• LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I’ve mined before and this isn’t how it works. I was mining dogecoin in 2014 or so (before Elon hyped it and it was just a joke). You join a “mining pool” where a bunch of people group their processing power together. It keeps track of how much processing each member contributes, and when the mining pool group is awarded a block then it’s split up proportionally based on each member’s contribution.

    Clearly that was a while ago so I’m a little out of the loop and there might be new developments. And if someone had enough processing power conceivably they could go it alone, but I’m not sure how prevalent it is. Probably not enough for an Airbnb miner.

    As far as how profitable it is, I would bet that $100k figure is pretty inaccurate. It was a while ago but when I was mining I was tracking my electricity costs vs the value of the coins I had mined and it didn’t last more than a few months. It no longer made sense because the “mining difficulty” went up, which meant power cost too much. So it’s not entirely easy money, you need to minimize your electric costs as much as possible, as well as cost of your mining equipment.

    Miners will buy dedicated hardware made specifically for mining crypto so their margins may be better, but $100k even assuming no power costs and renting an Airbnb seems very high.

    • froztbyte@awful.systems
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      3 months ago

      I’ve mined before and this isn’t how it works

      Clearly that was a while ago so I’m a little out of the loop

      you are not tall enough for this ride

          • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I’m not advocating for mining crypto. I understood the commenter above me to be (rudely) saying I wasn’t qualified to comment on whether this Airbnb scammer could have made the profit they claimed. (“You’re not tall enough for this ride”)

            But that same commenter didn’t seem to be aware that with a mining pool you don’t have to single handedly win a block in order to make a profit.

            It’s still wasteful and unsustainable.

            • froztbyte@awful.systems
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              3 months ago

              I’m not advocating for mining crypto. I understood the commenter above me to be (rudely) saying I wasn’t qualified to comment on whether this Airbnb scammer could have made the profit they claimed. (“You’re not tall enough for this ride”)

              no, for running your mouth with statements that directly defeat each other

              But that same commenter didn’t seem to be aware that with a mining pool you don’t have to single handedly win a block in order to make a profit.

              the great thing about projection is one can imagine anything you want in someone else’s head!

              It’s still wasteful and unsustainable.

              oh hey, a correct take! finally

    • David Gerard@awful.systemsOPM
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      3 months ago

      so this is about right, and after this year’s halving it’s even worse

      many bitcoin rigs don’t hit a single block in their lifetime

      so I would guess the crypto bro in this case maybe got something as part of a large pool, but i really doubt he hit big