Private-equity firm revives zombie fossil-fuel power plant to mine bitcoin

我预感未来的新闻标题会是比特币矿主自建核电站,比特币矿主投资核聚变发电,比特币矿主投资戴森球。
谁说加密货币不能带来技术进步呢。🤣

Part of the controversy stems from the fact that Greenidge was once destined for the scrap heap. Its owner had gone bankrupt a decade ago, and the coal-fired power plant was retired and its operating permits abandoned. But then Atlas Holdings bought the plant in 2014 and spent $65 million to convert it to natural gas and get it running again. Greenidge restarted in 2017 and spent the next two years testing its bitcoin-mining strategy. Over time, it sold less electricity to the grid, devoting more and more power to its mining operations.

The plant’s shift to bitcoin-only operation comes at a time when New York state is fighting to keep cryptocurrency miners from taking advantage of the state’s cheap power. In 2018, the Public Service Commission gave municipal power companies the ability to raise rates on cryptocurrency customers.

Greenidge’s operations aren’t affected by PSC decisions, though. Their mining happens “behind the meter,” meaning it’s not affected by grid-level prices. And those operations appear to be fantastically profitable. Between February 2020 and February 2021, the company mined nearly 1,186 bitcoin at a cost of $2,869 per bitcoin. Today, one bitcoin is trading at $57,475.

Source: Private-equity firm revives zombie fossil-fuel power plant to mine bitcoin | Ars Technica

BitCoin Mining

在这里我不多解释什么是BitCoin,我只是根据网上的数据计算一下投机BitCoin Mining的收益。

一开始想到Amazon的EC2平台。
有人已经尝试过,EC2平台根本赚不回成本。其中很大原因在于EC2的计算平台是由Nvidia显卡搭建,虽然N卡支持双精度浮点计算,对科学运算有极大帮助,但BitCoin这边都是整数运算,几乎是同档次ATI显卡的运算能力的1/10。
顺便说说EC2平台的计算量:cg1.4xlarge这款配置大约能提供170Mhash/s,其中两个显卡分别提供75Mhash/s。[reference]
PS3的计算能力约为22Mhash/s,已经用上了6个SPE和2个PPE。[reference]

那么用ATI显卡自己搭平台呢?
HD5850这款显卡大约有370Mhash/s的能力,淘宝价格才1000来元。配置一个Mining专用的机器3000元应该就能搞定。[reference]

收益呢?
有一位用户在EC2平台上用了9小时获得了0.38BTC。
以此计算,约14.495Thash能产生1BTC。
HD5850约需要10.88个小时产生1BTC。
1BTC目前价格约为50CNY。
因此不计算电费和折旧的情况下需要27.2天收回3000元成本。
以上计算均假设BitCoin的难度没有提升。

FYI,ATI HD5970的计算能力约为800Mhash/s,HD5870约为400Mhash/s。[reference]

不过BitCoin的难度很可能会随之上升,这是由市场决定的。
顺便一说,我一点都不喜欢BitCoin这个项目。