

Making $114 a day mining Bitcoin in Jakarta - ldn_tech_exec1
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/16/blockchain-smashers/

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gibybo
How much did he spend on the 105 GPUs?

From this calculator: [http://dustcoin.com/](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
The returns on BTC are atrocious, however, selling shovels to this industry
seems wise.

He'd make far more money if he wrote an e-book on how to cram 105 GPUs into
your apartment to mine BTC.

~~~
g0lden
an illustrated e-book. I would pay to see how an apartment houses 105 GPU

~~~
dasil003
Probably best attempted in somewhere like Siberia rather than Indonesia.

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acchow
FTA: > Electricity in Jakarta, Indonesia costs three cents per kilowatt hour.
That’s 30 cents less than power in the US and Europe.

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...](http://www.ontarioenergyboard.ca/OEB/Consumers/Electricity/Electricity+Prices)

~~~
smokinn
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.

[http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm...](http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a)

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/](http://www.energy.eu/)

~~~
acomjean
It is wrong. The links you provide seem to be more accurate. I write software
that deals with monitoring power (powerhouse dynamics). We have customers in a
lot of states, and to estimate their costs they have to input the cost
per/kWh.

In the US power costs usually between 8-12 cents per kilowatt hour. There are
extra costs if your commercial which can add 10-20%.

We've found that power cost, especially commercial power is oddly hard to
estimate with "demand charges" and rates varrying with time... There are a few
companies compiling this cost data in detail which we'll likely be buying
soon.

~~~
marincounty
I know in the Bay Area Commercial rates charged by PG&E are lower than
Residential. Never understood why.

Actually, our electricity in the SF Area is very expensive. I don't know why.
One half of our power is from Dams. I think it's 1/2.

Actually, I think they charge us so much is because they know we will pay.

To all the Élon Musk fans, I wonder what your PG&E bill will be?

While I'm on this subject--yea, I'm an electrician, don't heat your house with
elecrtic heaters. They will really eat up the kilowatts, and look into Radiant
hydronic heating if updating. My bill is 1/4 of what it used to be. You can
install yourself, if determined.

~~~
yardie
I learned this the expensive, hard way.

I had a studio in Paris that only had electric heat. 2 months after it started
getting really cold I got the electric bill, $250. After that I shut off the
heater at the breaker, bought a portable heater and a jug (20L) of kerosene
for $80. That jug lasted 2 winters.

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ryandrake
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.

~~~
ilyanep
When the gold rush happens, sell shovels!

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hhandoko
$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.

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dobbsbob
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/](http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/08/litecoin/)

~~~
josephagoss
If Litecoin goes up in value, he is far better off just using all that money
to buy Litecoins now when they are cheap.

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smsm42
$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.

~~~
kbenson
Ah, but what does $114 a day buy you in Jakarta? If it pays for your housing
and expenses, that's not a bad way to spend an extended beach vacation...

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.

~~~
edvinbesic
Also, it doesn't exclude the option of a day job + the $114 you get "for free"
once you've set up the farm.

~~~
smsm42
As far as I understood from the article, this thing is not set up and forget
affair, it requires maintenance. I imagine if you leave it and some cooler
breaks, it could very well cause a fire or melt down completely.

~~~
daniel-cussen
Not really. If one cooler breaks, the card shuts off on its own.

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gbin
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.

source wikipedia:
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Ind...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Indonesia)

~~~
nl
Err...

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.

~~~
EdwardDiego
> If Indonesia uses thermal power then using the electricity generated from it
> has little negative environmental impact.

Thermal as in burning fossil fuels, not geothermal.

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warrenmiller
'105 GPU system ' it'll be redundant is about a week or two when ASICs hit
hard

~~~
asdfaoeu
He's mining litecoin which isn't easily mined by asics. Any GPU bitcoin mining
is already very unprofitable.

~~~
xyzzy123
Actually, ASIC mining bitcoin is fairly unprofitable at the moment :/ A 60GH/s
BFL machine nets 0.11 BTC (about $15/day at current exchange rates) right now.

Bitcoin difficulty has risen MASSIVELY lately.

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Dalkore
We run BitcoinASICHosting.com to provide mining hardware co-location and
management.

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na85
This is part of the fundamental flaw of bitcoin. It privileges the wealthy who
can afford ever-faster and ever-more-expensive computer hardware.

~~~
tlrobinson
You don't need to mine in order to use Bitcoin.

Mining is a business, many businesses are capital intensive.

~~~
na85
I never said you need to mine, but wealthy people who can afford ASIC miners
and the energy they require have a much easier time acquiring BTC.

~~~
pudquick
Having enough money that you can invest it (in hardware or business processes)
to make more money for yourself is an advantage over those people who barely
have enough money to live on.

I don't consider this a design flaw in the concept of money itself. The same
goes for BTC.

