Would cryptocurrency mining on solar be viable?

[Red Squirrel]

Been toying with various ideas of using cheap land as investment for extra income and one idea is setting up a solar farm. Problem is Hydro One does not look like they are accepting any new grid connections in my area as we already produce more than we use with Hydro dams etc so transformer stations are already at capacity for receiving extra power. But then I got thinking, I could generate power that can then be used to do work that pays off. Crypto currency mining came to mind.

Assuming I found land that has a access to internet or is within line of sight of my house to use a p2p link, would this be a viable thing to do, or would the pay off be way too long? I'm thinking start with like 10kw, run 5-6kw worth of miners. Heck, could even have them shut down at night, and then I would not need that big of a battery bank. Essentially I'd make most money in summer when the days are longer.

Crazy idea? Or could it actually be viable? I guess if it was viable everyone would be doing it.

 

[sandorski]

Depends on the Cost of the solar setup.

 

[lxskllr]

Depends on the Cost of the solar setup.

It's a lot of money up front for the chance at making money in the future dealing in intangible goods. The idea sounds about as good as investing in scratchoffs to me.

 

[brianmanahan]

these things seem like such a waste of computing power

 

[Ken g6]

I imagine idling your crunchers at night makes them much less cost effective in terms of up-front cost. Even though solar power isn't the most expensive power anymore.

You'd probably need solar panels, mounting, wires, old car batteries, maybe a charge controller, an inverter, crunchers, and a shed to house the electronics.

 

[sandorski]

It's a lot of money up front for the chance at making money in the future dealing in intangible goods. The idea sounds about as good as investing in scratchoffs to me.

I agree somewhat, but that's what I thought years ago in the early days of Bitcoin.

 

[ultimatebob]

Yeah, I think that the opportunity of making a big profit in crypto mining was probably three years ago. At this point, you're competing with Chinese mining farms with thousands of ASIC systems dedicated to mining crypto. We're also in a valuation bubble which will probably crash soon. I wouldn't be making a huge capital investment for something that could drop in value by over 50% in a few weeks.

Now, if you found a new cryptocurrency that's still easy to mine with good growth potential, you might have a shot.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I imagine idling your crunchers at night makes them much less cost effective in terms of up-front cost. Even though solar power isn't the most expensive power anymore.

You'd probably need solar panels, mounting, wires, old car batteries, maybe a charge controller, an inverter, crunchers, and a shed to house the electronics.

Yeah was thinking that too, maybe it would actually make sense to buy the proper size battery bank to go all night. Generally I don't think it would be viable, but just kinda toying with the idea or curious if anyone has actually done it.

The idea would be to have remotely no ongoing costs, so it would just be the upfront cost of equipment. Some of the cheap land available in my area is on what is called unorganized townships, these typically have very small taxes and hardly no bylaws. So you can build what you want. It's the very definition of freedom.

But yeah this is probably not a good time to get into this really. It would partially be for fun since I'd like to mess with solar, but at same time I don't want to sink money into something that will fail.

 

[lxskllr]

I agree somewhat, but that's what I thought years ago in the early days of Bitcoin.

I'm conservative in pretty much every way. Not the fox news republican kind of conservative, but the literal definition of conservative. I generally take few risks. That means I don't win big, but I also don't lose big. I believe in cryptocurrency, but not enough to invest thousands into trying to acquire some. If I could leverage untapped power I already had, sure, but not build infrastructure solely for that.

 

[sandorski]

I'm conservative in pretty much every way. Not the fox news republican kind of conservative, but the literal definition of conservative. I generally take few risks. That means I don't win big, but I also don't lose big. I believe in cryptocurrency, but not enough to invest thousands into trying to acquire some. If I could leverage untapped power I already had, sure, but not build infrastructure solely for that.

Ya, I'm risk adverse as well. Tried doing Bitcoin way back when, but between thinking it was sketchy and not getting to work on my vidcard I just moved on without regret.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I regret not getting into BTC early. Some people are actually millionaires because of it. But you really had to have lot of capital to start and it was a huge risk not knowing how far it will even go.

I had thought of doing ASICS but the problem is obtaining them. They take forever to ship and by the time you get them they are obsolete.

Now if i was to get into it I'd probably do ethereum.

 

[Staples]

I don't think mining is a good idea unless you know the value will go up 1000% or more.
But that is impossible to know.

 

[John Connor]

If natural gas can be piped in then run a NG generator.

I was looking at Bitcoin and other crypto currency contracts and there is this really good company (who's name escapes me) that is based in Iceland I think, but I know they have a bitcoin warehouse there run off geo thermal.

 

[John Connor]

Some people are actually millionaires because of it. But you really had to have lot of capital to start and it was a huge risk not knowing how far it will even go.

There are TONS and new crypto currencies being added all the time. Become a trader in crypto currency and you could make bank.

 

[John Connor]

I don't think mining is a good idea unless you know the value will go up 1000% or more.
But that is impossible to know.

As they say, you need money to make money. The real money is creating your own crypto currency mining business and sell contracts.

 

[destrekor]

I don't think mining is a good idea unless you know the value will go up 1000% or more.
But that is impossible to know.

The biggest thing is trying to find one to mine that is either profitable now and/or later, ideally now, and later would be disgustingly rich level of profits. But obviously that's everyone's goal, so how to pick? Try to find one that rings as "that's a damn smart idea" and then weigh potentials. It can take some time to learn the fundamentals of the blockchain tech itself, and some great-sounding ideas are simply impractical uses for blockchain. To find the one that looks to be exceedingly useful in the long-run, and is still affordable in the near-term and also profitable in the here and now. I was making some profit on Monero, but between summer heat (and cost to cool), and the sudden rise in XMR price + the associated difficulty, made it no longer profitable. I just used my gaming desktop and shut down the miners when I wanted to really use my system as opposed to just browsing. It's actually great cost wise because while it costs more in electricity, in the winter that's also producing plenty of heat that is immediately beneficial (warms the home) while also helping to earn some revenue.

 

[John Connor]

Monero

I thought that crypto currency would have potential. Seen as how it in its self is made to not show who you are using it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

If natural gas can be piped in then run a NG generator.

I was looking at Bitcoin and other crypto currency contracts and there is this really good company (who's name escapes me) that is based in Iceland I think, but I know they have a bitcoin warehouse there run off geo thermal.

While gas would be cheaper than paying hydro One for power the idea is no reoccurring costs (except some form of internet like satellite) as that would eat into profits (the margins would be kinda small). The types of properties I have in mind typically don't have any utilities. Some do have hydro so I would MAYBE hook that up once I start to see any profits. It could be used to top up batteries at night.

I heard about the Iceland one, they have this huge data centre in a rather top secret area, I recall a video of a tour, but they were not allowed to disclose where. This is sorta what this would be but much smaller scale. Just a crazy idea that crossed my mind though, doubt I'll actually execute it.

Though I need to look at building a small mining box at home to at least get an idea of potential profits.

 

[drinkmorejava]

You really need to do the math out for your location given the generation ability and setup costs, and compare that to what utility power would cost
A rough swag would be:

Installation cost for 10kw = $15,000
no maintenance cost
10kw->8000kwh/year
straight line depreciation over 20 years ->$750 yearly expense
$750/8000 = $0.09375/kwh.

The rate here is actually really good because residential power is about double that when you include transmission charges. Some problems are 1. Battery storage will cost thousands more 2. This is a significant capital cost. You could invest the $15,000 and make enough money on average to just buy power from the utility. 3. You will likely want some annual maintenance.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah that's the issue here if I was to go on utility power, just the transmission cost is more than half the bill. But yeah more that I think about it I'd probably be better off spending that money on my existing property or some other investment.

Fun idea to think about though. I might try a small scale setup in the back yard. I want to put a couple 100w of solar panels on my shed when I build it, might run fibre to it and put a little crypto miner in there and see how it fairs out, if I actually manage to make profit off it then I can consider larger scale.

 

[drinkmorejava]

I think it would be a fun side project, but it's going to be tough to make the math work out for a real investment...I would pick BRK.B over it any day.

I keep looking at the 1kw kits on amazon/ebay/ali trying to come up with something practical to do with them. One of these days I'll build a custom security system around a hotspot, raspberry pi, and a bunch of webcams. Would be fun to have a property to use that on with solar.

 

[zCypher]

How viable it is really depends more on your budget than anything else. That, and you have to be prepared to accept that your investment can easily go to zero at any time. That said.. A few months ago I decided to put a mining rig together. I'm almost half way to ROI now, but things have definitely been pretty volatile. There are frequently new cryptos coming out, but figuring out which ones are likely to be worth investing in or mining is not all that easy. For now I've just been using NiceHash, which automatically mines the most profitable coin (out of certain ones, which doesn't include all possible new cryptos obviously). Its payouts are always in BTC. So far it has worked out fine. In my area, 9 GPUs has worked out to approximately $50/mo of electricity and bring in $500-$700/mo.

You also have to decide whether you're looking to mine and hold, or mine and cash out. There are a number of exchanges, it's pretty easy to cash out BTC. The same can't be said for all other cryptos. So if you'll make a significant investment, especially to mine and hold - then the amount of research and due diligence you do should be just as significant.

If you add the cost of a substantial solar setup + a substantial mining setup, you're looking at quite the up front investment. But if you have the money to spare for a fun side project, then why not? I was already pleased with being on track with savings, standard investments, etc etc - so putting aside a bit for a fun project was reasonable to me. If I were to set this up on solar, it'd be a whole other animal though.