Bitcoin Mining in Paraguay

About Paraguay

Paraguay is a landlocked country located in South America. It is bordered by Bolivia to the north and west, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Argentina to the south and southwest. Asunción, the capital and largest city of Paraguay, is situated on the eastern bank of the Paraguay River. Paraguay has a population of approximately 7 million people.

Paraguay has a diverse cultural heritage with influences from its indigenous Guarani population as well as from Spanish colonization. Guarani and Spanish are both official languages, and the country is known for its unique bilingual culture. Paraguay has a mixed economy with agriculture, manufacturing, and services sectors contributing to its GDP.

Paraguay has a rich history, including periods of indigenous civilizations, Spanish colonization, and subsequent independence. It has experienced political and social challenges throughout its history, including periods of authoritarian rule and political instability. However, it has made progress in recent years towards democratic governance and economic development.

Paraguay is known for its natural beauty, including the Chaco region, which is a vast, sparsely populated area of forests, savannas, and wetlands. The Iguazu Falls, a UNESCO World Heritage site shared with Brazil and Argentina, is also a popular tourist destination. Paraguay has a unique cuisine that combines indigenous and Spanish influences, with highlights such as chipa (a type of cheese bread) and sopa paraguaya (a traditional cornbread).

The 90% electricity from hydropower

Paraguay is known for its abundant and largely renewable energy resources, which contribute significantly to the country’s power generation. The primary sources of energy in Paraguay are hydropower and biomass.

Hydropower is the dominant source of electricity in Paraguay, accounting for approximately 90% of the country’s total electricity production. The Itaipu Dam, located on the Paraguay-Brazil border, is one of the world’s largest hydroelectric power plants and generates a significant portion of Paraguay’s electricity. Itaipu Dam is jointly operated by Paraguay and Brazil, with Paraguay receiving a significant portion of the electricity generated, which is used to meet domestic demand and for export to Brazil.

In addition to Itaipu Dam, Paraguay has other hydropower facilities, such as Yacyretá Dam and Acaray Dam, which also contribute to the country’s power generation capacity. These hydropower plants harness the energy of Paraguay’s rivers, which are abundant due to the country’s geographic location and topography.

Biomass is another important source of energy in Paraguay, particularly for cooking and heating purposes in rural areas. Biomass energy is derived from organic materials such as wood, agricultural residues, and animal dung, and is used for cooking and heating in traditional stoves and fireplaces in many rural households.

Paraguay has been recognized for its substantial renewable energy production, with a large proportion of its electricity coming from hydropower and biomass sources. The country has made efforts to promote renewable energy as a sustainable and environmentally friendly source of power, and continues to invest in the development of its energy sector to meet growing demand and ensure energy security.

Bitcoin miners are gathering in Paraguay

Bitcoin mining activities seem to start from early 2021. More Paraguay investors were trying to purchase bitcoin miners from China, including the spare parts such as control boards, power supply and cables. Because Paraguay is lacking of the electronics products, and they have to import all of those products to start.

Due to the cheap power rate, Paraguay investors prefer to invest in low-priced machines, even though high power consumption is the main factor to be considered by most of the bitcoin miners, but it’s not the biggest issue in Paraguay. So far around 513PH/s bitcoin hashrates are running in this country, which is 0.15% of global bitcoin hashrates. Paraguay has the big potential to be the next bitcoin miners hub in the near future. Of course we also need to know many factors may fluctuate the bitcoin mining activities, including market conditions, regulatory changes, technological advancements, and environmental factors.

Chainbulletin

Even though hydropower in Paraguay is attracting the global bitcoin miners, the drawbacks can not be overlooked. The high temperature and high humility in Paraguay may impact the machines effectiveness and shorten the lifespan of your machines.

Paraguay has a predominantly subtropical climate characterized by hot summers, mild winters, and high levels of precipitation. The climate in Paraguay can be broadly categorized into two main seasons: the wet season and the dry season.

Wet Season: The wet season in Paraguay typically lasts from October to March, with peak rainfall occurring in January and February. During the wet season, Paraguay experiences high temperatures, high humidity levels, and heavy rainfall, which can sometimes result in floods in some regions. The average temperatures during the wet season range from 24 to 36 degrees Celsius (75 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit), with high humidity.

Dry Season: The dry season in Paraguay generally lasts from April to September. During this time, the weather is typically drier and cooler compared to the wet season. The average temperatures during the dry season range from 15 to 30 degrees Celsius (59 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit), with lower humidity levels.

So far most of miners in Paraguay are air-cooling machines, we expect more hydro-cooling machines will be imported into the country due to its high temperature climate.

No specific laws related to Bitcoin mining yet in Paraguay

Paraguay does not have specific regulations or laws related to Bitcoin mining yet. But the country did not pass a bill that would have clarified ruled regarding the cost of electricity imposed on bitcoin miners. If the bill was passed, it would have limited outsized charges levied against bitcoin miners for their energy usage. So Paraguay like other countries, is also facing the risk of government policy legislation.

Events in Paraguay

Bitmain will hold their meetup activity in Paraguay on May 5. It’s the first time that a famous bitcoin miner producer hold industrial meetup in Paraguay, believe it will uncover more information for global bitcoin mining investors.

How to cool down Bitcoin miners( Part 2)

To cool down the Bitcoin machines, usually we use 3 ways:

  • Air cooling
  • Immersion cooling
  • Hydro cooling

The ASIC machines launched before the year 2022 are applying air cooling with fans. Bitmain started to launch hydro cooling in 2022, such as S19pro+ Hydro, T19 Hydro and S19 Hydro. To maximize the mining profits, miners are trying everything to overlock the ASIC machines. But the machines will get heated while overlocking, and overheating will damage the electronics, so various ways of cooling are applied in Bitcoin mining. Immersion cooling is popular before hydro-cooling machines were launched to the market.

How do hydro-cooling machines work?

Hydro cooling, also known as liquid cooling, is a cooling system that uses a liquid coolant to remove heat from the components of a crypto-mining machine. The process works by circulating liquid through a series of pipes or channels that are in direct contact with the components generating heat.

The liquid coolant absorbs heat from the components, which is then carried away from the mining machine and dissipated into the surrounding environment. This is usually done through a radiator or heat exchanger, which is typically located outside the mining machine.

In hydro cooling systems, the liquid coolant is often a mixture of water and antifreeze, although other specialized cooling liquids are also available. The liquid coolant is pumped through the system using a pump and is typically circulated through the components using a series of tubes or channels.

Hydro cooling is generally more efficient than traditional air cooling methods because the liquid is better at absorbing and transferring heat than air. This means that the components of a mining machine can operate at lower temperatures, which can improve their lifespan and overall performance.

However, hydro cooling systems can be more complex and expensive to install than traditional air cooling systems, as they require additional components such as pumps, radiators, and tubing. Additionally, hydro cooling systems require regular maintenance, as the coolant can become contaminated or evaporate over time.

Choose immersion cooling or hydro cooling?

When deciding between immersion cooling and hydro cooling for mining machines, there are several factors that you should consider:

  1. Efficiency: Immersion cooling is generally more efficient than hydro cooling, as it allows for direct contact between the coolant and the mining components. This means that immersion cooling can typically achieve lower operating temperatures and higher overclocking speeds, which can lead to better mining performance. However, immersion cooling can also be more expensive and difficult to implement than hydro cooling.
  2. Maintenance: Both immersion cooling and hydro cooling require regular maintenance to ensure optimal performance. However, immersion cooling may require more maintenance due to the risk of coolant leakage or contamination, as well as the need to regularly replace the coolant.
  3. Cost: Immersion cooling is typically more expensive than hydro cooling, as it requires specialized equipment such as tanks, pumps, and heat exchangers. Hydro cooling is generally more affordable and easier to install, but may not be as effective at cooling as immersion cooling.
  4. Available space: Immersion cooling requires more physical space than hydro cooling, as it requires a tank to hold the coolant. If you have limited space available for your mining setup, hydro cooling may be a better option.
  5. Noise: Hydro cooling can be quieter than immersion cooling, as it does not require a separate cooling tank or pump. If noise is a concern for you, hydro cooling may be a better option.
Conclusion

To decide to apply immersion cooling or hydro cooling, you should consider your specific needs and budget and of course which ASIC mining machines you’ve chosen.

How to Cool Down Bitcoin Miners? ( Part 1)

Why do the mining machines need to be cooled down?

Let’s see what a typical Bitcoin mining rig would consist of:

  • A power supply unit (PSU) to provide adequate power to run the miners
  • One or more mining devices. Miners typically use Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), which are designed specifically for mining. Standard GPUs that are used in desktops and laptops can also be used, with various graphic cards being the most efficient for different mining different cryptocurrencies.
  • A controller, which could be a dedicated miner or a computer. This is used to manage the mining devices and monitor their performance.
  • Cooling fans to keep the temperature of the miners within operational limits.
  • Optional: a frame to house and protect the components.

Mining rigs generate a lot of heat and if they are not properly cooled, they can overheat and break down. People even are thinking to heat their home with Bitcoin mining in winter.

The operating temperature for Antminer S19 is range between 0-40°C, so you have to control the environment temperature below 40°C to make sure the machines running correctly. However, the range could be reduced in reality because of various reasons, such as dust, humility, etc. It is recommended that the ambient temperature could be controlled between 15-35°C and the ideal temperature is 25°C.

If your miners happened to refuse to work by the reason of overheating, you can try two ways to resolve the issue:

  1. Cool down the environment’s temperature
  2. Clean up the dust covering the machines and components
How to Cool the Bitcoin mining rigs?

Currently, we know three ways to control the running machines’ overheat: air cooling, immersion cooling and water cooling.

Air cooling

Air cooling system is the primary way to cool machines in the world, including mining rigs. You can always find built-in ventilation fans in each mining rig. Heat is dissipated by increasing the flow of air over the mining rig. In cold weather, ambient air mixed with hot recirculated air is used to cool the mining equipment. That’s the reason that most investors prefer to deploy their mining rigs in the locations with cold weather, such as North America, Iceland, Canada, etc. To increase the effectiveness of air cooling, energy-sapping refrigeration components like chillers and air handlers are often needed.

Immersion cooling

Immersion cooling, also called liquid submersion cooling, is the practice of completely submerging, or immersing, the mining rig in a thermally-conductive liquid with greater insulating properties than ordinary air. The liquid is usually dielectric oil. The heat generated by the rigs is transferred to the oil, which dissipates the heat away from the rigs. There are two types of immersion cooling named as single and double phase.

The rigs are immersed in a dielectric fluid, and the heat will be absorbed by the fluid, then the fluid is pumped and circulated around a tank. The heat is dissipated in this way to be called single phase.

In the double phase, it will involve a sealing server inside a bath of specially engineered fluorocarbon-based liquid. Once the heat boils the liquid causes the phase to change from liquid to gas, and the vapor will be condensed back to the liquid through the system. In this way, the frame of the rigs is even no need in this process, they only need the hash boards involved, said Mr. Lee, one of the engineers. But in this process, it may generate toxic gas, which the operators need to be aware of it and protect themselves once involving the work.

Immersion cooling is applied due to its cost optimization. It can reuse heat and lower electricity waste. Also, it reduces the noise and dust which usually make the rigs overheat. As we know, some miners prefer to overlock, especially when the Bitcoin price is pumping, and overlocking will get higher hashrates to generate more profits. Immersion cooling makes the overlocking more possible without damaging components because of overheat. Normally, immersion cooling is one of the ways to extend the lifetime of mining rigs.

However, the drawbacks of immersion cooling may make miners delist it from their plans. Even if immersion cooling is so good at cooling mining rigs, but the cost is also very high. Especially in the bear market, when people are trying hard to control the cost, the costly cooling method can’t be their choice if they want to keep generating profits. The other drawback is oil maintenance. As we mentioned before, the dielectric oil is used in the immersion cooling process, and the oil will also be maintained properly or even clean off, which is money cost and time-consuming. Even though it’s a high cost, Mr. Lee also believes the immersion cooling will be largely applied in the next bull run. It makes us imagine how high the Bitcoin price will hit, so the miners will get their harvest.

Water/Hydro cooling

Recently, the sound of hydro cooling is spreading in the Bitcoin mining market. The hydro series machines launched by Bitmain are getting more inquiries these days.

S19pro+ Hyd. 191T 27.5J/T

It’s said on the official website that the hydro machine is designed as high-grade waterproof and dustproof components to ensure long-term mining operations. Because the entire miner operates without fans, so no noise will be generated but only the sound of water flowing.

Sounds interesting, isn’t it? Bitcoin mining was once complained about due to its loud annoying noise, but now it might become the ‘sleep aid’. But what is the true story? Let’s involve it in the next article.

Resource:
Ryan Clancy, How to heat your home with Bitcoin mining
Ezblockchain, What’s better for Bitcoin mining

The Top 10 Financial Events in 2022, What’s Ahead in 2023

1. U.S. stocks fall

U.S. stocks experienced the biggest fall this year since 2009. As of December 19, S&P 500 index fell 19.9%, and the rising in past three years stopped. Moreover, the decline is much more severe than it happened in 2011, 2016 and 2019, and close to the year 2009 when the financial crisis happened.

The bearish second market and depleted liquidation are impacting the launch of new stocks from companies and venture capitalists.

2. Fed raises Fund rates

The Fed started to raise the rates to control inflation. The inflation resulted from the loose monetary policy due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The Fed rates raised 7 times in 2022, the most impressive one is the four consecutive rates raised by 75bps. The current fund rate is 4.25%-4.5% which is the highest federal funds rate since 2007. The loose monetary policy is also impacting the central banks of major countries such as China and Japan to raise rates accordingly.

The central banks need to make efforts to control inflation as well as prevent a recession, and they should find the balance.

3. Technology stocks fall

Technology stocks are hit severely due to the fallback of the global economy’s liquidity. Usually, technology companies are growth-type and the market is focusing on the growth potential in the future. However, rates hike is lowering those companies’ valuation.

For example, Netflix stock was quickly falling with the end of the work-from-home policy in developed countries, and the same happened on similar stocks with the work-from-home conception. META ( known as Facebook) stock fell because of the unexpectedly high cost, and the project can’t pay back to investors in short term. Amazon stock is also falling with the bearish mood spreading and the rising risk of recession. The stocks of the three technology companies fell by 50% in 2022.

4. Cryptocurrency prices fall

The current price of Bitcoin is under $17k, which is around a 75% fall compared to the ATH of $66K on November 10th, 2021. Below are the Bitcoin prices today in history.

In 2022, some disappointing events happened, and the whole market is in a bearish mood.

  • LUNA crash

LUNA price fell from $80 to a few cents by May 12, 2022.

  • FTX crash

FTX Trading Ltd., known as FTX ( Futures Exchange), was founded in 2019, headquartered in the Bahamas. FTX has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the US court system since November 11, 2022.

The peak of FTX was in July 2021, and it had over one million users and was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange in volume.

  • Core Scientific filed for bankruptcy

Core Scientific Inc., is a crypto mining company, headquartered in Austin, Texas. It is listed as NASDAQ: CORZ, and its market capitalization was $46.47 million by November 30, 2022.

Core Scientific filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, and the stock is down 98% during the year.

5. Russia-Ukraine War

The Russia-Ukraine war began on February 24, 2022. The war results in inflation and economic recession.

With the outbreak of the war, the prices of gas and oil raised significantly which was $123 on Mar 8, 2022, then down to $73 currently. The war also impacted the price of food in a short term.

6. Recession risk in Europe is rising

European economy is facing the rising risk of recession by the impact of Russia-Ukraine conflict, power supply chain strain and rising rates by central bank.

European Central Bank has raised interest rates by 200bps in three meetings, and it’s the fastest record ever.

According to the 2023 macroeconomic outlook of the Institute of International Finance, the slowdown in economic growth will be dominated by Europe next year. Because Europe is the major region affected by the war conflicts, and the market confidence dropped sharply. The euro zone economy is expected to contract by 2% next year.

7. HK stocks rebound impressively

Hong Kong Stocks were weak due to global economic recession but rebound impressively afterwith the new epidemic control policy operated.

The Hang Seng Index rebounded by 35% from the bottom in October. Stocks such as medicine, technology and real estate were the top rebounders. Some stocks experienced 200% rising in short term.

8. breakthrough in stock audit cooperation between China and U.S.

The U.S. and Chinese government reached a Statement of Protocol Agreement regarding cooperation on inspecting the audit work papers of U.S.-listed Chinese companies on August 26, 2022.

On December 15, 2022, the PCAOB ( Public Company Accounting Oversight Board) announced that it has secured complete access to inspect and investigate audit firms in mainland China and Hong Kong for the first time in history. At the same time, some Chinese stocks experienced the historical rebound.

9. Investments inflow and outflow from China

The first net outflow happened from Mar 9, 2022 to June 1, 2022, and the second happened from Oct 24, 20222 to November 10, 2022. As of December 20, the cumulative net inflows are $118 billion ( 825 billion yuan) which is at the lowest record since 2016. Comparing to the net inflows which are $618 billion in 2021, this year is down 81%.

10. Global investors are bullish on Chinese stocks

With cancelling the zero-Covid policy, the daily life and work in China are back to normal progressively. Chinese economy is starting to recover in next year.

What’s more, the National Immigration Administration of China announced on December 27, 2022 that they will optimize policies and measures of immigration administration starting from January 8, 2023. The policy will resume in an orderly manner the acceptance and examination of the Chinese citizens’ application for ordinary passports for the purposes of tourism and friends-visiting abroad. Same will be resumed for foreign visitors.

What’s Ahead in 2023

Here comes the economy outlook of 2023 by JPMorgan:

  1. U.S. economy likely to slow further in 2023, enter a mild recession
  2. Fed’s hiking cycle nearing the endgame; terminal funds rate expected to reach 5%
  3. Consumers enter 2023 on solid financial footing, but with less cushion than in 2022
  4. Manufacturing sector headwinds are building; services still benefitting from normalization
  5. Housing market activity likely to stay low with mortgage rates high
  6. Inflation set to fall quickly from peak, but remain above the Fed’s 2% target at end of 2023
  7. Labor market should start to loosen amid slower growth environment
  8. A stronger dollar has mixed implications for the economic outlook
  9. Supply chains getting back to (new) normal
  10. Expect improved credit market conditions in 2023, but also higher spreads and defaults

How do ETH miners feel about the Merge?

So the Merge is on the brink of happening…finally.

Excitement and jubilation are in the air. But not everybody is looking forward to this monumental moment.

Those miners are just different eh?

To recap a bit, for those who have been living under a rock, Ethereum is on the verge of upgrading its consensus protocol from a Proof of Work network to a Proof of Stake network. Proof of Work required the processing power of many specialized computers to run highly complex mathematical computations, such as SHA256. With Proof of Stake, miners can participate by staking a minimum amount of ETH in “pools” to have a chance of being part of the consensus protocol. No 3rd party computing machines are necessary and some may say this is beneficial to the environment as less energy intake is needed. In Bitcoin, Proof of Work is still the main consensus protocol which has been one of the leading reasons Bitcoin is so decentralized. But Bitcoin does receive flack for using a lot of energy.

So considering Ethereum’s Proof of Work will slowly become obsolete, this leaves its existing miners in the dust with what to do next. There will be no more ETH for them to mine for using their hoards of GPU miners. This is reflected in the markets for GPUs as well. For example, NVIDIA GPU prices have taken a beating over the past few months. A NVIDIA RTX 3090 GPU in May 2021 would have cost over $3,000. Now that same GPU is selling for just under $930 which represents over a 70% drop in price.

Some mining companies such as Hive Blockchain and Hut 8 Mining Corp. have released updated business plans to reflect how they will deal with the post-Merge. Hive, a publicly traded company, plans to explore other blockchains to continue its mining operations. Hut 8 Mining, another major miner, will meanwhile pursue ventures outside of crypto1.

If you think about it, a lot of mining revenue is going to be funneling to other validators on the Proof of Stake network. Ethereum miners generated $733 million in revenue in August 2022. The question then becomes, how will those POW miners make up for that loss of revenue?

Many other miners are looking for creative ways in repurposing their plethora of running GPU rigs. Some have decided to use them for supporting cloud computing, artificial intelligence, Machine Learning, or VFX rendering services to customers.

Even some miners are looking to redirect their hashrates towards another forked Ethereum token, Ethereum Classic. The token ETC, over the past few weeks, witnessed network metrics surging to lifetime highs and ETC tokens gaining value in a mostly little-changed crypto market. The Ethereum Classic hashrate reached over 48.64 terahashes per second (TH/s) as of Tuesday morning, having surged more than 133% since July 2.

Some other PoW coins have also been a hot choice for Ethereum miners to pivot to. Other coins suchs as Ravencoin, Bitcoin Gold, Monero, and ZCash have seen some interest recently. Many miners originally were not optimistic that the Merge would even happen at all, but now that it is, many miners are feeling a sense of sadness knowing that their profitable venture is going away.

Some have even decided to stick it through by opting to continue to mine the ETH PoW token when the Merge happens. These miners, although a very small bunch, believe in the soon-to-be forked coin when it happens. Many in the space don’t think this ETH PoW token will gain traction or popularity, but many can also make the argument that Ethereum Classic is still around. The crypto space is not entirely filled with all profit seekers, but rather many in the space are in it for the tech and its altruism.

For the past year, Ethereum hashrate has been quite steady with hashrates peaking around May of this year. Ironically, many miners have been loading up on hashrates to take advantage of the last seconds of PoW mining on Ethereum. But after the Merge completes, expect to see a load of miners halt their mining operations.

Perhaps a win for the environmental sustainability proponents but maybe a loss for the Proof of Work diehards who say that form of consensus as the most optimal form in cryptocurrencies. Or perhaps many miners would also pivot their hashrates to the king of PoW, Bitcoin. Maybe Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum, will somehow plan to incorporate mining back into Etherem. Then again, earlier when New York State Senate lawmakers passed a bill that will halt permits for new cryptocurrency mining facilities, Vitalik was completely against it ‘I oppose banning proof of work’.

Who’s a fan of fans?

Let’s get technical with ASIC fans.

In this article, we’ll get technical a bit in talking about those loud but necessary fans on bitcoin ASIC miners. Because let’s face it, bitcoin price action has been dull over the past month and it is our duty to not only educate our community on what’s going on in the bitcoin mining markets but also on the technology surrounding mining.

Let’s get started on some basics of ASIC fans.

We’ll use the Bitmain Antminer 17 and 19 series in the next few examples considering their popularity on the market. Fan sizes are usually about 120mm*120mm*38mm. Please refer to the reference below to get a better grasp of the dimensions in relation to size.

The fan speed of the 17 and 19 series miners is 6000 rpm and the air output is 315CFM. RPM refers to Rotations Per Minute, which is how many complete cycles is the fan generating every minute. To give you some reference, a car wheel rotates at 1,120 rpm at a speed of 80 mph. The power a Formula One engine produces is generated by operating at a very high rotational speed, up to 20,000 revolutions per minute (rpm). However, they are electronically limited to 15,000 as of 2021 season.

A full list of Bitmain’s miners and its corresponding fan speeds can be found here: https://support.bitmain.com/hc/zh-cn/articles/900002654946

Damage to ASIC fans are not that uncommon. For example, damaged blades can occur which will cause the mining machine to vibrate, which subsequently will also damage the miner itself. In any case, if a fan is damaged or abnormal, it is suggested to be replaced asap.

Now let’s talk about the sound from ASIC fans. Something many people are quite familiar with even if they aren’t into bitcoin mining.

An example of the sound level of just a single fan running:

It is no secret that the noise pollution from these fans is an issue. Especially when hoards of ASICs are sitting together in a room located near a small community, complaints from locals can arise causing friction between bitcoin miners and communities.

A single bitcoin mining machine produces between 70 to 90 decibels (dB) of sound. Decibel levels scale logarithmically, so if one relatively-quiet machine produces 75 dB, then 10 similar machines produce 85 dB and 100 machines produce 95 dB. For comparison, the average nightclub maintains a noise level of 98 dB — almost deafening. Noise and other mining externalities turned a small town in North Carolina against its local bitcoin miners. Residents in a rural Ohio community complained to their city’s planning commission about noise levels from a nearby mining facility. As did Niagara Falls residents. And residents of Sherbrooke, Quebec and residents of Labrador City, near Quebec.

But there are ways to mitigate the noise and become more neighborhood friendly.

Some bitcoin mining companies, however, have opted for slightly less technical solutions for their noise. One natural-gas-powered, off-grid mining site, for example, erected rows of hay bales behind its on-site mining facilities to shield nearby residents from the noise. For mining facilities without easy access to hay bales, the possibilities for alternate tools and materials for noise reduction are nearly endless, including soundproof tiles, various acoustic barriers, prefabricated noise-dampening enclosures, noise insulation foam and more.

Depending on how the setup is architected, home miners could annoy their closest neighbors with mining noise, too — even with a few machines. In these situations, tools like the Black Box from Upstream Data are essential. This fire-and-weather-resistant enclosure cuts a machine’s noise level in half.

Immersion cooling is another sure-fire technique for not just reducing noise, but eliminating it altogether. After all, a mining machine’s highest decibels are produced by the thing that keeps it from overheating and melting: high-velocity fans. Remove the fans, submerge the hardware in dielectric fluid and the noise disappears. Analysis on immersion cooling from Braiins Mining corroborates this.

There are some small teams introducing “silent” fans to the market. For example, at https://www.silent-miner.eu/, they have boasted their fans can be reduced by half to between 33–47 dB.

Conclusion

Bitcoin people can be loud. Bitcoin twitter is loud. Bitcoin miners are also loud. Let’s do our part and try to reduce the loudness of some aspects of this network. Because at the end of the day, some people hate loud people and loud things.

The heat on bitcoin mining

It’s hot out, but what else is putting the heat on miners?

As the entire bitcoin industry has fallen into a slump after multiple “rekt” moments of centralized mishaps, the bitcoin networks still continue to churn thanks to its splendid design of Proof of Work. It is a positive feedback loop with an emergent consensus that solves the issues of centralization. But unfortunately, other crypto projects still haven’t figured out how to implement decentralization, ultimately leading to their downfall. With bitcoin, price movements and nefarious centralized players don’t matter. Proof of Work’s mining game is the ultimate universal player that will unilaterally continue to sing the tune of metal churning ASICs.

Mining over the recent few months has surely been affected by a variety of factors. Bitcoin price being one, but also demanding energy developments globally. All this has pushed the hashrates lower as profitability becomes squeezed for miner profit margins.

On-chain data also explicitly shows how mining difficulty has dropped more than 3 consecutive times.

Hashrates have subsequently dropped over the past 180 days to levels last seen in January of this year.

And as you guessed, miner revenue has dropped significantly over the same time frame.

Many miner insiders see this trend continuing over the next few months as many believe the bear market has started. Historically, bear markets can last at least 2 years at the minimum as many in the industry lose hope and bailout. But this time around may be different.

Another major factor is the drop in mining difficulty and hashrates is the sustained brutal heatwave punishing the US at the moment.

Actually, this heat wave is being felt globally everywhere, not just in the US. But it is being felt particularly heavy in most of Texas. This has prompted many miners to shut down operations in an attempt to lower overall electricity costs for residents as energy usage demand from ACs has skyrocketed.

It’ll be interesting to see how this mining fatigue plays out over the remainder of the year. The conundrum that we have is how the perceived effects of global warming are going to affect bitcoin mining. Miner rigs need to be cool but it’s getting hot out, a catch-22. Many global sustainability advocates continue to bash the side effects of bitcoin mining. The supposed reason China banned bitcoin miners in the country is that the emissions generated by bitcoin mining exacerbate climate change and are incompatible with the country’s goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060.

So if bitcoin mining is a culprit of climate change, then should it be banned? Or should some other energy-consuming industry take a step back on their usage? Is this a moral or political decision that should be decided by the market? Or by the government? The fact is that bitcoin, to some is useful, while to others it’s useless. In the long run, the market decides on what it considers useful and it is only a matter of time where the world will use bitcoin as the only monetary standard. When this happens, it’s only inevitable that bitcoin mining will increase not only in hashrates, but in miner rig count, mining farm count, and any other factor of bitcoin mining will increase.

But sometimes the critics of bitcoin mining get it wrong. It’s not a question that the media loves to throw dirt on the amount of energy wasted from bitcoin mining. But at the same time, critics naively try to argue whether bitcoin has any legitimate claim on our world’s resources. This question is a silly, utilitarian logic about which industries/people are entitled to use certain energy resources. Most people don’t reason like this and critics themselves are flabbergasted when they come to find how much energy other industries/activities use. Ahem…many other major industries use a lot more energy.

Also, critics naively extrapolate energy source usage to its corresponding CO2 emissions. As Nic Carter puts it, “energy is not globally fungible”. Essentially, not all energy is the same. This is similar to outsiders only looking at bitcoin for what its recent price action is doing. Bitcoin is not just about market price, nor is it just about CO2 emissions. It’s much more than that.

Most bitcoin mining rigs have a max temperature limit of around 90 to 100 degrees Celsius. Sure it’s getting hotter outside, many places hitting over 40 degrees celsius, which is affecting many bitcoin mines, but it’s safe to say that we are a long way from shutting down the whole network. In fact, we are nowhere close. Bitcoin is resilient in the fact that it listens to noone, and is affected by noone. It is the beautiful emergent consensus that makes it indestructible from critics.

How to Further Decentralize the Hashrate

After the China ban, are there too many miners in North America?

Introduction

An important topic that was discussed on another mining panel during the Bitcoin2022 conference was “How to further decentralize the hashrate?” An important characteristic of bitcoin is that it is decentralized in all aspects. From bitcoin users, to developers, to node runners, and especially amongst miners.

The dangers of centralization amongst miners has been a hot topic when a majority of hashrates were coming out of China. But ever since the final China ban on mining in 2021, a lot of miners took their operations outside and into North America. So now is there too much hashrates coming out of North America?

A panelist consisting of the below industry leaders took the time to chat about this burning question.

Whit Gibbs CEO, Compass Mining

Bob Burnett CEO, Barefoot Mining

Stephen Barbour Master of Hash

Ryan Condron CEO, Titan

Difference between decentralization and distributed

To start off, there are a few factors to consider when discussing “decentralization”:

  • ASIC manufacturer
  • Pool Ownership
  • Mining farm ownership
  • Ownership of energy

Also, it is important to note the differences between decentralization and distribution. Distributed, in the context of hashrates, can mean hashrates being distributed in different geographic areas. Whether this is referring to hashrates being spread out in different areas of a country or even different areas of a state. As long as hashrates aren’t in one specific location, then it is by definition distributed. But decentralization takes it to a whole different level. By being decentralized, the ownership factor takes precedence over the location. Ownership of hashrates, mining farms, and mining pools can determine if hashrates are truly decentralized. If we look at it from the context of pools, well one can make the argument that the top 5 major mining pools own a majority of hashrates. And it’s this factor that we need to worry about.

Is mining centralized now?

Burnett is personally worried about centralization in the US as more and more mega-farms start to come online. As mentioned briefly before, China decided to ban all bitcoin miners out of the country in mid-2021. This set off a huge exodus of bitcoin miners out of the mining-rich region of Sichuan. Many of them went to Iceland, Russia, Kazakhstan, and even Southeast Asia. But a majority of them went to North America due to favorable local regulations and a vibrant bitcoin community. But since the speed of mining farm development and construction is a lot slower than it is in China, many of them weren’t able to come online right away.

But in 2022, many of them are poised to open back up with a vengeance. And this is what Burnett is worried about. Since mega-farms are at times owned by the mining pools or even big institutions, are the mega-farms essentially in the control of a few hands? Are these institutions focused on what is right for bitcoin? Are these institutions controlled by the government? Are these mega-farms just making the big players even bigger?

BTC.com

Condron pointed out how most hashrates are controlled by 5 major pools. At the moment, the top 5 major mining pools for bitcoin are Foundry USA, Antpool, F2Pool, Binance Pool, and ViaBTC. They own about 70% of the global network hashrate. This should be an alarming amount to some as this is what is considered over the 51% attack threshold.

How to further decentralization?

Barbour mentioned that not only should miners be using downstream (aka peak privacy) energy supplies, but also upstream (peak efficiency) too. He compared ASICs to being like engines. Eventually, they will be a commodity and much cheaper for the retail market. Barbour’s company, Upstream Data, produces specialized outdoor boxes for at-home miners to house their ASICs in a safe and efficient manner. These boxes allow for the ASICs to run cool, and secure, and to trap the sound from coming out.

Barbour also stated to put it into perspective, bitcoin since the start has been decentralizing, slowly but surely. So don’t rule out home mining ever. Even though home mining doesn’t get the attention anymore due to the mining farm industry, that doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t home miners. It’s probably bigger than what it was before and this should be expected to increase.

Gibbs “Everyone needs to be running an ASIC”

Whit Gibbs, who is the founder of Compass Mining, reminded us that everyone should be running an ASIC machine. If you are holding bitcoin, then you should run an ASIC as well. It’s part of the holistic nature of being in bitcoin. Besides holding your own bitcoin private keys, one should also run their own node, and mine their own bitcoin. That is truly the complete bitcoin experience of self-sovereignty.

Burnett would love to see all large-scale mining farms have their own mining pools. And for every bitcoin stakeholder to have their own mining pool.

Conclusion

The one thing that these panelists can conclude is that home mining needs to be more prevalent than large-scale bitcoin mining farms. If the ownership of each hashrate is in the hands of 1 person, decentralization can be further exercised in a way that is meant for the bitcoin network. But if we keep throwing ASICs to large-scale farms, then decentralization will become less and less. Both are needed to keep mining improving and scaling, but home mining needs to have more importance on the network.

Financialization of Mining

Mining makes money, but first it needs money…

Bitcoin2022 hosted many amazing panel sessions to learn more about some of the best in the industry. There was a whole stage dedicated to panel discussions on mining. And that’s what we’ll be bringing to you all. We’ll be recapping some of the best mining panel sessions into an easy to read format so that you can all be caught up with some of the best insights and takeaways discussed at Bitcoin2022.

In this blog, we’ll recap the the panel session titled “Financialization of Mining” featuring:

Brian Wright, Galaxy Digital

Ethan Vera, Luxor

Zachary Cefaratti, Dalma Capital

Leo Zhang, Anicca Research

So what does this exactly mean? Well it refers to the financing and capital raising amongst miner companies. We all know mining can be very capital intensive. There needs to be enough money to purchase ASICs, a support and maintenance staff, land, buildings, and other engineering infrastructure to keep those ASICs churning. This all can total to a couple of million dollars real quick. Miners need to be able to raise capital in order to fund these operations. And lenders and other traditional capital financiers are attracted to the kind of returns they can expect from such a booming industry. This is where the two meet to agree on what type of capital financialization is need to start mining.

The panel session had a bunch of great topics which have been summarized and broken down below.

State of the Mining Capital Markets

The state of the capital markets for mining is undoubtedly the strongest it has ever been. And every year that maturing increases to the point of attracting more institutional investors in the space. Some may even say the maturity and efficiency of capital markets for mining may need to be even more efficient than the efficiency of miners themselves. Lenders need to be in the clear as to what they are investing in. With that, miners need to be transparent to lenders as to the type of returns they should expect. Despite bitcoin’s popularity rising over the past year, there still is a misconception of what mining is amongst traditional financiers. And this is where miners need to be able to close that gap through proper communication.

Back in 2018, many miners had a hard time raising money. It was hard just to get a loan for about $2 million dollars but now you’ll see many mining companies raise over $40 million dollars. Miner companies have been the only sector of the crypto space to see companies go public on the stock market as well.

Up until now, there has been more equity-based financing than debt-based financing. But debt-based financing is starting to see an uptick due to open lenders. And this spawns new financial innovations such as ASIC-backed loans. This new type of financing allows miners to put up their ASICs as collateral for funding. ASICs inherently have value and have become a secondary commodity behind bitcoin itself. And with ASICs also having a healthy market, lenders and financiers can feel more comfortable using it as a form of collateral for their money. Sometimes the mining company’s infrastructure and land are used as collateral, in a similar sense as other traditional industries.

NAV of Miners

The NAV of ASIC miners was also a strong talking point during the panel session. For those who do not know, NAV refers to the net asset value. Essentially it’s viewed as the current market price one could purchase an ASIC miner for on the open market. This metric is quite important if ASICs are going to be used as collateral for financing purposes. It’s the same way as to how a house is used for collateral on a mortgage. If the borrower, or miner, would default on the loan, the lender would come in and own all the ASICs.

It’s a challenging collateral to value so lenders and financiers rely on the NAV of an ASIC. And sometimes they are overvalued due to high optimism. For example, some miners are getting NAVs of $300 — $700 per TH despite being able to purchase ASICs for an average of $80 per TH on the open market. Their financiers and lenders need to be careful and look at certain factors. Financiers need to discount ASICs that haven’t been turned on yet or ASICs that haven’t even been delivered yet.

It’s also prudent for lenders and financiers to analyze the mining company’s team itself. What is the team background like? Do they have experience mining? How long have they been mining? These questions are just as important as the ASIC miners themselves. And sometimes it just comes down to how much risk tolerance these financiers can take. If their risk tolerance is large, they are willing to work with the mining company more.

Hashrates

Ethan Vera and Leo Zhang have always been a proponent of hashrate contracts. Although this hasn’t really been accepted by the market yet, Ethan made a verbal push that he thinks it will become more important in the next coming years. Eventually, it will become more prominent and investors will realize how useful it can be for miners themselves. Being able to hedge your hashrates and buy futures on it can definitely be a great method for miners to protect themselves during a bear market.

Also, investors need to realize that hashrates are attractive due to their increased physical ties as compared to bitcoin. It touches on renewable energy, Moore’s Law, chip production, and other physical real-world topics that can influence hashrates.

What’s Next

The future looks bright for miner financing. Lots of traditional and institutional players are coming in to provide funding and loans of all sorts. But it’s also good to know that miners need to realize there are a lot of other financing options that they can take advantage of. Bitcoin native DeFi is also going to play an integral role in future markets. Financing the old, traditional way will probably fade away in the next few decades.

It will also be interesting to see if there will be a trend in M&A (mergers and acquisitions) activity amongst miners. We could expect to see many miner companies struggle during a bear market, which at the same time presents great M&A activity. And the last thing the industry needs to focus on is providing miner financing globally. If a lot of the miner financing is just concentrated in North America, hashrates will just be centralized within this continent. Financing needs to stretch globally to ensure there is globalized decentralization.

State of the ASIC Market

What’s next for ASICs?

The annual Bitcoin conference, this year dubbed Bitcoin2022, always brings out the best and brightest of bitcoiners to the forefront. It’s usually the most anticipated bitcoin conference of the year and probably the longest-running bitcoin conference in history. The focus and theme are squarely on bitcoin but you’ll see a few “crypto” people wandering the halls as well.

The conference hosts dozens and dozens of panelist sessions boasting experts to share about some of the old and new things happening in the space. They touch on topics such as government regulation, open-source development, security, wallets, exchanges, and of course…MINING!

In the next few blogs, we’ll be recapping and sharing some of those specific mining-themed panel sessions with our community in a way that is informative and educational. Mining is constantly evolving and it is our duty to be on the top of the cutting edge tech to increase our competitiveness as well.

For this blog, we’ll start with talking about the state of the ASIC market. Below are the major talking points discussed around this topic during the panel discussion featuring Chris Mansano, Kristy-Leigh Minehan, Nishant Sharma, Yao XianJun, and Michael Francis.

What is the general outlook of the ASIC miner market?

The general consensus is that newer generation ASICs, such as the S19 and S19 Pro+ Hydro, are looking ready to be shipped out this year. These new ASICs boast a capability of churning out over 100 TH/S with the S19 Pro+ Hydrop capable of hitting 200 TH/S. The big manufacturers such as Bitmain, Canaan, and What’s Miner all seem to have a positive outlook on getting their miners shipped out in time for customers. This is of course contingent on any sporadic covid lockdowns and the what not, but for the most part, most manufacturers have a strong outlook this year for their particular ASIC models.

Are we going to get smaller ASIC chips?

The takeaway is that moving from a 7 to 9-nanometer chip size to something smaller, such as a 5-nanometer, isn’t really grabbing the attention of miners. And in fact, most of them have a neutral view on this, as if it’s not an important metric they are excited about. Rather they see getting to a small chip size is going to take longer than expected. So in actuality, a smaller chip size really isn’t something they are excited about.

Most miners anyways are extracting more value from the ASIC machine by doing their own physical adjustments and tampering with the machine once they receive it. This is common practice amongst miners. By tinkering and performing experiments with the ASIC machine, some miners have been able to gain more performance compared to those miners who just use the machine as is from stock.

So although a smaller ASIC chip size may sound appealing to outsiders and new miners, many OG miners have their own way of extracting more performance from each individual ASIC miner.

What has been the difference between the mining market of 2016–2018 compared to 2020 to 2022?

The mining market during the years between 2016–2018 can be characterized as still being green. Green means very very early. Many people getting into the space still didn’t understand the notion of mining, let alone understanding how bitcoin works. There was less education out there when it came to mining. A proper framework and blueprint for scaling industrial-sized mining farms just weren’t available or documented.

Local jurisdictions and local regulations are also more mature now. They understand the concept of mining and have some basic legal framework in allowing more leeway for new miners to come in and set up shop. What’s been learned in the past has been evolved in a way now to benefit both miners and the local community.

Mining manufacturers during that time as well weren’t probably scaled to handle hundreds of thousands of miners. It was a time when the bitcoin surge was quite unexpected and underestimated amongst many miner companies.

When we fast forward to the years 2020 to 2022, manufacturers have definitely been able to scale up operations, but the biggest setback was the pandemic. The pandemic, unfortunately, closed down a lot of operations and factories. Supply chains were cut short and disturbed. People were unable to leave their homes to see the whole process through.

Trends for mining at home.

We’re starting to see a lot of mining come back to the comfort of home. Many people new in the space that truly believe in the altruism aspect of bitcoin want to mine bitcoins on their own rather than having their miners “hosted” somewhere else. But despite the inconveniences ASIC miners may bring to a household, there have been many ingenious setups to mitigate the loud noise and energy consumption coming from ASIC machines.

There have been home mining trends such as immersion cooling, where ASICs are sat in a tub of special liquid allowing the miner to still run while muting the noise. If anyone has ever tried to run an ASIC machine at home, they’d be quick to realize the annoyance of the noise it can bring.

What to look out for from new manufacturers in the space?

There have been many new chips and ASIC manufacturers coming into the industry with the hopes of disrupting the power players of Bitmain and others. But there are some red and white flags people need to be aware of before doing business with any of these new players.

Red Flags that you need to look out for:

  • Do they open source their tech?
  • Can they explain how their tech works?
  • Does their tech look similar or different from their competitors?
  • Who is part of their founding team?
  • How do they plan to scale?
  • What is their roadmap?

All in all, ASICs still have a bright future in this space. It’s been the longest-running technology used for mining over the past few years and they seem to be staying for a lot longer. As in the past, CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs were once a fad but then quickly faded away due to being obsolete, one can only wonder when ASICs lifetime will take an end. But for now, there is nothing more fitting than loud humming ASIC machines and bitcoin mining.

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