Bitcoin Mining Comes To Radeon Open-Source OpenCL

[erendorn]

You are assuming that only the price of bitcoins versus the electricity cost matters. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as that.

One difference between mining and buying is that usually you don't pay the electricity bill right away. Depending on your utility contract, the actual use will be billed once per month or even once per year. So you can rack up the kWh now and pay later.

Woah, you can make up to an extra 3% by paying in a year. Compared to the temporal volatility of bitcoin prices, and geographical volatility of electricity, I'm sure that's the most important thing to take into account when mining.

Secondly, in order to buy bitcoins you have to disclose certain information (like bank account, credit card) and make a payment. This involves risks. If you only mine, then nobody needs to know who you are until you sell the bitcoins.

That doesn't really change profitability, and I'm sure you need to disclose some information (like bank account, credit card) to your electricity company anyway.

[chithanh]

Woah, you can make up to an extra 3% by paying in a year. Compared to the temporal volatility of bitcoin prices, and geographical volatility of electricity, I'm sure that's the most important thing to take into account when mining.

You get an implied credit by your utility company for mining bitcoins, which may be a small or huge advantage depending on your credit score.

That doesn't really change profitability, and I'm sure you need to disclose some information (like bank account, credit card) to your electricity company anyway.

The second argument was not about maximum profitability. You do not need to disclose to the company that you are mining bitcoins.

Look, I don't say that these arguments hold for everybody. It was just to combat the notion that people could not have reasons to mine bitcoins when electricity cost is higher than the current exchange rate.