According to the white paper of Miner One and all the marketing and advertising they have done, they were going to start a mining farm in Luleå Sweden and have it running in July. However, during a Facebook livestream on May 16, Pranas Slusnys was already suggesting that the mining farm might be built in another location. It seems more and more likely that there won't be any mining farm in Luleå. I personally doubt if there ever is going to be a mining farm at all.
Moving to a shipping container?
A livestream yesterday had Slusnys talking about a new idea of having their mining equipment in shipping containers. "Our main idea, erm, from the start it was to choose one place, and put all mining equipment in that one place, in, in, erm, Luleå" ... "Erm, eeh, erm, but we want to be more independent. We wan't to be not locked in one location."
 |
| Slusnys: "Erm, eerm, eeeh, erm, erm, erm, eeh." – Yeah, he really talks like that. |
Now here comes the most funniest part of the explanation of Slusnys about this idea that he refers to be a great one. According to him they can easily move their shipping containers in a week or two in case they need to move the mining equipment whenever "price of energy will be problematic". – What is this? I thought Luleå was like a paradise for a mining farm.
Apparently shutting down the mining farm for a week or two won't be a problem for Miner One while moving their containers. It isn't like the price of electricity fluctuates in Sweden to the extend that this kind of movable mining farm would be reasonable. On the contrary, I think shutting down such mining farm even for a week costs much more due the period of shutdown than any possible savings in electricity could be.
 |
| Screenshot of the livestream showing Miner One's plans about their movable mining farm in shipping containers. |
Shipping containers aren't exactly the greatest place to keep things cool. In addition July and August are usually the warmest months in Scandinavia, so having a mining farm in a shipping container could cause sauna-like conditions. Not to even mention that I really don't think that you can go somewhere and just find a place to plug in to a power socket a shipping container with a mining farm.
What about renewable energy?
After Slusnys presented the idea of having their mining farm in shipping containers someone asks in the comments section of the broadcast about Miner One's plan to use renewable energy. The answer Slusnys gives to this question is just astonishingly and awkwardly stupid.
Slusnys seems to think that you can practically park a container near a solar panel field and plug it in to get green energy. However, he apparently considers only hydro energy as a viable source of green energy: "We need to keep in mind, except hydro the other energy sources, they are not available for 24 hours." – Meaning that sun doesn't always shine, sometimes it's cloudy, and also the wind power can fluctuate.
In fact, although you can select a "green option" while making a contract with a power company in Scandinavia, the company can't exclude electricity coming from nuclear power plants to ones power socket. There's even a contract promising 100 % energy produced by hydropower for example by Vattenfall, but not even that is nuclear power free. The electricity that comes out of the power sockets is always a combination of electricity produced by all the power sources of the power company. So 100 % hydropower is basically just a marketing pitch.
I don't know why they keep this scheme still dragging on after the crowdsale ended. Maybe there's still going to be a way to milk cryptocurrency from gullible people? Anyway, on Miner One's website they have downgraded their slogan already a bit. Instead of "the world's biggest crowdfunded crypto mining operation" it's now "the world’s most profitable mining operation". – Well, this might very well be very profitable mining operation for some, but what comes to actual mining, it might be a minor one.
While Inagree that the whole thing sounds like a scam (and like something built up by clueless people at best), the moving of containers would not generate negative cash flow.
ReplyDeleteIf the electricity was costing more than the value of cryptos mined, it puts you to “zero gained, zero lost” state to plug off the - erm - shipping containers. Staying in a location where electricity costs too much just makes you lose money every second.
(Outside that the idea is between hilarious and idiotic.)
I didn't mean that while moving containers they would generate negative cash flow. I meant that having a shutdown causes lack of profit, and mining is the only source of profit Miner One would have. And we are not talking about just profits but substantial ones (estimated ROI in three years 471 %). Hence savings in electricity costs should be substantial as well to make a movable mining farm a reasonable alternative.
DeleteBut let's play along with the idea that an increase in the cost of electricity would be meaningful.
The structure of the output distribution by Miner One's white paper really makes the existence of a barely-breathing mining farm obsolete. Hence it just seems irrational to start to move around a mining farm at a point where the cost of running it surpasses the profitability – or even if running the farm was still barely profitable.
Miner One has been advertising the whole time how the cost of electricity in Luleå is very low and the climate so cold that it's ideal place for mining. That been said, going unprofitable would be more likely due outdated mining equipment and not because of cost of electricity. However, according to the white paper of Miner One 23 % of monthly net output is going to be reinvested to maintain the efficiency.
Oh well, we are arguing about details of something that isn't even happening yet – if it ever will. Nevertheless, it's interesting to see how this charade proceeds from now on.