BT Daily News: Five Key Factors for Improving the Mining Experience
1. Must-read Tips for Crypto Miners: Five Key Factors for Improving the Mining Experience
Recently, the crypto market has been sluggish. In light of the uncertain investment trends in the market, a growing number of investors have shifted their focus toward the crypto upstream — mining. Compared to the volatility of the crypto market, mining has emerged as a more prudent investment option, particularly during times of market downturn.Despite its tempting returns, mining is no easy task. As a crypto miner, you may face many challenges. For instance, miners struggle with how to choose a mining pool, optimize mining machine performance, and fix machine failures. Today, we will go through the five key factors in crypto mining and help you optimize your mining experience. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced miner, these tips are sure to provide helpful insights.
01 Choosing the Right Pool
Choosing the right mining pool is a crucial decision in the mining process, as a good pool consistently offers higher returns. Many seasoned miners have noticed that the mining revenue of different pools could significantly vary even when mining machines with the same hashrate are used. While miners may think that the difference is caused by the varying fees charged by mining pools, compared to the technical strength of the pools, the impact of fees is minimal. In the intense mining race, you might miss a block reward due to a slight delay.
As such, for miners, the ideal pool should come with sound technical capabilities, a large hashrate ratio, and reasonable fees. At the same time, the number of mining nodes owned by the pool also affects the stability of the mining process. In this regard, pools with a global distribution of independent nodes are good options because they can maximize the connection speed and minimize latency.
02 The Right Entry Point
The cost of mining machines directly determines their payback period. The value of a mining machine is primarily subject to factors that include hashrate performance, power consumption, and the market price of hashrates. According to HashrateIndex, the latest mining machine with the lowest power consumption now costs $15 per 1 TH/s. Based on that figure, a Whatsminer M30S++ with a rated hashrate of 100 TH/s is only worth about $1,500.
That said, back in early 2022, Whatsminer M30S++ was sold for $7,997, five times higher than its current price. If you bought the model at $7,997, unfortunately, based on the current mining revenue ($0.067 per 1 TH/s), it will take you six years to recover that cost, which indicates the significance of timing.
03 Using the Right Machine
Choosing the right mining machine is another key factor that miners must consider. Different machines come with varying performance levels. For example, some are stabler, while others may suffer frequent disconnections or reboots. When selecting a mining machine, miners should account for such factors as power capacity, electricity consumption, and cooling efficiency according to their individual needs.
04 Maintenance and Upkeep of Mining Machines
For miners, the maintenance and upkeep of mining machines are also very important. During the mining process, mining machines might run into all kinds of problems, including poor cooling conditions or fan malfunctions. Therefore, miners should regularly check the operating status of their machines for timely maintenance and upkeep. Additionally, brand and quality also matter, and choosing high-quality mining machines from a reliable brand can help to reduce the risk of malfunctions and maintenance costs.
05 Tracking Market Movements and Mining Machine Profitability
In the course of mining, miners also need to track market trends and monitor the BTC price and mining machine profitability. Based on those statistics, miners can make prompt adjustments, such as switching to another mining pool or changing their mining machines, to maximize returns.
2. US Bitcoin reaches tentative settlement to reopen Niagara Falls mining facility
Crypto miner US Bitcoin Corp has come to a tentative agreement with the City of Niagara Falls that will allow it to reopen its mining operation in the city, according to a local news report. A state supreme court judge ordered its plant closed in early March. The settlement still requires the approval of the city council.State Supreme Court Justice Edward Pace ordered the plant’s closing after “weeks of contentious negotiations” between the city and US Bitcoin on the wording of the order. The order enforced a ruling from another state supreme court judge to cease operations while the city sought an injunction to enforce new city ordinances affecting the plant.
Pace found US Bitcoin in contempt of court for ignoring the initial order and imposed fines retroactively to Dec. 9, when it was initially ordered to close. Those fines will total over $1 million, according to the report.
Now the company will have to pay $150,000 in fees to the city, $180,000 to reimburse legal costs and new application fees. In addition, US Bitcoin will have to take measures to reduce noise at the plant, including building a noise-dampening wall and submitting to third-party monitoring.
US Bitcoin is in the process of merging with Canadian miner Hut 8 in a deal announced in February. It also has facilities in Texas and Nebraska. According to its website, US Bitcoin uses approximately 90% “zero-emissions electricity” at its New York plant.
The state of New York imposed a two-year moratorium on new proof-of-work mining operations and licensing renewals for existing ones, unless they operate on 100% renewable energy. The state’s attorney general issued an investor alert warning of the risks of cryptocurrency investing in June.
3. Is Texas Still 'Very Open for Business' for Bitcoin Mining?
Up until quite recently, Texas was “very open for business, as it were, for Bitcoin mining.” That’s how Jaime Leverton, CEO of Canadian Bitcoin miner Hut 8, put it on the latest episode of Decrypt’s gm podcast.“They have in West Texas, in particular, a lot of renewable assets that are looking for stable base loads like a Bitcoin miner can provide,” she said. “So I think it was just a really, really nice fit between the needs of the state and what a Bitcoin miner can uniquely provide as really an industrial-scale battery.”
That symbiotic relationship has worked because unlike data centers, whose always-on client agreements make voluntarily shutting down impossible, Bitcoin miners can cut their power consumption when there’s a lot of demand on the grid. (“We scale up and down within minutes on a regular basis based on the needs of the grid,” Leverton said.) And so far, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has been willing to extend incentives to miners that do it.
But a bill introduced in March, Texas Senate Bill 1751, seeks to limit those benefits granted to Bitcoin miners that cut their power consumption when Texas, which has a power grid independent from the rest of the U.S., is experiencing high demand.
On Tuesday, the bill was unanimously approved in a state Senate committee vote.
It still needs to win approval from the full Senate before it heads to the state’s House of Representatives and then Governor Greg Abbott’s desk. But Texas Blockchain Council President Lee Bratcher sees the bill as cause for concern.
He told Decrypt in an email that he expects it can win approval in the Senate, but not the Texas House.
“SB-1751 is a concerted effort by established industry groups in the ERCOT marketplace to tilt the playing field in their favor because they cannot compete with Bitcoin miners when it comes to load flexibility,” Bratcher said.
On Twitter, Satoshi Act Fund CEO and co-founder Dennis Porter said he and Pierre Rochard, Riot Platforms vice president of research, spent 8 hours in the Texas capitol on Tuesday, “to share our opposition to the anti-#Bitcoin mining bill in the Senate.”
Meanwhile, Hut 8 told Decrypt in an email on Wednesday that although the company will soon have operations in the state once it completes its pending merger with US Bitcoin, it won’t comment on the bill at the moment because it doesn’t currently mine in Texas.
Despite that fact, Hut 8, which trades on both the Nasdaq and Toronto Stock Exchange under the HUT ticker, was among the publicly-traded mining companies to take a tumble the day after the SB-1751 vote. Its shares ended trading on Wednesday down 6%.
Similarly, Marathon Digital (MARA) was down 7%; Riot Platforms (RIOT) fell 4%; and Canaan (CAN) fell 2%.