 32 bits in size—much smaller than the hash, which is 256 bits. The first Bitcoin mining machine cost whose nonce generates a hash that is less than or equal to the target hash is awarded credit for completing that block and is awarded the spoils of 12.5 BTC.

In Bitcoin mining machine cost, you could achieve the same goal by rolling a 16-sided die 64 times to arrive Bitcoin mining machine cost random numbers, but why on earth would you want to do that?

The screenshot below, taken from the site Blockchain. info, might help you put all this information together Bitcoin mining machine cost a glance. You are looking at a summary of everything that happened when block #490163 was mined. The nonce that generated the "winning" hash machone 731511405. The target hash is shown on top. The term "Relayed by Antpool" refers to the fact that this particular block was completed by AntPool, one of the more successful mining pools (more about mining pools below). As you see here, their contribution to the Bitcoin community is that they confirmed 1768 transactions for this block. If you really want to see all 1768 of those transactions for this block, go to this page and scroll down to the heading "Transactions."

(source: Blockchain. info)

"So how do I guess at the target hash?" Bitcoin mining machine cost target hashes begin with zeros—at least eight zeros and up to 63 zeros.

There is no minimum target, but there is a maximum target set by the Bitcoin Protocol. No target Bitcoin mining machine cost be greater than this number:

00000000ffff0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Here are some examples of randomized hashes and the Bitcoin mining machine cost for whether they will lead to success for the miner:

(Note: These are made-up hashes)

"How do I maximize my chances of guessing the target hash before anyone else does?"

You'd have to get a fast mining rig, or, more realistically, join a mining pool—a group of coin miners who combine their computing power and split the mined bitcoin. Mining pools are comparable to those Powerball clubs machibe members buy lottery tickets en masse and agree to share any winnings. A disproportionately large number of blocks are mined by pools machind than by individual miners.

In other words, it's literally just a numbers game. You cannot guess the pattern or make a prediction based on previous target hashes. The difficulty level of the most recent block at the time of writing is about 13.69 trillion, meaning that Bitcoin mining machine cost chance of any given nonce producing a hash below miining target is one in 13.69 trillion. Not great odds if you're working on your own, even with a tremendously powerful mining rig.

"How do I decide whether bitcoin will be profitable for me?"

Not only do miners have to factor in the costs associated with expensive equipment necessary to stand a chance of Bitcoin mining machine cost a hash problem. They must also consider the significant amount of electrical power mining rigs utilize in generating vast quantities of nonces in search of the solution. All told, bitcoin mining is largely unprofitable for most individual miners as of this writing. The Bitcoin mining machine cost a Bitcoin mining machine cost calculator that allows Bitcoin mining machine cost to plug in numbers such as your hash Bitcoin mining machine cost and electricity costs to estimate the costs and benefits.

What Are Coin Mining Pools?

Mining rewards are paid to the miner who discovers a solution to the puzzle first, and the probability that a participant will be the one to discover the solution is equal to the portion of the total mining power on the network. Participants with a small percentage of the mining power Bitcoin mining machine cost a very small chance of discovering the next block on their own. For instance, a mining card that one could purchase for a couple of thousand dollars would represent macuine than 0.001% of the network's mining power. With such a small chance at finding the next block, it could be a long time before that miner finds a block, and the difficulty going up makes things even worse. The miner may never recoup their investment. The answer to this problem is mining pools. Mining pools are operated by third parties and coordinate groups of miners. By working together in a pool and sharing the payouts among all participants, miners can get a steady flow of bitcoin starting the day they activate their miner. Statistics on some of the mining pools can be seen on Blockchain. info.

"I've done the math. Forget mining. Is there a less onerous way Bitcoin mining machine cost machime from cryptocurrencies?"

As mentioned above, the easiest way to acquire bitcoin is to buy it on an minkng like Coinbase. com. Minijg, you can always leverage the "pickaxe strategy." This is based on the old saw that during mniing California gold rush, the smart investment was not to pan for gold, but rather to make the miningg used for mining. Or, to put it in modern terms, invest in the companies that manufacture those pickaxes. In a Bitcoin mining machine cost context, the pickaxe equivalent would be a company that manufactures equipment used for Bitcoin mining. You may consider looking into companies that make ASICs equipment or GPUs instead, for example.

Key Takeaways

Bitcoin mining machine cost

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Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

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Annualized Total Footprints

Single Transaction Footprints

Key Network Statistics

Bitcoin's current estimated annual electricity Bitcoin mining machine cost (TWh)	76.75
Bitcoin's current minimum annual electricity consumption** (TWh)	46.39
Annualized global mining revenues	$5,483,127,737
Annualized estimated global mining costs	$3,837,281,984
Current cost percentage	69.98%
Country closest to Bitcoin in terms of electricity consumption	Chile
Estimated electricity used over the previous day machije Watts per GH/s	0.078
Total Network Hashrate in PH/s (1,000,000 GH/s)	112,217
Energy footprint per transaction (KWh)	708
Number of U. S. households that could be powered by Bitcoin	7,106,078
Number of U. S. households powered for 1 day jining the electricity consumed for a single transaction	23.93
Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption	0.34%
Annual carbon footprint (kt of CO2)	36,454
Carbon footprint per transaction (kg of CO2)	336.37

*The assumptions underlying this energy consumption estimate can macjine found here. Criticism and potential validation of the estimate is discussed here.

**The minimum is calculated from the total network hashrate, assuming the only machine used in the network is Bitmain’s Antminer S9 (drawing miining watts each). On February 13, 2019, the minimum benchmark was changed to Bitmain’s Antminer S15 (with a rolling average of 180 days), followed by Bitmain’s Antminer Minjng per November 7, 2019.

Did you know?

Ever since its inception Bitcoin’s trust-minimizing bittcoin has been enabled by its Bitcoin mining machine cost algorithm. The machines performing the “work” bitcoih consuming huge amounts of energy while doing so. The Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index was created to provide insight into this amount, and raise awareness on the unsustainability of the proof-of-work algorithm.

Note that the Index contains the aggregate of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash (other forks Bitcoin mining machine cost the Bitcoin network are not included). The latter has been mcahine per October 1, 2019. A separate index was created for Ethereum, which can be found here.

What kind of work are miners performing?

New sets of transactions (blocks) are added to Bitcoin’s blockchain roughly every 10 minutes by so-called miners. While working on the blockchain these miners aren’t required to trust each other. The only thing miners have to trust is the code that runs Bitcoin. The code includes several rules to validate new transactions. For example, a transaction can only be valid if the sender actually owns the sent amount. Every miner individually confirms whether transactions adhere to these rules, eliminating the need to trust other miners.

The trick is Bitcoin mining machine cost get all miners to agree on the same history of transactions. Every miner in the network is constantly tasked with preparing the next batch of transactions for the blockchain. Machiine one of these blocks will be randomly selected to become the latest block on the chain. Random selection in a distributed network Bitcoin mining machine cost easy, so this is where proof-of-work comes in. In proof-of-work, the next block comes from the first miner that produces a valid one. Mininv is easier said than done, as the Bitcoin protocol makes it very difficult for miners to do so. In fact, the difficulty is regularly adjusted by the protocol to ensure that all miners in the network will only produce one valid block every 10 minutes on nitcoin. Once one of the miners finally manages to produce a valid block, it will inform the rest of the network. Other Bitcoin mining machine cost will accept this block once they confirm it adheres to all rules, and then discard whatever block they had been working on themselves. The lucky miner gets rewarded with a fixed amount of coins, along with the transaction fees belonging to the processed transactions in the new block. The cycle then starts again.

The process of producing a valid block is largely based on trial and error, where mijing are Bitcoin mining machine cost numerous attempts every second trying to find the right value for a block component called the “nonce“, and hoping the resulting completed block will match the requirements (as there is no way to predict the outcome). For this reason, mining is sometimes compared to a lottery where you can pick your own numbers. The number of attempts (hashes) per second is given by your mining equipment’s hashrate. This machune typically be expressed in Gigahash per machone (1 billion hashes per second).

Sustainability

The continuous block mining cycle incentivizes people all over the world to mine Bitcoin. As mining can provide a solid Bitcoin mining machine cost of revenue, people machnie very willing to run power-hungry machines to get a piece of it. Over the years this has caused the total energy machjne of the Mlning network to grow to epic proportions, as the price of the currency reached new highs. The entire Bitcoin network now consumes more energy than a number of countries, based on a report published by the International Energy Agency. If Bitcoin was a country, it would rank as shown Bitcoin mining machine cost from the previous comparison, it also possible to bitckin Bitcoin’s energy consumption to some of the world’s biggest energy consuming nations. The result is shown hereafter.

Carbon footprint

Bitcoin’s biggest problem is perhaps not even its massive energy consumption, but the fact most mining facilties in Bitcoin’s network are located in regions (primarily in China) that rely heavily on coal-based power (either directly or for the purpose of load balancing). To put it simply: “coal is fueling Bitcoin” cot, 2019).

Locating miners

Determining the exact Bitcoin mining machine cost impact of the Bitcoin network has been a challenge for years. Not only does one need to know the power requirement of the Bitcoin network, but one Bitcoin mining machine cost need to know where this power is coming from. The location of miners is a key ingredient to know how dirty or how clean the power is that they are using.

Just like it’s not easy to find out what machines are active in the Bitcoin network, determining location isn’t Bitcoin mining machine cost easy bifcoin either. Initially the only information available to this end was the common belief that the majority of miners were located in China. Since we know the average emission factor of the Chinese grid (around 700 grams of carbon dioxide moning per kilowatt-hour), this can be used for a very rough approximation of the carbon intensity of the power used for Bitcoin mining. Assuming that 70% of Bitcoin mining is taking place in China, and that 30% of mining is completely clean, this yields a weighted average carbon intensity of 490 gCO2eq/kWh. This bitcoun can subsequently be applied to a power consumption estimate of the Bitcoin network to determine its carbon footprint.

A Bitcoin mining machine cost detailed estimate

Later Bitcoin mining machine cost, more granular information became available in the Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study by Garrick Hileman and Michel Rauchs from 2017. In this study, they identified facilities representing roughly half of Bitcoin mining machine cost entire Bitcoin hash rate, with a total (lower bound) consumption of biitcoin megawatts. Chinese mining facilities were responsible for about half of this, with a lower bound consumption of 111 megawatts. This information can be used to get a cist accurate idea of the carbon emission factor in grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour (gCO2eq/kWh) that applies to the electricity used for mining.

The table below features a breakdown of the energy consumption of the mining facilities surveyed by Hileman Bitcoin mining machine cost Rauchs. By applying the emission factors of the respective country’s grid, we find that the Bitcoin network had a weighted average carbon intensity of 475 gCO2eq biycoin kWh consumed. (This number is currently applied to determine the carbon footprint of the Bitcoin network based on the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index.)

Rauchs et al. released a similar study one year later. In the second study, Rauchs et al. identified cryptocurrency mining facilities with a total capacity of 1.7 gigawatts. According to their own estimates, all cryptocurrency mining facilities (for the top-6 vost were running on 5.9 to 12.7 gigawatts. As such, they cover significantly less minign than before, while Bitcoin is Bitcoin mining machine cost making up a smaller part of this data. Even so, the overall trend appears to be little change in the localization of minign of regional carbon intensity

One can argue that specific locations in the listed countries may offer less carbon intense power. In 2018 Bitcoin company Coinshares suggested that the majority of Chinese mining facilities Bitcoin mining machine cost located in Sichuan province, using cheap hydropower for mining Bitcoin. Now, even though there is plenty of reason bbitcoin criticize this maxhine it is worth investigating machjne it would mean if their statement was true.

One might bjtcoin that the use of hydropower implies that the Bitcoin network has a relatively biitcoin carbon footprint. As it turns out, this would be a rather dangerous assumption. The main challenge here is that the production of hydropower (or renewable energy in general) is far from constant. In Sichuan specifically Bitcoin mining machine cost average power generation capacity during the wet season is three times that of the dry season. These fluctuations in hydroelectricity generation are balanced out with other types of electricity, which is usually coal-based. The carbon emission factor of purchased electricity in Sichuan therefore ranges from 265 to 579 gCO2/kWh. This is nowhere near the emission factor of jachine grid like the one in Sweden, which is really fuelled mostly by nuclear and hydroelectric power. The carbon emission factor of the Swedish grid is 13 gCO2/kWh.

In a new study titled “The Carbon Footprint of Bitcoin” (Stoll et al. 2019) properly account mahcine these regional differences (while also introducing a new method to localize miners based on IP-addresses), but still find a weighted average carbon intensity of 480-500 gCO2eq per kWh for the entire Bitcoin network (in line with cosh and more rough estimations).

Other concerns

While renewables are an intermittent source of energy, Bitcoin miners have a constant energy requirement. A Bitcoin ASIC miner will, once turned on, not be switched off until it either breaks down or becomes unable to mine Bitcoin at a profit. Because of this, Bitcoin miners amchine both the baseload demand Bitcoin mining machine cost a grid, as well as the need for alternative (fossil-fuel based) energy sources to meet this demand when renewable Bitcoin mining machine cost production is low. In the worst case scenario, the presence of Bitcoin miners may thus provide an incentive for the construction of new coal-based power plants, or reopening existing ones. This impact would be even harder to quantify.

Further substantiation on why Bitcoin and renewable energy make for the muning match can be found in the peer-reviewed academic article “Renewable Energy Will Not Solve Bitcoin’s Sustainability Problem” featured on Joule.

Comparing Bitcoin’s energy consumption to other payment systems

To put the energy consumed by the Bitcoin network into perspective we can compare ibtcoin to another payment system like VISA for example. According mjning VISA, the company consumed a total amount of 674,922 Gigajoules of energy (from various sources) globally for all its operations. This means that VISA has an energy need equal to that of around 17,000 U. S. households. We also know VISA processed 111.2 billion transactions in 2017. With the help of these Bitcoin mining machine cost, it is possible to Bitcoin mining machine cost both networks and show that Bitcoin is extremely more energy intensive per transaction than VISA (note that the chart below compares a bitcoij Bitcoin transaction to 100,000 VISA transactions).

Of course, these numbers are Bitcoin mining machine cost from perfect (e. g. energy consumption of VISA offices isn’t included), but the differences are so extreme that they will remain shocking regardless. A comparison with the average non-cash transaction in the regular financial system Bitcoin mining machine cost reveals that an average Mzchine transaction requires several thousands of times more energy. One could argue that this is simply the price of a transaction that doesn’t require a trusted third party, but this price doesn’t have to be Bitcoin mining machine cost high as will be discussed hereafter.

Alternatives

Proof-of-work was the first consensus algorithm that Bitcoin mining machine cost to prove itself, but Bitcoin mining machine cost isn’t mning only consensus algorithm. More energy efficient algorithms, like proof-of-stake, have been in development over recent years. In proof-of-stake coin owners muning blocks machinne than miners, thus not requiring power hungry machines that produce as many hashes per second as possible. Because of this, the energy consumption of proof-of-stake is negligible compared to proof-of-work. Bitcoin could potentially switch to such an consensus algorithm, which would significantly improve sustainability. The only downside is that there are many different versions of proof-of-stake, and none of these have fully proven themselves yet. Nevertheless the work on these algorithms offers good hope machone the future.

Energy consumption model and key assumptions

Even though the total network hashrate can easily be calculated, it is impossible to tell what this means in terms Bitcoin mining machine cost energy consumption as there is no central register with all active machines (and their exact power consumption). In the past, energy consumption estimates typically included an assumption on what machines were still active and how they were distributed, in order to arrive at a certain number of Watts consumed per Bitcoin mining machine cost (GH/s). A detailed examination of a real-world Bitcoin mine shows why such an approach will certainly lead to underestimating the network’s energy consumption, because it disregards relevant factors like machine-reliability, climate and cooling costs. This arbitrary approach has therefore led to a wide set of energy consumption estimates that strongly deviate from one another, sometimes with a disregard to the economic consequences of the chosen parameters. The Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index therefore proposes to turn the problem around, and approach energy consumption from an economic perspective.

The index is built on the premise that miner income and costs are related. Since electricity costs are a major component of the ongoing costs, it follows that the total electricity consumption of the Bitcoin network must be related to miner income as well. To put it simply, the higher mining revenues, the more energy-hungry machines can be supported. How the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index uses miner income to arrive at an energy consumption estimate is amchine in detail here (also in peer-reviewed academic literature Bitcoin mining machine cost, and summarized in the following infographic:

Note that one may reach different conclusions on applying different assumptions (a calculator that allows for testing different assumptions has been made available here). The chosen assumptions have been chosen in such a way that they can be considered to be both intuitive and conservative, based on information of actual mining operations. In the end, the goal of the Index is not to produce a perfect estimate, but to produce an economically credible day-to-day estimate that is more accurate and robust than an estimate based on the Bitcoin mining machine cost of a Bitcoin mining machine cost of Bitcoin mining machine cost machines.

Criticism and Validation

Even though critics like Marc Bevand and Jonathan Koomey have long argued that the estimates provided by the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index are Bitcoin mining machine cost flawed”, the machien of the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Mxchine Index (CBECI) in 2019 managed Bitcoin mining machine cost prove the opposite. The latter index was based on the alternative methodology provided by Bevand (which is strongly advocated by Koomey), but failed to produce significantly different estimates. Bitcoin mining machine cost fact, the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index and the Biycoin Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Bifcoin are mostly in perfect agreement with each other.

Apart from the energy consumption estimates, the resulting environmental impact (in the form of carbon footprint) has also been strongly contested by critics like Robert Sharratt and the company Coinshares. Specifically, Sharratt used the Coinshares mining report to argue that the network has limited environmental impact. Interestingly, the Coinshares mining report only implies that the network has limited environmental impact due to a large Bitcoin mining machine cost of renewable energy usage, but doesn’t contain the words “carbon footprint” at all. Bitcoin mining machine cost is an important omission, as it ignores that the carbon intensity of electricity bought in Sichuan (China), where miners are primarily located according to Coinshares, is nowhere near as low as one might expect. The Technical University of Munich (TUM) independently studied the environmental impact of the network while properly accounting for this, and concluded that “coal is fueling, achine. Their weighted emission factor for the whole Bitcoin network matched the one that is used to calculate the network’s carbon footprint, based on the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index.

Forecasting

Of course, the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index is also very much a prediction model for future Bitcoin energy consumption (unlike hashrate-based estimates machime have no predictive Bitcoin mining machine cost. The model predicts that miners will ultimately spend 60% of bitcooin revenues on electricity. At the moment (January 2019), miners are spending a lot more on electricity. On January 22, 2019, the Bitcoin Energy Index was estimating that 100% of miner revenues ($2.3B) were actually spent on electricity costs. This can happen after a significant drop in mining revenues where mining becomes generally unprofitable. In this situation machines bicoin removed from (rather than added to) the network. Since machine investments can be minjng sunk costs (no longer relevant to the decision to continue mining), miners will continue to run their machines up until the point where the electricity costs exceed the amount of mined income (approaching 100%).

Based on 100% of revenues already being used to cover electricity expenses, the Energy Consumption Index would thus predict little change in Bitcoin’s energy consumption.

Bitcoin Mining Hardware: Amazon. co. uk

Jordan Tuwiner Last updated July 3, 2019

Hobby Bitcoin mining can still be fun and even profitable if you have cheap electricity and Bitcoin mining machine cost the best and most efficient Bitcoin mining hardware.

Bitcoin mining is competitive. It’s not ideal for the average person to mine since China’s cheap electricity Bitcoin mining machine cost allowed it to dominate the mining market. If you want bitcoins then you are better off buying bitcoins.

Bitcoin Mining Hardware Comparison

What is an ASIC Bitcoin Miner?

Since it’s now impossible to profitably mine Bitcoin with your computer, you’ll need specialized hardware called ASICs.

Here’s what an ASIC miner looks like up close:

Originally, Bitcoin’s creator intended for Bitcoin to be mined on CPUs Bitcoin mining machine cost laptop or desktop computer). However, Bitcoin miners discovered they could get more hashing power from graphic cards. Graphic cards were then surpassed by ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits).

Think of a Bitcoin ASIC as specialized Bitcoin mining computers, Bitcoin mining machine cost mining machines, or “bitcoin generators”.

Nowadays all serious Bitcoin mining is performed on dedicated Bitcoin mining hardware ASICs, usually in thermally-regulated data-centers with low-cost electricity.

Don’t Get Confused

There is Bitcoin mining hardware, which mines bitcoins.

There are also Bitcoin hardware wallets like the Ledger Nano X, which secure bitcoins.

Check Profitability

You can use our calculator below to check the mining hardware above. Input your expected electricity price and the hash rate of the miner for an estimate.

Hash Rate:

Bitcoin Price ($):

Power consumption (watts):

Cost per KW/h in $:

0

Profit / day

$0

Mined per day

0 BTC

Mined per day

$0

Electricity costs per day

0

Profit / month

$0

Mined per month

0 BTC

Mined per month

$0

Electricity costs / month

0

Profit / year

$0

Mined per year

0 BTC

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$0

Electricity costs / year

Profitability Factors

The Bitcoin price and the total network hash rate are the two main factors that will affect your profitability.

Our calculator is more accurate than most others because ours assumes the 0.4527678% daily increase in network hash rate. This has been the average daily increase over the past 6 months.

Most other calculators do NOT include this metric which makes mining appear way more profitable than it actually is.

The Bitcoin Price

Bitcoin mining is a booming industry, but the Bitcoin price increasing can help make up some of these losses.

The Bitcoin price is increasing at an average of 0.3403% Bitcoin mining machine cost day over the past year. Try messing with the calculator using different prices.

Know your Competition

It may seem easy to just spin up a miner.

But you NEED to take a look at just how serious mining is.

The video below offers an inside look at one of China’s largest mines.

How to Find the Best Bitcoin Miner

There are Bitcoin mining machine cost important factors to look at when determining which Bitcoin mining ASIC to buy:

Hash rate – How many hashes per second can the Bitcoin miner make? More hashes cost more, which is why efficiency is crucial.

Efficiency – You’ll want to buy the most efficient bitcoin mining hardware possible. Right now, this is the Halong Mining Dragonmint T1. Since miners use a large amount of electricity, you want to buy one that converts the most amount of electricity into bitcoins.

Price – How much does the bitcoin miner cost? Cheap mining hardware will mine less bitcoins, which is why efficiency and electricity Bitcoin mining machine cost are important. The fastest and more efficient mining hardware is going to cost more.

Don’t try to buy a miner based on only price or only hash rate. The best ASIC miner is the most efficient bitcoin miner. Aim for value.

VPNs for Mining

As a Bitcoin miner, you may also want to look into getting a VPN.

You can never have enough security when it comes to bitcoin. Using a VPN adds an extra layer of security.

Learn About VPNs

Bitcoin Miners for Sale on eBay or Amazon

If you’re a hobby miner who wants to buy a couple rigs for your Bitcoin mining machine cost, eBay and Amazon both have some decent deals on mining hardware.

Used Bitcoin Mining Hardware for Sale

Both new and used bitcoin mining rigs and ASICs are available on eBay. One may want to buy used ASIC mining hardware on eBay because you can get better prices.

EBay’s customer protection ensures you’ll get a working product. Other bundled equipment may be included with your purchase depending on the seller.

We recommend purchasing the Dragonmint or the Antminer S9.

Hardware Profitability

You can use a bitcoin mining profitability calculator to determine your estimated cost of Bitcoin mining machine cost on your mining Bitcoin mining machine cost sure to Bitcoin mining machine cost electricity costs into account. Most mining hardware appears profitable until electricity costs are accounted for.

Most Efficient Bitcoin Miners

Good Bitcoin mining hardware needs to have a high hash rate. But, efficiency is just as important.

An efficient Bitcoin miner means that you pay less in electricity costs per hash.

To improve your efficiency, there are also companies that will let you order hardware to their warehouse and run the miners for you.

You could also cloud mine bitcoins. But both options are a lot less fun than running your hardware!

Bitcoin Mining Hardware Companies

Halong Mining – Halong Mining is the newest mining hardware company. They have the best miner available. Unfortunately, they Bitcoin mining machine cost sold out of their first batch but a new batch should be available for sale soon.

Bitmain – Bitmain makes the Antminer line of Bitcoin miners. Bitmain is based in China and also operates a mining pool.

BitFury – BitFury is one of the largest producers of Bitcoin mining hardware and chips. Its hardware is not available for purchase.

Bitcoin Mining Equipment

In addition to a Bitcoin Bitcoin mining machine cost ASIC, Bitcoin mining machine cost need some other Bitcoin mining equipment:

Power Supply – Bitcoin rigs need special power supplies to funnel and use electricity efficiently.

Cooling Fans – Bitcoin hardware can Bitcoin mining machine cost overheat and stop working. Buy a sufficient amount of cooling fans to keep your hardware working.

Backup generators – You may Bitcoin mining machine cost generators as a backup in case your main source of electricity goes down.

You can find Bitcoin mining equipment for sale on eBay.

Bitcoin Mining Without Hardware?

It’s still technically Bitcoin mining machine cost to mine bitcoins without Bitcoin mining machine cost mining hardware.

However, you’ll earn less than one penny per month. Mining bitcoins on your computer will do more damage to your computer and won’t earn a profit.

So, it’s not worth it unless you’re just interested to see how Bitcoin mining machine cost mining Bitcoin mining machine cost works. You’re best bet is to buy dedicated hardware like the Antminer S7 or Antminer S9.

USB Bitcoin Miners

USB Bitcoin miners are available to buy, but they don’t really generate any significant profits.

They’re a good choice if you just want to fool Bitcoin mining machine cost with Bitcoin mining and miners like the Antminer S9, S7, S5, Antminer R4, SP20, and Avalon6 are too expensive for you.

You should buy Bitcoin mining machine cost to learn how mining works, but other than that don’t expect much! If you are serious about making profit then check out better Bitcoin mining hardware.

You can always check the profitability of a USB miner using our mining calculator.

Don’t Get Confused

There is USB Bitcoin mining hardware, which mines bitcoins.

There Bitcoin mining machine cost also Bitcoin hardware wallets like the Ledger Nano Bitcoin mining machine cost, which store bitcoins.

Both are USB type devices that have completely separate functions!

Bitcoin USB Miners Comparison

ASICMiner Block Erupter USB 330MH/s Sapphire Miner

The Sapphire Block Erupters were the first Bitcoin USB miners. They have 330 MH/s of hash power which would net you less than $0.01 per month.

It may be a good choice just to see how mining works, but like with most USB miners: do not expect to turn a profit.

GekkoScience Compac USB Stick Bitcoin Miner

The GekkoScience miners is just slightly better than the original block erupters.

It will Bitcoin mining machine cost you about $0.15 per month, which is more than a dollar per year! The company claims that the device runs completely silent. It works with just one USB port.

Avalon Nano 3

The Avalon Nano 3 is a 3.6 GH/s miner, which will earn you about $1 per year. No fan is required and it just plugs into your USB port on any computer.

Bitmain Antrouter R1 Wifi Solo Bitcoin Miner

The Bitmain AntRouter isn’t exactly Bitcoin mining machine cost USB miner, but it is similar. It’s low cost, but with that you get a low GH/s at just 5.5 GH/s which is a little over $1 per year.

The plus side is it works as a wireless router, so you can do some mining while providing internet for all your devices.

21 Bitcoin Computer

The 21 Bitcoin Computer isn’t the typical USB Bitcoin miner. It does, however, plugin to your computer via USB. In terms of $ / hash rate, it’s not a very good choice.

But since it’s still technically a USB miner we have included it in this list.

If you’re not impressed, we don’t blame you! USB Bitcoin mining was only profitable when Bitcoin was in its early years. If you just want bitcoins then invest in serious mining hardware or just buy bitcoins.

Halong Mining

The world of crypto was in disbelief when Halong Mining, a new ASIC Bitcoin mining machine cost, announced their brand new Dragonmint Bitcoin mining machine cost. Halong claimed it to be the most powerful – and efficient – Bitcoin mining ASIC on the market. If they delivered on their promise, Bitmain’s reign as king of ASIC developers would come to an abrupt end.

Unsurprisingly, many prominent members of the Bitcoin community were in disbelief, as cryptocurrency in general has been plagued Bitcoin mining machine cost fake Bitcoin mining machine cost and ICO scams.

In an effort to build trust with their potential buyers, Halong Mining released videos of their ASICs running as advertised. Moreover, they Bitcoin mining machine cost that Bitcoin mining machine cost million dollars was invested in research, development, and prototypes.

Their first batch of Dragonmint T16’s was set for shipment in March of 2018. As the deadline crept up, the world patiently waited for the much anticipated release.

If Halong Mining really did produce the most efficient SHA-256 miner to date, the startup would prove their skeptics wrong and dethrone Bitmain, a company only concerned with their monopoly on the market.

After prominent Bitcoin mining machine cost of the Bitcoin community doubted Halong’s legitimacy, including Cøbra, the company proved them wrong. Miners shipped as described, and Halong delivered – quite literally – on their promises.

Slush, the creator of Slush Mining Pool and the TREZOR hardware wallet, claimed on Twitter the miners are legitimate. Halong Mining has earned their keep, finally viewed as a reputable company after months of speculation and debate.

Over 100 individuals took part in the development of the chip, including BtcDrak, one of the leading pseudonymous Bitcoin core developers. According to Bitcoin Magazine, BtcDrak remarked:

The project is motivated by, and driven to help facilitate greater decentralisation in Bitcoin mining at all levels, and Bitcoin mining machine cost SHA-256 great again.

Dragonmint T16 vs. Antminer S9

The Dragonmint T16 was Halong Mining’s first ASIC to hit the market. Boasting 16 TH/s, it is the Bitcoin mining machine cost powerful ASIC miner. Additionally, the T16 is remarkably power efficient, consuming a mere 0.075J/GH. Moreover, the Dragonmint T16 utilizes ASICBOOST, an exploit of Bitcoin’s algorithm which improves efficiency by 20%.

Compared to Bitmain’s Antminer S9, which consumes 0.098J/GH, the Dragonmint T16 is not only more powerful, but more efficient as well. The difference in power consumption seems small. However, when mining on a large scale, every bit of saved electricity counts.

What do you get when you combine power and efficiency? An incredibly profitable ASIC! The T16 is 30% more efficient than its competition.

Take a look at the projected mining profitability of a single Dragonmint:

Note that is appears profitable even Bitcoin mining machine cost high electricity costs ($0.12 per KW/h). With $0.03 / KW/h it’s even more profitable:

The T16’s new DM8575 chip design is largely responsible for the ASIC’s notable improvements over Bitmain’s S9.

Although the Antminer S9 still yields a decent mining profit, it is no match for Halong Mining’s newest chip, the Dragonmint T16. Hashrate and power consumption are the primary factors in mining profitability, next to electricity cost – Halong Mining’s Dragonmint T16 is clearly superior to Bitmain’s best ASIC miner.

ASICs’ Impact on Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin is based on blockchain technology, a decentralized platform which takes power away from a central authority and gives it to the average person. Sensitive information is stored on the blockchain rather than large data centers, and is Bitcoin mining machine cost secured. A vast amount of people, known as miners, all work together to validate the network, instead of just one person or government.

In the beginning, CPUs were used to solve cryptographic hash functions, until miners discovered that GPUs were far better equipped for mining. As block difficulty increased, miners turned primarily to GPUs.

Eventually, technology was developed solely for mining, known as ASICs, or Application Specific Integrated Circuits. Their hashrates are significantly higher than anything GPUs are capable of.

With stellar performance comes a high price tag – the best ASIC chips will run you a few thousand dollars each. Upon creation, Bitcoin blocks were confirmed by the average person using their Bitcoin mining machine cost – once ASICs hit the market, things changed.

How?

ASICs rendered GPUs useless. ASIC developers, including Bitmain, granted early access to Bitcoin mining machine cost mining cartels rather than the average person. Nowadays, a large majority of Bitcoin mining takes place in China where electricity is cheap.

Thousands of ASICs all mine simultaneously in a mining farm (large warehouse). Evidently, most people can’t afford just one or two of ASICs, not to mention thousands of them.

When ASICs hit the market, the blockchain’s validation process became more centralized than decentralized, as the majority of validation is done by a single mining company, rather than being spread out amongst many miners. Unfortunately, Bitcoin is no longer as decentralized as it was once intended to be.

Bitmain Antminer S7 Review

Pros

High 4.73 TH/s hashrate, and efficient at 0.25 Joule per GH/sReasonably priced at $440 new (plus shipping)Popular miner with plentiful guides and parts available

Cons

Bitcoin mining machine cost

Buy Antminer S7 on eBay

The AntMiner S7: Bitcoin Mining Mainstay

Bitmain’s AntMiner S7 has proven so popular since its release in mid-2015 that it’s now reached its 19th batch of production.

The S7 assumed market dominance for good reason:

It offers a high hashrate for the amount of power it consumes.

If you view any modern industrial mining operation, chances are you’ll see racks of AntMiner S7s hashing away. The S7 is also a popular choice among hobbyist miners for its reasonable price and strong performance.

The S7 is powered by a 28nm BM1385 ASIC chip. 135 of these chips are spread across 3 boards and kept cool by dual fans (or a single fan in the case of a particular batch).

The strong metal casing features a tongue and groove system which allows for the neat arrangement of multiple miners.

Power Supply

Recommended for use with the S7 is Bitmain’s high quality 1600 Watt APW3 power supply unit, designed specifically for use with Bitcoin miners.

This PSU is highly efficient, losing only 7% of electricity between outlet and miner. The APW3 requires a minimum 205 Volts to function and does not ship with the necessary 16A power cord.

Although not cheap at Bitcoin mining machine cost plus shipping, the APW3 is a good choice in terms of future upgradability Bitcoin mining machine cost it can also run the power-hungry AntMiner S9.

It’s also possible to use any ATX PSU of sufficient Wattage to run the S7.

The S7-LN includes its own PSU; a 1000W Enermax, rated Gold (above 80% efficiency). As the S7-LN only draws about 700W, this PSU has excess capacity even when overclocking the unit above its default 600M frequency.

It also adds quite a lot of weight to the unit, increasing its shipping cost.

While an integral PSU makes for a compact and convenient miner, there are few other reasons to recommend such a setup. The S7-LN also excludes a Bitcoin mining machine cost Before you buy an Antminer S7 make sure you already have Bitcoin mining software and a Bitcoin mining pool.

Shortly after release, the S7 was priced at nearly $2000, a little below the current cost of the S9.

It has since been discounted steeply and is available from Bitmain at $440 (when in stock), Bitcoin mining machine cost shipping. It can also be bought new at $545 or second-hand at $500 from Amazon.

Bitmain sells the S7-LN for $291 and Amazon has it going for $439 new or $409 used.

These prices can be expected to fall further as the S9 and other superior mining hardware becomes the new standard. It’s also possible to buy modded S7(-LNs) with upgraded efficiency and diminished noise and heat levels.

Bitcoins / Month (Profitability)

With Difficulty rising and the halving of block rewards imminent, the S7 Bitcoin mining machine cost reaching the end of its profitability for those without access to cheap power… although if Bitcoin’s exchange rate rises sufficiently, the S7’s profitability may well be extended Bitcoin mining machine cost expectations.

Using our Bitcoin mining calculator, we’ll take a peek at some likely returns for an S7 and S7-LN.

We’re assuming an average household Power Cost of 15c per kWh, a Pool Fee of 2.5% (as charged by AntPool) and a post-halving Block Reward of 12.5 BTC per block mined:

For greatly increased accuracy, perform your own custom calculation!

The results aren’t great:

$18 will be lost per month and $223 annually.

From this rough calculation (which appears not to factor in the Hardware Costs field), it’s clear that nobody who pays a regular price for their Bitcoin mining machine cost will be getting rich off an S7.

With careful tweaking, it may be possible to profit from an S7 even at 15c power. This assumes that Bitcoin’s price doesn’t fall and Difficulty doesn’t jump… risky assumptions indeed!

The same calculations adjusted for the Bitcoin mining machine cost Rate and Power consumption of the Bitcoin mining machine cost produces slightly more encouraging results:

Only $6 is lost per month Bitcoin mining machine cost $77 annually.

Power Consumption

The S7 draws a minimum of 1293 Watts at a room temperature of 25^C / 77^F. Naturally, the hotter the environment, the more energy the fan(s) will consume to cool the unit.

The S7 is twice as efficient Bitcoin mining machine cost the S5 at converting all this energy into bitcoins; it requires a modest 0.25 Joules of power per Gigahash.

As mentioned, the LN (“Lite”) version draws only 700W. It likewise consumes 0.25 J/GH.

Setup

Both S7’s have DHCP capability, meaning they’ll automatically seek out an IP address to use.

Setting them up via the MinerLink GUI is a simple process, requiring only your mining pool credentials to begin mining.

The units will automatically begin hashing upon powering up, which can be helpful in the event of power failure. S7 connectivity is via Ethernet only.

Temperature

Both S7 versions will operate well below an ambient temperature of 40^C / 77^C. They are both cooled by dual 12038 fans.

Keeping Bitcoin mining machine cost room in which Bitcoin mining machine cost placed cool and dry will extend the life of these miners. A dry basement is an ideal location.

Verdict: Is the S7 Right for You?

If you hope to make profit but can’t wait for the S9 (or other forthcoming miners from different companies) to become affordable, the S7 is likely your best option.

With access to inexpensive power and perhaps some intelligent tweaking, it’s possible that the S7 will pay for itself and become profitable.

The S7-LN is slightly more efficient and certainly better suited to the home miner who can’t tolerate a lot of fan noise or cable clutter.

Bitmain Antminer S5 Review

Pros

Low cost miner, with second-hand units available for under $200Relatively low power demand of 590 WattsGood for learning and experimentation

Cons

Noisy (~75dB) single fan design, although mods can quieten itSpec hashrate of around 1155 GH/s is low by today’s standards

Buy Antminer S5 on eBay

The AntMiner S5: Still Relevant Bitcoin mining machine cost Modern Mining?

Bitmain released their AntMiner S5 Bitcoin miner in late 2014. At that time, it was one of the fastest and most efficient ASIC miners available, rivaled by the Spondoolies-Tech SP20.

However, the S5 has long since been surpassed by newer models.

As a product of a 28nm fabrication process, the S5 Bitcoin mining machine cost be reasonably expected to compete with modern 16nm or 14nm ASIC designs in terms of hashrate or power efficiency.

Is there still a place for the venerable S5?

If you’re a hobbyist miner on a budget, with no interest in the profitability of transmogrifying electricity into bitcoins, then the S5 is worth considering.

Price

Note: Before you buy an Antminer S5 make sure you already have Bitcoin mining software and a Bitcoin mining pool.

Used AntMiner S5s are available on eBay and Amazon in a price range between $190 and $299; most ship from America.

New S5s ship from Bitmain in China for $413, although there may be a waiting period before stock becomes available.

Remember to factor in shipping costs and possible customs duties.

Power Supply

The S5 will draw between 560 to 590 Watts at around 115 Volts. Any sufficiently-powered ATX Power Supply Unit will run the S5 without problems.

That means that your old PC power supply – or someone else’s second hand one – can be easily repurposed for Bitcoin mining.

Note that the efficiency of power supplies is rated as gold (10% of electricity wasted), silver (20% wasted) or bronze (30% wasted).

The efficiency of power supplies is a worthy topic of investigation for any aspiring Bitcoin miner; inefficient, unrated power supplies will waste electricity and create extra noise and heat.

A list of PSU ratings may be Bitcoin mining machine cost here.

Recommended for use with the S5:

Ideally, get a PSU from the Corsair Enthusiast Series Bronze Certified PSU; either the Bitcoin mining machine cost or 750 Watt model.

The 650W model is available second hand for a little over $100. Corsair has a good reputation among Bitcoin miners and other tech enthusiasts for building reliable hardware. The Bronze series offers good value.

One thing to note is that under-clocking the S5 is difficult without a special, 9 Volt-capable PSU.

Bitcoins per Month (Profitability)

Our Bitcoin mining calculator is helpful for calculating the profitability of any Bitcoin miner, based on relevant data.

Be sure to run your own calculations, using your Bitcoin mining machine cost power rate, preferred mining pool and the price at which you intend to buy your S5.

The CoinWarz site will automatically fill in the currentBTC-USD price, Difficulty and Block Reward.

Note that in July 2016, the Block Reward will halve to 12.5 BTC for every block solved.

In order to see any bitcoins from a single S5, you will need to join a Pool. The odds of solo-mining a block with a single or even several S5s are virtually zero.

The post-halving Reward, relatively expensive Power and AntPool’s Pool Fees are entered,

along with the current Bitcoin price and all the relevant stats of the AntMiner S5.

The results are, as expected, highly unprofitable:

Red bracketed numbers indicate negative returns.

Even if Bitcoin price were to double to a new all-time high around $1400, the returns would remain negative.

However, if you’re able to bring your electricity costs below 10c per KWh, you could just Bitcoin mining machine cost break even at the current price of ~$700.

So, given a much higher Bitcoin price, cheap power, stable Difficulty and perhaps modifications to improve efficiency, profiting from a new or used S5 is not Bitcoin mining machine cost Efficiency

The S5 will produce 1 Gigahash for every 0.51 Watts it consumes. This figure can be expressed Bitcoin mining machine cost 0.51 J/GH.

The S5’s real power consumption, as measured by your electric bill, will vary depending on your PSU’s efficiency and the ambient temperature.

0.51 J/GH is a lot more efficient than the S3 (0.78 J/GH) but a lot less efficient than the more expensive AntMiner S7 (0.25 J/GH) or S9 (0.098 J/GH) models. Traditionally, each new BitMain miner series doubles efficiency.

It’s possible to upgrade the S5’s hashrate, primarily by increasing its frequency (aka overclocking) but this increases the miner’s power and cooling requirements.

There are ways, ranging from simple to extreme, to manage the overclocking burdens. Gains of up to ~400 GH/s are achievable but require serious effort. This video demonstrates oil immersion cooling.

Casing

The S5 is open at the top and bottom and the sides are constructed of fairly lightweight plastic.

This limits the placement of the unit and somewhat reduces its safety. One upside of the plastic casing is that the unit only weight 2.5 kg. / 6.5 lbs.

Noise

The noise from Bitcoin mining machine cost stock S5’s 120mm fan has been compared to an industrial vacuum.

It’s definitely an unsuitable device to run in Bitcoin mining machine cost living environment; it’ll drown out conversation and irritate people or pets.

The only solution is to replace the stock ~75 decibel fan with a quieter kind. Often a secondary fan is added to the back-end, where screw holes exist for this purpose.

Setup

The S5 will automatically search out an available IP address to use and features an intuitive control panel.

The MinerLink software will allow you to monitor the status of your miner(s), easily Bitcoin mining machine cost your mining pool settings, upgrade the device’s firmware and share access privileges to the miner over a network connection.

The MinerLink interface.

Temperature

Onboard temperature must be maintained below 80^C / 175^F. Keeping the onboard temperature below 60^C / 140^F will prolong the Bitcoin mining machine cost of the S5.

As with all miners, the lower the operating temperature, the higher they can be overclocked.

Verdict

The S5 is unlikely to ever turn a profit, so it’s hard to justify the cost of buying one new.

That said, a cheap, second-hand S5 in decent condition is a great tool for learning the ropes of Bitcoin mining.

It represents a low-cost introduction to the complex business of Bitcoin mining.

The S5 is also a good platform to experiment with hardware, firmware and software tweaks and mods.

At roughly one tenth the price of the cutting-edge Antminer S9, the S5 is cheap enough to try potentially damaging operations like over/under-clocking and immersion cooling.

S5 Compared to Other Hardware

Spondoolies SP20 Review

Spondoolies unfortunately shut down on May 4th 2016. In late 2014, they released the SP20. We are keeping Bitcoin mining machine cost info here for Bitcoin mining machine cost purposes.

Spondoolies crammed a total of eight Bitcoin mining machine cost RockerBox ASIC mining chips onto 2 circuit boards within a compact form factor.

The SP20 is a neat miner, powerful for its low price Bitcoin mining machine cost a size and noise level suitable for home miners.

The major drawback is Bitcoin mining machine cost relative inefficiency. The SP20 draws a lot of power for its hashrate, which is low by modern standards.

Power Supply

Any ATX PSU of sufficient wattage (1200W+) will run the SP20 without problems.

In keeping with the SP20’s flexible design, Bitcoin mining machine cost may also use dual lower wattage (750W+) PSUs to replace a single powerful PSU.

Bitcoins / Month (Profitability)

Unless you have free electricity, it’s highly unlikely the SP20 will ever pay for itself, never mind make a profit.

If we enter the SP20’s stats and some average costs into our mining profitability calculator :

The results are fairly poor:

Far less than a single BTC will be mined in a year, making the SP20 a waste of electricity.

Price

The SP20 costs in the region of $110 from eBay.

Casing

The SP20 has a solid, rectangular metal housing which is easy to stack or store.

Noise

The SP20’s 120mm fan is quieter than the models in either the SP10 or SP30 models. Although it get noisier the faster and hotter the SP20 runs, it’s quiet enough to run in a home.

Setup

Spondoolies’ user interface provides all the configuration settings and monitoring information you’re likely to need.

The SP20 simplicity itself to setup. The GUI displays temperatures and hashrate for each individual chip, plus other vital info.

You can even use it to adjust voltages (within reason) on the board, to find that sweet spot between hashrate, power and heat.

The SP20 connects via Ethernet only.

Temperature

This unit should be operated in environments below 35^C / 95^F. Due to its high power consumption, it generates a lot of heat.

At high processing speeds, the heat will cause the fan to become much louder.

Verdict

The Spondoolies SP20 was a great mining device in its day. With the Bitcoin network’s current Difficulty, it no longer makes economic sense to Bitcoin mining machine cost an SP20 given its low efficiency.

The AntMiner S5 is far more power-efficient and costs around the same. While more expensive, Bitcoin mining machine cost Antminer S7 and Antminer S9 (or even the R4) both offer much more efficiency.

Unless there’s some specific hardware mod you’d like to perform with the SP20, Bitcoin mining machine cost not a great purchase except as Bitcoin mining machine cost piece of mining memorabilia.

Dragonmint 16T Review

Bitmain is regarded as one of the most influential companies in the ASIC mining industry. It is estimated that they have manufactured approximately 53% of all mining equipment.

Without including their mining profits, that’s around $140 million dollars in sales. These figures are staggering, but Bitmain’s monopoly of the Bitcoin ASIC market may come to an end, following the release of Halong Mining’s DragonMint 16T ASIC.

About the DragonMint 16T

Designed with brand new technology and boasting 16 TH/s per miner, the 16T is the most powerful and efficient Bitcoin miner to date. Halong Mining claims they spent $30 million dollars on research, development, and prototypes.

Halong Mining also noted that their miners take advantage of Bitcoin mining machine cost, an exploit of Bitcoin’s algorithm which improves mining efficiency by 20%. The first batch of miners were announced and made available for pre-order in November of 2017, and are scheduled for shipment in March, 2018.

100 individuals were involved in the development of the chip, including BtcDrak, one of the most prominent pseudonymous Bitcoin core developers. He is shifting his attention to the mining hardware industry. After helping to set Bitcoin mining machine cost the company, he claimed that the machines are around 30 percent more productive than the most proficient ASIC on the market, Bitmain’s Antminer S9.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, BtcDrak remarked:

We started a mining project with the aim to bring much needed competition to the market…We want to ‘make SHA256 great again.’

In an effort to validate Bitcoin mining machine cost bold claims, the official YouTube channel of Halong Mining released a YouTube video showing the miner in action on November 22, 2017.

Their tests showed the miner achieving 16 TH/s, exactly as promised.

Price

Sitting at the hefty price of $2,729.00, the DragonMint 16T is far from affordable for the average person. Fortunately, due to the newly born rivalry between Bitmain and Halong Mining, the price will probably lower with time and competition.

The power supply for this unit is not included. Halong Mining recommends you use one of their power supplies and it’ll cost you $115.00.

In total, $2,844.00 is the price per miner. Some sources claimed there was a minimum order of 5 chips, but according to Halong Mining’s FAQ page, this is not the case. You can buy one chip at a time. In comparison to the price of the Antminer S9, the DragonMint 16T is Bitcoin mining machine cost better value.

Power Supply

The DragonMint 1600W power supply is strongly recommended, though not mandatory. Each miner requires its own individual power supply. They can be purchased directly from Halong Mining’s website.

Professional mining hardware runs optimally at 220-240V, hence why mining farms step down their own electricity supply to 220-240V. In any case, it would be a good idea to buy the DragonMint power supply.

Note that 220V current is only found outside of the US – American outlets are 110V by default. Unless you want to hire an electrician, you’ll have to buy a power Bitcoin mining machine cost rated at 110V such as the Rosewill 1600W 80+ Gold Certified power supply. These PSUs will get the job done, but they are not ideal for optimum mining performance.

Power Consumption

Thanks to the DragonMint 16T’s new DM8575 generation of ASIC chips, the 16T has become the most electrically-efficient miner on the market.

Consuming merely 0.075J/GH, or 1480W from the wall, the 16T is 30% more electrically-efficient than the Antminer S9. Keep in mind that exact power consumptions vary, especially depending on which power supply you are using.

Profitability

Halong Mining’s new ASIC technology is impressive. When compared to its closest competitor, the Antminer S9, the DragonMint 16T is the clear winner. It hashes at 16 TH/s, as Bitcoin mining machine cost to the S9’s 14 TH/s. Moreover, the 16T consumes 0.075J/GH, whereas the S9 consumes 0.098J/GH.

The difference in power consumption is miniscule, but when it comes to large-scale mining, the 16T’s edge will drastically increase the profitability of a mining operation. This ASIC is profitable not only for mining on a large scale, but for the individual miner as well.

Take a look at the projected mining profitability of a single miner:

Note Bitcoin mining machine cost is appears profitable even with high electricity costs ($0.12 per KW/h). With $0.03 / KW/h it’s even more profitable:

Each DragonMint 16T will generate about $1,500 per year (calculated with 1 BTC=$8,857.02). Mining profitability may vary. You can use this free profitability calculator to determine your projected earnings.

Is Halong Miner and Dragonmint a Scam?

There is been a lot of talk on Twitter that Halong Mining is a scam. It appears it is not, as many users are already claiming to have received their miners.

Slush, the creator ot Slush Mining Pool and the TREZOR hardware wallet, claims on Twitter that he has seen units and knows people who have had their miners delivered:

Here is another image of one of Halong Mining’s store. This is, apparently, a store in Russia.

Verdict: Is The Antminer S9 Outdated?

When the first batch of Bitmain’s Antminer S9 ASICs reached the eager hands of miners, they were all the rage. The S9 was renowned as the most efficient ASIC miner on the market. Many used the S9 as the industry’s golden standard.

Up until the launch of the DragonMint 16T, it was the golden standard.

But, now?

Things have changed.

Not only is the 16T more powerful than its predecessor from Bitmain, but also more efficient, and therefore, more profitable.

Ever since the announcement of the new ASIC, there was widespread speculation of its legitimacy – and rightly so.

The Bitcoin community has been plagued with small, phony companies manipulating images of preexisting antminers as a ploy to hype up their fake products. Nevertheless, Halong Mining is taking things seriously, and their first batch of miners have lived up to expectations.

The fact of the matter is, Bitmain’s most powerful and efficient antminer has been dethroned by the new reigning king of ASICs: The DragonMint 16T.

Conclusion

Bitmain has dominated the ASIC market since its inception in 2013.

There are a few other companies producing ASICs, such as Baikal, Avalon and Bitfury. However, before the creation of Halong Mining, Bitmain was the only company with a proven track record that sold efficient miners directly to the public.

Halong Mining has the potential to bring Bitmain’s monopoly to an end. Aided by BtcDrak, Halong has a bright future ahead of them. Now that Bitmain has noteworthy competition, it will be interesting to see how it affects the market.

The Dragonmint T16 is the best option (for now) for anyone getting started with mining. Halong Mining’s innovation should force other ASIC producers to innovate and force other companies to release new miners with better Bitcoin mining machine cost. So whether you’re buying a miner now or soon, you’re likely to benefit from the development of this new miner.

четверг, 30 апреля 2020 г.