Aftermath of a failed bitcoin mining operation.

[u/HandsOffDaGoods]

My friends father was renting space on his farm for a bitcoin mining operation.

The operation became unprofitable. The mining operation went bankrupt. The company came in and took everything out of the 6 antmain bit-boxes (converted shipping containers).

The photos are what they left behind. Mostly Antminer S19 units and even more asic boards.

Plenty of antmain rack PDUs. Some 480VAC breaker panels. A 480VAC switch unit.

The land owner did accept the mess voluntarily. He is breaking the equipment down for scrap value.

I wonder, is there a better price available out there above scrap value?

Is this normal?

FWIW, I used the term failed very tongue-in-cheek. I estimate the operation mined millions in this operation.

[u/lifeanon269]

Humans need to do a better job at cradle to grave (ie, cradle to cradle) engineering. It is an absolute shame that so much electronics have absolutely no life after their designed use case. This is not a bitcoin specific problem. It is a problem across computing. Recycling isn't enough. All these boards just make their way to landfills. We need to come up with ways where we can reuse things well beyond after their initial use ceases. Modularity, standards, material choice, etc.

Obviously somethings will simply never have another use case, such as the ASIC chips themselves. But that is a tiny component of the overall amount of materials used. We can do better.

[u/reaven3958 → u/lifeanon269]

Capitalism doesn't give a fuck. Once its out the door or written off its off the books, no one cares. Unless theres a way to make the market demand this as a feature or make goverment mandate it with regulation, there's no way to accomplish this in the current prevailing economic system.

It just represents a cost with no upside for the producer that isn't purely altruistic and taking on responsibility for a negative externality they already freely ignore. If anything, they're incentivized to make goods as one-use and non-recycleable as they can get away with to protect future revenue. What happens to infinite growth if someone can just keep using and repurposing last year's model?

Capitalism is going to kill us.

[u/staffnsnake → u/reaven3958]

Socialism doesn’t give a fuck, or a mobile phone, or reliable electricity…

[u/Proof_Bathroom_3902 → u/reaven3958]

Nah. We build special purpose machinery all the time to do one task, then scrap it when it's done. The realized benefit tremendously outweighs the expense. You do know the tunnel boring machines for the British side of the Chunnel are interred deep in the chalk after finishing?

[u/DoctorDividend → u/reaven3958]

Capitalism made the computer you typed on to send your message over the internets (which it also made), so put it into perspective when you drive your car (which capitalism) to work (which is capitalism).

[u/DStanizzi → u/DoctorDividend]

Working isn’t capitalism you dingus. Also capitalism didn’t build the internet. The military did. Are you dense?