Bitcoin miner called $5.68 cost for 50 BTC a loss

A Bitcoin forum post published on Sept. 7, 2010, has resurfaced 16 years later after an early miner described a projected $5.68 electricity bill for mining a 50 BTC block as “a net loser.” Summary A 2010 miner estimated 47.3 kilowatt-hours to obtain an expected 50-BTC block reward through mining. At twelve cents per kilowatt-hour, the miner calculated a total electricity cost of approximately $5.68. The calculation used 140 watts, 2.2-megahash performance and an estimated 338-hour average waiting time then. Bitcoin’s subsidy was 50 BTC in 2010 but currently stands at 3.125 BTC per block. Modern Bitcoin miners use specialized ASICs while global competition makes home CPU mining uneconomic. The calculation was genuine, but it did not mean that spending $5.68 guaranteed the miner a block. The figure represented an expected electricity cost based on the miner’s computing power, Bitcoin’s difficulty and the average time needed to find a valid block. The forum participant, using the name TTBit, measured a computer consuming 140 watts while producing about 2,200 kilohashes per second. A mining calculator estimated an average wait of 338.05 hours, or roughly 14 days and two hours. Running ...