...

[sourceninja]

...

 

[Puppies04]

Because people are idiots.

 

[Puppies04]

If you want a serious answer from someone who hasn't got a clue about bitcoins and spent the time it took to write the previous post thinking about your problem I would imagine that you are losing out initially but in the long run if you think the value of bitcoins is going to double you will make a shed load of money.

 

[Nograts]

Because people are idiots.

This.

Also it's all about Elevenpogcoins now. They'll be worth millions once I create them, but I'll let you buy in now for 5 grand.

 

[Lash444]

If you want a serious answer from someone who hasn't got a clue about bitcoins and spent the time it took to write the previous post thinking about your problem I would imagine that you are losing out initially but in the long run if you think the value of bitcoins is going to double you will make a shed load of money.

Okay...so with that logic why wouldn't you just invest your money into buying the bitcoins outright?

 

[Puppies04]

Lol who said anything about logic.

 

[JM Aggie08]

Stay away, man. It's a sinking ship.

 

[microAmp]

Do this, they produce 3% of the worlds Bitcoins
http://www.wimp.com/bitcoinsmined/?old=1/

 

[Sooon]

The people who are really making money off bitcoin are the ones selling the mining machines/services. Everyone else is just gambling.

 

[ultimatebob]

That's pretty easy to explain. The price of Bitcoin dropped quickly over the past few months, but the difficulty hasn't gone down as much. You can thank all of the big mining operations in China that recently launched for this.

It probably costs them $150 a month just in electricity and equipment costs to provide you with 2TH/s of hashing power. Add their profit margin in (because they aren't stupid enough to run at a loss), and you have to pay $200 a month to mine about $140 worth of Bitcoin at current market value.

You'll make money if Bitcoin goes back up in value, but I doubt it will happen. Most legit businesses don't want to touch the stuff, and the illegal businesses are getting shut down quicker than before.

 

[ultimatebob]

This.

Also it's all about Elevenpogcoins now. They'll be worth millions once I create them, but I'll let you buy in now for 5 grand.

I will trade you 10,000 Ultimatebobcoins for your 5,000 elevenpogcoins! They're like Dogecoin, but the meme hasn't caught on yet. Buy in now while they're cheap!

 

[mizzou]

That ship sailed a long long time ago.

 

[DrPizza]

Okay...so with that logic why wouldn't you just invest your money into buying the bitcoins outright?

The answer in post 2 covers this as well. Not to mention, paying for the coins outright increases the demand for the coins, which in turn increases their value. Paying someone to mine coins for you increases the supply of coins, which decreases their value.

 

[Udgnim]

you're competing against this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8kua5B5K3I

 

[Red Squirrel]

you're competing against this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8kua5B5K3I

Pretty much.

I regret not getting into bitcoins. I had no idea it would become that lucrative. I'd be happy with my secondary rack half filled with 1U crunchers really... it's like having a furnace that also happens to print money. :awe: Too late to get in the game now though.

I don't get the point of the services that mine for you though... they have to make money somehow, so that means they take a cut. Why not just mine the coins yourself, and at least you get to save a bit on heating costs assuming you're actually pulling a profit, which today, you wont.

 

[Carson Dyle]

you're competing against this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8kua5B5K3I

The same video was linked above. That place is just an amazing shithole. Some old Mao-era concrete building, no A/C, workers who probably make $20/day _living_ at the data center. Everything covered in grime because they have to blow so much outside air through the unairconditioned space. Most interesting stat was probably that each of their centers at one time mined 100 coins per day, now it's down to just 20-25.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The same video was linked above. That place is just an amazing shithole. Some old Mao-era concrete building, no A/C, workers who probably make $20/day _living_ at the data center. Everything covered in grime because they have to blow so much outside air through the unairconditioned space. Most interesting stat was probably that each of their centers at one time mined 100 coins per day, now it's down to just 20-25.

Yeah while it's impressive the amount of money in terms of equipment, if I did something like that I would definitly want to make it a cleaner setup. I'd rather have half the crunching power, but have it all neat and tidy in racks, and have a full blown filtered HVAC system. Do a cold aisle/hot aisle setup too. Definitly a better monitoring system too, from sounds of it when fans fail they lose equipment. They could monitor that stuff and act on it before it fails. Though if you have a proper forced air hot/cold aisle system you don't rely as much on fans since the air naturally flows through the machines. The fans just help it move it along.

Once you have a clean infrastructure then you just keep expanding. At their rate they would probably actually be better off making their own custom ASICs too. It's china, you can probably rent a semi conductor foundry and pick and place machine for 5 bucks an hour at the grocery store. :awe:

 

[Carson Dyle]

Yeah while it's impressive the amount of money in terms of equipment, if I did something like that I would definitly want to make it a cleaner setup. I'd rather have half the crunching power, but have it all neat and tidy in racks, and have a full blown filtered HVAC system. Do a cold aisle/hot aisle setup too. Definitly a better monitoring system too, from sounds of it when fans fail they lose equipment. They could monitor that stuff and act on it before it fails. Though if you have a proper forced air hot/cold aisle system you don't rely as much on fans since the air naturally flows through the machines. The fans just help it move it along.

Once you have a clean infrastructure then you just keep expanding. At their rate they would probably actually be better off making their own custom ASICs too. It's china, you can probably rent a semi conductor foundry and pick and place machine for 5 bucks an hour at the grocery store.

Which would be stupid, although it would equally appeal to my own sense of doing things "right". The name of the game here is about doing it as cheaply as possible and maximizing the return on investment and operating costs. Using A/C and housing equipment in a real data center would likely double or triple their monthly costs. If they could put all of those machines out in a muddy field, cover them in plastic tarps to keep them dry and power them with little old Chinese ladies walking in squirrel cages, they would.

 

[Zeze]

Yeah while it's impressive the amount of money in terms of equipment, if I did something like that I would definitly want to make it a cleaner setup. I'd rather have half the crunching power, but have it all neat and tidy in racks, and have a full blown filtered HVAC system. Do a cold aisle/hot aisle setup too. Definitly a better monitoring system too, from sounds of it when fans fail they lose equipment. They could monitor that stuff and act on it before it fails. Though if you have a proper forced air hot/cold aisle system you don't rely as much on fans since the air naturally flows through the machines. The fans just help it move it along.

Once you have a clean infrastructure then you just keep expanding. At their rate they would probably actually be better off making their own custom ASICs too. It's china, you can probably rent a semi conductor foundry and pick and place machine for 5 bucks an hour at the grocery store. :awe:

Just open a mining center in northern Canada or Finland. Just install warehouse fans and let the -30 F work itself out.

 

[destrekor]

Just open a mining center in northern Canada or Finland. Just install warehouse fans and let the -30 F work itself out.

Serious question: why has this not really occurred yet? I mean, in general, a datacenter in frigid regions. Is it an issue with utilities at that point?

Instead of a full-blown filtered HVAC system, if you cared about filtering, all you'd really need to do is create a simple fan-only filtered system. As long as there is enough air movement, the ambient air will be warm around the concentrated machines but should still remain pretty much frozen. Most electronics can handle that as long as they aren't battery-driven, batteries deplete rapidly in the cold.


....ahhh, it's the lack of humidity, isn't it? Too damn dry for concentrated electrical equipment, I suspect. Thus, you'd still need a fully-controlled environment which would negate the chilled atmospheric bonus. Unless... could you add in a relatively "basic" humidity-controlling factor but otherwise skip cooling the air?
I'll be the first to admit my practical data center knowledge is extremely minimal.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Serious question: why has this not really occurred yet? I mean, in general, a datacenter in frigid regions.

Start by looking at that Chinese "data center" in the video. Air conditioning isn't really a necessity. My PC works perfectly well in 100° F temps, because it has enough fans sucking (relatively) cool air through the system. And like that filthy data center, every two or three months I have to blow about 1/8" of dust out of the computer. The more important pieces of the puzzle are cheap electricity and cheap labor.

 

[destrekor]

Start by looking at that Chinese "data center" in the video. Air conditioning isn't really a necessity. The more important pieces of the puzzle are cheap electricity and cheap labor.

I wasn't limiting my question to mining operations.

Mining hardware really just needs constant airflow to help dissipate, it doesn't need extensive climate-control like enterprise and commercial data centers, because they aren't producing that much waste heat individually.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Just open a mining center in northern Canada or Finland. Just install warehouse fans and let the -30 F work itself out.

That's what I'd do, I'd just use outside air. Even in summer, at very worse it might hit 30 degrees in the cold aisle which is not that bad for the equipment. Not ideal, but not bad. You could probably still have an AC unit kick in for the few really hot days.

That's actually what I plan to do with my home server room, it will use a combination of outside and indoor air. In winter mostly indoor because I just want to recycle the heat. For a huge operation like bit coin mining you let the indoor temp hit like 22c then start to mix in cold air. It could be done fairly cheaply.

I don't get why they don't build more data centres here in the north. They seem to put them in the hottest places and need ridiculous huge AC to keep them cool.

 

[bbhaag]

Do this, they produce 3% of the worlds Bitcoins
http://www.wimp.com/bitcoinsmined/?old=1/

That was really interesting to watch. I like when he compared China's uncertainty when transitioning from cash to debit/credit to potentially transitioning to bitcoin or a currency like it.
I'm not a believer but it was worth taking the 8mins to watch the vid.

 

[Imp]

But what if the world ends and Bitcoin becomes the super currency. OMFGBBQ, you won't be losing money anymore!