Don't mine if you can't cover your electric bill

So I have this buddy in Ghana who's into crypto trading. Recently, he reached out to me about getting into Bitcoin mining and it sounds like he's really excited to invest a lot of cash into it. I'm totally up for helping him out, but there's something that's bothering me about his plan. He’s thinking of setting up 20 Asic miners using stolen electricity. I straight-up told him that’s a bad idea. He’s gonna get caught eventually, no doubt about it. We're still talking about it, and I really hope he takes my advice seriously. Then just yesterday, I came across this news about illegal mining operations getting raided in Thailand. It’s not the first time either. A few months back, they busted a couple of mining farms, catching 40 miners in one raid and about 50 more in another. It’s turning into a serious issue for the Thai government. Honestly, I can't wrap my head around why folks are so greedy when it comes to mining. How can someone drop millions on 690 Asic miners and think it’s a smart move to run them on illegal power? The local utility is bound to catch on, it’s just a matter of time. If you have that kind of dough to buy all those miners, why not just invest in solar panels instead? You could easily spend a six-figure sum on panels instead of risking it all illegally. Then just use the grid for power at night and pay for that. If you’re considering illegal mining, just stop, it's not worth it.

Before looking for illegal electricity, review the legal status of Bitcoin. According to this article, Bitcoin is banned in Ghana. https://www.mariblock.com/ghanas-sec-sets-up-committee-on-crypto-regulations/#:~:text=Cryptocurrencies%20are%20banned%20in%20Ghana,engage%20in%20crypto-related%20transactions. In addition to electricity, mining requires space, cooling, and noise reduction, which makes hiding a mining farm with dozens of devices very difficult. It can be done easier with one miner, but it is better to buy Bitcoin.

This is all shades of wrong and now one would encourage it. If he goes ahead with it and eventually gets caught, it will affect the other miners who are plug legally to electricity. The government would just pass a law to ban bitcoin mining operators just to punish the others. We should never give them the opportunity to do that. Additionally, your friend seem to be lacking a business plan or any plan at all. This is what he needs to fix.

You have given the best advice to him because it is short-term thinking to think that you will be able to set up a mining farm with illegal electricity and expect it to go on for long without the government's knowledge. If you can afford electricity, why try to play smart? Some people just have this irresponsible behavior of not wanting to pay for things, and it is absolutely immature.

That is a pretty risky business illegally stealing electricity is not a good idea just to do mining with ASIC. There are lots of ways to get free energy from the sun, wind, and water which is free energy from nature he just need a place where he can build a facility near of any these sources. Better stop planning to mine BTC if you can't afford the current electricity rate or if you can't afford to build your own power source. There's other way to invest money if he believe in Bitcoin then better tell him to buy Bitcoin instead.

I think it's still very much possible to do mining even when you can't afford to pay for electricity, knowing fully well that no man currently is an island. Where I stay for example, people find it difficult to pay for electricity because they don't have,what we do is to go to our neighborhood to charge in order to enable us do work or make use of our phone.

If illegal electricity is stolen electricity, then your friend is a fool. The consumption of these asics will be about 60 kilowatts per hour and such a miner is very easy to calculate by stable power consumption and noise.Even if he dips the asics in a special liquid, or solves the noise problem in another way, for example, in Russia such thieves are found by the energy industry in 2-4 months and the police confiscate the equipment.

Well, that shows how people could become too greedy, and your friend OP is also considering to be greedy in order to earn from mining, I don't understand many people want to earn through illegal method, they don't fight fair, if they want to obtain the reward of bitcoin mining then they should be ready about the expenses that is needed in order to build a mining rig, and it is not a joke investment because there's a lot to consider such as equipment and of course electricity, and for those who gain from mining and using illegal electricity then they deserved to be caught and punished, I mean imagine someone if being charge with the electricity bill without knowing that they have been cheated by those miners who does illegal activity. So it's right that you stopped your friend because if that's his thing, then he doesn't deserve to earn through mining; it's better for him to find another way of earning that doesn't make him do an illegal act.

electricity bill for mining exceeds $100 and sometimes $XX,XXX . you need a rich neighbor not to notice this increase. Many have been arrested and imprisoned for trying to mine with illegal electricity.

Yeah but illegal mining operations are not new and every few weeks we see a new thread here demonstrating the mishaps that have happened in different mining centers, illegal of course. I remember a thread on Russian miners which caught fire but luckily no one got hurt. In the similar manner, if someone gets caught, then legal action would be taken. It is better to be safer than sorry in this case. You should not steal from the grid, you will be punished. Your friend if still not caught should stop doing this and sell their ASICs.

I can write to you about Russia very easily. Energy workers have already learned to quickly find illegal miners. Equipment using free electricity will pay for itself in 6-8 months, but energy workers will find a mining farm earlier, in 3-4 months. This is minus 50% of the deposit. If the police catch the miner, then it's bankruptcy.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Indeed it is outright dangerous to mine in countries like that, the risk is not worth taking. But since everyone wants to jump into the bitcoin bandwagon the better and safer method is to buy bitcoin at the lower end of the cycle and hold that for the long term. It is not that buying and running ASICs is a chore on its own, but it has become this dangerous because of less availability of cheap electricity.

This is not a difficult job, but now mining has already become a production with high energy consumption. Home mining has its limitations, usually 1-4 ASICs and you still need to deal with noise. Therefore, it is difficult to mine Bitcoin at home, but you can mine other coins on video cards and processors and exchange them for Bitcoins, or simply use NiceHash.

Illegal mining activity have been taken place in many parts of the world and it is something all the people that are into it should desist from. If you can’t follow due process to own a mining plant and do all that’s necessary of you to own one, it is better you don’t try to do hide and do it. Mostly, in the end, it will cause you more losses, put you in danger and also make you face the wrath of the government, most especially in a country that its illegal to mine bitcoin and own ASICS machine. If your friend in Ghana cannot make this happen the right way and knows that the government might be against it, he should just buy some bitcoins and save the money he’d use to get those expensive mining equipment.

If you connect to household networks, then most likely your neighbors will either call the police or burn down your mining farm themselves, because it will cause a lot of problems with overloading transformers. It is very difficult to hide such a large electricity consumption.

Mining is a nice get poor slow scheme. Having free electricity is the only way to make money from mining and there is no such thing as free electricity. Those who say they have access to “free” electricity are usually the thieves that use someone else’s electricity. The competition is too damn hard on mining, having free electricity is the only way to survive. It is smart to avoid participating in a game like that. Just buy bitcoin and you’ll end up in a much better position.

I agree the competition is hard, but it's definitely not get poor slow scheme. If you could obtain low electricity rate and newer ASIC at reasonable price, it's still profitable. And there are some business about Bitcoin mining out there.

Having reasonable electricity prices and cheap hardware won’t cut it. You will be competing with the “free” electricity users a.k.a. thieves. It is a loser’s game unless you are also a thief. People who play honest will never ever make their ROI back unless bitcoin goes super bull and then buying bitcoin makes more sense in the first place. Why risk your hard earned cash on smth where there is a big chance to lose money when you can buy btc and hold and almost certainly make money?

With reasonable electricity and equipment prices you can get coins at half the price, which is why mining companies don't buy coins. Now mining is profitable, so the hash rate is constantly growing.

Personally i don't think miner need to worry about that. Those thief also need to obtain either steal any ASIC or buy reasonable cheap ASIC. And as stated by other poster, someone will notice if the thief use lots of electricity.