Bitcoin heaters

This is the second year I'm running bitcoin miners for heat.  It seems they would be great in a greenhouse, they currently heat my shop and certain rooms at home. By securing the network with these mining machines, there is a payback in bitcoin.  The payback subsidizes the energy cost of making heat.

Internet (slow is fine) and power is required. I almost broke even on last years electric in dollar terms. The constant heat turns the concrete and all objects into radiators if there is any pause of heat creation.

I assume there is nobody else here doing this yet, do please ask any questions you may have.  Machines are very cheap right now.  

Wow, that's an unusual approach.

There have been various attempts to reuse waste heat from server farms, power plants, etc. to heat greenhouses for example. It's a good idea, but the economics are pretty mixed when people sweat the details and the math.

Indulge me -- may I ask a few questions?

How is your grid powered? Does it currently have the excess capacity to scale this approach without further environmental impact somewhere else?

Were you heating with electric heat before? Do you consume more energy with mining than you would have otherwise? How much more?

I guess these are pointy questions, but I think they are important to understanding if this might be practical for the rest of us.

Greenhouses have humidity, so I think your indoor applications are better for delicate electronic devices going through daily temperature swings and condensation.

Douglas's points are interesting, too.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Wow, that's an unusual approach.

There have been various attempts to reuse waste heat from server farms, power plants, etc. to heat greenhouses for example. It's a good idea, but the economics are pretty mixed when people sweat the details and the math.

Indulge me -- may I ask a few questions?

How is your grid powered? Does it currently have the excess capacity to scale this approach without further environmental impact somewhere else?

Were you heating with electric heat before? Do you consume more energy with mining than you would have otherwise? How much more?

I guess these are pointy questions, but I think they are important to understanding if this might be practical for the rest of us.

The local grid is a mix of coal and nuke.  It has the capacity without further burden because I already was buying power and requiring electric for heat.  My shop has 110,000w 3 phase, I'm using 3500w for about 2400sqft but getting a device that will scale it back a bit.  

1000w of electric heat is 1000w of electric heat whether these machines or coils. 100% heating efficiency

Rebecca Norman wrote:Greenhouses have humidity, so I think your indoor applications are better for delicate electronic devices going through daily temperature swings and condensation.

Douglas's points are interesting, too.

.

Miners aren't very delicate actually , unless it's salty !

john holmes wrote:

Rebecca Norman wrote:Greenhouses have humidity, so I think your indoor applications are better for delicate electronic devices going through daily temperature swings and condensation.

Douglas's points are interesting, too.

.

Miners aren't very delicate actually , unless it's salty !

That was the first thing that came to my mind too with greenhouses and humidity. Add in intense heat from the sun, flying debris/dirt, and water... and they would need a little shielding from that as well.

It is a really good idea though!

I have been wanting to wrap my mind around mining for a long time now. The U.S. needs more miners.

Which type of BTC miner do you recommend... and where do you recommend buying them from?

I know they are noisy... so... if I were to ever get a greenhouse... a BTC mining machine would go great out there since I would also be building that dream/also slightly noisy Aquaponics system out there. I really miss having an AP system. My last one was a perfect... almost no maintenance system. The first one was horrible and I learned what not to do. If I do another greenhouse... it will be super tall and have a few citrus trees in the middle (or along an insulated North wall)... possibly getting a bubble of warm air around them from a BTC miner or two! ha ha

We are 100% Nuclear, Solar, and Wind farms here. Unless power goes out.... then we are 100% Propane Generator. (the BTC machines would get shed though).

For now, my actual thoughts on protecting the citrus trees would be to use those C9 Christmas lights on the coldest nights only. I have been doing that with my citrus that I have in the ground. They just are not too happy with being under plant jackets all Winter. You can totally set them up to only turn on when the temps hit a certain point. I just do it manually. I only use them maybe 7 days total every Winter here.

How long have you been in Crypto?

My wife stopped me from buying $1000 worth of BTC back around 2012. I have been watching it ever since. Finally started buying around 2017... and am done buying for now. Just watching the roller coaster ride!

About 25 years ago there was a program call AllAdvantage which paid people to surf the internet with an extra ad bar on their screen. My college dorm room was quite poorly insulated so for a bit of extra heat I ran my computer 24/7 with a program that mimicked browser movement. The computer running raised the temperature of the room by about 5F, and every now and then I got sent a bit of extra cash.

It looks like college students are still doing something similar to this day https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-mining-in-a-university-dorm-a-cooler-btc-story
.

Marty Mitchell wrote:

Which type of BTC miner do you recommend... and where do you recommend buying them from?

I know they are noisy... so... if I were to ever get a greenhouse... a BTC mining machine would go great out there  

The bitmain s19 or whatsminer m50 are great "profitable " 2nd gen 220v single phase machines and are currently running $1500 new.  Both are 3300w machines.

Bitmain s9 is older tech, 1/3 the hash power per watt, but $100 each. They are tough as nails. Great on 120v at 800w or so.  

Kaboom racks has tons of machines

100acresranch.com has solar/wind integrated controllers that will load match the machines to your output!!  They are also coming out with a controller for temp control, perfect for home or greenhouse if you don't want to automate an exhaust system.

When wattage is lower, the machines are more efficient and actually run quiet.  Very quiet. But in a greenhouse you also want airflow and they can deliver that at high efficiency if you target a lower chip temp.

I've been in the space for 4 years.  Also had the wife poopoo early bitcoin purchases. Currently a half million dollar mistake.  She is no longer in charge of that portion of budgeting, lol

John Wolfram wrote:About 25 years ago there was a program call AllAdvantage which paid people to surf the internet with an extra ad bar on their screen. My college dorm room was quite poorly insulated so for a bit of extra heat I ran my computer 24/7 with a program that mimicked browser movement. The computer running raised the temperature of the room by about 5F, and every now and then I got sent a bit of extra cash.

It looks like college students are still doing something similar to this day https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-mining-in-a-university-dorm-a-cooler-btc-story
.

I remember that app!  Same thing. Computers are 100% heat.  

john holmes wrote:

Marty Mitchell wrote:

Which type of BTC miner do you recommend... and where do you recommend buying them from?

I know they are noisy... so... if I were to ever get a greenhouse... a BTC mining machine would go great out there  

The bitmain s19 or whatsminer m50 are great "profitable " 2nd gen 220v single phase machines and are currently running $1500 new.  Both are 3300w machines.

Bitmain s9 is older tech, 1/3 the hash power per watt, but $100 each. They are tough as nails. Great on 120v at 800w or so.  

Kaboom racks has tons of machines

100acresranch.com has solar/wind integrated controllers that will load match the machines to your output!!  They are also coming out with a controller for temp control, perfect for home or greenhouse if you don't want to automate an exhaust system.

When wattage is lower, the machines are more efficient and actually run quiet.  Very quiet. But in a greenhouse you also want airflow and they can deliver that at high efficiency if you target a lower chip temp.

I've been in the space for 4 years.  Also had the wife poopoo early bitcoin purchases. Currently a half million dollar mistake.  She is no longer in charge of that portion of budgeting, lol

THANK YOU for all of the information.

You have now pointed me toward a deep rabbit hole I can go fall inside of when I get a chance.

I will have to look up the price of power in my area, and then do the math to see which one will be most profitable for me based on BTC price. I will project out the future estimated prices in that equation so I can look down the road on that subject. I will use the projected numbers that PlanB has in his charts.... which are the most accurate. Except, his estimates for the last bull run that had it's blow-off top chopped off by China/India fud... followed by covid showing up. Then the bear market went deeper due to the Sam Bankman Freed scandal and such.

However, it is a very bright future out there in the Wild West that crypto is.

I did the math at the top of the last bull market of $64k... and I would have peaked out at around... an amount of net-worth that made my head spin. lol

I then wanted to sell the RV at around $20k during this bear market so I could buy a whole BTC and some more... but was blocked. It went down to $15.5k right after that... about when I would have bought... and is now back up to around $37k.

She now wants to sell the RV and use the money for vacations further from home. Meanwhile, we are investing every spare penny we have into a stock market and housing market that have peaked. Madness!!!

Still, I did get ahold of some cash from selling things (like the last home we were in) and from a small inheritance from my grandmother. I invested a portion of that into BTC and ETH... and will give what I have to my kids when I die... because I am not selling it. Perhaps they will be able to retire early.

I hear BTC will do a slow pump to up $1mil to $10mil per coin once all of those BTC ETFs are approved for investment firms like BlackRock... that have $10 trillion in assets under their belts. The gvt. keeps blocking it until they can get the USD replaced with their own digital currency. Crypto is here to stay now... the genie is out of the bottle. I will be choosing to put my money into the one that cannot be easily manipulated my mankind... and is governed by math.

john holmes wrote: Id suggest not looking too heavily into future price/ hash predictions.   fine for fun but impossible to know.   The s19 or m50 will be the best profit/ price models right now with break even around 10c kwh but high up front investment.  the s9 will give best long term returns for investment but run at a loss above 3c kwh.   But for heat... any subsidy is better than nothing.  

If you want "gains" just buy bitcoin.   If you want heat, buy the model of miner that you can afford between 3x s9 at $300 or one s19 at $1500.   And then you can add a $200 temp controller from 100acres and they will simply hash at the perfect rate to keep your environment at the right temp.  

That is SO COOL that this capability even exists!

There is some real innovation going on out there.

Also, I may be in the wrong part of the country to be mining. My power rates here are 13c/kWh I believe... and around 7c if I were commercial. The national average is much higher, I think.

Actually, after writing that last sentence... I went and looked up my power rates + the exact specs on one of those machines + found a mining calculator.

If I were mining one of those machines, and had no mining pool fees, I would be averaging -$3.35 per day if running at full power 24/7. Aka at a loss.

However, if heating a space, I would be getting something back like you said instead of nothing.

PLUS, I could hang onto those Satoshi's and sell them at a profit later on during the next bull market.... OR just keep hanging onto them well into the future. Or sell them and buy more machines as an investment turned back into itself... which works so long as I stay within reason and financial boundaries. Plus + I would have the cool factor of telling everyone that I am a poor miner. lol  

Mental exorcise done for the day. I just filled the barn loft with hay and reset the honeybee traps a little while ago and just finished lunch. Time to head back out and work until sunset! I will be thinking about this conversation while I am out there I bet.

I wonder if I could piece together my own solar array platform on a pole out in the pasture... and generate enough power to counter the cost of running one of these. I know a person used to be able to buy reject panels on the extreme cheap back in the day. Ones that still were 95% effective at their rated power (that I could still repair myself since I know how to solder).

https://shop.bitmain.com/

https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/bitcoin/calculator

Actually, I just went to that bitmain site again and clicked on the priciest miner they had... then did the calculations again.

With that one... even at $0.13per kWh I would be racking in a $0.50 profit each day at todays prices.

That being said... that machine is around $4,700!

https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020230515112234510hwBt32se06B7
 

john holmes wrote:This is the second year I'm running bitcoin miners for heat.  It seems they would be great in a greenhouse, they currently heat my shop and certain rooms at home. By securing the network with these mining machines, there is a payback in bitcoin.  The payback subsidizes the energy cost of making heat.

Internet (slow is fine) and power is required. I almost broke even on last years electric in dollar terms. The constant heat turns the concrete and all objects into radiators if there is any pause of heat creation.

I assume there is nobody else here doing this yet, do please ask any questions you may have.  Machines are very cheap right now.  

HI John, I think you found an interesting use of extra solar electricity as we had been discussing here:
https://permies.com/t/209079/Manufacturing-energy-storage-brainstorm

One of the interesting "problems" of solar energy in northern latitudes is the disparity between summer production and winter production.  I could see a bitminer being a good dump load for extra summer production. Hell i could imagine pairing it with a heat pump powered hot water heater for even more kicks at the energy can.
Cheers,
David Baillie

David Baillie wrote:

john holmes wrote:This is the second year I'm running bitcoin miners for heat.  It seems they would be great in a greenhouse, they currently heat my shop and certain rooms at home. By securing the network with these mining machines, there is a payback in bitcoin.  The payback subsidizes the energy cost of making heat.

Internet (slow is fine) and power is required. I almost broke even on last years electric in dollar terms. The constant heat turns the concrete and all objects into radiators if there is any pause of heat creation.

I assume there is nobody else here doing this yet, do please ask any questions you may have.  Machines are very cheap right now.  

HI John, I think you found an interesting use of extra solar electricity as we had been discussing here:
https://permies.com/t/209079/Manufacturing-energy-storage-brainstorm

One of the interesting "problems" of solar energy in northern latitudes is the disparity between summer production and winter production.  I could see a bitminer being a good dump load for extra summer production. Hell i could imagine pairing it with a heat pump powered hot water heater for even more kicks at the energy can.
Cheers,
David Baillie

Absolutely.  The 100acresranch.com  has controllers specifically for load dumping that dynamically control the miner .   Bitcoin miners are moving more and more to waste /excess energy because marginal cost is zero.  Actually carbon negative now too from methane flair mitigation.

Bump for the upcoming winter!  Starting to fire up the heaters!

Updates in the niche.

LuxOS firmware now allows temp control based on hash rate.  So I can set a manual fan speed,  target a temp like 60c or 65c on the device, and it will control hash rate to keep temp constant.  As the room tries to heat up it will naturally scale back power to keep the device temp down due to fixed fan speeds.  Can also target a hash rate and temp and let the fans go wild for spaces that don't need tight regulation of noise or heat.

Really slick passive automation via hash rate that's a pretty new feature built into the firmware itself