It doesn’t matter if you’re panning for gold, drilling for oil, or mining Bitcoin, your success is bounded by your best answers to what, how, when, and where? Often the “what” and “how” are tightly linked. If you own oil drilling equipment, you’re probably going to continue drilling for oil. If you buy an ASIC based Bitcoin mining rig, you can only mine Bitcoin. Traditionally “when” and “where” are the most fluid variables to address. A barrel of crude oil today is $57, but over the past year, it has fluctuated between $42 and $66. Similarly, Bitcoin, during the same year, has swung between $3,200 and $12,900, so answering the “when” can be very important. Fortunately, digital currencies can easily be mined and held, which allows us to artificially shift the “when” until the offer price of the commodity achieves the necessary profitability. In digital currency mining, the term is sometimes written HODL, originally a typo, but it has since morphed into “Hold On for Dear Life” until the currency is worth more than it cost you. Finally, we have the “where”, and I’m sure some are wondering why “where” matters in digital currency mining.

Moving backward through the above questions and drilling down specifically into digital currency mining as the application. “Where” is the easiest one, you want to install your mining equipment wherever you can get the cheapest power, manage the excess heat, and tolerate the noise. Recently two of the most extensive mining facilities, both around 300MW, have or are being stood up in former Aluminum plants. When making Aluminum, the single most costly component in the process is electricity, and it requires access to vast volumes of electricity. Often these facilities are located near hydro-electric plants where electricity is below $0.03 KW/h. Also, since every watt of power is converted into heat or sound, you need a method for cost-effectively dealing with these byproducts. One of the mining operations mentioned earlier is located in the far northern region of Russia, which makes cooling exceptionally easy. Also, with “where” you need a local government that is friendly to digital-currency mining. In the Russian example mentioned above, it took nearly two years to secure the proper legal support. Some countries like China, until recently, were not supportive of digital-currency mining. For enthusiasts like myself, we locate our mining gear in out of the way places like basements or closets, perhaps even insulating them for sound and channeling away the excess heat to somewhere useful. 

Concerning “when,” that should be now. The general strategy executed by most of us currently mining is known as “mine and hold.” With the Bitcoin halving coming in May, the expectation is that Bitcoin will see a run-up to that point. In the prior two Bitcoin halvings, the price remained roughly the same before and after the event. The last halving was in July 2016, and since then, Bitcoin has gone from a niche commodity to a mainstream offering. In the previous week, Fidelity was awarded a trust license to operate its digital assets business; further proof Bitcoin has gone mainstream. As Bitcoin is the dominant digital currency, it is believed that as it rises, so shall many of the other currencies that use it as a benchmark. So, holding some of the other mainstream digital currencies like Ethereum should also see a significant benefit from a substantial increase in the value of Bitcoin. 

Back to the “what” and “how.” With digital currency mining, you have two criteria to consider when answering the “how,” efficiency or flexibility. If you purchase a highly efficient solution, then it will be an ASIC based mining rig. You will then soon learn, if you haven’t already, that it has been designed to mine a single currency, and that’s ALL it can ever mine. Conversely, if you want flexibility, then an FPGA or GPU miner affords you various degrees of freedom, but again the choice between efficiency and flexibility comes into play. FPGA mining rigs are often 5X more efficient per watt than GPU based rigs, but the selection of FPGA bitstreams is finite, but growing monthly. Both FPGA and GPU rigs can easily switch from mining one coin to another with nominal effort; it’s the efficiency and what can be mined that separate the two.    

Finally, I’ve neglected to address the most obvious questions “why?” This is both the root of our motivation to mine and the fabric of our most social network. “Our only hope, our only peace is to understand it, to understand the why. ‘Why’ is what separates us from them, you from me. Why’ is the only real social power, without it you are powerless. And this is how you come to me, without why,’ without power.” – Merovingian, “Matrix Reloaded” 2003