# The real cost of mining



## damian246 (Dec 6, 2018)

Hi guys 

How about some fact finding, we all have seen numbers: 

To mine a BTC in the US the price is around 5000 US$ and I find that hard to believe. 
It becomes a bit more tricky due to the reward schemes. 

There are rigs that cost you 1500, 2000, even 3000 US$ and there are self armed rigs.  

Approximate price of mining equipment, power consumption are the data we need. 

How is the real cost to mine? 
BTC:
ETH
Any other Crypto you mine.


----------



## Sasqui (Dec 6, 2018)

From Google, the data from Feb, 2018:



> The cost to mine one bitcoin in the United States. According to a recently published analysis conducted by Elite Fixtures, which examined the electricity costs of 115 countries, the United States ranked as the 40th cheapest to mine a single bitcoin, with an average cost of *$4,758*.Feb 7, 2018


----------



## sneekypeet (Dec 6, 2018)

Thread cleansed. Please stick to the topic.


----------



## damian246 (Dec 6, 2018)

Sasqui said:


> From Google, the data from Feb, 2018:





> The cost to mine one bitcoin in the United States. According to a recently published analysis conducted by Elite Fixtures, which examined the electricity costs of 115 countries, the United States ranked as the 40th cheapest to mine a single bitcoin, with an average cost of *$4,758*.Feb 7, 2018



Yeah I know I just don't believe it. A miner cost 1000 to 2000. So after the first coin is harvested the miner does not count anymore.
Meaning after 4 coins your mining cost reduces to just electricity.  Or am I mistaken?


----------



## R-T-B (Dec 6, 2018)

damian246 said:


> Yeah I know I just don't believe it. A miner cost 1000 to 2000. So after the first coin is harvested the miner does not count anymore.
> Meaning after 4 coins your mining cost reduces to just electricity.  Or am I mistaken?



A lot more factors at play though.

The miner can't mine forever.  Eventually technological advances make it unprofitable.

Sometimes, raw electric rate isn't even profitable, depending on your region.

All that must be factored.


----------



## damian246 (Dec 7, 2018)

R-T-B said:


> A lot more factors at play though.
> The miner can't mine forever.  Eventually technological advances make it unprofitable.



How many coins does a miner mine, on average? At the moment it is hardly technology advantages, moreso the falling price.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 7, 2018)

Which is why the market is contracting.  Only commercial miners in low-power cost regions are still mining.


> With Bitcoin prices plummeting and reaching levels of unprofitability for most miners, only those – such as Salcido Enterprises – who have access to low energy costs and have significant scale, can stay in operation. Salcido Enterprises’ base operations are located near the Columbia River and are privy to some of the cheapest electricity prices in the entire [United States].



There's hardware (CPUs/GPUs/motherboards/power supplies/air conditioners/etc.), personnel (time spent configuring/troubleshooting/repairing), electric (ongoing inevitable cost), and sometimes software costs involved (some mining software takes a share of coins earned for the developer).

As far as I know, there aren't any publicly traded mining companies that are required to open their books to investors about costs/profit.  The only solid data is from small outfits like the people in State of Cryptocurrency thread that reported their daily earnings and decisions to start/stop miners based on profitability.  In the northern hemisphere, a lot of miners are running now at a lost simply to provide heat and get something back for it.


----------



## R-T-B (Dec 9, 2018)

FordGT90Concept said:


> In the northern hemisphere, a lot of miners are running now at a lost simply to provide heat and get



Which is a more legitimate use than 90% of mining.  I approve wholeheartedly of that.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 9, 2018)

R-T-B said:


> Which is a more legitimate use than 90% of mining.  I approve wholeheartedly of that.


It crossed my mind to do that, actually.  I'm using a 600w space heater now.  Investment costs are too great though and return on investment is non-existant so I'll just keep paying the $30 to keep me warm in the winter.


----------



## damian246 (Dec 16, 2018)

Thanks guy so it a well kept secret. 
I gonna have to comb thru the mentioned thread


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Dec 16, 2018)

FordGT90Concept said:


> It crossed my mind to do that, actually.  I'm using a 600w space heater now.  Investment costs are too great though and return on investment is non-existant so I'll just keep paying the $30 to keep me warm in the winter.


I too have a 600watt well it runs at 480watts typical heater in my room, the pc listed in my system specs, at one point it mined and now it crunches/folds.

Regardless of What its doing it isn't just pissing the power away heating a wire with one shit noisey fan on it.

It keeps my room comfortable ,it helps find solutions to known issues but even if it mined the little id get still would beat £0.


And what about a few years time , if btc blew up for the 4th time And you held that's a win maybe Eth blows up next time.

I am happy folding crunching but space heater's i can definitely say now piss me right off.

Especially the use of them by people who pulled the environmental angle out prior no grr here tho , i truly had a shit wkend so just saying I'd play the life game different to you.


----------



## jboydgolfer (Dec 16, 2018)

damian246 said:


> How many coins does a miner mine, on average?





damian246 said:


> Thanks guy so it a well kept secret.
> I gonna have to comb thru the mentioned thread



Its about the same as the length of a piece of string


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 16, 2018)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> I too have a 600watt well it runs at 480watts typical heater in my room, the pc listed in my system specs, at one point it mined and now it crunches/folds.
> 
> Regardless of What its doing it isn't just pissing the power away heating a wire with one shit noisey fan on it.
> 
> ...


I'd run another cruncher in the winter for heat if I had one but I don't.  The power consumption across my machines keeps going down, not up.  In general that's good but winters be getting colder because of it. 

Space heaters cost like $40 at the most compared to, what, a $2000 machine that consumes 600 watts that's actually worth running in terms of contribution?  The economics dictate one should stick to the space heater.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Dec 16, 2018)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I'd run another cruncher in the winter for heat if I had one but I don't.  The power consumption across my machines keeps going down, not up.  In general that's good but winters be getting colder because of it.
> 
> Space heaters cost like $40 at the most compared to, what, a $2000 machine that consumes 600 watts that's actually worth running in terms of contribution?  The economics dictate one should stick to the space heater.


True, and I feel my tactics are only going to get dearer , it's a good job im adequately inspired by the untimely deaths of a fair few i loved and many i knew ,all missed.

It was meant as a mild jab dude ,in an ideal situation it could be different but who's in an ideal situation in the present climate, weather and political/financial situation.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Dec 17, 2018)

BOINC should get someone to make a low cost, high power ASIC system.  I'd spend $200 on a seasonal machine for heating/science.  Doesn't cost so much that I feel like I need to run it year round to justify the expense and ASIC means it's efficient (cost and power) to do the intended work.  Seems win-win but a significant up-front cost for Berkley.

Anywho...kind of off topic.


----------



## damian246 (Dec 30, 2018)

Merry Christmass to all.

To get back on topic, browsing thru the cryptocurrency thread I saw that no one is actually saying how much they mine in a time frame of a year.
@*silkstone *could shed more light on it.

I reckon on coin per year was possible, which means you had to mine 2 to keep on.
So the second year you mine for electricity, should you not arm another rig.

I reckon further that the miners are not too much in love with detail and just throw their entire household bill into the equation, that should lower the cost even more.
Now it became much more complex, you only keep 25% and you need to up the hardware.


----------



## hat (Dec 30, 2018)

It's hard to say how much one would mine in a year. Difficulty changes (usually goes up) so we kinda get diminishing returns. I could tell you what I mined in a year when February comes around, as I haven't withdrawn anything since... but it still doesn't account for any downtime or difficulty changes.


----------



## damian246 (Dec 31, 2018)

hat said:


> It's hard to say how much one would mine in a year. Difficulty changes (usually goes up) so we kinda get diminishing returns. I could tell you what I mined in a year when February comes around, as I haven't withdrawn anything since... but it still doesn't account for any downtime or difficulty changes.



That would be much better than the stories told in the crypto thread. They are rather not giving out numbers. 
Which makes me think people are quite generously inflating costs and belittling earnings.


----------



## SoNic67 (Dec 31, 2018)

1. You have the cost of electricity.
Sure in winter you can use the heat, but there are other cheaper options to heat the space - gas heating, central heating (water loop), electrical heat pumps (3 times more efficient than resistivity heating).
2. In summer you have to increase the HVAC usage to cool back the room that you just heat. In colder climates maybe that's not a big deal (open windows), but when outside is already HOT...
3. Cost of investment.
Some people borrow money to buy the rig, and that leads to... owning interest rates to the bank. Other people pay upfront and think that are not loosing anything... well, they do. Those money could be invested in something more productive, so you lose that potential income.

A calculator just for the #1 cost from above:
https://whattomine.com/

Example: for RX580 mining Ethereum: 24 MH/s on stock frequencies and 29 MH/s when overclocked, with a power consumption of 136 W and 153 W, respectively.
You get $0.44/day mining and pay for direct electricity $0.48/day (at 10c/kWh). 
Then you need to add the costs #2 and #3...


----------



## damian246 (Mar 2, 2019)

SoNic67 said:


> Below


1. *You have the cost of electricity.*
Yes and I believe no one is going thru the calculation to find out how much their miner used. Easier and more convenient to take the complete cost and claim that mining is very expensive.
2. I*n summer you have to increase the HVAC usage to cool back the room that you just heat. In colder climates maybe that's not a big deal (open windows), but when outside is already HOT...  *Same story take the entire bill and glue that onto mining. 
3.* Cost of investment.
Some people borrow money to buy the rig, and that leads to... owning interest rates to the bank. Other people pay upfront and think that are not loosing anything... well, they do. Those money could be invested in something more productive, so you lose that potential income.  *true and here also people can be generous and take a credit for a car use parts of the credit for one or 2 miners and add all up into costs.


----------



## SoNic67 (Mar 3, 2019)

It's easy to know how much mining takes. And then that power (heat) can be converted in BTU (removed by AC) if you insist to be precise.

Just plug the rig in one of those:


----------



## R-T-B (Mar 3, 2019)

SoNic67 said:


> It's easy to know how much mining takes. And then that power (heat) can be converted in BTU (removed by AC) if you insist to be precise.
> 
> Just plug the rig in one of those:



Kill-a-watts are actually pretty bad for mining usage.  They don't factor in Power Factor and almost all power supplies today do active power factor correction, making that important.  Due to the type of load mining is, this can lead to a pretty low reading vs what you really are drawing (Real power vs apparent power).

It's why I opted for a different meter in my 120V vs 240V reviews that also factored in power factor:

https://www.techpowerup.com/240951/confessions-of-a-crypto-miner-efficiency


----------



## SoNic67 (Mar 3, 2019)

R-T-B said:


> all power supplies today do active power factor correction


Active. As in working to make the power factor closer to 1. So it's nothing that would affect measurement. And even if they wouldn't it still not a biggie.

This small device is "smart" enough to actually measure the power factor. See that PF label? What do you think it does?

This will measure and calculate accurately the kW, kVA and also the kWh - the energy used - as accurately as your house meter.


----------



## John Naylor (Mar 3, 2019)

A 600 watt rig w/ 87% efficiency would cost me $1,450.92 per year in electric


----------



## SoNic67 (Mar 4, 2019)

For anyone else, here is a primer...
The efficiency is the PS conversion efficiency - to make 600W available for the PC, it takes from the electrical outlet 600/0.87=690W=0.69kW. So that's your full power bill, you don't pay just the losses in the PS.
0.69kWh per every hour of mining. 16.56kWh per every day. 5895 kWh per year. I am paying approx $0.1/kWh (10 cents), so that would be $589. Of course if your rig uses less than 600W, numbers scale down.
A 300W rig will cost you close to $300 per year.
If you pay more for electricity, the numbers scale up.

Now the heat... All the power that the PS is delivering to the PC is eventually transformed into heat. All of it. This because the PC doesn't produce any useful mechanical work (like a motor that would pull water from a well for example), everything you input as energy is lost in heat.
OK. That 690W of heat means 2350 BTU/hour added to your A/C load in the summer. If you have a newer, medium-efficient heat pump unit, it would have a SEER of... 13-14. Older ones are probably around 9-10. For SEER 13, that means it would use 2350/13=180W to extract that extra heat from the house. So, for the cooling season, you will have extra 180W of power bill.
In some places that "cooling" season is 3 months, in other places is 6 months. If you live in Alaska probably you don't worry about this bit.
So you can re-do those above calculations for that season.
3 months cooling of 600W rig will be 0.180kW*24hr*90days=390kWh. At my utility price of $0.1/kWh, that means only $39. So the total for that 600W rig is now $628. Hopefully you mine that much in a year.
If your HVAC unit is an old one (SEER 9) and you use HVAC more that 3 months a year, that all adds up drastically.

PS: If someone else pays your power bill, that's not "free" money. Basically if you don't tell them about this extra money you are causing them to spend, you are abusing of their good faith (even if you are their child). It's ethically the same as stealing money from their pockets.


----------



## John Naylor (Mar 6, 2019)

SoNic67 said:


> For anyone else, here is a primer...
> The efficiency is the PS conversion efficiency - to make 600W available for the PC, it takes from the electrical outlet 600/0.87=690W=0.69kW. So that's your full power bill, you don't pay just the losses in the PS.  0.69kWh per every hour of mining. 16.56kWh per every day. 5895 kWh per year. I am paying approx $0.1/kWh (10 cents), so that would be $589. Of course if your rig uses less than 600W, numbers scale down.



Ya lose very little with the rounding to 2 significant digits but more than close enough ... I wind up answering this question frequently so have a spreadsheet do it for me that just needs wattage, cost and efficiency.  Im  24 cents per kw hr.

If anyone would like to have.

*Gaming (Hours Per Week)*
Wattage: 600
Efficiency: 87.00%
Hours/ Week: 168
Weeks / Year: 52.18
Hours / Year: 8,766.00
KwHrs / Year: 6,045.52
Cost of KwHr: $0.24
Cost per Year: $1,450.92

*Mining (Hours Per Day)*
Wattage: 600
Efficiency: 87.00%
Hours/ Day 24
Days / Year: 365.25
Hours / Year 8,766.00
KwHrs / Year 6,045.52
Cost of KwHr $0.24
Cost per Year $1,450.92


----------



## SoNic67 (Mar 6, 2019)

Must love to live in Long Island, NY... pay more than double the electricity


----------



## damian246 (Mar 12, 2019)

John Naylor said:


> A 600 watt rig w/ 87% efficiency would cost me $1,450.92 per year in electric



Great a number and what comes out of the rig at the end of the year? 1 BTC, 2 , 3 or more?


----------



## John Naylor (Mar 12, 2019)

It does have it's advantages an disadvantages ... you decide.

a) Prolly one of the largest coastline / land area ratios in country.
b) The land of Big Hair and "LawnGuyland Goilz who drink cawfee"
c)  "Da Hamptons"
d)  Access to "Big Apple"
e)  Have 4 different seasons with weather extremes moderated by ocean currents.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Mar 12, 2019)

John Naylor said:


> Hours/ Week: 168


U wot mate?  Four full time gaming jobs?  Never sleep? I game a lot (excessive amount in fact) and the most I could absolutely see is 112 hrs/week.  That's 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. People got to eat, use restroom, and do other humanly things so...can't be 16 hours.

Your average gamer doesn't exceed 4 hours per day/28 hours per week.



John Naylor said:


> Cost of KwHr: $0.24


Holy crap is this in the Democratic Socialist Republik of Kalifornification?  Oh... Long Island...
https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/
Rank 9 versus rank 7 for most expensive.  My power is something like $0.17 for the first MWh (always exceed that with heating/cooling) then $0.05 after that.


Keep in mind that game rendering isn't a constant load (it ebbs and flows) on a GPU so power consumption is significantly lower than compute loads that are constant.  You'd have to sample an average of both to get a good idea of long-term power consumption.


Also, power supply efficiency/rated capacity doesn't matter much: it's what is being pulled from the wall.  If you have a 600w power supply but are only drawing 50w from the wall, 50w is what you're paying for, not 600w.


----------



## R-T-B (Mar 13, 2019)

SoNic67 said:


> This small device is "smart" enough to actually measure the power factor. See that PF label? What do you think it does?



Seemingly, it has been revised from when I was looking at their first gen circuits.  Good catch.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Mar 13, 2019)

400 W * 4 hrs/d * 365.25 d/yr = 584.4 kWh/yr
584.4 kWh/yr * $0.1247/kWh (US average) = $72.87/yr for your average gaming computer with average gaming usage

Let's say the same computer is mining.  We subtract 60w for the monitor rarely being used and 40w for the CPU because it's a GPU-centric coin...
300 W * 24 hrs/d * 365.25 d/y = 2,629.8 kWh/yr
2,629.8 kWh/yr * $0.1247/kWh = $327.56/yr for the same machine mining on GPU.

450% more power...and that's tipping the numbers in favor of mining.


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 13, 2019)

jboydgolfer said:


> Its about the same as the length of a piece of string



Twice the distance from the middle to the end 



SoNic67 said:


> It's easy to know how much mining takes. And then that power (heat) can be converted in BTU (removed by AC) if you insist to be precise.
> 
> Just plug the rig in one of those:



sorry for off topic, but i love the expression on the sockets face


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Mar 13, 2019)

tigger said:


> sorry for off topic, but i love the expression on the sockets face


Standard NEMA 5-15R outlet.


----------



## Space Lynx (Mar 13, 2019)

damian246 said:


> Hi guys
> 
> How about some fact finding, we all have seen numbers:
> 
> ...



Just fyi, a lot of the miners steal their electricity for free, one way or another. The biggest farms in China steal from the grid as well.


----------



## hat (Mar 14, 2019)

I'm not sure how you can steal that much electricity. Surely someone would notice and put a stop to it?


----------



## SoNic67 (Mar 14, 2019)

hat said:


> Surely someone would notice and put a stop to it?


Electricity in China is state-owned, so... corruption. 80% of the mining rigs are there. Power plants there burn a lot dirty coal, with no filters (because those are electro-static and consume electricity).


----------



## damian246 (Mar 16, 2019)

SoNic67 said:


> Electricity in China is state-owned, so... corruption. 80% of the mining rigs are there. Power plants there burn a lot dirty coal, with no filters (because those are electro-static and consume electricity).


Have you been there?


----------



## SoNic67 (Mar 17, 2019)

I grew up in a communist country. Worked there too. Visited others.
Don't need to see another one to know how is to live in one.

Eventually we raised up and shoot the leaders. Only to have the country taken over by the second echelon. Corruption always wins because greed is in the human nature, inherited from animals. Natural selection...


----------



## damian246 (Mar 17, 2019)

SoNic67 said:


> I grew up in a communist country. Worked there too. Visited others.
> Don't need to see another one to know how is to live in one.
> 
> Eventually we raised up and shoot the leaders. Only to have the country taken over by the second echelon. Corruption always wins because greed is in the human nature, inherited from animals. Natural selection...



I agree on human nature but not on every country being similar. 
Corruption is also endemic on western capitalism, every credit a state takes the organizers collect a fee. 
With billions at stake a few millions each head (of State)


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 17, 2019)

FordGT90Concept said:


> 400 W * 4 hrs/d * 365.25 d/yr = 584.4 kWh/yr
> 584.4 kWh/yr * $0.1247/kWh (US average) = $72.87/yr for your average gaming computer with average gaming usage
> 
> Let's say the same computer is mining.  We subtract 60w for the monitor rarely being used and 40w for the CPU because it's a GPU-centric coin...
> ...



That may be true but which one of those systems actually has a chance to pay for itself?


----------



## R-T-B (Mar 17, 2019)

moproblems99 said:


> That may be true but which one of those systems actually has a chance to pay for itself?



Depends on whether the ram cartels jack up the price of ram again and if you bought the ram on the cheap.

I actually sold a rigs ram once for more than I paid.  I could see that changing your somewhat rhetorical question.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 17, 2019)

I like what you did there but I don't see RAM paying for multiple GPUs any time soon, likely never.


----------



## R-T-B (Mar 18, 2019)

moproblems99 said:


> I like what you did there but I don't see RAM paying for multiple GPUs any time soon, likely never.



I like to try to mess with peoples rhetorical statements, give me kudos for trying at least.


----------



## moproblems99 (Mar 18, 2019)

I'll give you kudos but I payout in Ether so I don't think the kudos are worth what they once were but I'll still offer.


----------



## mouacyk (Mar 18, 2019)

How could this have been a good idea if it gets progressively more difficult to verify if a transaction is legitimate?


----------



## hat (Mar 19, 2019)

mouacyk said:


> How could this have been a good idea if it gets progressively more difficult to verify if a transaction is legitimate?


I think this is done to curb the very real possibility of a large number of miners jumping on the bandwagon, each receiving a large sum of whatevercoin... effectively making the coin in question worthless.

As such, "fake" difficulty like this means the payment network is more and more expensive to maintain the more people support it.


----------



## damian246 (Mar 20, 2019)

hat said:


> As such, "fake" difficulty like this means the payment network is more and more expensive to maintain the more people support it.


Basically that is how everything works. society, philosophical movements, companies even families. Larger they get more ......


----------

