I'm curious to hear from both new and experienced Bitcoin farm owners. Is this a solid plan to move forward with? If you were in my position, would you go for it or suggest something different?
I'm thinking of spending around 100k on setting up a Bitcoin farm at home pretty soon, and I'm planning to hire a skilled electrician to handle the installation properly.
If you have any better ideas, I'd love to hear them. What Asic miner do you think is the most effective? I've come across some info saying that Whatsminer is more reliable than Bitmain. Is that a fair point?
I've seen discussions here suggesting that Whatsminer can be more durable with fewer issues compared to Bitmain and others.
Share your thoughts and recommendations here, but please skip the power consumption talk. I'm looking for advice on the best Asic miners to buy or avoid.
In order for anyone to put together a meaningful response, we would first need to know the following:
* How much is your unit cost (how much do you pay for electricity, per kWh)?
* What type of supply do you have? Single phase? Three phase? 120V? 240V? What capacity is the supply?
Miners come in various different efficiency ratings (how much energy used to provide 1 TH of computing power). If you have free (or incredibly cheap) electricity and a huge / unlimited supply, it makes more sense to buy cheaper (less efficient) miners. If your electric cost is normal and power available is limited, you will probably be better off with the most efficient miners you can get hold of (current S21 Pro) - or S21 with aftermarket firmware.
Homes are generally unsuitable for bitcoin mining, at least on any scale. Unless you are rural with outbuildings, or live on a farm or a huge mansion, you will probably only have a small single-phase supply which could only run a handful of miners (e.g. 4 or 5 max). They're also incredibly noisy and generate vast amounts of heat. Once you have a bulk of miners, you will have a huge amount of heat to dissipate, this will require heavy airflow in and out of your farm. Whilst you can mount them in boxes and connect ducting etc, this is essentially misuse of the equipment and not how they are intended to be operated. It's also impractical on any kind of scale. Miners are designed to have neutral or negative pressure at the outlet fans, they are not designed to push air through ducting and this kind of use will likely shorten the life of the miner.
You would probably be better off buying $100k of miners and hosting externally IF (and that's a very big IF) you can find a reputable host that doesn't rip you off.
As for Whatsminers - they are brilliant. The only reason I didn't include in my examples is that none of my current suppliers have Whatsminers available. They are not typically as easy to source as Antminers, however (in my opinion) they are much better quality. You will pay more per TH though. Assuming you did have $90k left, today that would get you 21 x M60S 180T. Although the Whatsminers are better quality, I'd be inclined to suggest 32 x T21 vs. 21 x M60S would make you more money in the long-run (even after taking failures into account).
100k and in your home?
the power specs mean everything.
My home is too costly
14 cents in the winter 17 cents in the summer.
I am allowed a 200amp service single phase 2 pole 120 which means I could do 48kwatts maxed temp.
Reality I can do 24kwatts to mine the rest runs the home and overhead.
24kwatts is 8 bitmain L7 with one or 2 of them set to low setting
cost is maybe 50k for the miners 10k for wires and 2 k for fans.
If you are USA based maybe you can do a 400 amp service which is 98000 watts.
of which you could use 50000 watts or 16 miners
that would be 6 L7 = 36k and 10 t21's say 36k so 72k and 14k for wiring along with 4k for fans.
If you want to do that much mining you want a house with an out building.
I built my facility in NYS (Northeastern USA). My power cost is 12.34c/kWh (cost is just under 7.6c but factoring in delivery/tax it comes out to 12.34c - I'd suggest you form an LLC, I used NCAIS Code 518210 which is "Data Processing Services" because without doing so, I was unable to qualify for the industrial power gen rate. It may be different for you but you may need to have an EIN to prove you're not a "residential entitity".)
I would strongly suggest keeping some cash on hand for those sort of "surprise" expenses (I didn't factor cost of huge spools of Cat6 wire/networking equipment/mini-split AC units/dehumidifiers/electrical receptacles, wire concealing pipes, boxes for the receptacles, phase combining breakers, 8 AWG wire spools/FANS (i went to a Restaurant Supply shop in Queens, NY and bought some industrial, louvered, kitchen exhaust fans I framed and mounted in the windows that I use as exhaust outlets)/etc...
The point I'm trying to drive home here is - keep some cash on hand.
All of the miners you've mentioned are going to create a TREMENDOUS amount of heat - and they will need to be allowed to BREATHE.
If 100K is your budget - I'd honestly spend 72.5-77.5K on equipment and keep the rest on hand. Considering the halving is about to clock in - I might honestly just buy BTC with 35-40K, spend 35-40K on mining equipment, and keep the rest as emergency cash.
Whatever you wind up doing - wish you the best of luck and hope you find success!
Edit: I totally missed that you said you want to do this in your HOUSE! What country are you in? Regardless - that is an UNBELIEVABLE AMOUNT OF NOISE and HEAT EXPENDITURE!!!!! I'd STRONGLY suggest scaling WAAAAAAAAY down - unless you've got a barn or some other sort of structure on your property that is not attached to your house - OR.... Rent a warehouse space. My 2 sats! (<- see what I did there? lol... I say that in front of my friends who aren't bitcoiners instead of "my 2 cents" and they look at me like I have 5 heads lmao)
@Danileethier
I have free electricity thats why I don't bother to include, and I have a single phase 120v, thanks for replying mate.
@Philipma
I have a house with 24kw and its extra land in the back, I plan to use that piece of land for the mining farm.
I am thinking about adding large numbers of solar panels on the roof to mine during the day as well, I shouldn't have cooling issues because my compound is mostly breezy all the time.
Thanks for the replies.
So you will face a power limit maybe only 5-8 units of gear .
So
s21
t21
L7 are all off limits as they need 240 volts.
you want these
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5485850.0
The three I built are all 120 volt and use an s19 xp board.
You want them with normal s19 boards.
I could build you the s19 xp version for 1500 plus shipping
I could build you the s19 version way cheaper
The s19 version would do maybe 25th at 800 watts cost under 1000 each they would use 120 volt power.
You could run 15 of them easy. That would be 12 kwatts of power all using 120 volt psu's
Gives you 375 th which earns about $37.50 a day $13687.50 in a year.
You power is free these are not noisy
but the 1/2 ing is coming so they will drop in earnings. (or not as price may go up)
Why not get 1 piece from me and check it out.
where are you located ?
I am in NJ, USA
Hey mate... First thing first is your electricity cost... It's only economical if you have access to electricity price of below 0.04$cent/kwh. Otherwise i strongly suggest not to do it!
So let's assume you have that cheap electricity price. Then considering your 24 kw electrical capacity, you very likey be able to run max ASIC OF 6-7.... Although efficiency matters much, but maintenance and the failure risk control is also very important. Cuz you will end up so much in situations that your machines will fail!... So try to increase the number of your ASICs even with sacrificing a bit of their efficiency!
So, for instance, instead of 6 high efficiency machines, i would go for less efficient ones but with number of 12 miners in my farm... That makes it more easier for maintenence and bring higher uptime of your farm, in cases that some may fail!
But the electricity price is still the important factor here ☝️
are you sure you're working with single phase 120V? Not sure how you'd make a stove/dryer work with that... In the USA - most homes have higher voltage (480V seems to be the standard in my area) coming from the lines which is then run through a transformer which gives you the secondary voltage (usually 208/120 or 240/120).
I'd suggest consulting with an electrical contractor before you purchase anything.
a lot of the usa have
hot line 1 120 volts
hot line 2 120 volts
ground
the circuit box may allow line 1 + line 2 and give 240 volts.
or not.
From what he says he has spare 24 kwatts at 120 volts for free.
this means he is best off with modded s19's from that use the Loki chip. he can avoid paying an electrician 1000's of dollars.
I can custom build s19 pro 1 board units fairly cheap that run on 120 volts.
he can buy them from Altair tech
with only 24kwatts he can't run a lot of gear say 700 th
700 th is going to earn 35 usd a day with free power or 12000 a year.
no no I understand that - but thats the point I was trying to make... its a very common practice to use 2P breakers. Just figured I'd mention it as most of us know, electricity is NOT to be trifled with. For the amount of money he wants to spend it just seemed like maybe not a bad idea from the safety perspective. Wasn't trying to say he should use larger asics.
FWIW: I love the single board setups - bought 2 pre-fabbed from Altair and built 3 (19K Pro boards). If I had a spare XP lying around I'd have tinkered with that board as well! (inspired by your other post lol)
I have been lazy but I think I could get my t21 to run one board at 120 volts.
I have epic controllers which are really good with the t21
I would need another loki chip but I think it will work..
I am still sourcing a good psu for that build.
I am also looking to rebuild or mod the chimney design to cool better