Topic: Possible New DFW Hosting Spot (Read 416 times)

UPDATE: Two years later, but felt like an update to close out this thread was appropriate. The last-mentioned spot in my March 27th post was a two month negotiation to nowhere. The further and further we went down the rabbit hole with the owner of the building, the less and less friendly the deal became. With all the various chatter about Bitcoin and mining, and "crypto thieves" as he called it... he started asking for insane security commitments from us, highly over-exaggerated insurance requirements, and other things. We finally walked away from the conversation in early June of 2018.

From there, we took a break. In August of 2018, we began our search once again with a new commercial real estate broker. Several smaller options presented themselves, but had no room for growth. Every time the word "Bitcoin" or "mining" was mentioned, the conversations soured. Both brokers we used insisted that we be honest about our intentions for the building, which I both agreed with and disagreed with to certain extents.

The long story, short... after another full summer and fall of looking for space that fit our budget and power requirements, my loose compact of guys fell apart. One of our guys went off and started hosting in a tiny office space somewhere (the smallest of our group), tripping breakers every 12 hours and got kicked out that space later. I sold my machine to the middle-sized guy in our group, and he shipped them off to two different hosting spots in Washington and Montana respectively. The very largest of our group eventually leased a small warehouse near Austin, TX where he thrived for about six months. But he was power-locked, and the local utility was a non-starter for any conversations to bring more power to his building. When his lease expired, he off'd his gear on eBay and walked away.

At the end of the day, none of us got the dream together. I took a good six months off crypto entirely and focussed on my day job. I've been running a tiny AltCoin farm from my home, and recently acquired the LuckyAltcoin Pool https://luckyaltcoin.com/ if anyone wants to come grind some smaller coins with us...

Working up some "whats next" ideas now, and getting the Crypto bug again. Hoping to share some ideas soon.

Having protracted negotiations on a new spot we found, but well worth getting it right.

I'm loosely still optimistic about May-July timeline, but caution that some work travel commitments in June may cause me to fall behind schedule a few weeks if they materialize. I'll know more in the next week or two.

Also, depending on how long the lease negotiation takes. The group we're negotiating with takes 24-48 hours to respond to anything we discuss.

Next time I'm in town... let's grab lunch. Shoot me a PM here.

Keep your eyes on this thread and I'll update everyone as things move along.

It sounds like the places you were looking at just had insufficient power. That's why, for us, it was important to find a place that has at least so much power onsite already, and we're only going to pull the trigger on a place that has an easier path towards eventual upgrades.

I'll give you two examples of places we've passed on just to help illustrate how we're looking at it:

- Spot #1 had 300 amps of 220v electricity readily available, and there was another 50amps of 220v we would wire into a sub-panel for less than $700 in work. Sweet. But... the transformer that fed this building was over 1,500 ft away. Cost to pull in additional electricity from that transformer was over $11,500 and would have resulted in an additional 500 amps of service total. Beyond that, the cost to upgrade the transformer would have been on us, and would have been over $26,000. So good start... but upgrade paths not so good.

- Spot #2 had over 700 amps of 220v electricity onsite, but it was basically capped there. Costs to do ANYTHING beyond it were well over $50,000. Forget it.

The spot we're looking at now has a considerable amount of power onsite, and its own transformer on site which can be replaced to effectively double the capacity. Beyond THAT, the power lines run less than 60 feet from the property, so going beyond an upgraded transformer would be much much less expensive.

If you can find a place that has a solid start and affordable upgrade options, its worth seeking it out. Thats why we're willing to take awhile getting THIS part right, because once we get in there, we know we're set for the period of time we want to be set for.

Thanks for the note. Couple of thoughts from my perspective:

1) Setting this up primarily for my own private group of miners. Outside hosting for other folks will be something we add-on if we're sure we can do it in a reliable and trustworthy way, and in a fashion that doesn't require a giant customer service commitment. Hosting for outside customers would be on a limited basis, and something we grow into slowly so we can void all the hassles we've been reading about here.

2) Leasing commercial property isn't something new to me. My current business leases space in two states, and possibly a third in DFW (unless we find a space that can house hosting and office space together, which is unlikely). Our search is for properties that have at least two years' worth of our projected power need onsite already, and with an easier upgrade. We're doing ALL of that investigative work up front, so when we ink the lease we know what it has, and we know what it will take to add-on more, so there's no surprises or limitations later.

3) Our goal is to use this space to grow the business and mining operations over two years so that we can purchase a commercial building of our own later on, and have a lot more flexibility beyond that. We'll also be able to better project how big of a building we want at that point.

Baby steps. But all very intentional, and very well planned out.

Hey gang...

...not much to report here, but here's the latest:

We're involved in conversations with 3 new locations in the DFW area now, and honing in on the best option. There's a sort of ironic list of pros and cons to each location that we're sorting through.

One location has immediate ample power, but is a bit more expensive than we'd hoped for. One is VERY cheap and has air conditioning that's metered separately from the rest of the unit's power, but its small and would only accommodate about 200 miners before we'd be "landlocked" and have to find a secondary location. The third one is fairly priced, fairly sized, but has some power issues we need to work out. There's only about 120 amps of 220v power onsite, and the nearest transformer is down the block at least 900 ft. Upgrade costs are likely to be spendy.

I'm pushing my projected timeline back about a month from April-June to May-July now.

Once we've signed the lease, we'll move pretty quickly to get up and running... but I won't rush this part. It's important to my crew that the we score the right location, even if it takes another month or two.

As usual, I'll keep you posted.

Quick update here for those who are wanting to know about our potential hosting spot:

We backed out of the conversation on the space we'd been currently negotiating on. Building owner is currently occupying the suite we were negotiating, and has decided to raise his asking rate. Essentially "if you want it, make me an offer that makes me move..." so it became a silly conversation, and we're out.

Our broker is now talking with a second space we liked, and confirming power options. I'm flying back to Dallas this weekend and will see a few new spaces and also hope to meet with the owner of this second spot.

So nothing exciting to report right now. Our proposed timeline is still roughly April-June.

THANK YOU to any of you who have filled out the form below. We're definitely using this information to help make some decisions. As it stands right now we have not formally made the decision to host outside machines (machines we do not own) but we're strongly considering it, and we wish to keep this dialogue open with everyone. I cannot promise that we're going to go in that direction... but as we gather more information and begin to understand the need, it helps us to lean in that direction. If you need a hosting spot for your miners, please fill out the form below and let us know as much as you can.

I don't yet have a space locked in, so I can't answer this. Once I've got a lease signed, I can share some of those details.

My current timeline is April-June.

Negotiating on the space I want now. There is no guarantee that its going to go my way, as I'm being rather aggressive about part of what I'm asking for. The space is ideal though, because it has ample power already drawn to the building, and a transformer on the property that can be upgraded.

My timeline is roughly April - June for launch, assuming this part goes well.

What's the cost of electricity there and how soon would you be ready?

is there any status update on this spot? since i'm local this is preferred

Thanks for that. We're collecting up this info. over the next few weeks and having some long discussions. I'm expected to hear back on our current proposal soon, and that will help guide timing on my end.

Have filled in form re: 10MW requirement

thanks!

Thanks for the note. I'll make a sep. mark on my tally sheet and keep this in mind. When I have a green light on the location, I'll know which utility company I'll be dealing with and how far/close to feasible $75/month is.

I don't feel like filling out a form right now. But I can tell you I have myself and at least 1 other person looking to host 3x L3+ miners each. We are looking to match or beat $75/month inclusive of electricity, space, etc. per miner. $75/month is what it costs to host each miner at home.

Greetings,

I've posted elsewhere that I'm working towards opening a new hosting facility. I am building this space for my growing mining business. The initial steps are to build a facility to house my current needs going forward, but it's become clear to me that there is a solid need for honest and reliable hosting providers. As a service to the community, I'm exploring the idea of opening this new space to some outside units, and I'd like to get an idea of the scale of the need.

Here's my current progress:

- Currently working with a commercial real estate broker. We have a pending proposal at a place.

- My launch timeline would be approximately April 15th, assuming no buildout complications.

I would likely only take on a few outside customers in the beginning, so that I can get a feel for the workload involved. I am a full time CEO in a completely unrelated industry, and my work is taking me to DFW area to launch a new division of that business. I would prefer to work with folks who don't need a lot of hand-holding or support. I'd want to get as plug-n-play as possible. Likely to setup Awesome Miner so folks can do pool configs on their own, and I can do reboots remotely. Power management for hard reboots is being considered at this time.

There's also the possibility that I take on an investor to buildout the space moreso that I would have initially, including pulling in more utility power sooner than later, and thinking about some of the inside infrastructure changes to make it work on a larger scale sooner than later. Absent that, I would have done this in stages that mirror my growth, with a lesser investment up front. The space has a lot of the required boxes checked off, including a decent amount of 220 power to handle my projected load for awhile. An investment, if I did that, would be mostly power focussed.

If this is something you have a need for, would you please kindly fill out the form below. I am collecting this information to get as MUCH information as I can about the scope of the need from this community, what kind of revenue potential exists to provide this service, etc.

https://forms.zohopublic.com/solidusdata/form/SoftwareRequest/formperma/JZqhMe6KzZUd12IUAAGc-tWPUfjEc26clbjhFS6QDC4