Compass Miningi uus operatsioonide juht kodu Bitcoini kaevandamise, elektrilepingute ja S9 liisingu kohta

The new mining operations manager for Compass Mining discusses his experience, offers tips for mining at home and predicts the industry’s future.

This piece is part of a series that interviews Bitcoin miners about their experiences setting up and scaling mining operations as well as their view on the direction of the mining world. If you are mining Bitcoin and want to share your knowledge and story — the ups, downs and innovations — reach out to me on Twitter @KaptenSiddH.

Selle meie sarja episoodi jaoks BigCohooNah joined us to share the knowledge gained from his own home mining forays and his work at Braiins and Slush Pool. As of December 2021, he joined the Compass Mining team to work on its at-home mining product and help with its mining operations. You can find BigCohooNah on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BigCohoo

How and why did you get into Bitcoin mining? 

My first exposure to mining was when a friend of mine — an old roommate from college — bought an S9 in 2018. He got caught up in the hype of Bitcoin like everyone else did, but he fell down the mining portion of the rabbit hole. He paid a lot for that S9 — somewhere between $3,000 to $6,000. They live in Michigan, where the electricity rate is about $0.18 per kilowatt hour, so they were only able to run it for a little bit before they had to unplug it and just cut their losses.

I remembered that story while I was working at Ford. They sent me down to Kentucky for six months to support the Super Duty launch — the Ford F250s, 350s, etc. This is when I really started falling down the Bitcoin rabbit hole. I was all into crypto, but as I learned more and asked more questions I just started knocking off all the coins, so I sold everything and went all into bitcoin. I remembered that my friend had this miner, and since my place in Kentucky had free electricity, I asked my buddy if I could borrow that S9. So, sure enough, he let me borrow it and I set it up in my temporary place in Kentucky.

During that time in Kentucky away from my friends in Michigan I had very few distractions, so I played with Lightning, ran a node, just dove as deep as I could. I learned a lot about Bitcoin and mining during that time.

When I came back to Michigan, the S9 wasn’t profitable to run and was causing drama. Seeing the electricity bill then looking at the sats stacked — I’m a pretty frugal person. However, after the first run up in 2021 from the previous all-time high to around $30,000, I bought a Whatsminer M32 and ran that in a buddy’s garage for a while at Michigan electricity rates, eventually moving it to a warehouse where I now get commercial rates. We made a homebuilt version of Steve Barbour’s Must kast ka selles laos sõitma ja vahetasin M32 S19 vastu.

Outside of my personal endeavors into home mining, I also joined Braiins part-time to do marketing, content and support. In December, I started a new full-time role at Compass to help with their at-home and hosted mining.

Palju õnne! Ma tahtsin teilt küsida Compassi kohta. Kas teie arvates on hostitud kaevandamine seda väärt kellelegi, kes soovib kaevandamisega tegeleda? 

I think it just depends on your risk tolerance. For a lot of people — maybe you and I — we live, breathe, eat and sleep Bitcoin — so if we’re hosting our miners, we’re probably getting in trouble with the Bitcoiners because we don’t custody it or hold the hardware. We’re not plugging it in and doing our due diligence. But in reality, while running a machine is easy, it’s not fun to manage. They’re hot, they’re loud and they require unique electricity setups. For example, they require 220 volt plugs, but in the United States most household plugs are only 110 volts. Higher volt plugs are reserved for special appliances like electric dryers and ovens. So, to run a miner you’ll either have to unplug your dryer or wire up a 220 volt plug. You have to run like new circuits and make sure everything’s rated for 220 volts so you don’t burn your house down.

It’s important to understand the risks if you use a hosted product such as Compass — you’re trusting us to manage your miners, there may be delays, miners could go offline from time to time and there is hardware risk. If you are OK with these tradeoffs, then hosting makes perfect sense. It’s clearly proving to be something that people want. Compass is doing it in a way where you can actually mine with them and not dox yourself in any way, which is kind of cool. So, hosting versus home mining depends on how hands-on you want to get. I think the only people critical of the hosted mining version are the Bitcoiners that are going to yell at you for not hosting everything yourself.

Osa minu kohustustest Compassi uues rollis on hostimisprotsessi sujuvamaks muutmine – nende riskide vähendamine ja uute kaevurite pardale pääsemise hõlbustamine. 

Kas arvate, et hostitud kaevandamine jääb ärimudelina kestma?

Mis puutub sellesse, kas hostimine jääb ettevõttena püsima - ma arvan, et see on nii. Tõenäoliselt mäletate kõiki 2017. ja 2018. aasta pilve kaevandamise pettusi – ma arvan, et Compass teeb seda õigesti, kuna olete kaevandaja omanik ja nemad hostivad seda teie nimel. Teil on teie nimega seotud kaevurid, nii et kui soovite kunagi neid kaevureid ja te pole lepinguga seotud, saate selle kaevandaja füüsiliselt kohale toimetada.

There’s a hole in the market right now, because a lot of people who would be home miners are getting burned by electricity rates, and that just puts a bad taste in your mouth for Bitcoin in general. Compass could have made a ton of money starting up their own farm, but instead they followed a broker model, matching capacity and hardware. They don’t own the capacity or the hardware, but they match it up and make it easy for anyone to get even just a few miners into a secure facility with low costs.

Kus näete oma kogemuse põhjal Braiinsis uusi kaevureid kõige rohkem komistamas? 

There are a lot of people that are trying to get into mining without any guidance. Mainly, they very much don’t understand the electrical requirements. The level of heat and noise are often unexpected as well. In the worst cases I see people just don’t get how Bitcoin works — don’t understand how the difficulty works, or don’t understand how profitability directly impacts the price of the hardware. So, they just think they’re going to be making $50 a day forever.

The electrical requirements are probably the biggest issue — you can plug in an S19 and that’ll use more electricity than your entire house. No other appliance really exposes you to that. You normally pay someone to just install an outlet for your electric dryer or oven, and that’s the most you ever think about it — you just use your oven. Also, when you’re dealing with that much electricity, it gets a little spooky — especially because a lot of people want to do all this mining stuff by themselves and there are very few resources out there for people.

Mainisite, et riistvara hinnakujundus on seotud kasumlikkusega. Mida olete sel aastal riistvaraturul näinud?

Riistvara hinnakujundus kõigub sõltuvalt üksuste kasumlikkusest, aga ka välistest teguritest – nagu Hiina keeld. Aasta tagasi võis S19 osta tõenäoliselt 3,000 dollari eest, kuid nüüd müüakse neid 10,000 15,000 kuni 9 50 dollari eest. Hiina keeld oli aga täiesti põnev - aasta tagasi sai S20 osta 9 dollari eest, isegi 500 dollarit tükk lahtiselt. Nüüd müüakse S500 XNUMX dollari eest. See on nii vana masin – nagu dinosaurus, mis jääb kuidagi ellu, kuid täna maksavad nad XNUMX dollarit.

Tõhusus lisab aga uutele seadmetele tohutu lisatasu. 500-dollarine S9, mis töötab kuus senti kilovatt-tunni kohta, toob ROI-d vaid üheksa kuuga. S19, mis maksab täna 12,000 21 dollarit sama võimsuse juures, võtab investeeringutasuvuse saavutamiseks aega XNUMX kuud – see hoiab hinna ja raskusastme muutumatuna, mis võib muidugi metsikult erineda. Seega on tõhususe ja eluea suurendamine suur lisatasu.

Rääkides elektrikuludest, siis paar nädalat tagasi sa tweeted mõned mõtted selle kohta, kuidas kaevurid saavad kasutada elektri ostulepinguid ja äriüksusi, et saada madalamaid energiatasusid. Kas saate rääkida sellest, mida te seal õppisite? 

This has been a fun one for me. My wife and I are building a house right now, and doing about half of the work ourselves — including all the electrical. While working on that, I just wanted to understand the electrical regulations and see how things were in my region. I dug up a lot of information that I’ve never seen anybody post about, and it has been really cool to share it and see people really enjoy that information and utilize it.

What I found out is that in the United States, you have regulated areas and unregulated areas of energy. In Michigan, electricity prices are regulated and set by the government. When you go down one state to Ohio, it’s unregulated. And what you get is a difference of about $0.18 per kilowatt hour in Michigan versus just about $0.06 per kilowatt hour to a resident in Ohio. Natural gas in Michigan, however, is unregulated — which I can cover if you want.

Niisiis, minu elektriarvel on kilovatt-tund 0.18 dollarit, kuid võrku minnes nägin ametlikes allikates hinnaks 0.12 dollarit. Helistasin elektrifirmasse ja palusin lahknevust selgitada. Erinevus tulenes lõpuks tarnekuludest ja muudest asjadest, mis ei sisaldu 0.12 dollari suuruses summas, kuid sellel kõnel avastasin ka, et ostujõu jaoks on muid võimalusi - nii elamu- kui ka äripindadel -, millest paljud on palju odavamad kui 0.18 dollarit. kilovatt-tundi. Parim variant, mille ma Michiganis leidsin, oli tippvõimsusega elektrienergia ostulepingu (PPA) kommertshind, mis sobib ideaalselt pidevalt sisse lülitatud kaevandamistoiminguga, mis tõmbab pidevat koormust. Nii et ma võib-olla paigaldan uue majaga selle kaubandusliku elektrienergia jaoks eraldi kasti.

Mainisite maagaasi – mida olete Michiganis kaevandamisega seotud maagaasi kohta teada saanud?

Seega, kui ma elektriettevõttega elektrienergia ostulepingutest rääkisin, avastasin ka, et Michiganis on palju kildagaasi ja see on reguleerimata turg. Proovisin oma kätt arvutustes, et välja selgitada, kui palju maksaks Michiganis maagaasil töötava generaatori kaevandaja käivitamine, ja sain 0.02% efektiivsuse juures 0.03–100 dollarit kilovatt-tunni kohta. Olen nende numbrite suhtes pisut skeptiline, sest need tunduvad liiga head, et tõsi olla, kuid maagaasi alal teadlikumad inimesed on kinnitanud, et see tundub õige.

Part of me wants to buy a big generator that runs on natural gas, and point that energy at miners just like Upstream Data and others do. The generator could serve as a backup for home electricity too, so if we have an outage we can just run on natural gas. The big issue is you’ve got these screaming miners and screaming engines that might ruin your nice peaceful property.

Where do you see the whole home mining space evolving over the next couple of years? 

Home mining has been blowing up this year and I think it’s mostly because of the China ban. It seems like people don’t care that they’re spending $10,000 on a metal box with a computer in it. They’re earning $500 a month right now, and that’s all they care about. They’re FOMOing in without understanding the risks. However, through this cycle, it seems a lot of people are also getting really smart with repurposing the heat, and that will have lasting impacts.

The potential of repurposing heat is endless. I think that will make home miners, despite their electricity cost, still very attractive. You can heat swimming pools, hot tubs, general home water heaters or pump heat back into a duct system. You can basically sell that massive amount of heat to your water heater and get two for one.

Samuti oleme rääkinud ideest hallata elektrivõrku, lülitades kaevurid välja, et vabastada elektrit, selle asemel et lülitada sisse tippjaamad, et pakkuda elektrienergia suurenemise ajal rohkem. Ma arvan, et seda saab teha ka majapidamistes. Võite olla kindel, et teie maja põleb alati kindla arvu kilovatte, selle asemel, et ahju, kuivati, televiisori või muu sisselülitamise ajal energiatarve päeva jooksul muutuda. Kui te ei kasuta seda kogu võimsust – näiteks magades – neelavad teie kaevurid seda kõike. Seadmete sisselülitamisel alandavad kaevurid automaatselt nii palju aega, et teie koormus püsiks konstantsena. Seejärel saate oma elektriettevõttelt osta fikseeritud koormuse, mis võib võimaldada teil saada paremat tariifi ja säästa üldist elektrienergiat isegi siis, kui teie kaevurid on just nulli jõudmas.

So, when you ask where home mining is going, I think of people finding really creative ways to repurpose the heat and balance their household electricity draw.

What do you think is missing in the home mining ecosystem that someone should be building? 

For that home power balancing idea, we need firmware that allows you to scale up and down. Braiins has the ability to easily underclock, but what I think that they’re missing is a feature where it tunes your miner, defining all the different power ratings it can run at and finding the optimum performance. Then, you can plug your miner into a smart meter or use a Raspberry Pi to manage your house and your miners, scaling your usage up and down as more or less load is needed.

Then, I think there’s much more that can be commercialized around heat repurposing. Will it be through immersion or air cooling? I think there’s a reason that we still heat our houses by just blowing hot air, but you can get induction flooring and heat water heaters via coils and liquids. A lot of research needs to be done before these products will be implemented into individual appliances or packaged into something you can buy off the shelf. The biggest thing, however, is that computer which will tell your miners how much power to use.

Ma tahan sinult küsida veel ühe idee kohta, mida ma sind nägin piiksuma umbes — S9 liisingusüsteem. Kas saate mulle selle idee tutvustada ja miks arvate, et liisingusüsteem oleks väärtuslik? 

I think leasing out S9s would make a ton of sense for Bitcoin meetups. There are a lot of people coming to these meetups who are diving into the rabbit hole and learning more. However, if they go out and buy a $10,000 S19, there’s a decent chance they’re going to get wrecked in some way — it won’t be a great experience. Many people aren’t even willing to make that kind of investment up front, and that keeps them out of mining. That said, I think the biggest amount of knowledge you can gain is from running a miner. Once you plug it in and run it — even for a day — you’ll learn so much and you’ll truly understand if it’s worth it or not.

The moment you plug it in, you hear that thing scream and you see the heat it generates, that’s enough to figure out if you don’t want to deal with this thing or if you’re excited about it. So, personally, I have an S9 that’s just sitting in my house, not plugged in, because it’s not economical to run. I brought it to a local meetup — just six of us come regularly so far — and asked if anyone wanted to take it home to try it out. Someone took me up on it and learned a lot through the experience. Just borrowing an S9 is a great way to get your toes wet on mining before diving in headfirst.

Arvan, et seda saaks teha suuremas mahus, kasutades mitme allkirjaga rahakotti, et hoida kaevandaja tagatisraha. Ütleme, et annan sulle S9, paned 500 dollarit multisig-rahakotti, kellel on kolmas võti, keda me mõlemad usaldame. Kuu aega hiljem annate mulle kaevandaja tagasi ja saate oma 500 dollarit. Õppisite tonni, saite teel abi ja olete nüüd valmis ostma suurema platvormi ja selle ise üles seadma. Kui seda igal kohtumisel oleks võimalik teha, oleks see minu arvates ülilahe.

Milliseid nõuandeid annate inimestele, kes mõtlevad kaevandamisega tegelemisele? 

Start with an S9. You’re going to underthink it and misunderstand it unless you plug a miner in, because you can’t tell how loud or hot these things are from a YouTube video. I also think it really has to be done with an ASIC — you cannot get the same experience from a GPU. Just repurposing a computer and mining with NiceHash will give you the same backend data — you’re getting rewards, you’re learning how mining works, but if you ever want to earn a meaningful amount you will need an ASIC. And that comes with a whole different level of power draw, noise and heat. So you’re fooling yourself if you only experience mining with a GPU.

Kui võtate selle nõuande sammu edasi, et seda riski vähendada: peate kaevandama vaid ühe päeva. Kui ühendate selle asja üheks päevaks, saate selle kätte. Kaevandage oma esimene blokk, saate oma esimese väljamakse ja olete hästi teel kaevandamise mõistmise poole. Võite osta S9 500 dollari eest, kasutada seda nädala, seejärel pöörata ümber ja müüa selle 500 dollari eest. Turg nädalaga nii palju ei muutu. Sa ei ole selle kogemuse eest raha kaotanud.

I think the biggest advice I can give is just buy one, try it, resell it if you don’t like it. There’s almost no risk in that. Plus, you will have a lot of questions while trying it — ask them in home mining Telegram rühmade and on Twitter. There are a lot of resources online, but you’re not going to learn anything unless you try it.

Just begging for that S9 lease program! Well thank you for the time today, BigCohooNah. Really appreciate your insights on mining and I hope you’re able to build a mine in your home without keeping the neighborhood awake with a natural gas generator.

Kui soovite BigCohooNahiga ühendust võtta, on ta Twitteris @BigCohoo. He has also authored some incredible explainers on Bitcoin basics — like kaevandamine - mis sobivad ideaalselt teie nocoiner-sõpradele. 

See on kapten Siddi külalispostitus. Avaldatud arvamused on täielikult nende omad ja ei pruugi kajastada BTC Inc või Bitcoin ajakiri.

Source: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/home-bitcoin-mining-tips-from-an-expert