this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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bitcoin mining hasn't been profitable for a long time. Like, a decade or so.
...but you could buy specialized hardware for it
True, but the outlay of cost for the hardware was higher than the value of Bitcoin you would receive.
In theory if you didn't have heating you could get a cheap used machine and run it and the revenue might cover the cost of heating and you get a free to run space heater.
The power bill is more of a concern. Eventually it'll pay itself back
it has to pay for itself faster than it becomes unprofitale. Which is never, now
I know, not the point
Go for that moonshot bro, your creditors will be happy to wait I'm sure.
Just clarifying the idea. I don't support crime by holding up such networks
By design, it’s supposed to be barely profitable, so it makes sense it would cross that boundary once in a while. Then some miners leave the network or slow their hash rate, the difficulty is adjusted automatically, and it becomes profitable again. It’s actually a pretty interesting strategy.
Ostensibly, the difficulty depends on how many miners there are on the network. More miners = more difficult. Fewer miners = less difficult. The “difficulty” is just how “lucky” you have to be to hit a successful hash on a block. The block’s hash is based on the previous block + all the transactions you include in your block + a random number you add. That random number is what you change to try to hit a successful hash. If the hash starts with a certain number of zeroes, you have a successful block you can add to the chain, and you’re rewarded with some brand new coin in your wallet (you include that in the transactions in your block). If not, you change the random number and try again. How many times you have to try again is controlled by the leading zeroes requirement. You’re competing with every other miner on the network to find a successful block first.
The amount of new coin constantly goes down as the chain gets longer, until it hits zero and mining doesn’t create new coin. Then, you would charge a fee for including someone’s transaction (a lot of miners already charge a fee). The more zeroes required at the start of the hash, the “harder” it is to mine. The network automatically adjusts how many zeroes are required to keep new blocks being added at a roughly constant rate (one block every ten minutes is the target).
All of this is enforced by the algorithm Bitcoin miners use. If a “rogue miner” submits a block that doesn’t meet these criteria, the other miners just reject the block and don’t add it to their copy of the blockchain. The consensus is what really matters, and no one entity controls a majority of miners. Each miner has their own copy of the entire blockchain, so each miner can validate any block it receives before adding it to the chain.
Fewer miners would mean blocks are being added too slowly at the current difficulty, and the network adjusts to make it easier to hit a successful hash. The network automatically adjusts difficulty every 2,016 blocks (it’s all just math, and it’s part of the Bitcoin algorithm), which is roughly every 2 weeks. So, it should in theory only be not profitable for up to two weeks.
(Please note that this is simplified to the point of being technically wrong, but in principle, that’s how it works. Technically, in a mining pool, you can still get rewarded even if you don’t hit a successful hash. You get rewarded based on the hash rate you provide to the pool, with the understanding that you won’t get the full reward when you hit a successful block. Also, it’s not really about the number of zeroes, but a “target” hash that your hash needs to be “below”. A hash might have the same number of leading zeroes, but not be below the target, so wouldn’t be successful. That’s really unlikely. In practice, this basically means more leading zeroes. If the target got high enough, it can even have no leading zeroes. That would probably require an intergalactic sized network.)
Also a clue from one of the links is that "German industrial rate customers, cost is $200k/btc". Their industrial rate is $0.25/kwh, and so then their claim is based on 12c/kwh utility rates. Utility rates has pretty much always been cost prohibitive. Wholesales and behind the meter power is certainly an advantage large scale mining uses.
Wouldn't it be easier if a bunch of people paid a dollar every second, and one of those people was randomly selected to get every dollar submitted?
it would, but the act of giving a dollar doesn't double as a way to validate transactions
Thanks for the refresher. I'm aware of the basics, but assumed the difficulty measured by the number of zeros could only increase. Apparently difficulty can decrease, and I've read it's expected to decrease very soon to keep the system running a while longer.
Bitcoin's creator was smart enough to design a system that automatically adjust to remain profitable for several years without intervention, but not smart enough to foresee social and environmental costs.
It's a good example that illustrate why automated systems shouldn't be left running unsupervised, even if it's designed by the best minds with the best of intentions.
There are other methods of operating a blockchain, besides proof of work, which are much more energy efficient. Think of Bitcoin being like a coal fired power-plant and some other cryptos based on proof of stake being akin to solar panels.
but also proof of stake is just taking off the mask and outright saying that rich people control the network
It's a good example that illustrate why automated systems shouldn't be left running unsupervised, even if it's designed by the best minds with the best of intentions.
The network is constantly supervised and mining is a competitive business. The network was built to adjust, and is working precisely as intended.
The network was built to adjust
Then why doesn't it adjust to avoid negative social and environmental effects? Probalby because it's not possible to adjust bitcoin's algorithm, only some parameters, and because miners don't have enough intensive to abandon bitcoin for something less destructive.
My understanding is it's not possible to modify nor fix bitcoin's core algorithm, which include the difficulty and consensus logic.
A hard fork is possible, which means leaving the bitcoin network and setting up an alternative (hopefully better) network with a different algorithm.
lol it can’t adjust on public approval. It’s software that runs. It’s valuable. If it wasn’t, people wouldn’t run it.
It can hard fork with a consensus mechanism change anytime someone writes one and people decide it’s the best path forward. Ethereum decided this and did this.
That’s not happening with Bitcoin because those that understand how it works agree it’s the best system to use.
I use Bitcoin as a store of value, and Solana for day to day stuff and financial investments like lending and liq providing. That’s my preference, for now. It’s a very fluid industry, nothing is set in stone, although Bitcoin appears to be pretty solidly the preferred secure store of value.
lol it can’t adjust on public approval. It’s software that runs.
It can. Software is written by people. Its authors can build it with an update mechanism.
Crypto currencies such as Tezos have a vote-based update mechanism and a community that periodically submits algorithm changes for approval.
Bitcoin doesn't have a update mechanism that allows smooth changes. Its take it or leave it (aka hard fork). Peole can move away from it, and it's sad that so many still haven't.
It’s the same with all the chains. An algorithm change is a breaking change. If you don’t implement it, your validating node will not continue with the rest.
Bitcoin has the BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) process. BIP-52 is an example of a proposal to change the algorithm due to energy concerns.
If the humans reach consensus it will change. However, I maintain that software can’t be programmed to adjust for social concerns - the humans have to change it.
New data tells us that mining a single Bitcoin or one BTC costs the largest public mining companies over $82,000 USD, which is nearly double the figure it did the previous quarter. Estimates for smaller organisations say you need to spend about $137,000 to get that single BTC in return. BTC is currently only valued at $94,703 USD, which seems to be a problem in the math department.
Bitcoin mining will always be profitable for the people with the cheapest electricity and largest economies of scale. There is a difficulty adjustment algorithm in the protocol that ensures this. When the price tanks people turn off thier miners, difficulty adjusts downwards, and then it takes less electricity to find a block.
tl;dr title is wrong
this is what im always trying to get people to understand. bitcoin is programmed to take more resources to artificially increase in value. its why its so horrible for the environment and why it could never really be used as a currency. Now other coins fix this issue but bitcoin tends to be popular because its fixed. Some even do useful work like gridcoin.
Libertarian economic theory failing in front of our very eyes
At this point, if we were smart, we would recognize that this thing is going nowhere and leverage it to drive the renewables market. The planet will be sterile before any revolution happens. Capitalism is another thing that is going nowhere. But you can fold it in on itself to trick it into actually doing something good for a change.
Gotta play the hand you're dealt.
Agreed. Sometimes we need to coopt the tools and language of the oppressor to get closer to the revolution
Yeah this article is woefully uninformed. Author seems to be butt hurt about GPU pricing rather than any serious interest in how the protocol actually works.
The quote is actually from the article this one paraphrased and linked to, while leaving out all of the actual, you know, information
So wait. You'd have to read the article and not just the headline to know the story?
The headline isn't accurate as usual, but isn't completely wrong either. Anyway, the article you've quoted is more informative than the one I posted, so thanks for that quote.
We're at a point where it's no longer profitable for individual miners, even if we ignore externalities like the cost we're collectively paying due to pollution and carbon emissions.
Mining require increasing amount of energy and resources as time pass, so unless there's a radical change in bitcoin's algorithm or unless energy becomes free, we should expect mining to get non-profitable in more and more situations.
We're at a point where it's no longer profitable for individual miners
We have been at that point since GPU mining stopped being feasible in 2014, it's just gotten worse. ASICs made it so the only people who could profit off mining were people who could place a wholesale sized order of hardware from bitmain, etc. Anyone else who claimed to be mining profitably was likely someone who was:
- buying old hardware 2nd hand (or new hardware at MSRP) and capitalizing on free electricity in their rental
- not selling their Bitcoin immediately (they weren't making money from mining, they were making it from speculating)
- lived in Quebec and could double dip (North America's cheapest grid + free heating for 8 months of the year)
unless there's a radical change in bitcoin's algorithm
The algorithm already does this though. Every 2016 blocks if it took more than 10 minutes per block, the difficulty of mining bitcoin goes down, not up. This is why every halving event you see a radical drop in difficulty, because at a given kWh you are producing half as many bitcoin - meaning people turned off their miners because it's less profitable. The flipside is the rate of issuance goes down, so there is a lower inflationary effect, and the price of Bitcoin usually also skyrockets (which means eventually these miners re-enter, and difficulty eventually goes back to where it was). It can never get to a point where Bitcoin mining is completely unprofitable unless the price goes to zero, because there will always be a guy with a solar panel and fully paid-off hardware who can mine it for free. Granted, it can get to a point where a lot of people have to take a huge loss on capital expenditures if the price nosedives and never recovers
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This is exactly as designed. Bitcoin mining is intended to becomes less profitable the more people do it, using market forces to control the amount of mining that's being done. Headlines like this are kind of ridiculous.
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Finally.
It's actually been that way for years outside of places with subsidized/corrupt pricing.
You mean getting paid for using energy is not a working business model? Was about time that the market found that out
Turns out the giant earth heater wasn’t the best business concept.
Getting paid for using energy is literally every business model.
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It remains profitable for scammers who use malware botnets consisting of other peoples computing power and electricity.
Not if you outright steal the electricity.
I remember a thread where someone had put a mining rig inside a hotel or apartment's cleaning room and was running it off the stolen electricity.
Good.
Now the prices of GPUs will go back to normal right?... right?
Bitcoin mining hasn't had anything to do with GPUs since 2014. Ether, since 2022. It's the AI people you're looking for.
I don't think GPU are used for bitcoin any more? You need ASICs to be able to hope for any return on investment.
Malware that feature crypto mining is probably still using GPUs, since the person getting the coins is not paying the utility bill.
Hey, sorry to break it to you, but there's this thing called "AI"...
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