I've been mining "semi-professionally" and successfully (for a profit) during the 2013-2014 years, first with GPU farms and then ASICs. I had up to 60 GPUs running in 2 dedicated rented locations, and many different ASICs starting with ASICMINER Blades v1 (first was bought 50 BTC
) and then various like KnCMiner, Bitmine (*cough*) and then AntMiners.By the end of 2014 with the price falling and difficulty rising, it became very hard to make any profits with mining for those living in Europe. According to Wikipedia, electricity costs as much as US$0.36/kWh in Germany, US$0.28/kWh in Italy, US$0.29/kWh in Belgium, US$0.40/kWh in Denmark, US$0.19/kWh in France, etc.
As far as I know, the cheapest locations in the world offers kWh prices starting around US$0.04/kWh, which makes it virtually impossible to compete when you're operating as a "home miner" in much of continental Europe. So, does that mine that nobody will ever mine any longer from the old continent
In my opinion, that would be logical, but it is sad and unfortunate that only the "mum's garage" option remains here (which is not really one for many of us, and actually amounts to stealing from her purse behind her eyes unless you're telling her exactly about the costs). But who would really run a >1kW machine 24/7 in the long run besides the most "charitable" miners, when it's costing you twice the mining value or worse?
Maybe there would be an alternate solution: a colo-style dedicated mining room in the middle of Europe, where electricity costs are low compared to the rest of the area, while staying too high to be really competitive if you only have ROI in mind. It came to my mind recently, because I had to buy my latest S5 through HASHNEST to get a slight hope of ROI, and it's not funny at all. Most of my excitement as a geek comes from the flashing LEDs in every corner, not from pure profit, which I actually never had in mind when I started GPU mining in the first place (remember the price in 2012...).
So, maybe a colo would defeat the LED flashing purpose, true... but, you would still have "real" control of your miners, i.e. you do whatever you want with them (pool, settings etc), they remain yours, and you can even see them on video/pictures with the LEDs flashing
One of the location that I used to rent would probably still be available, and I made the electrical wiring myself with plenty of power available, i.e. about 20 kW would be readily available to start (more could be considered, or another location as well).
For those who care, in that area, 100% of the electricity is produced by local hydropower from the Swiss Alps. So it means "green power", which is always a good thing to have in mind for those who are complaining about the carbon footprint of Bitcoin. And the other good news is that the power there is much cheaper than the average for Europe, i.e. it would be possible to get it from about $US 0.12/kWh and maybe even less by negotiating with the electrical company.
According to my quick estimations, it would mean you could hope to mine at about 50% profit-vs-costs ratio with the latest 0.5W/GHS miner generations.
There would be of course remote access to your miners with port forwarding and/or VPN solutions, with security kept in mind. Cooling is air-flow based (i.e. intake + outtake fans), using about 15kW inside the room with that system, I was getting max. 28°C inside during the summer, thanks to the cold climate of the Swiss Alps
The miners could be shipped or brought in person at a nearby location (within a few km), but the location of the room itself would be kept secret for security reasons*. To compensate, miners would have my real ID (passport copy) and I would give a live video feed from the room. I live about 10 minutes from there, so should anything happen that require my physical presence, it would not be an issue. There would be a signed, written contract with a guarantee to redeem your hardware at any (reasonable) time, and copies of the insurance policies covering theft and any other partial or total loss disaster. Exact terms of the contract have yet to be discussed between the involved parties, it's more of a community project/idea at this stage, and the aim of this topic is to gauge interest and open a discussion about its possible realisation or not.
* this can be discussed, I'm open about the idea of revealing the location to miners and/or have them visit, if the majority consensus among them is to make that possible because they trust each other enough. As far as I am concerned (but I may be biased), security would be much better if I were the only one with knowledge of the location, + another trusted 3rd party to work around the "bus factor".
tl;dr: a mining location in Europe to continue mining with your own hardware although with smaller (or even non-existent) ROI, depending on the future of Bitcoin price and network hashrate. Those with the most efficient miners could still hope for a "reasonable" profit, or even redeem their miners back to their homes should the future make it possible again
Thanks for your attention, please share your thoughts
