Mining crypto with excess power

[Mephoria Watts]

Does anyone here mine crypto currencies instead of selling back excess power to the power company? :idea:

[Dave Schwartz]

While its not a direct use of my solar generation, I justify it by what I sell under the microFIT program...

I have a computer in my observatory that controls my telescopes and cameras. Since its in an uncontrolled environment, I leave it running 24x7 so that it stays warm and I don't have to try to boot it up in -20C weather. In order to do something useful, it runs Seti@Home but only during off-peak electricity rates (electricity use goes quite low when the CPU goes idle during non-off-peak times, which mostly correspond to the daylight hours).

I consider this to be more potential benefit to humanity than Bitcoin mining.

[Rob Beckers]

Mephoria, you're likely better off using that energy for other purposes than bitcoin mining. I don't know where you live, and how expensive energy is there, but unless it's dirt cheap it's not worth any more to mine for bitcoin. Last I looked the threshold has moved so high that it takes fairly crazy amounts of energy and a dedicated rig (with ASICS) to generate bitcoins (I did some bitcoin mining when it was still much easier to do, and a graphics card was enough).

Of course, if you can use all that waste-heat for space heating maybe it makes more sense... :cool:

-RoB-

[Mephoria Watts]

Mephoria, you're likely better off using that energy for other purposes than bitcoin mining. I don't know where you live, and how expensive energy is there, but unless it's dirt cheap it's not worth any more to mine for bitcoin. Last I looked the threshold has moved so high that it takes fairly crazy amounts of energy and a dedicated rig (with ASICS) to generate bitcoins (I did some bitcoin mining when it was still much easier to do, and a graphics card was enough).

Of course, if you can use all that waste-heat for space heating maybe it makes more sense... :cool:

-RoB-

I totally agree on the bitcoin mining, that is pretty much pointless at this point. Although there are a handful of altcoins that are very lucrative. My neighbor makes 15$ a day off of 900w So I think it might be a possibility.

[Rob Beckers]

"Watt" is power, not energy. You pay for energy, in "kilo-Watt-hours" (kWh). The difference is that a 100 Watt light bulb will use up 100 Watt-hours (Wh) in energy if it is switched on for 1 hour. That same bulb will use up 1000 Wh = 1 kWh if it is switched on for 10 hours. A 1000 Watt microwave oven will use up that much in just 1 hour, but because those things generally are only used for a minute or so they actually use a lot less energy than most other things, despite the high Wattage (power).

Anyway, to get back to virtual currencies, I've not looked at alternatives to bitcoin at all. It's funny how they are popping up like weeds though, after bitcoin got (in)famous. There is even a 'SolarCoin' (a virtual currency that's mined by producing green power).

Power to you if you can find a way to ride that wave and make a buck out of it!

Of course, 99.999% of all of these currencies are doomed to fail in the slightly longer run...

-RoB-