From this calculator: http://dustcoin.com/, you need about 60,000 KH/S to make $114 a day (excluding power cost). One of the most efficient $/hashrate GPUs for litecoin mining is the ATI 7950 at about $210 a piece and ~600 KH/s. 105 * 600 KH/s = ~60000 KH/s = ~$114, so it works out. That's $20,000. So if you spend $20,000 you can buy yourself a job that pays $114 a day. It will take 6 months just to break even. Better hope the difficulty hasn't increased enough in that time to make your GPUs irrelevant (hint: it probably will).
Keep in mind that I was very generously excluding the very significant cost of power, the very significant cost of all the motherboards/cpu/ram/power supplies to run those GPUs, and the power and space required to cool them. Realistically we're looking at more like $50k.
>“Currently I’m making about 60 litecoin per day,” he said. “I’ve kept 95% of the mining profit since April and once the major exchanges start accepting LTC, others will follow, and price is expected to soar. So that 60 LTC could turn into $1,500.”
This is absurd. If he thinks 60 LTC will be worth $1,500, he should spend the $20,000 he spent on GPUs on LTC instead. He'd turn $20,000 into $250,000 with no work required (another hint: assuming you can turn $20k into $250k in 6 months with no work as a sure thing is also absurd).
The article certainly seems wrong. Other than Hawaii which is an obvious outlier (36.61) the most expensive mainland electricity in the US is in California at 16.71.
Yes, in a lot of jurisdictions, that's the generator cost. Generation is typically < 1/3rd the total cost of electricity.
Here in NZ, I get a generation charge, a national lines charge, and a local lines charge per kwh. Then I've got an additional daily charge to be connected to the network. It works out to NZ$0.22/kwh.
Electricity isn't very useful when it's at the hydro lake!
[Edited to add numbers]
Looking into it, Ontario power is:
(Peak 11AM-5PM)
12.4c/kWh generation.
3.37c/kWh distribution
1.21c/kWh transmission
$17.29/mo connection.
So, that's CDN16.98c/kWh delivered to a suburban home.
I live in Southern California. SC Edison has a 4 tier pricing system based on kWh consumed. The first tier is $0.13 kWh, while the top tier is $0.31 kWh.
I interpreted that as '30 percent less than', closer to power pricing I'm used to in the US.
Notably Tiyo Triyanto, the miner quoted in the opening paragraphs, is now mining Litecoin instead of Bitcoin and betting on prices increasing before the ASIC arms race starts for that cryptocurrency.
Just over $0.07 in Manitoba .. which has gone up considerably (likely close to 50%) over the last 5-6 years! We use to have it great until they decided they need to build more dams :(
Sounds like the only people making money off of bitcoin mining are the manufacturers of these increasingly more powerful ASIC mining hardware. Once one gets developed and released, it's only a matter of time until it costs more in electricity than it's mining. Then, lo and behold, they're ready with an even faster/more energy-efficient one.
$114/day is actually a very good income income in Indonesia. For comparison, fresh grads are paid around $200 - $1000 a month (excl. bonuses) depending on the company (better pay for established, international corp).
The only problem I see is the reliability of the electricity provider itself. There are frequent surges and parts of Jakarta are known to experience regular rolling blackouts.
Article title is wrong, these are Litecoins not Bitcoins.
This might pay off mining 60LTC per day and hoarding them. The guy who started Litecoin now works for Coinbase, which may adopt Litecoin and will no doubt start a gigantic speculation bubble this Indonesian dude can cash out with
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/08/litecoin/
LTC GPU mining makes more sense. Right about when BTC ASICs started to appear, there was a thread in bitcointalk that LTC GPU mining made about 30% more than BTC at the time, so commercial miners were switching over.
$114 a day is equivalent of $14.25 working 8 hrs/day. I think there are many ways to make $14/hr without investing in expensive equipment (which will also need to be replaced eventually running that hot). Actually, person that is capable of building such thing and keeping it working could probably easily fetch much more than $14/hr.
Indonesia mainly runs on thermal power, it is kind of sad that those crypto currencies indirectly encourage making profits out of cheap labor and the planet itself.
If Indonesia uses thermal power then using the electricity generated from it has little negative environmental impact.
Additionally I'm unclear where anything is "making profits from cheap labor". The miner benefits from the low cost of living in Jakarta, but making that out to be a bad thing is like complaining that housing in Kansas isn't as expensive as New York.
On the flip side, since the network doesn't care where the miners live, for-profit mining will end up happening in countries with an abundance of hard-to-transport cheap renewable energy.
since litecoin uses scrypt hashing algorithm, which has memory requirement. early asic for litecoin mining is not likely to be as huge a performance jump as asic for bitcoin mining (compared to gpu mining).
so his investment may not be that bad. :)
This is a "fundamental flaw" of ANY capitalist system. The rich can usually make more money than the poor. Bitcoin is no worse than other systems (but better in other aspects, eg decentralization).
[+] [-] gibybo|12 years ago|reply
From this calculator: http://dustcoin.com/, you need about 60,000 KH/S to make $114 a day (excluding power cost). One of the most efficient $/hashrate GPUs for litecoin mining is the ATI 7950 at about $210 a piece and ~600 KH/s. 105 * 600 KH/s = ~60000 KH/s = ~$114, so it works out. That's $20,000. So if you spend $20,000 you can buy yourself a job that pays $114 a day. It will take 6 months just to break even. Better hope the difficulty hasn't increased enough in that time to make your GPUs irrelevant (hint: it probably will).
Keep in mind that I was very generously excluding the very significant cost of power, the very significant cost of all the motherboards/cpu/ram/power supplies to run those GPUs, and the power and space required to cool them. Realistically we're looking at more like $50k.
>“Currently I’m making about 60 litecoin per day,” he said. “I’ve kept 95% of the mining profit since April and once the major exchanges start accepting LTC, others will follow, and price is expected to soar. So that 60 LTC could turn into $1,500.”
This is absurd. If he thinks 60 LTC will be worth $1,500, he should spend the $20,000 he spent on GPUs on LTC instead. He'd turn $20,000 into $250,000 with no work required (another hint: assuming you can turn $20k into $250k in 6 months with no work as a sure thing is also absurd).
[+] [-] fleitz|12 years ago|reply
He'd make far more money if he wrote an e-book on how to cram 105 GPUs into your apartment to mine BTC.
[+] [-] acchow|12 years ago|reply
Uh...Power in the US costs 30+ cents/kWh? In which part of the country??
In Ontario, Canada, the price is about 6.7 cents/kWh during the night and peaks at 12.4 cents/kWh in the afternoon.
http://www.ontarioenergyboard.ca/OEB/Consumers/Electricity/E...
[+] [-] smokinn|12 years ago|reply
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm...
In the Europe the story is quite similar. The country with the most expensive electricity is Denmark at 29.5 but most vary between 10 and 20 cents.
http://www.energy.eu/
[+] [-] jpollock|12 years ago|reply
Here in NZ, I get a generation charge, a national lines charge, and a local lines charge per kwh. Then I've got an additional daily charge to be connected to the network. It works out to NZ$0.22/kwh.
Electricity isn't very useful when it's at the hydro lake!
[Edited to add numbers] Looking into it, Ontario power is:
(Peak 11AM-5PM) 12.4c/kWh generation. 3.37c/kWh distribution 1.21c/kWh transmission
$17.29/mo connection.
So, that's CDN16.98c/kWh delivered to a suburban home.
Still, nowhere near 30c/kWh.
[+] [-] ryanhuff|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mutagen|12 years ago|reply
Notably Tiyo Triyanto, the miner quoted in the opening paragraphs, is now mining Litecoin instead of Bitcoin and betting on prices increasing before the ASIC arms race starts for that cryptocurrency.
[+] [-] smsm42|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] free652|12 years ago|reply
400kWh is $127.93 or 32cents/kWh
[+] [-] sivetic|12 years ago|reply
Oh, and that's a flat rate.
[+] [-] Udo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ryandrake|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilyanep|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hhandoko|12 years ago|reply
The only problem I see is the reliability of the electricity provider itself. There are frequent surges and parts of Jakarta are known to experience regular rolling blackouts.
[+] [-] dobbsbob|12 years ago|reply
This might pay off mining 60LTC per day and hoarding them. The guy who started Litecoin now works for Coinbase, which may adopt Litecoin and will no doubt start a gigantic speculation bubble this Indonesian dude can cash out with http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/08/litecoin/
[+] [-] josephagoss|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ballard|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smsm42|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seiryuz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbenson|12 years ago|reply
Edit: Also, depending on how you want to look at it, the hour value is a bit off. $114/day * 7 days/week / 40 hours/week = $19.95.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] gbin|12 years ago|reply
source wikipedia: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Ind...
[+] [-] nl|12 years ago|reply
If Indonesia uses thermal power then using the electricity generated from it has little negative environmental impact.
Additionally I'm unclear where anything is "making profits from cheap labor". The miner benefits from the low cost of living in Jakarta, but making that out to be a bad thing is like complaining that housing in Kansas isn't as expensive as New York.
[+] [-] aianus|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] warrenmiller|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdfaoeu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swswsw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dalkore|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] na85|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrb|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tlrobinson|12 years ago|reply
Mining is a business, many businesses are capital intensive.