Bw bitcoin cloud mining
Just like your phone and your computer, the production of Bitcoins is driven by economics. This article aims to break down the various factors so you understand Bitcoin better. Mining share on 5 Aug hash rate, source. We usually attribute Chinese manufacturing success to their cheap, skilled labour. However, unlike most manufacturing jobs, production of Bitcoin is done by computers. So why is China still the top Bitcoin miner?
Which other factors affect the production of Bitcoins? This blog post is all about the economic forces which drive mining pools to create these bitcoins that end up in your wallet. This article assumes you understand the basics about mining. Miners make money as long as they can earn more from selling bitcoin than spending on hardware and electricity costs incurred to create the bitcoins. Both of which are awarded when a new block is mined.
A miner can choose to include transactions based on transaction fees to optimize his fee earnings. The block reward is the reward they get for successfully mining a block. This reward is currently However, this block reward will halve every 4 years or so. The last halving occurred on 9 Julyand reduced the block reward from 25 to Learn more about block halving on our blog post about block reward halving.
In addition to block reward, a transaction fee is paid every time a transaction is made. This is an additional fee to incentivize miners to provide the service of confirming blocks to bitcoin users. This price has been on the rise, because of the congestion of the network due to the block size limit and the concentration of mining power as the arms war continues to escalate. Hence, the block size can be seen as a quota, and mining centralization is the strengthening of monopoly pricing power.
Block size limit has been seen to be an issue sinceas the increasing congestion of the 1mb block limit led to concerns about the functionality of Bitcoin as a payment network.
There has been a lot of discussion about this. Read more about this on our blog post:. Given the difficulty of bitcoin mining nowadays, coupled with the fact that successfully mining a bitcoin depends on chance, few people mine bitcoins by themselves. Instead, they spread out their earnings by joining mining pools, aggregations of bitcoin miners which connect to the same bitcoin node.
This allows them to work on the same problem at the same time, greatly increasing the chances that the pool will solve the block. If a miner in a pool mines a block, the rewards are shared according to hashing contribution. There various methods used to calculate earning distribution. Each mining pool has a slightly different distribution model. This kind of reward sharing allows miners earn a steady income over time. Instead of earning However, the formation of a pool also causes centralization of mining power.
Hence, the mining pools have an oversized influence over decision on the Bitcoin blockchain. This centralization has resulted in a reduction in mining nodes over time.
Furthermore, this creates a problem of trust. When mining nodes are fewer and mining is more centralized, it is more likely that these nodes can have greater market power over transaction fees. They will also have greater voting power over hard forks. Bitcoin prices can fluctuate unpredictably, and miners have come up with ways to ensure that they continue to profit and can find funds to expand their mining operations.
Bitcoin miners may use futures contracts with some big exchanges in order to lock down the prices to sell bitcoin at in the near future. Bitcoin miners also go crowdfunding for loans to raise funds to increase their hashing capacity.
Platforms such as Bitbank offer bitcoin loans that are paid back in BTC, especially for these loans to finance mining operations. There are also cloud mining contracts, which allow investors to mine for bitcoin without having to deal with hardware at all.
Buying a cloud mining contract, this is analogous to owning equity in a mining operation. The investor puts in funds to a cloud mining company, which uses the funds to buy mining equipment, rent space, pay salaries etc. Any bitcoins mined will go towards paying the expenses, and if there are additional bitcoins left over, it will go to the investor. Block size refers to the maximum size of a block as measured in megabytes. Today, the block size stands at 1Mb.
This can process a maximum of around transactions per block on the network. This translates to around 5 transactions per second. However, as compared to the volumes processed by transaction settlement networks such as major credit card companies, this is just a fraction of what would be required to create a global settlement network.
As the bitcoin community grows, the number of transactions on the network has been increasing. This has resulted in congestion, and increasing transaction fees as users have to pay more to get their transactions confirmed earlier.
As the block size limit is coded into the bitcoin protocol, a hard fork by the miners is required to apply a change in the block size. These changes are proposed in several proposals. Read our post on the block size debate to learn more. Bitcoins are mined today with state-of-the-art Application specific integrated chips ASICswhose sole purpose of existence is to mine bitcoins. Since mining is a competitive process, and the mining difficulty keeps on increasing, there is a constant arms race to produce faster and more energy efficient miners.
Although many miners find cheap electricity, not everyone does. Hence miners are always looking to upgrade their hardware. The market for older mining rigs is still liquid, because there are miners with various factors of production which could mean that mining with old rigs is still profitable. Electricity is a major input to ASICs, so reducing electricity bills is vital for a mining operation to stay profitable.
China, with her size, has plenty of natural resources. This has been driven by falling coal prices. China has also been building these coal-powered power plants to drive local job creation, even though this is not cost effective. This has led to overproduction of electricity in China. This may be bad news for electricity producers, but for bitcoin miners and other electricity users, this means electricity costs will be lower. Some miners are able to get electricity from private generators away from the grid.
These generators include small-scale hydroelectricity generators, who find it difficult to sell their power to the grid, especially in Summer. If this excess electricity is not used, it is usually wasted. Hence some miners are able to put this electricity to use at a cheaply and still support these small generators. Iceland is another popular location for bitcoin miners. Mining companies such as Bitfury and Genesis mining have taken advantage of their cheap hydroelectric and geothermal electricity for mining.
Electricity prices in Iceland are around USD0. At the scale these mining firms are operating, their cost savings are significant in Iceland. However, even if electricity costs were not an issue, newer mining setups have advantages such as faster hashing per unit less labour costs to maintain and reduced need for cooling, which is why electricity consumption is still a concern for Bitcoin miners. In spite of all the hype about how machines will replace humans, people play an indispensable role in maintaining the upkeep of mining operations.
These workers are in charge of ensuring that ASICs work to their full capacity around the clock. Some of their responsibilities include fixing ASICs, upgrading them to more energy efficient models, and ensuring they keep cool to optimize their efficiency. China has low labour costs and low costs of living, but this is rapidly changing as workers are more skilled and have been demanding more pay from their employees. China is also the producer of some of these chips.
As it is shipped out from China, Chinese miners have the advantage of getting faster new miners first before miners from other countries have finished dealing with shipping their ASIC miners.
Another factor is how fast a mining chip can be delivered to the miner. As Bitcoin mining is a competitive process, getting a chip delivered earlier means more profits to the miner. As many of these chips are manufactured in China, Chinese miners have the advantage of getting hold of these chips faster and upgrading their facilities faster than their competitors. This is more applicable to the temperate climates in northern China than the subtropical climates further south.
Electronics work better in cooler temperatures, because electrical conductivity is better when the components are cooler. This means that an ASIC would work closer to its full capacity given the same power input. Just like how your computer can overheat if you overwork it, ASICs can get very hot since they work all day and night.
To mitigate temperature issues, ASIC miner units come with its own fan, which is one of its distinguishing features when you look at it from the outside. Miners also keep their ASICs cool by installing them in the shade, and using big fans the circulate air in the rooms they are kept in. However, cooling is aided by favorable environmental temperatures.
With cooler temperatures, ASICs stay cooler more easily, and so they work better. This is the reason why miners such as Bitfury and Genesis mining have operations in Iceland, where average annual temperatures are only at 11C, among the coldest among any country.
In China, colder regions in the north are preferred, such as Liaoning province in northern China, although there are miners everywhere throughout China.
Although miners also profit from transaction costs collected from users, block reward is currently the biggest source of income. With the decrease of the block reward, mining revenue is halved and this can make mining unprofitable for miners with higher marginal costs.
The last bitcoin halving saw a major bitcoin mining pool, KnCminer, drop out of the game. Each halving represents a drastic drop revenues, and can result in miners dropping out because it is no longer profitable for them.