Mining Bitcoin Costs Around the Globe

I came across this article on CoinGecko called "Household Electricity Costs to Mine 1 Bitcoin at Home, Around the World" and honestly, it caught my attention. The report breaks down which countries make mining 1 Bitcoin really profitable and which ones do the exact opposite. Here’s the rundown of the top 10 countries where mining Bitcoin is a sweet deal: 1. Lebanon $266.02 (cost in USD to mine 1 BTC) 2. Iran $532.04 3. Syria $1,330.10 4. Ethiopia $1,596.12 5. Sudan $2,128.17 6. Libya $2,660.21 7. Kyrgyzstan $2,660.21 8. Angola $3,724.29 9. Zimbabwe $3,990.31 10. Bhutan $4,256.33 And then there are the countries where mining Bitcoin is a total money pit: 1. Italy $208,560.33 2. Austria $184,352.44 3. Belgium $172,381.50 4. Denmark $166,795.06 5. Germany $163,336.79 6. Ireland $159,612.50 7. Lithuania $152,163.92 8. Netherlands $137,798.79 9. United Kingdom $130,616.23 10. Cayman Islands $128,222.04 They even included a cool graphic. The calculations they did to figure out how much electricity is needed to mine a single Bitcoin are pretty intense. They looked at eight different mining methods, each with its own hash rate, and checked how long it typically takes to mine one Bitcoin with each one. They based their findings on a mining difficulty level of 53,911,173,001,055.00. Just so you know, mining difficulty adjusts every 2,016 blocks, and how often it changes depends on how many miners are out there and the power of their rigs. They used C.

using difficulty is a little bit of a guess.. as is playing around with the different asics and also doing it based on solo mining which without guessing the difficulty of the next 7 years. you cant actually guess the cost of solo mining over seven years a better method is to look at the average network hashrate of a 2 week point.. then simply divide that down by the average asic speed of current gen asics. to see the average number of asics running then knowing how many asics are probably mining at any time they can look the cost per bitcoin of the network (as solo mining is a whole different ball game) EG their list of asics                                   Thash  KWH    hash/KWH Bitmain Antminer S19 XP Hyd (255Th)        255     5.3      48.11320755 Bitmain Antminer S19 XP (140Th)              140     3.01     46.51162791 Bitmain AntMiner S19 Pro+ Hydro              198     5.45     36.33027523 Canaan Avalon Miner A1366                       130    3.25     40 Canaan Avalon Miner A1346                       110    3.3       33.33333333 MicroBT WhatsMiner M53S++                    320     7.04     45.45454545 MicroBT WhatsMiner M53                           226    6.55     34.50381679 MicroBT WhatsMiner M33S++                    220    6.82     32.25806452                                       average hash/kwh = 40 TH/kw (rounded) average hashrate=400exa =10000000KWH used with 6 blocks an hour and 6.25btc a block = 266667KWH /btc after doing these calculations this way. you wil find the article also done them this way to calculate the network rate.. because with Lebanon's $0.001 electric price also equals $266(excluding hardware and labour cost of maintaining) however the article falsely pretends it calculated it based on difficulty and by pretending its the solo cost over 7 years.. (which they didnt factor in the 7 years of possible difficulty changes they would assume to have calculated if they were doing a properjob under their mentioned method)

This is inaccurate. The price of electricity for homes in Iran is about $0.001 per kilowatt hour but that's for the home users and the KWH they'll use. A miner uses more electricity which means the rate will enter an automatic step-by-step price scheme where each time the usage surpasses the next step's threshold the price increases. I believe the ceiling is $0.03 per KWH though. Additionally big miners have to follow the regulations which have changed a couple of times over the past couple of years. Basically in these contracts they receive special rates for their farms which depends on a bunch of factors. For example it depends on the month, during the peak usages in summer their rate is equal to the export rate which I think is less than 5 cents; and in the rest of the year the rate is half that. Another factor is their source of electricity. If it is the national grid the rates are as I said before, otherwise they could use renewable energies, start their own power plant in which case they'd receive super cheap gas which can be as low as $0.0008, or participate in the building of new power plants using the gas flares to produce electricity and get it practically for free. Although this last one was just a news I once read, I don't know if the project was started or not.

I dunno, you better have some backup generators available if you are mining in these areas, since the electricity is unpredictable and can usually gets knocked out for long periods of time. Also like pooya87 said, these prices don't take into account extra requirements and regulations for businesses. You can't just start a mining farm in these places and connect it to the grid, you have to explain why you are using so much electricity.

starting own power plant.. yes the fuel is cheap but the conversion to electric is not same as gas flaring. it seems like free energy but then you have to include the equipment to turn burned gas into electric. also flared gas pipes only release a certain amount of dirty gas which is not enough to power a whale asic farm per flare pipe the trials of 'flare-mining' is small scale mining per site (less than a shipping container per pipe) much like this topics failure.. it fails to include the device/equipment and maintenance cost.. which is why it does not actually cost $266 to mine bitcoin in lebanon

No reason to be intrigued it's the same thing as discussed a year ago https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5405856.0 and it's just a bit of BS moving two values in an excel sheet as many miners have pointed out. They take the average electricity price and draw calculations, forgetting one important thing, no miner mines at average prices! And I have to add, no miner mines at consumer price either as they would simply go bankrupt. If you look strictly at that map you see Mexico scoring twice as cheap as the US, but there are no major farms in Mexico while at least 40% of the hash rate is in the US, and the reason is simply, while that index price has the US at: Riot does so at 2.5 cents: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1167419/000107997321000537/ex99x1.htm 700% is quite a stretch, isn't it?

This is not real right? We have already long gone from the days when we used to be lucky enough to mine one bitcoin just like that. I hardly think any miner will stumble upon a Bitcoin on solo mining trip. I don't really believe that. Moreover there is less chance due to another fact and that's ever increasing cost of everything from the mining equipment, the maintainance, electricity is but obvious and moreover high price volatility. You never know how Bitcoin price might surprise you if it falls.  For example, the electricity cost in US. If you check the actual price then it is always higher in terms of inflation and needs to be adjusted. For every 4-5 years there is a cent raise in actual while more than 4-5 cent raise in the inflation value. This means in the years to come this is gonna be problem. Since electricity cost is rising but block reward is decreasing.

In many countries there is still a lot of cheap hydro, atom, solar electricity, so miners will look for more favorable conditions for installing mining equipment. The volume of purchased electricity is also very important, because the prices in the wholesale markets do not increase as much as the tariffs for small customers.

There are also other factors to consider, which are alternative energy sources, bitcoin prices, and technological advancement. That being said, the market will always balance itself. Even in the current market people keep mining Bitcoin and increasing its difficulty even though the profit is likely small. At the very least this goes to show that some of them are betting that their earned rewards will be worth more in the future.

Russia has a developed energy infrastructure, but already industrial miners are facing problems of lack of electricity. And in other countries, too, there are restrictions on consumption. Consumption in Russia at the end of the year by industrial miners alone could rise to 2.5 GW. Further, it will take 1-2 years to develop the infrastructure.

For example, in Laos, the government recently ordered to stop mining. At first, I thought that the measures taken to limit the production of cryptocurrencies for reasons of excessive consumption of electricity or the prevention of illegal mining, but in the end everything turned out to be simpler. Mining companies have large debts for electricity and the government has decided to sell excess electricity to neighboring countries.

wait why don't they just sell the surplus minerals

It's more so they did some pretty stupid calculations to come up with this rubbish, there is no way on planet earth you can mine a whole BTC at your house, sure not in any of those countries they listed as "cheap", the single new gen miner consumes 3kw which is probably more than a few hours max capacity in most of the countries listed, so you can't even plug that shit at home. If you are lucky, the average gear you can run at an average home in one of those countries would be an S9 that does 14th, and that would require 440 years to mine a single bitcoin assuming difficulty stays flat and no halvings, so you looking at a few centuries to mine a single bitcoin, so in a life time, all those houses that may mine bitcoin combined won't mine what a single large miner in the U.S can mine in a day, so what is the purpose of this study? Also, how did they get the electricity rate for those countries? probably via a Google search, because I can assure you at least half of those figures are incorrect, most countries with cheap electricity have tier-based costs, and that tier-based cost will ramp up in a few days after running a small miner like an S9, Let alone an S19 or M30s.

According to their calculation method, the ASIC, depending on the hashrate, produces a block in solo in 1340-3900 days, and the ASIC with the largest hashrate has the highest probability. But I don’t know how this system takes into account the future increase in complexity and the emergence of new ASICs every year. Asik will die earlier, so it is difficult to verify these calculations.

Lol did they really say that? As of today, the most powerful asic miner needs 20 years to mine a single block, and this assumes no change in difficulty in neither direction. Simply put, the whole study is a waste of energy, probably more people will read it than this topic, but ya, that is the reason why most people are ignorant.

because you need to use 1eh  not 100th 1000000 x 0.00000221 = 2.21 btc a day at viabtc which is a block in just under 3 days. or 6.63 btc in 3 full days No variance no diff adjustment power cost for that at 5 cents is about $11.25 for each 100th machine you use. You need 10,000 machines  for 1 Eh 10,000 x 11.25 = 112500 usd for 6.63 btc = 16,968 usd a coin. but   zero cost to buy the 10,000 machines zero cost for the wires zero cost for the building zero cost for labor zero cost for theft and that is a shit ton of money. Even if you give the caveat that the power cost for a coin is 17,000 if you have 5 cents power and have  payment for the machines  is achieved you are still saying that for 10,000 machine you have 1)zero cost for maintenance and repair 2)zero cost for the wires 3)zero cost for the building 4)zero cost for labor 5)zero cost for theft 6)zero cost for cooling and filters to get that 17,000 a coin cost. I could venture a guess at what it cost for that list but even at 25 cents a machine it is 2500 so 17000+2500= 19500 a coin for a 5 cent power guy assuming the has fully paid off the gear is close. Since the began 6 cents or less has worked if you are a six cent guy 20,400 is power cost + 2500 = 22,900 a coin. so six cent power and 30 watt a th gear is on the line of breakeven. As I think my 2500 extra cost number is too low as most are paying off the gear which is likely 5000 more to the numbers so a six cent guy is 20,400+2,500+5,000 = 27,900 or break even or  tiny loss. very tight for a 6 cent guy not that good for a 5 cent guy  4 cent looks okay 13,600+2500+5000 = 21100

This same study is done by experts!! Look at the table and ask yourself why the cost of mining 1 bitcoin in solo is indicated? After all, there are at least 7 bitcoins in one block, taking into account the block reward and commissions, and to get 1 bitcoin, you need to mine the whole block. Therefore, I am sure that any ASIC will be broken earlier, the experiment is impossible

Very nice compilation. $266.02 is dirt cheap for 1 BTC. However, you need to take into account crime rates, corruption etc which can affect the final price. But of course, taking everything into account, electricity price in Italy is hard to beat...

Lulz - it's all complete crap. N00b thread wanting people to post - thus why he hasn't replied. So, here's a simple way to work it out (hopefully I've made no mistakes) The 'expected' hashes to mine a block, at the moment right now, before the next diff change, is of course called the network difficulty. So what is it?, simple, currently 55.6T Which is ... 55.6x10^12 Diff 1 diff = 2^32 Hashes 1 Block = 6.25 BTC So the hashes you 'expect' to do per BTC is 55.6x10^12 x 2^32 / 6.25 Now to pull a 'reasonable' number out of the air, 25J/T - most home miners will be worse than this, few will be better than it. So the 'expected' W/hr to mine 1 BTC, this week, at 25J/T is 2^32 * 55.6 * 25J / 3600s / 6.25 = 265.33MWHr If electricity is (high) 10c, that'll cost $26533 at 25J/T If electricity is (fucking low) 1c, that'll cost $2653 at 25J/T Now, since I've done all this tapping away on my laptop, not at home, and not able to easily get at info, anyone feel free to point out any mistakes I've made Edit: and in case it wasn't clear at the start, this depends directly on the network difficulty, which changes about every 2 weeks, so any long term attempt at estimating it will be very wrong, even a short estimate of a few months will be noticeably wrong, after the fact, also.

Just for fun and for the sake of proving that this study is complete b.s, I will take the fist country on the list "Lebanon" which according to the study it costs only 266$ to mine a whole bitcoin. It costs 10c USD per kWh for the first 100kWh and then 27c / kWh so it costs $71,639 (using the most efficient gear out there as Kano pointed out above) to mine a single bitcoin and not 266$ , obviously I used 27c and not 10c because regardless of which miner you use, you will go past the first tier of 100kWh in no time every month, so you might save a few hundred dollars during the first tier, so that 71k might be 70k or slightly below, but ya, still way too far from being just 266$. It's also worth meeting that Lebanon generates around 500MW ONLY, while the minimum demand there is 3500MW, so the average city gets electricity only for 4 hours ( could be more or less depending on the demand which is mainly determined by the season), so basically, you can't even mine BTC in Lebanon using the grid, let alone do that with 266$, I think they got that number by visiting some "English speaking" website that has little to no info of what has been going on in Lebanon for the past a few decades, and they use the electricity price that was valid 30-40 years ago and then they reflect it on today's data, the end result obviously is complete rubbish. I know for sure the numbers are 100% wrong for Syria, Sudan, and Libya as well, I am also willing to bet it's wrong for the rest of the countries they labeled as (cheapest to mine BTC), so I won't even bother to research those, I 'l just stick to the claim that "they are all wrong" and wait for someone else to prove otherwise.