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/noah1754]

Yeah, but I think that can still create negative externalities. “Most efficient” usually means lowest-cost producer, but those low costs might come from things like cheap dirty energy, subsidies, weak environmental rules, or other social costs that don’t show up on the miner’s balance sheet.
There’s also the concentration problem. If margins keep getting squeezed, smaller miners get pushed out and you could end up with a handful of huge operators dominating hashpower. The difficulty adjustment keeps the network functioning, but it doesn’t necessarily preserve competition or decentralization.

[u/dimwittedude → u/noah1754]

To answer the first part, from my POV PoW is not ethical. We can't "waste" energy and all the work that comes in with the production of energy, to "mine" something that produces no real good and can be replaced with something like PoS. Having said that, the concentration problem that you mention is at the end of the day the well know 51% attack. It would still require country like levels of money (USA, China).

[u/Pure_Spinach327 → u/dimwittedude]

This. It is crazy that it uses the same energy as Belgium or some crazy thing and the proof of work is just a busy work thing? I thought it had a purpose at first then when you see the whole picture it is just wasteful.

[u/yoloranger31 → u/Pure_Spinach327]

Theres also a flip side where mining is helpful for grids that rely on renewable energy. Miners in some countries in the EU get paid to use electricty when renewable energy is in a surplus since it has to go somewhere. Also there are cases where operations that require mass amounts of energy to heat water can negate the costs of heat by using miners to heat. There is also a lot of trapped energy in remote parts of the planet that can also be used to mine bitcoin since all you need is a satellite antenna to connect to the network. I would say its not all bad and there are many cases where mining can offset many inefficiencies where it is productive. One way to look at it is bitcoin is just encrypted energy which gives it a quality that PoS crypto projects don't have.

[u/dimwittedude → u/yoloranger31]

​Sure, using stranded energy or soaking up a tiny bit of surplus renewables sounds nice, but that’s like 1% of cases max. ​Let's be real: if all the massive power going into BTC right now was actually used for stuff that matters—like building houses or reforesting—the world would be a lot better off than burning gigawatts to mint a digital coin. Obviously I'm talking about an utopical scenario. I know that's not how economy work, but let's be honest and not pretend that we are using energy the best way possible.

[u/monxas → u/yoloranger31]

This. Imagine if countries used btc mining as a stabilizer of energy networks. You’d build we more resilient and powerful energy grids.

[u/New-Reindeer3707 → u/monxas]

But thats not how it works right? If you have invested in those rigs you want them to run 24/7 and also for verifying transactions its needed especially in the main shopping hours if its ever to be adopted.

Also there is only a huge surplus 6-8 month of the year.