I've said it ten times the past month....this "situation" in mining does not lead to centralization, exactly the opposite.
You know when you guys keep harping about "economy of scale" well that doesn't always mean what you obviously think it means.
You need to rethink the difference between a hobbyist miner with a couple of TH running in their basement vs a commercial building being supplied with a 0.5MW supply and transformer, and wiring performed by electricians, and CSA/UL/CE inspections, and liability insurance, and cooling the building doubling your electrical draw....and a myriad of other expenses that little children like yourselves have never encountered because you have never leased a commercial building to set up a business and you have no idea of the intricacies of business dealings at that scale.
I can't see how they are doing it when I consider the logistics and costs....certainly not with the efficiencies we have today at sub $400 prices.
are you speaking from experience?
i can relate as a 2TH hobbyist. i traded simple services for my electrician to wire in eight special 240W outlets (i'm oversupplied) with its own subpanel to the 2nd flr room of a building i already own. i put the miners up next to an open sliding door with a balcony and lined up fans pointing outwards up against the screen door. i had one of my workers install a $200 external barred gate like this for security. no other cooling:
the room is exposed to the open air 24/7 all year long. no licenses, insurance or any other special expenses except for electricity. i had additional Cat5/6 wiring run thru the walls to an external closet connecting the server with the asics to an existing internet connection used for other purposes. throw in a large roller rack.
total cost of setup and other ancillary materials, maybe $400. it pays to be small and nimble.
Yes, exactly...your costs benefit from the economy of scale I'm talking about.
Small and nimble is what works in these days of high mining diff.
Now consider if you want to lease a commercial building of 50-100k sq ft.
It costs $3-5 per square foot for that alone....on a minimum one year term.
To lease the building you need to tell the landlord and the municpality has to approve what the use will be...as soon as you tell them a half dozen riders get dropped onto the lease.
Liability insurance in the millions...usually 10 million for a building like that
Transformer installation....ask yourself what a transformer capable of 0.5MW costs to install
Electrical approvals, all electricals installed by licensed electricians, and the panels signed off by same
Here's the kicker....in order to install electronics such as these in an industrial setting you are never going to get away with plugging in equipment that has no CSA/UL/CE approval. Certainly not 1000 units of electronic equipment that is not approved for your country...now you are into electrical approvals/hipot tests at a minimum...better hope the company you bought them from designed these properly
Do it illegally? No insurance will cover you. And your local hydro department will never turn on the mains without it.
Now think about racking
Now think about networking costs and cabling costs for the units when the runs are 10x longer
power supplies....most mining hardware requires your own
fire prevention/suppression? How are you going to handle that?
cooling? How many tons of AC? Does it have to be installed?
internet bandwidth? You are not running this off a single DSL/Cable modem connection
Already own a 2-3 million dollar building you want to use for mining?...great, you can strip away a few of those requirements but most are still applicable. And now you have a 2-3 million dollar asset not generating leasing revenue...
