i dont see why people are still looking into buying new mining equipment if the network is run by this huge mining farms, small operations are no longer profitable.
this is maybe somehow important for chinese mining farms, because home mining is actually dead already, I'm not excited like before with new mining machines:(
There is no economy of scale for running a large farm. Large miners uses the same equipment of a hobby miner.
There is economy of scale, they pay less for the hardware, and pay less for electricity.
it is like in hospitals, insurance companies pay less for health care than individuals since they buy in bulk, and then resell that health care for higher prices.
while that is true that the farms pay less for the gear.
1) they get no benefit from the heat of the gear.
2) switching pools is harder for them.
3) over clock under clock is harder for them.
4) some home miners have legal ways to get very cheap power,the catch is maybe 1 or 2 or 3 kwatts.
5) farms have renting or building a site as an expense.
I have a friend he rents 1/5 of a floor above a bank. he pays 1/5 of the power bill. for years he was losing out since he was using 1/10 of the power.
So now we mine about 1.5 kwatts of gear in his office.
we get power at an 80% discount. Since he pays 1/5 of the bill. so the 1100 kwatts a month would be 182 in the summer and they are 36
in the winter it would be 143 the bill is 28
The office is too cold in the summer due to ac that he does not control now with the miners it is fine .
the office is too cold in the winter due to the bank saving on heat now with the miners it is fine.
So this setup beats the farms edge in cheap machines. I use old s-3's and turn a profit.
The big issue is my power draw has a limit of about 1.5 kwatts.
