Tesla Owners Are Mining Bitcoins With Free Power From Charging Stations (vice.com) 141
dmoberhaus writes: Someone claimed to use their Tesla to power a cryptocurrency mine to take advantage of the free energy given to Tesla owners. But even with free energy, does this scheme make sense? Motherboard ran the numbers.
From the report: "...If we assume that each of the GPUs in this rig draws around 150 watts, then the 16 GPUs have a total power draw of 2.4 kilowatts per hour or 57.6 kilowatt hours per day if they ran for a full 24 hours. According to Green Car Reports, a Tesla Model S gets about 3 miles per kilowatt hour, meaning that running this mining rig for a full day is the equivalent of driving nearly 173 miles in the Tesla. According to the Federal Highway Administration, the average American drives around 260 miles a week. In other words, running this cryptocurrency mine out of the trunk of a Tesla for a day and a half would use as much energy as driving that Tesla for a full week, on average. Moreover, drivers who are not a part of Tesla's unlimited free energy program are limited to 400 kilowatt hours of free electricity per year, meaning they could only run their rig for a little over 7 days on free energy.
Okay, but how about the cost? Let's assume that this person is mining Ethereum with their GPUs. Out of the box, an average GPU can do about 20 megahashes per second on the Ethereum network (that is, performing a math problem known as hashing 20 million times per second). This Tesla rig, then, would have a total hashrate of about 320 megahashes. According to the Cryptocompare profitability calculator, if the Tesla rig was used to mine Ethereum using free electricity, it would result in about .05 Ether per day -- equivalent to nearly $23, going by current prices at the time of writing. In a month, this would result in $675 in profit, or about the monthly lease for a Tesla Model S. So the Tesla would pay for itself, assuming the owner never drove it or used it for anything other than mining Ethereum, Ethereum doesn't drop in value below $450, and the Tesla owner gets all of their energy for free." Motherboard also notes that this conclusion "doesn't take into account the price of each of the mining rigs, which likely cost about $1,000 each, depending on the quality of the GPUs used." TL;DR: Mining cryptocurrency out of your electric car is not worth it.
From the report: "...If we assume that each of the GPUs in this rig draws around 150 watts, then the 16 GPUs have a total power draw of 2.4 kilowatts per hour or 57.6 kilowatt hours per day if they ran for a full 24 hours. According to Green Car Reports, a Tesla Model S gets about 3 miles per kilowatt hour, meaning that running this mining rig for a full day is the equivalent of driving nearly 173 miles in the Tesla. According to the Federal Highway Administration, the average American drives around 260 miles a week. In other words, running this cryptocurrency mine out of the trunk of a Tesla for a day and a half would use as much energy as driving that Tesla for a full week, on average. Moreover, drivers who are not a part of Tesla's unlimited free energy program are limited to 400 kilowatt hours of free electricity per year, meaning they could only run their rig for a little over 7 days on free energy.
Okay, but how about the cost? Let's assume that this person is mining Ethereum with their GPUs. Out of the box, an average GPU can do about 20 megahashes per second on the Ethereum network (that is, performing a math problem known as hashing 20 million times per second). This Tesla rig, then, would have a total hashrate of about 320 megahashes. According to the Cryptocompare profitability calculator, if the Tesla rig was used to mine Ethereum using free electricity, it would result in about .05 Ether per day -- equivalent to nearly $23, going by current prices at the time of writing. In a month, this would result in $675 in profit, or about the monthly lease for a Tesla Model S. So the Tesla would pay for itself, assuming the owner never drove it or used it for anything other than mining Ethereum, Ethereum doesn't drop in value below $450, and the Tesla owner gets all of their energy for free." Motherboard also notes that this conclusion "doesn't take into account the price of each of the mining rigs, which likely cost about $1,000 each, depending on the quality of the GPUs used." TL;DR: Mining cryptocurrency out of your electric car is not worth it.
This is why we can't have nice things... (Score:5, Insightful)
People will always take a mile when given an inch.
I guess Tesla realized this might happen, and that's why they stopped giving out free supercharger access. An alternate fix would be to deny supercharging if the number of miles drivenon the last charge is too low compared to the amount of energy that's been used.
Re: (Score:3)
How would you wire it up? Can Tesla diagnostics tell if you drain battery for something other than driving?
Re: (Score:1)
You could catch obvious misuse of power by using the odometer and getting a total energy used / total amount driven, and looking for users who are far outside the norm.
Re: (Score:2)
Tesla called out a journalist who ran out of power for skipping a charging station as well as taking a long and undisclosed detour from his supposed route.
I don't know if retail vehicles have the same telemetry as engineering and review vehicles, but I would assume they collect the data until proven otherwise.
Re: (Score:2)
Tesla called out a journalist who ran out of power for
..driving a car? Really, Tesla are serious fucking bullies.
Re: (Score:2)
I assume you're trying to be funny...
Well, let's not assume. The Journalist gave Tesla a bunch of shit about how their tester car ran out of gas and they got stranded. I hate the term 'fake news' but this certainly fits...as the car telemetry clearly showed the driver taking a long detour and skipping a charging station as well. Basically he just drove until the battery died on purpose because he was then able to "honestly" claim that the car's range/batter was insufficient and write an article more inte
Re: (Score:1)
Maybe if Tesla sold a car that doesn't spend half of a 600 mile journey stationary the journalist wouldn't have to highlight the limitations of the vehicle.
But no, apparently Tesla cars are for people that only take the shortest possible route between two points, and stop at every charging station on the way. Because otherwise they'll run out of power.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe if journalists didn't lie about what they did to get a story.
Re: (Score:2)
I imagine that each car would periodically upload statistics on miles driven and kWh charging. Also, Tesla charging stations most likely report in kWh delivered to each car. A smart person could do the math.
In fact, Tesla probably monitors each cars' 'mileage' for diagnostic purposes. And this kind of use would undoubtedly raise maintenance alarms.
Re: (Score:2)
They can certain detect what you are using aux power, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons for that. You might have a powered cooler in the boot, an air compressor, a heater, a ceramic cooking hob...
Re: (Score:2)
They can certain detect what you are using aux power, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons for that. You might have a powered cooler in the boot, an air compressor, a heater, a ceramic cooking hob...
But none of those normally uses the entire battery capacity, and they very well may be tracking power usage of each of those for load management improvements. A typical 12V power connection in a car is not going to supply the amps we are talking about, it would need to be a specially wired connection.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There's one guy who repaired his own Telsa and cost him about $6k and it still worked with the free charging stations. So not necessarily $100K.
Re: (Score:2)
Wonder how much bitcoin IT workers mined surreptitiously on the company servers before management knew about it...
Re: (Score:2)
Would have been nice to install it on a bunch of servers that weren't being used for anything or as test environments at a previous job were I was a system administrator. Probably could have had it mining on 20 or so servers in the data centre. Heck I was trying to save energy by turning my servers off since there was no use for them but the other people I was sharing the rack with kept turning them on. Nobody would have known if I installed something. While not ideal for mining I wouldn't care since I woul
Re: (Score:2)
This is why socialism doesn't work.
This is why you can't have universal income.
For every civil human being who cares as much about everyone else as they do themselves there are five shit sucking, toxic, self consumed pieces of human garbage.
Re: (Score:2)
This is why we can't have nice things.
Perhaps, but in this case it was one guy who did just to see if it could be done (and then brag about it), and then a magazine that analyzed the approach to see if it was worthwhile and decided it probably wasn't.
So what we are looking at here is a silly one-off stunt, not the End of Free SuperCharging As We Know it. If this ever did become a problem for Tesla (which it won't, because buying a $100K automobile just to get free electricity for your GPU rig makes no economic sense), then Tesla would take ste
Re: (Score:2)
The intent of universal income is not to give people money to burn. It's to give them enough to meet the essentials: Roof, food, safety, education, healthcare. Just enough to live in your comfortable hovel. If you want luxuries, go get a job.
Re: (Score:2)
No, this is why you don't promise unlimited amounts of something at no charge. Universal income would be limited. You couldn't stand at the ATM all day with your UI card and keep withdrawing money. Supplies of things are limited in socialism, so this isn't a problem. (There can be other problems, of course.)
Re: (Score:3)
Not in Canada! No, sir!
Up here, people always take a kilometre when given a centimetre.
They are forgetting one other thing... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If my eco-friendly place of employment offers free power for charging during my workday
Yes, and with lax building management you might get away with it for two or three months. Eventually someone will notice and pull your plug.
Re: (Score:2)
More likely someone will notice when they see his car on fire -- I don't think most bitcoin-mining rigs were ever engineered to operate inside an enclosed vehicle, under glass, on a hot, sunny day :)
Re: (Score:2)
More likely someone will notice when they see his car on fire -- I don't think most bitcoin-mining rigs were ever engineered to operate inside an enclosed vehicle, under glass, on a hot, sunny day :)
Since its a Tesla, can it be left "idling" with the AC on? No one would notice the engine running. Also, at least where I work, the interior area of the parking garage is where the car chargers are located so no, it wouldn't be in the sun.
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on the building size, but if it's big enough for a parking lot with a couple spots dedicated to EV charging then it's very unlikely they will notice. You could simply be driving a lot and charging up there (which is...kinda the point) while at work.
100KWh * 10c/KWh = $10. * 20 ish working days a month is $200. And that's if you pulled a full pack charge every day. A business isn't going to notice that.in their power bill and if they do, they're going to say 'hey, those EV charging stations that
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm. That would take five solid days on my home link.
This is why I don't use the cloud as a serious back up option :(
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on how much you have to back up. My backups tend to be text-heavy, and that takes very little storage.
Re: (Score:1)
The free power gravy train is going to end at some point once electric cars become more popular. It's not a big deal and probably a tax write off when only 0.1% of your employees or renters use the power station. Once the user base gets into the mid single digit percentages, you can bet the gravy train ends. It is going to cost employers and landlords too much to keep giving it away. Or if they do keep giving it away it will be from that single charger or two that they currently have installed. Have fun wit
Re: (Score:1)
That's the problem with everyone when it comes to mining. They always do the math as to what the return is today, not what it is going to be a year from now after going though multiple difficulty increases. I had looked into purchasing an asic to mine bitcoin, but no matter how i did the math it never came back being profitable. It marginally works out if you can get free power, student still living at home, student in a dorm, renter in a place with flat rate power, theft of power, living in a cold climate
Re: (Score:2)
Only yesterday, Muskie was denying he was Satoshi Nakamoto.
What a waste! (Score:3)
Nothing like throwing REAL resources (coal, oil, gas) used for power generation into basically 1's and 0's that someone says are worth $10000 for each BTC. What the fuck? How broken do you have to be to chase NOTHING with something?
Has anyone actually tried to get $10k for a BTC? I'd really like to see someone post they actually cashed out BTC into US Dollars. Last YouTube video I watched on the subject has an fascinating conclusion: It was plenty easy to put cash into the BTC ATM in San Francisco and therefore get a BTC sent to your BTC wallet, but when the guy went to convert the remaining BTC to back to cash (US Dollars).. well... it never happened. He gave up.
Re: (Score:3)
https://www.wikihow.com/Conver... [wikihow.com]
And yes I have done it in the past and it works very well. My city even has 4 bitcoin ATMs, and guess what, they work too!
Amazing, what this new thing called "technology" is capable of.
Re: (Score:2)
there's a bitcoin ATM right down the street from me. you can walk up to it and withdraw up to $10,000 a day from your bitcoin wallet. maybe do some research before opening your mouth and proving yourself an uninformed idiot next time.
Re: (Score:2)
it's at a Shell gas station. and yes i've used it. it's about as easy as any other ATM.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, that's amazing! An ATM that lets you withdraw $10,000 a day! worth of bitcoin, no less! And, pray tell, where would I find this ATM?
Re: (Score:2)
you're a moron. believe what you want, but it's 100% true.
Re: (Score:2)
I can send some to Coinbase [coinbase.com], have them convert it, and have money in my bank account in a few days. If I'm in a hurry and don't care about getting a suboptimal exchange rate, I can drive downtown and use the Bitcoin ATM at the D [thed.com]. There are probably other methods as well, but those are the ones I've used.
(Hell, it turns out there are more Bitcoin ATMs around here than I though [google.com]
Re:What a waste! (Score:5, Insightful)
How is it different to bulldozing down mountains to find gold so you can turn it into gold bars, put in a bank vault and pay people to guard it and keep it safe? Seems the same to me.
Some minimal value (Score:2)
The subtle difference is that a few of the "precious" metal, have at least some value in them (due to their physico-chemical properties) making them remotely interesting.
Gold, doesn't oxidize and remains gold for most of its life (as opposed to iron which rust).
Silver doesn't oxidize that much.
Silver has interesting chemical properties making it useful to sterilize water.
etc.
Make a long list of there and you find that as metals, they aren't completely useless.
Now, add to that the fact they are rare and hard
Re: (Score:2)
Make a long list of there and you find that as metals, they aren't completely useless.
They are pretty useless when you make bars from them, and store them in a vault, which is exactly what happens with half the gold that's mined.
Bitcoins are even worse, in that they are not physical objects and have no intrinsic use.
They have the same use as that gold in the vault. Not being a physical object is an advantage for most cases.
Re: (Score:2)
Said gold is hoarded to be exchanged in times of need, and others should find it valuable when the crisis hits. Ideally you would store canned food, fuel, guns/ammo, iron, timber and whatnot, but those things have limited life and much more expensive to store, and they actually are stored to some extent.
Normally countries store reserve currencies and bonds, but if the whole world goes to hell, they will not be much of use, so governments and rich folk make a bet that at those times gold will be able to buy
Re: (Score:2)
So, the question is this: if the world order collapses and nobody trusts anyone, will bitcoin have any value?
No, but then 99% of the people are fucked anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Your total collapse scenario is highly unlikely. Regional natural disasters happen all the time, sometimes leading to temporary anarchy, but the outside world always come back in before long. The type of long-running collapse you envision would require something on the scale of a global nuclear war.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What a waste! (Score:4, Informative)
People regularly sell BTC for that kind of money. Often it's small fractions of a BTC, say 0.1 BTC for $1000, but there are big transactions as well.
Most people don't use ATMs, they use online services that shuffle money electronically.
Re: (Score:2)
Has anyone actually tried to get $10k for a BTC?
Go to your local exchange and click sell?
I don't see why for some reason you think market value magically applies to all exchanges except to BTC. The key here is low trading volumes will cause market value to plummet if you massively cash out (e.g. if you pull $100m out of BTC the price would collapse as it isn't stabilised by volume) but right now, you want to sell 1BTC for $10000US, go for it. There's little stopping you.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
>
Has anyone actually tried to get $10k for a BTC?
No. No-one has ever done it. Youtube was right, it almost always is...
New Tesla option (Score:2)
I can actually imagine Tesla offering a feature to mine bitcoin with the car's automated driving system. The NVidia processor used is likely suitable for it and designed with at least some consideration for reducing power usage. It could be set to mine only when hooked to AC power, thus not costing Tesla anything extra.
The publicity could be interesting and even add to the idea that Musk secretly created Bitcoin. With a little Musk hype, it would be a fun feature or easter egg.
It might even result in more p
Re: (Score:2)
Altcoin mining with GPUs is done with high-end "gamer" GPUs. Among nVidia's current offerings, you probably wouldn't use less than a GeForce GTX 1060 if you were building a mining rig. (I currently have four 1070s in mine.) It's doubtful that Tesla is building anything nearly as
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They offer the high-speed modes that reduce the vehicle lifetime. That is not good for the environment.
There'd be no battery life effect if you limited it to usage when plugged into home power - a necessary requirement to stop the inappropriate application of free supercharger power.
And it would fit nicely with the myth that Elon created bitcoin. But, I do agree with your environment point.
The units hurt! (Score:2)
57.6 kilowatt hours per day
57.6 KJ/s * 3600 s/h * 24h/day = 49,000 MJ/day ? I always mess up kilowatt-hours.
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, units are also wrong in TFA (and in the replies you've got).
1 kWh = 1000 Wh = 1000 * W * 3600s = 3 600 000 Ws = 3 600 000 J = 3.6 MJ
So 57.6kWh/day ~ 207.4 MJ/day
Here's a way to to convert energy/day into average power:
207.4MJ/day = 207.4 MJ/(3600 s * 24) = 207 400 000 / (3600*24) * J/s = 2400 J/s = 2400 W
The average power is 2.4 kW (not 2.4 kW/h as in TFA!). Which isn't suprising, because it's been calculated as 16 * 150W.
Hot Diggity! (Score:5, Funny)
When the revolution comes, bitcoin owners will be first against the wall. Actually, they'll be second against the wall, immediately after billionaire Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and his trophy wife who took pictures of themselves at the mint rubbing fresh currency on themselves to get off.
And it will be easy to know who owns bitcoins, BECAUSE THEY CAN'T STOP TALKING ABOUT HOW THEY OWN BITCOINS.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When the revolution comes, bitcoin owners will be first against the wall.
Yeah we heard the same thing about the automobile, and the radio, and the TV...
Re: (Score:2)
No, we didn't. That's stupid. Nobody ever said that about the automobile, and the radio and the TV.
I'm pretty sure we said it about the Apple Watch though. At least I said it.
This is actually easy to do... (Score:5, Interesting)
Back with the Prius first came out, I read a story about how the battery voltage (somewhere between 100 and 200V DC) could easily drive almost any computer power supply DIRECTLY, no modifications required. This guy figured out that he could run his whole Ham Radio station and computers using his 2nd hand Prius as a source of backup power. Said it had a really nice battery capacity and you could just let the motor run to charge it now and then. I don't suppose a Tesla would be much different, except you won't have the backup generator part.
Re: (Score:2)
Many PC power supplies can run off of DC of suitable voltage. But not all - it depends on the design of certain elements, particularly in 110/230 dual voltage supplies. Putting DC into the wrong one will either do nothing, or cause the magic smoke to escape.
Re: (Score:2)
True, but 99.99% of PC power supplies built today will accept DC just fine because the first thing that happens is the AC is converted to DC in a bridge rectifier. Other designs are possible, but they are considerably more expensive to implement so they are not used. I would include Laptop supplies in the "it just works" group. In fact, *most* modern electronic equipment with an internal power supply are also likely to be fine as well, though I'd recommend at least taking a look before hooking that stuff
Re: (Score:2)
True, but 99.99% of PC power supplies built today will accept DC just fine because the first thing that happens is the AC is converted to DC in a bridge rectifier. Other designs are possible, but they are considerably more expensive to implement so they are not used.
The problem is that common rectifier/capacitor input 120/240 volt power supplies operate internally on 340 volts DC by either rectifying 240 volts AC or rectifying and voltage doubling 120 volts AC. Operating them at a lower DC voltage will fail if you are lucky or risk damage the input stage do to excessive input current.
The more recent power supplies which have active power factor correction should work fine but some active power factor correction controllers expect an AC input and misbehave on DC.
Re: (Score:2)
Well. if we apply DC voltage in the case of a doubler, the device just won't work. I don't see how it will self destruct because the input current using DC voltage will simply drop to zero as the capacitors get charged. The inrush currents might be high enough to damage a diode if the capacitors are large, but this issue wouldn't go away using AC though, so I figure the designer would have to deal with that anyway. My Electrical engineering professor called AC 60Hz just DC rounded off, and in this case
Re: (Score:2)
Well. if we apply DC voltage in the case of a doubler, the device just won't work.
The doubler is only active when 120 volts AC is used which is the common situation in the US. When the input is configured for 240 volts AC, then 340 volts DC applied to the input goes through 2 of the 4 diodes in the bridge rectifier to charge the capacitors in series. So most 120 volt AC input switching power supplies internally run on 340 volts DC and that is what they expect.
I don't see how it will self destruct because the input current using DC voltage will simply drop to zero as the capacitors get charged.
The danger is that the switching regulator is expecting a nominal 340 volt DC input. If the input is only 170 volts DC as would
Incorrect argument against (Score:2)
The original post states "So the Tesla would pay for itself, assuming the owner never drove it or used it for anything other than mining Ethereum"; WHY? Drawing 2.4KW is like running the heater full blast, the car is capable of significantly more than that. There is absolutely no reason why you'd need to leave the car parked to mine. You simply just need to charge an extra 60KWh per day to sustain the 24/7 mining. Whether you do it once a day, or on multiple stops, it doesn't matter as long as you never kno
Re: (Score:3)
Unless.... you happen to work at a shopping centre where there is a super charger. In which case it's money for nothing, and your chicks for free.
Other questions (Score:2)
This raises other questions though: What if you buy one of those Tesla home batteries, go off the grid, and instead of buying solar panels and/or supplementing your usage from the grid, you buy an old junky but running Tesla to go back and forth to charge your home? Of course assumes you have a charging station around the corner to make it convenient.
BTW, the bit mining scenario non-feasibility assumes a new model S, whereas the better scenario is a really old model to make the numbers crunch.
One more proof that bitcoin are an ecological mess (Score:1)
Way to waste energy!
Apparently people care enough to run electrical car with Tesla but, at the same time, would consider wasting energy to produce cash. Because it is a total waste of energy per se, it is just burned.
"2.4 kilowatts per hour" (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Seriously, WTF people? What happened to "News for nerds"?
PRO-TIP: If you're using Power/Time as a unit, you're probably doing it very wrong.
Climate change and peak oil are huge problems, they're coming at full speed and we're still not able to write correct units for power and energy?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Or, you now, "contant 2.4kW".
And sadly, this mistake is so common that it really isn't just a typo anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"2.4 kilowatts hour per hour", where "per hour" is just the time framework where the given value + power unit happens.
It's goofier than that: us EV owners rate charging stations by the amount of equivalent *distance* we're getting, based on charging rate and energy required per unit distance. Thus, we will refer to a given level of power as charging our car at "50 miles per hour." And that's actually valid units.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It might be regarded as a unit of convenience. Much like KWh - it's not a metric quantity, it's horribly awkward in physics, but it's used because it simplifies billing calculations.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No it did not: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs... [eia.gov]
The "shale revolution" merely postpones the withdrawal symptoms, it doesn't help to cure our oil addiction. And it surely doesn't help fighting climate change either.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Peak Oil was just the scaremongering tactic of the day, one that didn't work to scare anyone
Peak oil is a problem statement that drove the solutions we now have. Or do you think stuff just happens by magic fairies?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Whoa, so it's OK to blatantly lie? WTF? Look, technology proceeds no matter what, lying just discredits your situation. This is why nobody believes in global warming, the whole thing is just a ploy to get rid of capitalism.
Oh ok. I have no idea what this crackpot gibberish is about. As you were...
Re: (Score:2)
What, you don't know? Seriously? There's tons of this stuff out there, you really haven't seen it? What kind of news are you watching? It's definitely not giving you the whole story.
"Solving climate change requires the overthrow of capitalism." As ever, it's a real mystery why climate change is a dead issue in the United States.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/opinion/climate-capitalism-crisis.html
At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.'s Framewo
Re: (Score:2)
What, you don't know? Seriously?
Don't know what? Is English your first language?
There's tons of this stuff out there...
Tons of what stuff? What does this have to do with the discussion? Your claim is that peak oil was just a scaremongering tactic, but peak anything is actually an economic principle about the behaviour of any finite resource combined with a constant and increasing demand will result in a peak at some point in time.
It's not news, it's called an education.
Any Capitalist should love climate change. It's a multi-billion dollar opportunity to make more money, and
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, are people still beating the "peak oil" dead horse? There was this little thing called the shale revolution. It turned the USA from an energy importer into an energy exporter. Try updating your out of date scare tactics from 2005.
And this shale, it is infinite? Peak oil is a real thing, improved supply technology is merely pushing the time scale back a few years. At some point we will have to deal with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
- On one hand, you have the mining part where apparently only the big mining companies or the ones selling mining machines really earn money.
Mining requires mathematical work, and the best computers cost money so only well funded groups can really do it at any scale.
- On the other hand, you have people buying whatever bitcoin and waiting for its price to go as high as possible; what seems to be the case lately, but what might suddenly change for no good reason.
All economics is driven by supply and demand. Cryptocurrency, or more specifically blockchain is new way of doing transactions. The technology is sound, so there is an anticipated demand for a potentially disruptive technology to affect the trillions of dollars being transacted every day on finance markets.
Bitcoin is the first of many products to use this tech, and it is restricted
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't confuse the guys who put a BitCoin miner in the trunk of a Tesla... They have other things to worry about. Like making the next lease payment or cashing the dividend check from the Trust Fund.
Re: (Score:3)
I can sell you as many 16 GPU mining rigs for $15K as you want.
I hope you like the nVidia GT630!