Picture a basement in January where the space heater is a Bitcoin mining machine. Almost all the power it uses comes out as heat the family was going to pay for anyway. The strongest critique of mining: big operators with cheap long power contracts and first pick of machines make "anyone can take part" close to fiction. On scale I think that is mostly right. My claim is narrower. Power bills get paid in dollars and machines wear out, so miners sell part of the roughly 450 new coins a day. And whoever has the cheapest reason to run a machine keeps showing up, a dam or a cold basement. I would change my mind if home and small operators keep shrinking across several four year cycles, heat reuse included. What does your winter heat cost you per month?
✦ Takes identified
Is Bitcoin mining economically viable for home operators with waste heat reuse?
descriptivemining viability
Checking for a wallet…
Where people landed
1 yes · 0 no (casts, from 1 person). These are the classifier’s reading of each cast — not stakes, votes, or a poll.
- yes
Picture a basement in January where the space heater is a Bitcoin mining machine. Almost all the power it uses comes out as heat the family was going to pay for anyway. The strongest critique of mining: big operators with cheap long power contracts and first pick of machines make "anyone can take part" close to fiction. On scale I think that is mostly right. My claim is narrower. Power bills get paid in dollars and machines wear out, so miners sell part of the roughly 450 new coins a day. And whoever has the cheapest reason to run a machine keeps showing up, a dam or a cold basement. I would change my mind if home and small operators keep shrinking across several four year cycles, heat reuse included. What does your winter heat cost you per month?
AI hypothesisLarge industrial operators with economies of scale make home mining unprofitable regardless of heating reuse benefits.
Nobody has actually argued the other side of this one yet. That is a guess at what they’d say.