Hey everyone,
I'm thinking about starting a bitcoin mining farm and wanna chat about which countries are the best options, ignoring the ones that outright ban crypto mining.
1) Cost of electricity
2) Regulations
3) Geopolitical situation
4) Climate
So, here are some electricity prices for businesses:
Iran: 0.002 USD/Kwh (I found this on Google, can someone verify this?) Crypto mining is accepted but the geopolitical situation is rough and it’s pretty hot, except in the mountains.
Egypt: 0.024 USD/Kwh Regulations are easy, stable geopolitics, but it’s hot.
Laos: 0.03 USD/Kwh Tough regulations but stable geopolitics and tropical weather.
Kyrgyzstan: 0.038 USD/Kwh Regulations are easy, geopolitics are stable, and the weather is decent.
Algeria: 0.035 USD/Kwh Tough regulations, stable geopolitics, and hot weather.
Qatar: 0.036 USD/Kwh Regulations are tricky, stable geopolitics, and also hot.
Canada: 0.114 USD/Kwh Easy regulations, stable geopolitics, but cold weather.
Paraguay: 0.04 USD/Kwh Easy regulations, stable geopolitics, and cold weather.
Kazakhstan: 0.07 USD/Kwh Regulations are friendly, stable geopolitics, and the weather is alright.
Can anyone confirm this info? Where do you think is the best country to set up a bitcoin farm?
IIRC mining in Iran on decline due to past blackout which lead to 4 months ban[1] and seized some ASIC before it's released[2]. While i don't know current condition in Iran, it would scare off some miner.
At that electricity price, it's not attractive enough for miner. Currently 0.06 Usd/Kwh or lower seen as attractive.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-57260829
[2] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/01/04/iranian-courts-order-return-of-thousands-of-seized-crypto-mining-machines-reports/
Even with 0.12 usd/kwh its still highly profitable.
Any one knows about mining in Canada ?
Any one have a better opportunity with better electricity cost ?
Washington State has a lot of cheap hydro power.
I know a lot of people have equipment there.
Depends on what you are looking for. 1000s of watts, 10000s of watts 100000s of watts, multi mega watt.
There is no 1 size fits all. Not to mention contract length, I have seen $0.05 power. BUT you need to sign a 2 year contract + personal guaranty + pay 180 days of power up front after that it's a rolling 90 days. You are also required to buy your bandwidth from them and so on.
Other places will just bill your credit card every month.
-Dave
I communicate with miners from Kazakhstan, so many of them either closed their business or moved. Only companies that have found a way to negotiate with officials are engaged in mining there. Mining is heavily taxed and you have to share your profits with middlemen.
Bitcoins Record Low Hashprice Pushes Miners to the Brink
Even the largest miners struggle amid the market slump
The current hashprice makes it a challenging environment in bitcoin mining, especially for those without competitive power costs. A relevant example is the 4.1 EH/s of Antminer S19XPs that Bitmain has hosted at Core Scientific since late last year. The hosting rate was $0.0745/kWh, suggesting a daily hashcost of $39/PHsthats just about the current hashprice breakeven point of $40/PH/s.
According to these statistics, mining companies may start having problems with profit with the constantly growing hashrate.
Ignoring the fact that most of these figures are either wrong or outdated، most prices you see online are for first-tier home use only, so even medium-sized houses don't enjoy those rates.
Then you have regulations and shit, no ya, no country in your list is good for mining.
Lol, what?
With the best gear Bitmain has you're going to earn 234T x 4.5 cents, so $10.5 while spending $10 on power.
Well Canada is, but not for those prices, Argentina for example would suck on consumer prices but again you have these guys:
https://investor.bitfarms.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/217/bitfarms-locks-in-power-cost-at-2-1-cents-per-kwh-fixed
Does anyone still mine BTC in Canada anyway? maybe it's old news? I know a few miners who fleed Canada, I didn't bother to check the full details but long story short, unless you are big enough to make use of carbon credit and all those "first-world" countries "things -- you can't really make a profit, but then even very large players like Hut 8 left Canada, probably for a good reason.
If you visit https://www.asicminervalue.com/ and use filter which only include SHA-256 ASIC, there aren't any ASIC which give high profit at $0.12/kWh electricity. Even S21 Pro only give $0.01 profit per day. But it's different case if you talk about different hash and assuming the coin will remain valuable.
Hut8 leaving Canada? I didn't know about that, they just had about 150 million in funding and they were planning to buy 4 minor gas plants for their operations, even got all permits and stuff
https://hut8.com/2024/02/15/hut-8-completes-transaction-to-acquire-four-power-generation-facilities-totaling-310-mw-in-partnership-with-macquarie/
The cost in their report includes the locations in the US but..
at 3 cents per kWh it beats almost everyone's price on OP's list
https://medicinehatnews.com/news/local-news/2024/03/07/power-prices-sink-hut-8s-drumheller-crypto-mining-site/
On the phone, can't check which news is actually "news" for Hut 8 mining in Canada, i have also read another article that explains why Canada is no more attractive to miners, will try to find it and share it with you.
As you said, Iran, Egypt and Lao have some of the lowest electricity prices but there's other issues at bay here.
The price is not everything. The network in these countries is not developed enough to support the massive consumption that bitcoin mining needs today. Hell, even miners at texas had to cut special deals with legislators and energy companies to continue their activities because even the American network could get overwhelmed. And we saw Texas' infrastructure network get overwhelmed with the freeze last year too. It's not an unrealistic scenario, it's something that could be happening every year now with climate change.
Maybe in these scenarios there could be some utility to run miners when there's low demand for electricity and switch as many as possible to renewable when there's surge of demand, or completely shut them down when the network needs renewable. This way overproduction because factories producing electricity need to run constantly wouldn't go to waste. Buuuut there's also another issue here. Public sentiment. In Texas there's a growing alliance AGAINST miners. Now imagine in countries where there's even more harsh conditions for the poor how it would look if so much in terms of resources was directed towards a highly technological project that gives little to nothing back to the people of the country.
Years ago in China if you cut a deal with a regional government you could run a big mining project. But the central government stopped that after they realized this isn't really helping the country's people. Good on them I guess. Let's be realistic, for mining to be as cost effective as possible, you must be doing some things at someone else's expense. Just like any other project consuming electricity. For instance you get cheap energy but it's at the expense of the network infrastructure and also at the expense of the environment.
First you need to look at the contract under which you will be provided with power for rent. At this price, its strange that half the world hasnt moved there yet)
Lol, I'm explaining this to cloud mining enthusiasts too
In my country you have to pay money for installation if the equipment is in the company's data centre, because the company has the cost of owning and maintaining the data centre. You have to share part of the profits, which is still a substitute for taxes :)This is the case in Russia and Kazakhstan.
There is a separate charge for warranty and post-warranty service. And here is just fabulous mining with all-inclusive conditions
If it were a profitable investment, I wouldn't tell anyone about it. But since I think the company pays miners money from their own money, then in this case, whoever starts mining first can earn money.
That's why these people hope to find donkeys here, at whose expense they will earn money.