Cold storage protects your keys. Not your face. Not your family. Not your location.

And if you’ve stacked anything worth noticing, you’re not paranoid.You’re a walking payday.

Criminals don’t need to hack your wallet.They just need to know you have one and where to find you.

Your Cold Wallet Is Safe. But You Aren’t.

Here’s the pattern: Someone posts about stacking sats or brags about hitting their stacking goal

• Lectures others about cold wallet safety, but still posts about happenings at local events
• Gets doxxed, tracked, and wrench attacked or worse, kidnapped

This isn’t hypothetical. It’s happened.In Argentina. In the UK. In the US.They come for you, not your multisig.

Because meatspace doesn’t care how clever your seed phrase storage is.

You Already Leaked the Clues

• Bought your whole stack off of a KYC exchange
• Used your home address to order that cold wallet device
• Log into location sharing socials with the same handle as your Bitcoin Twitter
• Mentioned your hometown in a podcast
• Post about your favorite pub or local eatery
• Posted photographs with metadata

All those leaks connect.And if someone’s hunting, they will find the trail.

OPSEC Isn’t Just About Surveillance. It’s About Safety.

This isn’t about hiding from governments.This is about not becoming the headline.Not giving some desperate kid or cartel soldier a map to your front door.

You’re not trying to be anonymous.You’re trying to be too hard or expensive to target.

Checklist: Personal Safety for Bitcoin Holders

1. Don’t Let Anyone Know You Hold

• Keep your stack size private
• Don’t share photos of hardware wallets or steel backups
• Don’t casually mention Bitcoin to coworkers or acquaintances

If they don’t know you have it, they can’t come for it.

2. Separate Lives

• Use a dedicated nym for all Bitcoin activity: name, email, number, everything
• Never link it to your real accounts, contacts, or home address
• No social apps. No synced cloud. No bleed over

3. Don’t Leak Location or Routine

• Don’t post from your home IP
• Use VPNs, Tor, or both when managing Bitcoin
• Rotate your paths. Don’t always do the same thing in the same way, at the same time

Kidnapping is often about pattern tracking. Break yours.

4. Protect Your Real Identity

• Use burner emails and aliases
• Avoid KYC exchanges if possible
• If you’ve already KYC’d, keep that wallet isolated and separate from your no-KYC stack

Compartmentalize. Like your life depends on it.

5. Have an Emergency Plan

• Know what to do if you’re physically threatened
• Use decoy wallets or plausible deniability setups
• Consider time locks or location dispersed multi-sig
• Share your plan with one trusted person offline, face to face

Don’t just secure your keys. Secure your exit strategy.

Final Word

You’re not just defending your money.You’re defending yourself.Your family. Your home. Your time.

Cold storage means nothing if someone can walk in and wrench it out of you.

Operational privacy isn’t for the paranoid.It’s for the prepared.

You hold sovereign money.That comes with a target.

Make it hard.Make it confusing.Make them move on.

Claw it back.Stay quiet.Stay unpredictable.Stay free.

-GHOSTWritten by GHOST, creator of the Untraceable Digital Dissident project.

The Bitcoin subculture is dying. It was always destined to die. If Bitcoin were to become a relevant and dominant global currency, it meant that it would inevitably morph into the mainstream culture. The idea that it would somehow  fix mainstream culture is rather silly and naive. We find ourselves facing a tremendous amount of conflict because those who follow mainstream culture are unwilling or incapable of coming to grips with reality. The expectation that they would have their minds changed by Bitcoin podcasters, books outlining the history of money, and influencers wielding ref links is silly.

That doesn’t mean that the Bitcoin subculture has not had an impact on larger society. It doesn’t mean that all the energy and excitement around Bitcoin was a waste of energy. But in the larger conversation, the cypherpunk ideals that many of us strongly believe in, will likely never be adopted by the masses. That is because the masses do not value self respect, thinking for themselves, and human dignity. Many of them have been sold the promise of convenience, comfort, and safety.

Most revolutionary movements are based on a collectivist set of ideals which are destined to fail. Michael Malice outlines this in masterful detail in his book, The White Pill. The book details the history of how idealists, such as Emma Goldman, aligned with the Bolsheviks in order to topple the Tzar, only to find that they had helped enable a monster to take power that was a thousand times worse than the system they had fought to replace.

In the west, the history of the Bolshevik revolution is rather fuzzy for some reason. Not only does the majority of historical discussion fail to mention the absolute carnage wrought by the Soviets, but it also fails to mention the good intentioned idealists who aligned with the Bolsheviks during the revolution.

The Krondstadt rebellion of 1921 is the perfect example of this. (link for context ) Russian sailors who had fought on the side of the Red army, for the ideals of empowering the working man, staged a protest as they saw the writing on the wall. They demanded elections, a restoration of civil rights, and more representation from other groups such as the anarchists and socialists in government. The Soviet’s response to their protest was to slaughter them with artillery.

What started as a revolution based on the ideals of equality for the worker, turned into one of the most oppressive and tyrannical forms of human organization ever created. This story is an important one for dissident groups to understand for multiple reasons. The first is the danger of disrupting existing power structures as the new one replacing it could and often does turn out to be significantly more destructive. The second is that no tyrannical power structure can last indefinitely because the human spirit cannot withstand it.

To be successful as a revolutionary, you have to be ruthless, which many of us aren’t. I’ll speak for myself here. I am not a murderer. I am not willing to kill in order to further my political aspirations. I am not willing to lie, cheat, and steal in order to conquer others. I am appalled by those who do these things and work to build my life in a way where I work as little with individuals like that as possible. If you are like me, that puts us at a serious disadvantage compared to those whose goal is to conquer the masses into believing our world view. I am not a pacifist and am willing to kill in self defense. I hope that never happens, but that is different than the belligerents who actively go on the attack in order to accomplish their goals.

Framing things in the terms of revolution is not helpful for peaceful and sane individuals. Many of us may become revolutionaries if the circumstances get dangerous enough though. I would argue that we are not there yet, though we still do live under many forms of tyranny. We may not be revolutionaries, yet find ourselves in conflict with mainstream culture, the institutions that dominate it, and often the state. There is something innate with us that cannot comply with the societal norms being force fed down our throats. We want to produce things of value, not focus on the nuances of microaggressions. We want to build a legacy, not focus on the intracies of compliance.

The idea of a revolution has been made to be seen as sexy in pop culture but the reality is that a real revolution requires the individuals participating in it to often to go to places as dark and depraved as the people they are fighting against. There is a likely chance of not living to see the end of it and facing immense amounts of danger. What many people opt in for instead are social movements larping as being a revolution because it’s safe. It can be cathartic to larp with others who are also frustrated with what’s going. But larping will likely do very little to change anything, as we are watching happen now with a good portion of the ecosystem interacting with Bitcoin.

Public perception is a mirage that is constantly getting manipulated by individuals who have incentives to try and lead the public in a certain direction. That is why it is important to mostly discard what the masses think. Much of their opinions are informed by news anchors, journalists, writers, statist pundits and philosophers who spew nonsensical garbage meant to elicit some sort of behavioral change. Whether it is to vote a certain way, behave a certain way, or purchase a product, most of the information presented to people by propagandists is not meant to empower the individual.

In today’s world, it is not a revolutionary action to join a social movement, use a certain technology, hate the shitcoins, run a bitaxe, buy a hardware wallet, or lobby a politician. Unless you have been able to achieve meaningful progress in your life for the better, becoming more confident in yourself and your abilities, you have not made any progress. The most effective thing you can do to create positive change in your life and the world around you to utilize your own brain. That action may lead you to buying a hardware wallet, but it is important to understand the order of operations here.

“Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.”

-Ayn Rand

To fix the symptoms, you have to first understand the malady. There has been a social movement that was created on the premise that if we “Fix the money, we will fix the world.” Now we watch as many of the podcasters, conference speakers, and authors that preached this concept to us are beginning to marry the establishment that they once railed against. Bitcoin is being adopted by governments and politicians. It is being accepted by the banks, by the biggest corporations in the world and it seems to be fixing very little. Privacy abuses by governments and corporations are only increasing. Taxation continues to be just as sinister as ever. Market manipulation due to central planning appears to only be accelerating. The social movement that appeared to have the most chance at disrupting all of this appears to be disappearing and morphing into the system that many of us had fought to replace.

If there is any chance that Bitcoin will have a positive impact on the world, it is not strictly because of it’s innate qualities. For Bitcoin to have a positive impact on the world, it must work to empower individuals with decency and self respect. Those individuals need to be active participants in their own lives, thinking critically about what is truly best for them and utilizing Bitcoin as a vehicle in order to be able to pursue the things they value.

My philosophy is that tyranny is impossible when individuals value themselves enough to use their own minds and are willing to fight to protect the right to do so. Bitcoin is an interesting technology because in many ways, it enables the ability to do that. The sad reality is that tyranny exists because the majority of people in our society do not value their minds. They value safety, compliance, and comfort. The choice of safety over thinking is why we are facing hard times and it will likely only get harder.

It can be discouraging when you look at the world around you. You see problems that seem self evident, but your peers fail to understand either due to ignorance or apathy. You may feel isolated and alone and likely will continue to as long as your have the belief that your duty is to change others minds. The information industrial complex wants people to focus entirely on things that they have no power over. The TV attempts to get people upset at everything outside of what is in their immediate control. Change fails to happen because individuals are so hyper focused on everything except for themselves.

You have the opportunity to change yourself despite what everyone around you is doing. Just because the general society is sick and has low self esteem does not mean that you also have to. When you change yourself and live with self respect, you become an example for others. So much of our culture is dominated by hollow influencers trying to influence how people think. They are often either blatantly full of shit, or exposed as being charlatans eventually. The goal of personal growth should not be for the purpose of trying to change other people or changing the world. It should be because you actually value yourself.

To think for yourself in modern society is a revolutionary act. It can be difficult and in many ways dangerous. Freedom is never safe. As we watch the Bitcoin subculture shift and morph into pop culture, it does not mean that we have to shift and morph with it. We will find each other and together we will build the world that we want to pass down to our children.

Subconsciously, I feel the plane tilting slightly to the left, and my newfound conditioning takes over—I dream that I’m still driving a snowmobile.

Until I wake up.

Realizing where I am, I carefully lift my ass cheek off the unfortunate passenger I landed on during my involuntary jerk. He stares at me in disbelief.

Writing about last week is both easy and hard. I could list all the incredible activities we did, the new experiences, and the fun we had. But I don’t want to end with a mere travel report. Even if it sounded amazing—or even close to bragging—it still wouldn’t capture the full picture.

The participants: Mr. Green, Mr. Rebel, Mr. Cat, Mr. Fighter, Mr. Heart, Mr. Hope, Mr. House Sparrow, Mr. Jaguar, Mr. Singularity, Mr. Honey Badger, and I.

The activities alone could be packaged into an expensive Instagram influencer’s dream—curated photo moments sold as part of a high-end travel itinerary. But no commercial business could replicate the raw authenticity Mr. Green brought to the experience, with the expert help of Mr. Rebel. Together, they kept us so immersed in the moment that we often had to remind ourselves to take pictures. And I can assure you—the most fun moments are (perhaps regretfully, for memory’s sake) not captured.

What made this special was how everything unfolded naturally. It’s something that doesn’t scale to the commercial realm, simply because Mr. Green managed to bring together a perfectly balanced group of eleven individuals. This mix allowed for rich discussions—ranging from deep philosophical debates to heated political discourse—while also creating space for profound monologues that commanded silent respect.

Silence, too, had its own spectrum. Some would slip away in smaller groups to complete a chore, others would rest or take a walk. Occasionally, a one-on-one conversation would deepen a topic the group had already exhausted.

The group flowed effortlessly, splitting into smaller clusters or embracing solitude before seamlessly rejoining—without a single “Where were you?” asked. For my part, I cherished a solo hour-long randonnée, immersed in nature. I believe everyone found their own moments of solitude in their own way.

I’m not sure why this group dynamic worked so well. It wasn’t just that we were all Bitcoiners—though we certainly shared common ground on principles like freedom. But we also deeply, yet respectfully, disagreed on many topics.

Our days were shaped by the elements—sun, snow, and biting wind. Some learned new skills, while others pushed their limits, sometimes even crossing them.

For those curious, we snowboarded, learned about setting ptarmigan traps, ice-fished, walked, snowmobiled, and engaged in a unique form of “arts & crafts”—which mostly involved fixing broken gear mid-ride or rescuing snowmobiles from tricky situations. These activities—excluding the impromptu tinkering—might be found in an Arctic adventure package, but what set them apart was how Mr. Green and Mr. Rebel approached them. We learned with an open mind, fostering self-responsibility while understanding how to stay safe. A fiat-organized excursion would have been wrapped in paperwork, disclaimers, and a long list of “don’ts.”

Perhaps the setting acted as a natural filter for the group. Half of the trip took place at an undisclosed off-grid location, appealing only to those with a particular mindset. Not many NgU-only proponents would willingly embrace the trade-offs of such an environment.

This self-reinforcing dynamic turned “optional chores” into enjoyable team efforts. For example, cutting an ice hole: Mr. Green expertly laid out the cutting grid, and under his guidance, Mr. Honey Badger, Mr. Hope, and I helped extract and haul ice blocks by sled to the ice cellar. The resulting ice hole later became the perfect cold plunge spot after sauna sessions in the evening.

Evenings were just as dynamic. Beyond cooking meals together and cleaning up, each participant was invited to give a talk or presentation.

The topics spanned Zen, psychedelics, electricity, contracts, running a BTC Pay Server, Sámi culture and history, the influence of national politics on Sámi identity, (private messaging on) Nostr, mobility, and societal structures. Each sparked further discussions and deep dives.

For my own presentation, I gained more insights from the feedback in one hour than I would have from pondering the topic alone for a week.

The deep talks, the nature, the group dynamics—it all came together in a way that cannot be replicated.

The names I’ve used in this article are the ones each participant chose months before the trip. Upon my request they each selected a word they felt best represented them. Yet, I never gave them one for myself.

Now, sitting on the plane home, I finally have a name to share with the group—and with you, dear reader.

After this week, you may call me Mr. Smiles.

Bitcoin’s early adopters came from many different directions, drawn in for a variety of reasons. Some were Ron Paul, End the Fed, sound-money types who saw Bitcoin as a hard-money alternative to fiat, a tool for self-sovereignty, and a way to opt out of government control. Others came from the cypherpunk movement, focused on privacy, open-source technology, and resistance to state surveillance. There were also those from the Occupy Wall Street/Mr. Robot crowd, who viewed Bitcoin as a weapon against corporate banks and financial elites. Some progressive tech entrepreneurs saw it as an experiment in decentralization, financial inclusion, or even a means to disrupt capitalism itself. Each of these groups approached Bitcoin with their own vision, but over time, many tried to reshape it to fit their own ideological goals—whether through governance models, regulatory compliance, or social justice narratives. Meanwhile, those who understood Bitcoin’s true power as a free-market system of incentives built on proof-of-work stayed focused on sovereignty, self-reliance, and economic reality.

Of all these groups, I think I most associate with the Ron Paul types, those End the Fed, sound-money revolutionaries who see Bitcoin as a self-sovereignty alternative to fiat. We all find our niche in the space, regardless of why we came to it on the first place. My favorite niche is that of a community organizer, a type much different than one of my most hated political figures, Mr. Barry Soetoro. But alas unless you have ties to political bundlers like Jeffrey Katzenberg, Andy Spahn, Penny Pritzker, George Soros, and Oprah Winfrey, or pro government collusion and censorship, progressive tech bro money like Jack Dorsey’s StartSmall LLC. Bitcoin and self-sovereignty Pleb community organizing can’t buy you more than a coffee and sure as hell can’t buy you a 6,400-square-foot mansion in Hyde Park, Chicago. But it does earn you a lot of good friends, and I place value on social, cultural, and spiritual capital just as much as I do financial, which brings me to the point of this article, accumulation of financial capital via Bitcoin mining as the primary (not the only) motivation to participate in mining.

As much as I love the fact that I heat my home with Bitcoin mining and that we at Ungovernable Misfits has a fantastic community of Bitcoin miners who have built and innovated so many great things in mining; from off grid solutions to fantastic uses for waste heat like dehydrating foodstuffs or even Krazy Karl and his immersion lamb sous vide, my main motivation in Bitcoin mining…is….FINANCIAL!!!! I don’t mine to “support the network” or out of duty, nor to make the world a better place. I mine because it is in my rational self-interest to do so, but only if I achieve a financial gain. I mine to acquire Bitcoin, generate eventual profit. Whether I find stranded and wasted sources of energy my motivation is to turn it into hard money. Whether I use excess or stranded natural gas, hydro, wind, solar, capture industrial heat to mine efficiently, turning waste into wealth with a landfill mine, I am doing it to make money. My mining operations aren’t designed to appease decentralized hashrate enthusiasts, climate hysterics, or Twitter influencers, it’s designed to acquire Bitcoin at the lowest possible cost, without KYC, and without asking permission from both bureaucratic or virtue-al regulators.

This is the opposite of the Dorsey-funded, open-source, virtue-signaling Bitcoin projects that pretend to care about decentralization while focusing the miner’s incentives towards virtue rather than profit. Their initiatives push mining towards collectivist, progressive horse shit, mining your nose off to spite your face for the sake of the “cause”.

Mining is wrought with those who manipulate the market, from regulatory-captured public miners to hardware manufacturers that are in bed with nation-state interests, Cantillionaire cronies who seem to have an unlimited capacity to borrow money to fund project after project only to run it into the ground at strip clubs well below the quality of establishments like Hash Sluts. We’ve always fought against those bitch ass motherfuckers on Ungovernable Misfits. But recently the altruistic, mining for the cause progressive has been the louder voice in room.

I’m neither, I guess, I’m just some weirdo trying to make a profit at this, trying to do it well, not do it for the right reasons. I mine because I intend it to benefit….ME. And not that I’m for some kind of purity test, but I think it’s the purest form of mining.

I’m of the mind that “me first”, for profit mining is the most Objectivist economic system ever built. It is pure capitalism. The most efficient miners thrive, and the least efficient perish. It is voluntary. No one is forced to mine, yet those who do are rewarded by the network. It is real value creation. A miner must expend energy and capital to produce hashes, just as a pizza shop owner must expend capital and labor to create a great-a pizza pie.

Back to Ayn Rand and objectivism, I’m working on it here, but I’ll eventually make the point that mining is best approached for the lens of Objectivism. Ayn Rand despised the idea of the unearned. In Francisco d’Anconia’s Money Speech in Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand wrote ‘Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter”. I may say ‘Run for your life from any man who tells you that mining for profit is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching cuckhold. Miners don’t hit blocks and are paid block subsidies and tx fees out of charity or goodwill, they receive them because they proved their work, provided real energy, and competed in an open market, and that sure as hell doesn’t make them evil. Mining doesn’t need a moral narrative, miners don’t need to justify the choices they make in their operations. The profit motive is the narrative.

There is no moral obligation to support the network. If mining isn’t profitable, it’s not worth doing. Miners have a hard enough time simply surviving. It’s challenging enough to chase efficiency, to arbitrage energy markets, fight the nanny state, placate neighborhood Karens who complain that your miners are giving their chihuahua panic attacks, besides competing for blocks against larger operations with deep pockets, so deep, so deep, put her ass to sleep.

Ayn Rand understood this, and if she were alive today, I have to think she would see Bitcoin as the ultimate individualist technology—the final rejection of collectivism in money. She’d blow copious amounts of cigarette smoke right in the faces of those who mine for ideology and praise over those who mine for profit. We’re competing against progressive soy boys yapping about decentralization while cashing checks from progressive philanthropists. While also competing against corporate miners gargling the balls of the banking class.

Ultimately, mine for whatever reason you mine, I don’t care.

In Atlas Shrugged, during John Gault’s oath of the men of Galt’s Gulch speech, he says  “I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." Let me rephrase that, I swear by my life and my love for it, that I will never mine for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to mine for the sake of mine. There’s only one true test of mining success, are you still standing, are you still hashing? That’s it. Everything else is noise.

https://ungovernable.network/writings/120v-powered-single-board-antminer-s19-jpro/Sun, 09 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://ungovernable.network/writings/120v-powered-single-board-antminer-s19-jpro/One of the several challenges home miners face is that most of the mining equipment require 240v power. Most houses in the

Zack figured out how to pair a 120v power supply to a newer generation single hash board. He’s created a printed circuit board that basically jailbreaks the hash board to accept any power supply. Using an APW3++ power supply from an older generation Antminer, you can mine bitcoin on 120v power with Pivotal Pleb Tech’s “Loki Board.”

The hash board donor machine I used is an Antminer S19 jPro 92Th. This particular machine has a stock efficiency of 29.5 joules/Th. The reason for only running one hash board is that in stock configuration with three hash boards, the S19 jPro uses around 2.7kW. This amount of power exceeds what a standard home 120v outlet can handle. Most 120v outlets are on a 15amp circuit. 2.7kW would require over 22amps.

The donor machine is running at home on 240v minus the one hash board for this single board build. I wanted to be able to continue to utilize the rest of that machine. So it is currently hashing with 2/3 board with a piece of high density styrofoam in the place of the missing hash board.

The APW3++ power supply is from an older generation S9 Antminer is readily available and cheap. It can run 1,100 watts which will power the single hash board from the S19jPro safely on 120v power outlet in your home.

Zack had shared the proof of concept, and he also shared a modification to the APW3++ power supply to up the DC voltage output allowing you overclock the single hash board. I wanted to build one of these, but begin testing a different way to assemble the single board 120v miner.

I had some ideas about how to put this together. We must have all the miner components, hash board, power supply, control board, and fans. I work in construction, and we frequently use slotted channel called unistrut. It just happens that the height of the unistrut is 1-13/16”. This is about 1⁄4” greater than the thickness of the hash board. The other thing I wanted to do is use plexiglass so you could see the hash board. Two reasons for this. One, you can see if the heat sinks are getting dirty and two, I just think it is cool to see the guts of the electronics. So sandwiched between two pieces of plexiglass, stood up with the unistrut channel I have housed the hash board.

The control board is placed near to the connections on the hash board because it has to be. The ribbon cable that connects to the hash board is short. The control board is mounted on small screws that thread directly into the plexiglass. In retrospect, I would rotate the control board 90 degrees so that the ribbon cable connection isn’t pulled so tight.

For an easy fan solution, I started using the leftover stock Antminer fans I had on hand. With the plexiglass staggered front to back just the right amount, I was able to make the 120mm fans work with them tilted on the inlet and outlets. Maybe not the most efficient way to do it, but at this point, I just wanted to see if it would work.

I decided to mount the power supply on the back of the unit. I drilled a few holes in the bottom of the PSU case and drilled and tapped the plexiglass to mount it. The power cables from the PSU to the hash board need to be heavy gauge. The stock configuration of the S19 jPro uses bus bars. With the APW3++ at 12.25v at 1,100 watts, that would be roughly 90amps.

Heavy gauge wires are required. I cut a couple small chunks of welding lead off the ground cable on my welder in the garage. I believe these are 2AWG. One thing to note is that the positive cable (yellow wires on the PSU attach to the end lug on the hash board closest to the end of the board. Don’t hook up your power with reverse polarity. To make it work, I had to modify the PSU case some to allow for the heavier lugs I used.

Zack has a hack to up the voltage output of the APW3++. He’s the expert on some of these numbers, but the jPro hash board prefers a higher voltage than the APW3++ stock 12.15v. There is a small potentiometer that can be removed and replaced with a fixed resistor which will change the output voltage. Depending on what resistance you install you can fine tune the output voltage. I opted for a 2,700 ohm resistor which would allow me to overclock and produce more hashes. The result of the upgrade changed the voltage from 12.15v to 13.25v. I was looking for a balance that would allow me to over clock but not red line the PSU. You can find Zack’s guide for the PSU modification here.

The control board is a Xilinx C71 running BraiinsOS firmware. Not too much to say about the control board, but there are some differences between them. It’s important to note that each control board may require a unique Loki board configuration.

 My initial results surprised me. I was

expecting a drop in efficiency since thisvis a Frankenstein machine. This single board from the 92Th machine makes 37Th by itself. Drawing 9.26amps at 119v equals 1,102 watts. 1,102 watts/37Th = 29.78joules/Th. So stock efficiency but producing about 20% more hashes! It’s like the 92Th machine running at 111Th. So not only can we run on 120v power, we have upgraded the performance significantly.

Once it was up and running. I found the stock fans to be too loud. I wanted to improve the cooling efficiency and slow the fan speed down some. The initial design left a gap on each side of the hash board for air to circumvent running over the heat sinks. I installed some high density styrofoam in those gaps and found that the fans ran about 15% slower.

Still looking to do better yet, I installed an AC Infinity 6” inline fan with a galvanized duct from the local home store to replace thestock fans. This further reduced the noise. I was able to rework the unistrut and moved the angle brackets forward that hold the uprights for the hash board. Then prepossessing two of the brackets, was able to mount the AC Infinity fan to one of the legs of the assembly.

The other thing to add with the AC Infinity fan is Zack’s Cloudline Njord board. It plugs directly into the control board and controls the speed of the AC Infinity fan. I’m currently using these on most of my Antminers at home to improve cooling and reduce noise.

Check out my video here that shows the install of the Cloudline Njord Board:https://rumble.com/v2l9sym-bitcoin-home-mining-upgrade-your- miners.html

A Wifi bridge was added to remove the need to run an ethernet cable to the control board. I didn’t realize how much I’d appreciate not having to run an ethernet cable. You need to plug it in initially and connect to it to set up the local wifi networks you want it to talk to. The Vonets device I’m using can be found on Amazon for about $25. The nice thing about this device is that it runs on 5v-15v so you can hard wire it directly to the PSU. I cut the power plug off and tied the wires right onto the PSU lugs. I liked this thing so much I added one to my S9 space heater as well.

The next step is to further improve the hash board housing and assembly. In my opinion there is too big of a gap between the end of the heat sinks and the plexiglass. In order to force the air through the heat sinks, the gap should be as near to zero as possible. Maybe .010”.

While some of the component prices may vary greatly on market conditions, here is a quick price list rundown…

$300 1/3 of a used Antminer S19 jPro

$40 APW3++ PSU

$130 Xilinx control board

Then if you want the fan upgade you have:

$120 AC Infinity 6” Inline Fan

$45 Cloudline Njord Board

Here you have around $500 in items needed, but maybe you have a stash of decommissioned S9’s in the basement and a broken S19 you can salvage a hashboard and control board from. Then you need the hardware to assemble a framework to hold it all. There are some other designs out there. @satstackingpleb on twitter has a build using an electronics cabinet. I like the simplicity of that, and it keeps everything contained a little nicer. My next iteration of this may utilize a cabinet like his.

An easy to assemble, efficient, 120v powered, reasonably quiet, Bitcoin miner deployed in a way to recover the waste heat will be sought after by everyone regardless of how you value Bitcoin. I hope this experiment will help more people realize the potential Bitcoin home mining offers.

If this project interests you, please feel free to send feedback, criticisms, hate mail, suggestions, whatever.

If what you found here was helpful and want to leave a tip, you can zap me on Nostr or send to my paynym.

@Bitckle npub1f928hzm4ps7ltxlmz07nhzc9766qq4akk0ue9vl7ay777ewmazjqh7d83v

Paynym +summerbar4Ca

Respectfully,

Travis Bitckle @bitckle

dsfPleb Miner Redux – What is a Bitcoin Minersadf

Pleb Miner Redux – What is a Bitcoin Miner

It’s fascinating to look back at those first blocks: difficulty of 1, block reward 50 BTC, the delicate balance of the 10-minute mark not quite there yet. In reviewing this short Bitcoin history lesson, we bring light to the fact that Satoshi wasn’t running a giant mining operation with a cool name, a board with multiple investors, and billions in capital expenditures. He was possibly a guy in his basement or garage that he considered his lab. He shared the code with associates he knew online. Their goal was to discover blocks and secure the network. He mined because he was passionate about the innovation that he built. He was the original miner, he was a Pleb Miner. Sometime in May of 2010, Satoshi turned off the Patoshi miner, confident that he had passed the torch on to the next generation of miners.

All Time High

An all-time high block-height later, Bitcoin is still “runnin”. Much of the hashrate on the network is coordinated through large mining pools, like F2, Antpool, and Foundry’s pool. Companies like Core Scientific and Marathon control a commanding amount of the Bitcoin network’s hashrate. But 30% of all blocks ever discovered are labeled as found by ‘Unknown’ and 20% of all blocks categorized as ‘other’. There’s something beautifully mysterious about the fact that almost 364,000 blocks, approximately half of all blocks discovered throughout the time-chain, have been discovered by “anonymous” miners. This fact conveys the sentiment that not all the hashrate is controlled by pools or large mining operations, and that individuals have had an enormous contribution to the network. Individuals like Pleb Miners.

Everyone has their own definition of a Bitcoin Pleb. It’s not defined by the amount of time you’ve been in Bitcoin, the number of Sats in your stack, or how many followers you have on Twitter. The same can be said of a Pleb Miner. Pleb Miner is not defined by your total hashrate, how many watts are required to run your operations or the complexity of your setup. The title is not something that someone bestows upon you or that is issued to you through a rite of passage. So, the ultimate question then begs us for an answer. Who and what is a Pleb Miner?

Pleb Miner

A Pleb Miner is simply a Bitcoin Pleb who mines Bitcoin. Pleb Miners dedicated to the Bitcoin network, contributing their hash not only for the chance at finding the next block and receiving the block subsidy and transaction fees or helping his pool find the next block for a share of the reward but hashing because they know in their hearts that securing this network is a moral imperative. They mine because Bitcoin is a chance for humanity to restore sovereignty to the individual, to the family. They heed the clarion call that sound money leads to freedom. They mine knowing that for Bitcoin to be decentralized, they must be the ones to do it.

Their motivations aren’t to gain more fiat currency, their motivations areto stack more Sats and in doing so they innovate, collaborate with other Plebs, and share their mistakes as well as their triumphs. They spend time on chats offering advice to new Pleb Miners as well as learning even from the newest in our ranks. They make guides, videos, and how-to’s. They share pictures of their setups, not only to share in their innovations and to be critiqued but because they are proud of their work, as they should be. Proof of work is not just a motto for the Pleb Miner, it’s a way of life.

Plugging in machines

Pleb Miners come from all backgrounds, locales, and experiences. They bring various skillsets and craft. To be a successful Pleb Miner, you quickly learn many trades. Mining encompasses several scientific and mathematical concepts: basic physics, electricity, thermodynamics, acoustics, and cryptography. Pleb Miners quickly become proficient in or even master skilled trades: electrician, IT/Telecom, HVAC, plumbing, welding, carpentry, and more. The Pleb Miner knows that mining is much more than plugging in machines.

This entire month on The BitBuyBit Pod and Ungovernable Misfits is dedicated to you, The Pleb Miner. The stalwart that defends the network, the unsung anti-heroes of Bitcoin. No influencers, no thinkbois, just Plebs plugging in machines and hashing. The same way Satoshi and Hal did, thousands of blocks ago. In this way, we answer the question of who and what is a Pleb Miner; a Pleb Miner is you and you are all Satoshi.

Author:

soul exporter

An unexpected start

 When Jon promoted Lake Satoshi on the Meshtadel group and the Ungovernable Misfits podcast, it sounded intriguing. My wife, eager to visit the USA, was surprisingly on board when I jokingly suggested we turn Lake Satoshi into a family trip. That’s how our journey began—a blend of Bitcoin, exploration, and adventure across the American Midwest.

When Max and Jon organized a friendly “Closest Guess Contest” on how many miles Bubba and his wife would drive with their truck that week, I threw in a dad-joke funny and probably irrelevant number as I like to do: 2420 (‘to four twenty’).

Even with my questionable guess, I was the closest one that was able to attend, securing one free entry (thanks, Bubba!).Winning a ticket to Lake Satoshi felt like a sign.The correct answer was by the way a mind blowing 8500miles in one week 🤯

From there, the planning kicked into high gear. Flights, side activities, and road trip logistics were all on the table. Jon recommended we visit Rev Hodl’s farm, adding another layer of Bitcoin Pleb excitement to our itinerary.

The Road trip

After some deliberation, we decided on a route that would take us from Chicago to Rev’s farm, then to Lake Satoshi(1) , and finally to Niagara Falls. We’d fly into Chicago, visit the city for two days, spend another two at Rev’s farm, two more at Lake Satoshi, and then cap off the trip with two nights in Niagara before flying home from Buffalo. It was an ideal prep for Lake Satoshi—a mix of Bitcoin, nature, and classic American road tripping. This itinerary is something I’d recommend to any European Bitcoiner, especially those who appreciate the principles of permaculture. Just realize that Niagara Falls offers a very different vibe from Lake Satoshi: it is fiat vs Bitcoin 😁!

Arriving at Lake Satoshi

With our road trip well underway, we focused on Lake Satoshi. I hadn’t bought tickets in advance, being too enthralled by the journey to worry about the details. On Jon’s recommendation, we arranged for an RV to be delivered to the venue for some added comfort while traveling with the family. That was our first priority.

After a few delays—thanks to the classic “Papa, I need to pee urgently” just after passing the last gas station—we arrived just in time, or maybe a bit late, to meet the RV folks. The only indication that we were at the right place was an orange fluorescent arrow. A bit further on, we found a large hangar with cars, the registration building, and a scattering of big trucks and heavy-duty vehicles. Yes, we had arrived—at a quarry.

The first person we met was PF, who, with his bearded, friendly demeanor, seemed like Santa Claus in summer disguise. I initially thought he was just another visitor, but he quickly explained that admission was a symbolic $21, payable in cash or Sats. Before I could get my bearings, I received a call from the RV rental family. PF instantly reassured me, saying, “Don’t worry, man. Get settled first. We’ll take care of the admission later. “

Settling In

The RV arrived slowly, the drivers unsure if they were at the right place, guided only by that same fluorescent arrow. After a quick introduction, we were surrounded by friendly faces, helping hands guiding us to our spot next to the lake, complete with electricity and water hookups. To reach this idyllic location, we drove along a dusty road that wound between the lake and the forest, eventually passing a sign that read “Bitcoin Beach North. ” It was a different world within the same terrain—spacious, peaceful, and perfectly suited for the event.

Our RV spot was ideal, offering comfort and convenience, but there were plenty of other great spots for tents among the trees, a beach with kayaks and SUPs for the kids (and the young-at-heart adults), a playground, a half-court for basketball, and a pavilion with tables, benches, and a gas grill. It was the perfect setup for a family-friendly Bitcoin gathering.

The Lake Satoshi Experience

From the moment we arrived, we were welcomed by a whirlwind of introductions. Unsure whether to use my real name or my nickname, I opted for both, creating a unique form of self-imposed anonymity—thanks to my unusual pronunciation, I’m sure not many fully caught either! 😊With all the kindness and friendliness, I briefly wondered if I had stumbled upon some sort of cult. We decided to take a breather and do some grocery shopping, during which I bought three tickets via Oshi, just to be safe. When we returned and I mentioned the tickets to PF, he nearly insisted on refunding the entry fee for the kids. I had read something in the Telegram channel about kids under a certain age getting in for free, but at $21 per person—food, drinks, and RV amenities included—it was still a fantastic deal. Even so, all the proceeds from the event are donated to a good cause! Pay it forward! 💕

The whole event felt spacious and uncrowded, a perfect venue for meeting up with fellow Meshtadelians. Despite the challenge of matching nicknames to real-life faces, especially after a few beers, the sense of camaraderie was palpable. It felt less like meeting strangers and more like reconnecting with friends I simply hadn’t met yet.

A Unique Gathering

Lake Satoshi was a beautifully unstructured event, built on well-organized preparation. Yes, there was a speaker schedule (which I mostly missed), food and drinks for every meal, and plenty of facilities. But the overall vibe was one of freedom and flexibility, an atmosphere where anything seemed possible. In a way, Lake Satoshi embodies the most positive aspects of anarchy—no top-down rules, just friendly requests and advice. Everyone seemed motivated to do the right thing, driven by a natural peer pressure to maintain the event’s laid-back yet respectful atmosphere.

Reflections on Lake Satoshi

Was Lake Satoshi perfect? Surely not, there are always some minor issues,. . . like enthusiastic conversations growing loud enough to disrupt the speaker sessions. But these were quickly resolved, with folks being asked to chat outside the presentation area and one mom taking the kids to the beach for a playgroup.

What struck me most was the community spirit. Unlike other Bitcoin events where developers and influencers dominate, Lake Satoshi was a gathering of builders—mechanics, farmers, and other hands-on workers who are creating the future they want to see. It was a place where ideas and projects were born out of a genuine desire to build a better world, not just in the digital realm but in tangible, everyday life.

And then it hit me: Lake Satoshi wasn’t just a Bitcoin event. It was a gathering of social engineers—not the kind trying to manipulate systems, but those building social bonds and communities grounded in freedom. Freedom not in the sense of privacy or anonymity, but in the ability to transact openly with trusted peers.

In truth I feel jealous, for it has become clear to me… the first real-life, physical manifestation of the Meshtadel spirit is being built in Michigan. And for that one and a half day, we were lucky enough to be a part of it.

The Power of Community in Action

Lake Satoshi was a microcosm of a world where community, trust, and social bonds took precedence over commerce and profit (& influencers). The interactions I witnessed and participated in during my time there left a lasting impression—showing that, in a culture where technology often dominates (Bitcoin is and will always be code 😊), human connection remains at the core of what truly matters.

One of the most striking aspects of Lake Satoshi was the way people naturally took care of one another. It wasn’t just about Bitcoin or technology; it was about creating a community where everyone felt included and supported. This was evident in the way as I mentioned before Otis’ wife, without hesitation, took charge of a whole bunch of kids, leading them to the lakeside for a playgroup. It wasn’t planned or organized—she simply saw a need and filled it, allowing the speakers & audience less distraction while other parents could relax and engage with the event, knowing their children were in good hands.

This sense of communal care extended beyond just the children. Vendors at the event, instead of guarding their stands closely, would often abandon them, leaving their goods out, sometimes with a QR code for payment. They trusted that their fellow attendees would pay fairly, even in their absence. It wasn’t just about making a sale; it was about fostering an environment of mutual respect and trust. I found this particularly inspiring.

My Experiment in Value

I was there with some clothing I had designed—an experiment, really. I wasn’t there to focus on the sales but rather to see how people would respond if I left the value of my goods up to them. I highjacked a table from Jon and soon followed the example of other vendors by leaving a simple note: people could find me or my son somewhere at the event and pay whatever they deemed the clothing was worth.

For me, interacting with the people present was far more important than haggling over prices. This experiment forces buyers to be more mindful of their purchases, to consider the value not just in monetary terms but in terms of what the item meant to them personally.

The trade I am most proud of came out of this experiment. I had been eyeing a board game that I first saw at Rev’s farm (Mission Bitcoin), thinking it would be a great addition to our family collection. When I mentioned this to SeB, the seller surprised me by suggesting a trade—a hoodie from my collection in exchange for the game. It was a perfect reflection of the atmosphere at Lake Satoshi, where value was seen not just in Bitcoin but in the connections we were building and the shared experiences we were creating.

Trust, Freedom, and the Social Layer of Bitcoin

Thus Lake Satoshi provided a powerful reminder of the importance of the social layer in Bitcoin. In a system where money no longer requires trust—thanks to Bitcoin’s decentralized nature—we can bring that trust back into our social relationships and interactions. This creates a space where we can build bridges between like-minded individuals, fostering networks of trust that provide a sense of belonging.

In a world where technology often seems to distance us from one another, Lake Satoshi was a reminder that it’s possible to create spaces where trust, community, and human connection are at the forefront. It’s in these spaces that the true potential of Bitcoin—and any layer or even broader technology on top of that base layer—can be realized.

At Lake Satoshi, we as a whole, challenged traditional economic models and explored what it means to build a community in the digital age. The social bonds we formed were far more valuable than any transaction could be.It became a practical example that removing trust from money allows us to reintroduce that trust into our social relationships.

This shift is about more than just financial transactions; it’s about building bridges between like-minded individuals, creating social networks that foster a sense of belonging and trust. This stands in stark contrast to the mindset that fuels the reliance on privacy coins—a mindset rooted in fear rather than hopefulness.

At Lake Satoshi, the concept of trust was not tied to the anonymity of transactions, but to the openness of the community.

For once you are able to trade with your neighbors, I would dare to challenge any chain analysis company to try to root out who owns which coin and did which trade. It isn’t possible by just tracing transactions, one would need a deep understanding the human connections even IF they would be aware of each transaction (and not each transaction happens on-chain).

Reflecting on the state attack on Samurai, which was a big blow on the privacy potential of Bitcoin, I believe the answer doesn’t lie in seeking more privacy through alternative cryptocurrencies. Any currency other than Bitcoin, in my view, operates at the wrong level. The real solution lies in rethinking the problem from a social perspective, rather than merely a technical one. However I do understand if someone wants to use any tool to hide from the state (to name one example), I do not recommend to use any tool as a replacement. On a personal level, I remind myself: any weapon you use incorrectly, puts you in more danger than your adversary 😊 (read: I would probably fuck up using for example Monero and just put a big target on myself)

Reclaiming Trust and Community

Historically money originally emerged as an abstraction of barter, allowing us to trade with those whose services or products we didn’t immediately need. Yet, over time, we’ve drifted too far from the social element of trade. The internet, in particular, has spoiled us with the convenience of global shopping—enabling us to buy products from halfway around the world without ever considering the needed interactions and conversions that underpin those transactions. We’ve become accustomed to a system where multiple layers of conversion—between currencies, cultures (and means of transport), and languages—happen invisibly in the background. This abstraction, while convenient, has distanced us from the social aspects of trade.

Bitcoin, however, with its unique characteristic of absolute scarcity and its globally auditable supply and at same time global availability, removes the need for a big part of these conversions. It offers a universal measure of value that transcends borders and simplifies transactions. But for Bitcoin to fully realize its potential, we need to reconnect with the social relationships that make trade meaningful.

This is where the concept of a “Meshtadel” comes into play. As I said, at Lake Satoshi, I witnessed a Meshtadel taking a physical form, and I hope to see replicated around the world— thus the beginnings of forming a global loose network of physical Meshtadels. Not just gatherings or events, but thriving communities where social bonds are as important as the technology that underpins them. In these spaces, Bitcoin isn’t just a currency; it’s a tool for building trust, fostering collaboration, and creating a sense of belonging.

Imagine a world where Meshtadels form a global mesh network of communities, each interconnected yet self-sufficient, bound together by shared values and a common vision. These communities would represent the true potential of Bitcoin—not just as a decentralized currency, but as a catalyst for social change. By focusing on the social layer, we can reclaim the trust that has been lost in our increasingly digital and impersonal world, and build a future where technology serves to enhance, rather than replace, our human connections.

In the end, it’s not about hiding behind ‘privacy coins’ or seeking refuge in alternative currencies. It’s about building the social relationships that can make those tools unnecessary. Lake Satoshi in Michigan is just the beginning—a prototype for what could become a global network of Meshtadels, where trust, community, and social bonds are the foundation of a new, more connected world….

Fireside Reflections: Proof of Concept

These thoughts did not come out of the blue when seeing Lake Satoshi. As you could read in the start of this writing, our trip took us to Rev Hodl’s farm.

As I sat in the evening with Rev Hodl by the fire, alongside my son, the conversations we had were more than just idle chats—they were a prelude to these realizations that would crystallize at Lake Satoshi. Watching Rev and his family work on their farm, I saw a living embodiment of what it means to integrate and nurture every part of an ecosystem, from the land to the animals, and even the people who enter his life. Rev and his family aren’t rulers of their domain, bending it to their will with heavy machinery. Instead, they are gentle stewards, guiding the land with subtle interventions that allow new paths to flourish.

This approach goes beyond the physical land; it extends to the animals they raise, the pets they keep, and even the wild creatures that share the same space. Rev’s philosophy of care doesn’t stop at the edge of his property—it includes the neighbors, the guests at their B&B, and even the Bitcoin miners on the farm, which serve a dual purpose in the ecosystem. The family has cultivated a web of interdependencies, much like a mycelium network, where each small connection strengthens the whole, benefiting the land, its caretakers, and the broader community among other things as one of the driving forces behind what I start to call in my head “the Michigan Meshtadel”.

These fireside talks with Rev Hodl served as a lens through which I could see the social fabric of Lake Satoshi in a new light. Our discussions naturally drifted to the social aspects of Bitcoin and the potential, as well as the limitations, of Bitcoin and the Lightning Network (LN). In the past, I conceptualized the idea of the Rings of Fire, which I entrusted to the ‘Connect the World’ team (they took the concept to a whole new level). However, one of the limitations I’ve come to realize is that the LN will never fully replace the legacy financial system due to issues like pathfinding, which LN critics rightly point out.

Yet, the bigger insight I gained, both at Rev’s farm and later at Lake Satoshi, is this critical importance of the social aspect of trade—something that often gets overlooked in our digital age. Instead of trying to create a generic network of payment channels that can handle all transactions by hopping through various nodes, what if we focused on building networks that reflect our social connections? What if the channels we open on the LN aren’t just random connections, but representations of the trust and relationships we’ve built?

This might seem like a side story, but it’s a crucial one. At Lake Satoshi, I witnessed the Michigan network taking shape before my eyes. And imagined (and discussed about this idea) how these interactions could be even more private by only (or at least mostly) involving the parties present and thus not leaving any big onchain traces.

Although I’m a distant participant, my interactions with the people there have been meaningful enough to establish a few key connections that anchor me to their growing momentum. Even if it’s just once a year, these connections pull me into the community, reinforcing the bonds that have been formed. So I already ponder and wonder if I should also make some relevant LN channels to make a distant connection to some of the spokes of the Michigan network surrounding Lake Satoshi. 😊

If my dreams could materialize into reality, I would love to create a local version of Lake Satoshi—a Meshtadel in my own community. However, I doubt that I would ever be able to even think of a way to replicate the intricate, well-oiled machine that’s being built in Michigan. What they’ve achieved is more than just an event; it’s a thriving social network that mirrors the best aspects of Bitcoin: decentralized, resilient, and rooted in mutual trust.

As I reflect on these experiences, it becomes clear that the future of Bitcoin is not just about technology, but about the social structures we build around it. The Michigan Meshtadel is just the beginning, a prototype for what could be a global network of interconnected communities. And while I may not be able to replicate it exactly, the lessons I’ve learned from Rev Hodl and Lake Satoshi will undoubtedly influence how I approach building my own social networks, both online and off.

In the end, the real power of Bitcoin lies not in its code, but in the communities that form around it, and in Michigan I saw it is possible.

Author:

Kaboomracks alex

While the world is on the precipice, Bitcoin is getting ready for a facemelting bull run and there is going to be a capacity shortage. Right now there are entities buying it all up, and they are having to compete with the data center industry which is also expanding at a very rapid rate. I’m a Bitcoin miner salesman, and my goal is to convince you that buying miners and having them plugged in is a responsible financial decision versus just buying Bitcoin.

TLDR:

• Mining is going to be horrible for retail after next halving
• Miner supply crunch likely won’t be as severe as last cycle
• Capacity crunch will be very severe
• Market fomo will be insane and will be great to capitalize on if you are positioned correctly
• The most efficient machine will carry the highest premium, especially if you can sell it plugged in (Due to capacity crunch).
• Miner stock in the US, even if it’s used, will carry a premium.
• If you are willing to sell equipment when the market takes off, you will shorten ROI time tremendously
• Selling at the top lowers the risk of failures due to manufacturers making bad hardware and lowers the risk of buying unknown quality machines

So right now is completely apocalyptic in regards to miner pricing. There is a huge discrepancy between new and used miner pricing, as the market is heavily leaning towards new generation equipment. I’m going to be talking predominantly about Bitmain machines because the other manufacturers are not coming close to competing in efficiency or price right now to the point where it’s very difficult to justify looking at anyone else.

Up until last week when Bitcoin took a dive, network difficulty was rising pretty sharply. There may be slight adjustment downwards as many miners mining at higher rates and on older equipment are really feeling the crunch.

But prior to this week, there was a 10% difficulty adjustment upwards. In previous halvings, there was often a significant downwards adjustment as unprofitable miners turned off, but this halving the economics are significantly different. Hash rate, despite profitability being abysmal for most people, is continuing to trend upwards at breakneck pace. Bigger money is coming in, and more infrastructure is getting deployed. At the same time, the data center industry is exploding with this AI boom.

I would like to think big money is coming into the mining space because people with a lot of money are realizing that the fiat system is completely screwed. Are they looking at mining as the ability to acquire Bitcoin at a significant discount and one of the best vehicles to accumulate? Speculating on motives is pretty difficult because everyone has different motives and perspectives, and I struggle with confirmation bias. But regardless of what the motive is, it’s happening. Retail miners have stopped buying, but massive institutions are buying up all the mining capacity in the United States. This is happening outside of the United States as well, but my perspective is largely on the US market because that is where I focus.

What I’m about to explain is a speculative strategy that I think can make a lot of money really fast. I will detail pretty thoroughly what I think some of the risks are, and ultimately for most people, just buying Bitcoin is a significantly better strategy. I live in a world where I speculate on mining hardware for a living so this is just where my brain is at and this post might be interesting even if you are not wanting to or should not enter the market. Mining is one of the tougher industries to operate in because there is a significant learning curve with a ton of variables and risks a lot of people don’t even know exist when they enter. That’s just a nice way to say that liking Bitcoin is not necessarily a qualification for being an effective operator in mining.

The Trade

• Buy new generation mining hardware and put it in hosting or a site you operate
• Hopefully mine profitably until the market turns around
• Wait for people to start feeling the fomo and come into the market (Don’t fomo into retail hosting in the bull market please for the love of God)
• Exit your position selling your machines after they explode in valuation in place with the capacity as it will carry a higher premium than if it’s just sitting in a warehouse unplugged

The general landscape of mining is looking pretty bleak for the small/medium scale miner, and I think it’s important to understand that if things trend the way they are, it’s going to be significantly worse 4 years from now. I believe pretty strongly that retail individuals will generally have a really hard time post next halving, unless this trend of miners becoming larger scale changes unexpectedly.

Retail miners with higher costs on machine acquisition, power costs, and fleet management will get demolished. The market is changing. A good example is how Swan and Tether quietly deployed $100 million worth of miners from seemingly out of nowhere. There will be other institutions doing this and the scale at which mining is going to happen will be mind blowing. Hash Price is plummeting and difficulty is rising.

The average individual  should avoid entering this market because there are so many risks to navigate, and you can get destroyed financially by what you do not know. Arrogance in believing you know more than you do is deadly in this industry and the best skill to have is admitting where you do not know something. A lot of these risks can be mitigated right now by taking the strategy of taking advantage of inevitable crunches on hardware and capacity that are soon coming to the industry, instead of finding yourself in a hosting contract as the market corrects after a blow off top, holding unprofitable and quickly devaluing equipment.

This cycle the manufacturers are better positioned to produce significantly more equipment, and the market is also positioned to consume significantly more equipment. There will be more institutions like Swan and Tether, and Tether isn’t even done deploying. Right now, new equipment has a very inflated price, compared to most miners expectations of a sub 2 year ROI on hardware. On paper, miners should be getting destroyed right now, but difficulty is continuing to increase at a ridiculous rate. This is likely because individuals that are well capitalized understand what I’m describing right now and are trying to get as much hash online before the miner bull market begins.

The second people start to get bullish, all the capacity available will get bought up. There are already people extremely bullish buying it all. Mining capacity is super illiquid because it’s real. You need real skilled people to build real infrastructure. A lot of this is in rural places where there are not a lot of qualified people. The infrastructure needs to come from all over the world, and there are a ton of moving pieces to get it all in place. Building things is really difficult when you live in a world where Atlas Shrugged looks like a prophecy. Historically, the mining bull market has been pretty short and the ability to build infrastructure will lag significantly behind the market demand for it.

Machine prices will definitely increase in value, and could triple compared to what they are today. There were $10,000 and $15,000 S19 J Pros last cycle, and in today’s devalued dollar prices, it’s not unreasonable to think that S21 prices could double or triple from where they are today. A good portion of the market will be attempting to buy these machines, but will run into issues with finding where to plug them. If you have machines hosted in place, you will likely be able to sell them for a significant premium.

I predict retail hosting almost across the board will sell out completely very quickly. FOMO will be completely out of control, and while individuals expose themselves to a ton of risk they don’t understand, and probably shouldn’t be buying miners, they will be. People who have been in the fiat world will be told by the TV that Bitcoin is cool. Having a boomer like Trump talking about it at a Bitcoin conference is pretty indicative of that.

Hosts that want to expand, will be faced with a shortage of skilled laborers, shortages of infrastructure, long lead times for everything, and the bull market if it performs like prior cycles, will be a short window. It’s possible there is a super cycle, but people who bet on that last cycle did not do very well. Individuals who take this trade have the ability to multiply their investment in a pretty short time period if they position themselves correctly.

Risks and Variables

I’m feeling a sense of massive fomo right now because I believe the window to be able to capitalize on this trade is closing. I don’t think we have enough hosting capacity right now to fully take advantage of this market, nor do I think anyone else does. Big players have the opportunity to buy capacity in one swoop. One large institution like Swan has the ability to buy all the capacity at once in the US if they really wanted to, and whether or not it is them, someone will likely do it.

• Shortlist of risks:
• Operator failures
• Bad operating conditions
• Bitcoin doesn’t rally like many of us are expecting, or in the timeline we are expecting
• Lemmon machines which break at high rates
• Regulatory risks
• Geopolitical chaos
• Erratic Power Markets

Let me blast through these real quick because this is already long winded.

If you are deploying miners into hosting, you are still taking on all the risks that you would be if you deployed yourself. Just because it’s someone else managing your machines that is hopefully more experienced and knowledgeable than you, doesn’t mean you aren’t assuming the risk or it won’t be a headache. You can try to mitigate this in multiple ways. You could learn the intricacies of this industry and red flags to look for, and just do general good due diligence. The problem with this is that there is not much time to figure this out and if you don’t already have a good foundation, it’s going to be really difficult. You can ask individuals who are more experienced and listen to them while hoping what they are telling you is accurate or helpful. Or you can just buy Bitcoin and avoid the risks all together.

Cheaper is not always better because often you can end up paying a lot more on the back end when you try to skimp on the front end. Being very skeptical of sales people, even me, and asking a lot of questions and looking for inconsistencies in answers is good. It is really important to be confident someone is being honest with you because you are taking on a massive risk by buying miners.

If the operator is not running the machines in good conditions, they have the potential to break which could create a big financial hole for you. Expect machine failures and expect repair costs.  Finding experienced and trustworthy operators to handle your equipment is not easy, and the thought that buying miners to put into hosting being a passive activity to generate money is not generally the case.

There are a lot of complaints about Bitmain quality, but these machines (minus the S17 series) tend to be pretty resilient if operated in the correct conditions. Running machines in hot and horrible environments like Texas only become attractive if the costs are low enough to justify the headache of broken equipment. One of the benefits of buying new equipment is having the ability to warranty it when it breaks, versus having to fix it out of pocket.

The biggest potential problem with this whole thesis is that Bitcoin stays relatively flat, difficulty continues to go up through the roof, and mining economics as we have historically thought about changes dramatically. This would be problematic for the whole industry in the short term, and I may be out of a job if this happens. It’s a serious concern that everyone should deeply consider and run the numbers before jumping into the market because a sales guy is super bullish. Mitigation for this is making a bet that you can afford to lose. Mining is one of the quickest ways to lose money (I can attest from personal experience), but this can be mitigated by successfully timing the market, which in mining is not rocket science if the cycles play out similarly to how they have in the past.

On paper, it seems like all our bags are about to get pumped super hard, but we live in a world where nothing makes sense, and therefore it is always important to check your emotions and try to think rationally about the potential downsides. It’s important to be prepared for the possibility that you are stuck mining with the machines for a while and won’t be able to sell for a premium. I’m gambling that this is not the case by continuing to work in this industry and dedicate most of my waking hours to this which to me is a big bet. It does not do me any good to screw customers over and make a quick buck and I try to give my customers the best information I have because I want to create a lasting relationship and continue to sell then equipment in the future.

The newest and most efficient machines coming to market are a big unknown. We generally do not know the quality of machines until they have been operated for at least 12 months. Getting through 4 seasons and extended time hashing gives us a good understanding of what the quality of the machines is. There is a possibility that you could get a lemmon, meaning the model you buy has high failure rates.. Having the option to sell the machine hosted in place for a premium, mitigates some of this risk. So far, the 21 series has done pretty well at running stably in the summer and we are getting towards the end of the summer. Underclocking the machines in the hot months or having the option to curtail could assist in general stability and longevity (less watts equals less heat and strain). We are getting to a time in the year where the hot months are soon behind us, and deploying machines into hotter environments is less risky, especially if your target sales timeline is summer next year.

Deploying in cold snowy environments carries its own risk, especially if there is intermittent downtime which creates more wear and tear on your machines. Understanding the parameters in regards to curtailment, or just general downtime is good to know. Understanding the operating conditions, whether it is a grid data center environment, container deployment, or off grid deployment is important for understanding potential wear and tear on miners. Heat is kind of unavoidable in the summer, even if you deploy in environments less terrible than Texas.

There is also the very real possibility that the regulatory landscape for miners changes in the US. Many US pools will likely be forced to KYC customers, and there may be other disruptions that could happen. While narratives on Twitter present a picture that Bitcoin miners are saving energy grids and are the most wonderful people in the world, the reality is that many individuals have been bad actors causing damage to communities around them, power companies which they ran up huge bills and never paid, using large amounts of water, etc. There are people who really don’t like us, and potential motivation to come after us as a result. Not only that, as mining continues to scale up, there will likely be the possibility that larger firms pressure politicians to pass regulations that benefit them and hurt smaller competitors. It happens in every industry and we have seen a general consolidation of everything for decades, so it’s a massive risk for miners. I think a lot of this could be mitigated by shortening your time horizon. It will take time for these to play out, but I think it’s still something to pay attention to.

One massive risk that’s really important to understand is that the power markets are on the verge of complete chaos. Power producers are locked in at rates that they likely will not be able to maintain if and when their costs shoot through the roof. The Middle East is super chaotic right now which makes me think this is a real possibility in the short term to look out for.

The Bull Case for New top dollar hardware

New equipment is expensive, and it is this case because it’s the only stuff on the market most people can run profitably. With the proximity to what has historically been mining bull runs, the highest hashing equipment will carry the highest premium and have the wildest price swings upwards. In the bull, individuals’ mentalities completely change. People care about capacity and maximizing hashrate, much more than they care about price or efficiency. Caring about efficiency is a bear market activity, but whatever has the biggest number hashrate will be the machines with the most demand.

Buying machines with a year warranty mitigate the risks of the machines breaking and having to eat repair costs yourself. J Pros for example, selling near or below $500 are not worth spending the money to repair because of how cheap they are. Buying a replacement machine makes a lot more sense than spending a third of the value to repair a hash board or replace a power supply. You can mine new equipment profitably, and likely sell.

Recap/Final Thoughts

• Mining is changing and maturing
• People will fomo into the market
• There is going to be capacity constraints meaning people pay more for machines already plugged in
• Next halving is going to be brutal
• You can make a lot of money fast timing the market like this
• There is a lot of risk, and a lot of people won’t and shouldn’t attempt this

This market is risky and it’s easy to get scammed, so I would encourage people to do a lot of research on who they are working with and stick with people who have good reputations. At the end of the day, it is much easier and safer to just buy Bitcoin. Double check you know who are you talking with, as there will be people impersonating individuals on telegram, twitter, etc. Scams are getting more sophisticated.

Thank you for reading, Kaboomracks Alex

WTF is Containment and Why Does it Matter

The purpose of containment in the Bitcoin mining space is to separate the hot and cold air and avoid heat recirculation into the servers. Bitcoin computer servers put out excessive heat with temps in excess of 140 F/60C at 350+ cubic feet per minute of air (CFM) of air per worker. Tracking down and repairing hotspots in a build can be as fun as trying to find a water leak in a roof deck. If you have half assed or no containment in place this can be troubling. Employing best practices can save time in initial deployment and hours of battling hot spots or cold start shenanigans in the future during weather events.

Several container/pod manufacturers over the years have significantly improved their builds to deal with this issue. Upstream Data has incorporated high-pressure inlet booster fans for the Texas pods (Hash Hut). A walk through of their newer Hash Hut can be seen here with the Canadian Hipster Steve Barbour doing a walk through.

Best practices in the field ~Aaron Hall SunDog Mining.

• Use good quality material to separate the hot and cold aisle. Common materials utilized at scale are C&C cutouts or foam/polycarbonate materials.
• Push the unit through the cutout of the heat aisle; it generally works better than placing it up against it.
• Also don’t skimp on the tape. You’ll buy once and cry once. Heat rated tape only

Trouble Shooting Tips

• Oftentimes you may be chasing down a heat leak when in fact you have an inflow problem. This could be caused by dirty filters/screen or just not enough inflow ~ Jeff Hotz
• It is not uncommon to underestimate the inflow requirements. This can be a trial and error process unless you’re a large pubco with engineers onhand to calculate air flow requirements. Ideally, you want as much air coming in that is going out.
• Invest in or borrow from a fren a FLIR camera. Use it to detect where the hot and cold air is recirculating. This can save you hours chasing hot spots in your build. Below is a photo shared by Jeff Hotz or shall I say Dot’s Giga Mining Container.

Understand the Basics

Resource management is a key aspect of most strategy games. Whether it’s gathering materials, managing your economy, or allocating units, efficient resource management can make or break your game. Prioritize essential resources and ensure you’re always producing and gathering what you need to sustain your operations.

• Know Your Units and Structures

Different units and structures have unique strengths and weaknesses. Learn what each unit and building does, and use them to your advantage. Mix and match different units to create balanced armies, and place your structures strategically to maximize their effectiveness.

Distributed Hash has been experimenting with shroud technology in conjunction with Cryptocloaks  to reduce hot air recirculation and increase efficiency. Their preliminary documentation can be seen here. They have been working with large scale operations to increase efficiencies.

 At Home Mining Ingenuity

At home miners rely heavily on shrouds and ductwork to reuse the heat in the winter or move the heat outside in the warmer months. Significant innovation has come from at home miners over the last couple years. Balancing a 70 decibel screaming cyber hornet in your basement or the garage can be troubling for a married man. Inasmuch, there have been significant breakthroughs from what Max & Jon of the Bit Buy Bit Podcast have dubbed Pleb Miners.

With the invention of Zack Bombsta Njord Cloudline Board Antminer X19 users can install inline fans coupled with Zack Bombsta Njord Cloudline board to control inline fans. Travis Bickel has a clean example of incorporating good containment with inline fans and the use of Zack’s Njord Board. In this example Travis has removed his stock fans and incorporated AC infinity fans utilizing the Njord Board to control the air flow. Note the shrouds connections for the heat capture in this example. With the use of inline fans and insulated ducting Travis is able to mine sats while maintaining a healthy relationship with his wife. The decibel reduction is significant when the low-cost factory fans are removed and replaced with a quieter fan designed more so for cannabis production.

 Half-Ass Containment

You can have mediocre success with half-ass containment like I currently employ in the barn. It works better than nothing and it is suitable in many applications. If I didn’t spend so much time typing articles for BBB Podcast and Ungovernable Misfits website for Jon to read I could get off my ass and finish my containment by walling this off with C&C metal. Originally, I just had a couple few servers in my loft on a rack in front of a 4,000 CFM fan. As I began to add more servers, the CFM increased and so did the British Thermal Units (BTU) coming out of my brrr machines. During the hotter part of the day the barn was getting in the high 90s. The heat coming from the rear of the servers was blowing back. Here are examples of what I call Half-Ass Containment. Keep in mind this will help better than nothing. Could it be better if the above recommendations are employed absolutely, you bet.

 Summary

This was not meant to be a scientific read and melt faces with technical documentation. The goal was to bring attention to the importance of capturing and preventing recirculation of heat into your mining servers. The more servers you add to the space the more BTU’s you’re going to get pouring out on the other end. This heat needs to be directed somewhere properly, otherwise it’s going to get sucked back up into your mining servers. You can mitigate heat recirculation with proper containment protocols in place by creating a hot aisle with many different products including C&C barriers, shrouds, ducting, and heat resistant duct tape. Remember, half ass-containment > no containment.

Keep Building, Keep HashingBarnMinerTwitter @btctwatterpantsTelegram @barnimner

Author:

AgentP

I am new to Bitcoin (class of 2021). I have some unorthodox viewpoints; I am either new and naive or I am new enough to avoid the blindspots which have captured everyone else. I have been running hosted miners since the market bottom in 2022. While mining has been profitable and I continue to run my hosted machines for as long as they remain profitable, in the long term I think mining needs to become unprofitable. For reasons I hope to expound in a future article, I think that mining may need to transform out of the

“business” mindset during the next 10-20 years if it is going to avoid state capture. So in summer 2023 I began exploring solar tech as a way to keep old machines running. I don’t care much for “green energy” and climate alarmism. For me, solar tech is about easily decentralized power sovereignty. I spent this winter getting hands on knowledge with an S9, S17, and S19 for space heating, and planning and building out my first solar mining system. From December to February I ran initial tests on the 100 Acres Ranch direct DC Hashbox, and put up the final installation in April 2024. Unfortunately it is still not running at full power, but I hope to finish the remaining pieces in the next month or so.

Upfront I’d like to make it clear that this build is unfinished, and is too underpowered to truly demonstrate direct DC potential. Hopefully I can expand soon and push the limits. I will describe some things here which may sound critical of the 100 Acres Design. I bought every part of this system myself, no one has paid me anything to review this, so I can write freely. I think direct DC has huge potential in general for solar mining. The 100 Acres Hashbox is a good system. It is built well, it does what it says, and can work really well IF you design and build the system around it carefully. You cannot just slap any type or number of solar panels on the box and expect it to magically give you amazing efficiency because its “direct DC bro!” You have to do it right, and generally that means a large number of low voltage panels. This also means you need space for a lot of panels. There are many ways to do this build wrong (I’ve discovered most of them!).

I understand Bitcoiners don’t care much for credentials, but I have a degree in computer engineering which I think has enabled me to understand some of the intricacies with solar mining, and I’ll try to share what I’ve learned so far here. This writeup will hopefully serve as a useful primer for miners interested in direct DC mining, and as a helpful guide for anyone considering building a 100 Acres Hashbox system specifically. If you are interested in consulting me for more tailored design advice I am on Twitter/X @keegreil or Telegram @AgentP137.

“For your safety”

I would be remiss if I started an Ungovernable Misfits article without the requisite appeal to safety. Seriously, high current DC power is no joke. There are reasons no one builds large solar installations this way. The risk profile and failure modes are entirely different than a high voltage low current system. In the latter, you are more concerned with good insulation, and short circuits causing tripped circuit breakers. In this low voltage regime, connection failure typically results in melted or vaporized copper starting fires. You can have a bad connection overheat and vaporize without ever tripping a breaker. In a typical mining server, the low voltage high current of 200+ amps travels through two connection points and about one to three inches of solid copper bar. In this build, we are pushing 300-400 amps potentially thirty feet or more through at least 8 connections. Each one presents a possibility of failure, especially after repeated thermal cycling. It can be done, and it can be done safely. But it requires a LOT of copper and good solid high quality connection points. I have found that periodically inspecting with a thermal camera is useful as well. In the following picture, the “hot” wires were in fact only barely above room temperature. So it’s good to “calibrate” what you see in the picture by getting hands on a few things. But this method should make any dangerously hot connections easy to spot.

So, if you take this on, do it carefully, don’t skimp on copper, and check and re-check connections often. But you probably shouldn’t bother building it at all. You know, “for your safety.”

A note on compliance

Another consideration is that a fully off-grid system like this can make compliance with your local power regulations much more difficult. You likely won’t have to pull any permits, or report power usage for mining to anyone. There will be no second commercial meter, no building inspectors, and no compliance department to help you through the process. You are pulling power out of the sky and turning it into hash without any oversight or procedural governance. This can be an uncomfortable position to be in for anyone who understands the importance of compliance. Perhaps more concerning for some readers is that solar technology is generally assumed to be a highly compliant form of power. Solar is “green”, “clean”, and “good for the earth”. Installing solar panels on your property may cause your neighbors to assume that you are a more compliant and “green-conscious” person than you actually are.

Cost breakdown and ROI

The creator of the Hashbox touts efficiency and ROI as the primary advantages of his technology. Having built one, I have major caveats to both. First the numbers. These prices are what I paid, you may or may not be able to find the same prices, but in most cases you should be able to do better than me.

Solar Panels: $2,487.10 (this was not enough panels!)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/335075375898?var=544301079740

This total price is probably about right. On one hand, I overpaid A LOT per panel ($0.69/W), and others can likely do much better. On the other hand, you will need more panels than my 3600W to do well.

Pleb-Tip: PayPal Credit offered me 0% APR for 2 years for opening a new credit line, which I used to finance the panels. This was the only debt I used to build the system. Ironically, this is better financing than the Pubcos can get! Sometimes there are advantages to being small.

I had originally found 3kw of used commercial panels for $820. If you search around the used panel market you can generally find them for $0.25/w, or even less in rare cases. Unfortunately most panels, especially larger cheaper commercial ones, tend to be 30v-48v. I discovered the hard way that the Hashbox requires unusually low voltage panels to make use of all the available power. See the section “PWM vs. MPPT” for a primer on why. Essentially, all the available power above 14V is wasted. I actually hooked up the box to my 48v panels in January. It ran, but with abysmal performance. That’s how I discovered that 12V panels are a better fit. 12v panels are typically marketed for small retail systems like campers and RVs, and difficult to find in large quantities on the used market.

I also did not buy enough, even of the 12v variety, to really get the maximum efficiency in the miner. The reasons for this are complex, see the section on “Understanding direct DC efficiency” for a detailed theory. 6kw is a more reasonable amount of panels to run a single miner and maximum “efficiency”.

Batteries: $2,000.00

https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepower4-lithium-battery-12v-400ah/

The stock system requires 400AH of 12v LifePo4 batteries to operate. These are all generally the same price. Occasionally you can find deals, and you can save some money ordering individual cells from China and building your own batteries, but this adds time and complexity. My first set of batteries cost $930.68 from Walmart. They were sold as “marine grade”. I learned that hard way that does NOT mean waterproof. After a month water ingress killed both BMSs. I went with higher quality batteries from Signature Solar because they have excellent tech support, a 5 (or 10!) year warranty and were only marginally more expensive. I also doubled the capacity to 800AH to reduce strain on the batteries and add system redundancy. If one fails, I can continue to hash on the other while dealing with warranty replacement.

Trackers: $722.38

https://www.ebay.com/itm/124431577755

Trackers are an interesting design option. They are a movable frame with actuators on two axes, so they can automatically turn the panels to face the sun as it moves position in the sky throughout the day. They are more expensive than a static rack, but not by much.They do add system complexity, but even if they fail they can still work as a static rack as long as the failure isn’t due to catastrophic wind. They offer two advantages. First, they increase total energy production around 30-40%. Second, and most importantly for mining, they smooth out the power curve and allow the miner to run at a more consistent rate throughout the day. Static panels produce very little power in the morning and evening, and too much power around noon. With an isolated system like an off-grid mine, you have to simply charge batteries in the morning if you have too little power in the morning, then overclock the miner like crazy in the middle of the day and keep charging batteries with the excess, then draw that power back out of the batteries to keep running in the evening (with consequent efficiency losses). My hope with trackers is that I could use a smaller total amount of panels, reduce round trip energy losses to/from the batteries, and run the miner at a more consistent hashrate. I also wanted to test them out and collect data so that I can share with anyone else interested in building a solar system like this.

Trackers do best when your location gets a lot of direct sun, and not too much wind. In Oklahoma or Wyoming you are likely better off getting a windmill, as high winds can destroy the tracker. In Seattle, you are better off buying more bi-facial panels which will continue to produce power in cloudy weather. My system is in a location that is fairly middle of the road, somewhere between Arizona and Seattle.

 As you can see in the title picture, I opted to build “rockjacks” to mount the trackers onto. This is DEFINITELY not recommended or supported by the manufacturer. The directions specify a poured concrete pad. I wanted the system to be mobile, as there are some trees at my location which will be coming down soon and open up better location options. The rockjack frames are staked quite firmly. Time will tell whether they are staked down firmly enough.

The 100 Acres Hashbox: $2000

I understand the price has dropped to $1800 recently as more orders have enabled better relationships with parts suppliers. The box consists primarily of a large metal utility box, a monstrous supercapacitor, four 100A charge controllers (to take in the power from the panels), a relay to power on/off the miner, a large copper power bus, and a Raspberry Pi which is running the 100 Acres Ranch proprietary algorithm to control miner hashrate according to the system’s available power and voltage. He also includes a couple exhaust shroud options for ducting the heat in case you are reusing that (you should!). It also includes two sets of 4/0 AWG wires for the batteries with high quality hydraulically crimped end connectors.

Other Extraneous Items: >$500

The stock Hashbox requires low voltage and extremely high current, which means big thick cables and a LOT of copper. Copper is expensive, and efficiency losses are high if you have long wire runs. It’s best to keep the box as close to the panels as possible. My trackers are 30 feet apart, so 15 foot cable runs from each side. I estimate I’m losing 8% of the power just in the wires, but that 8% would have been lost anyways because it’s in the excess voltage range that the PWMs can’t make use of. Planning and doing just the solar cabling is probably the hardest part of this build. You have to think about how you want to connect to the panels, where to combine the wires and parallel the power, what gauge wire to use, etc.

I spent at least $100 in bolts to attach the trackers to my custom rockjacks. I had to buy large wire crimp tools and connectors, and deck screws for the rockjack frames. You will need some kind of stand for the Hashbox to sit on, as its air intake is on the bottom. Also do not forget a container for batteries, unless you are smarter than me and get waterproof ones.

Lastly, you may desire fuses at a minimum. Standard solar installations use nice “combiner boxes” which parallel the different strings and include circuit breakers and lightning arrestors. Since this system is isolated from the grid, I went with cheaper individual panel fuses, a 30A fuse on each panel. Give this article a read:https://www.windynation.com/blogs/articles/how-to-properly-fuse-a-solar-pv-system. In short, when connecting panels in parallel like this (to get maximum current and low voltage), there are fire risks if one panel develops an internal short circuit. This could happen due to manufacturing defects or an unlucky hail stone. If one panel shorts, ALL the other panels wired in parallel will dump ALL of their current through the shorted panel. On this build this potentially means 200-300A from your other panels and another 400A from your batteries (which are wired on the same bus) all trying to go through one pair of 10 AWG wires to the dead panel. If I do get a short on a panel, the fuse should isolate the dead panel and protect the rest of the system.

Total Cost and ROI discussion: $7,709.48

I have not included the cost of the miner because in this particular case I think it is the wrong way to look at ROI. Normally in Bitcoin mining, ROI calculations are concerned with miner cost and power cost. Assuming a fixed power cost, how quickly will a given machine pay itself off. With a solar system, what you are really building is a power plant. There are no ongoing costs, unless you have to rent the land or pay maintainers. All the cost is upfront capital. So a better way to think of it is in comparing it to the alternative, for example paying for hosting. You can typically buy hosted power for $0.08/kWh. Instead, hypothetically, how much would you pay a hosting contract that was all upfront cost? How much would you pay upfront for free power for 20 years, if that power was intermittent and only lasted 4hrs/day?

In this model, you are paying to build the power plant. Most of the system components should last 20 years, at least in theory. Because it produces free power, you run older cheaper miners and swap them out every few years.

100 Acres Ranch often describes this system as the “fastest ROI”. I believe this is from a quick back of the envelope calculation of $5/day revenue, and $2000 cost for the box ~400 days. Obviously, there is a LOT more cost to one of these installations than just the hashbox, unless you happen to already own a large low voltage solar installation (which NO ONE on earth does, because NO ONE builds large 12V systems).

At the time of writing my system has only 4 of 12 panels actually hooked up, the others are waiting on a repaired PWM controller and my finished shunt power monitoring modification. So I cannot truly say how much revenue I will generate, and I don’t have enough data yet to even provide a good guess. But as a VERY tentative teaser, I can say that I’m producing roughly 3kWh per day, so at full capacity I should make 9kWh/day. With MPPT modifications I may be able to increase that to 10-12kWh/day. If the Bitcoin network pays my miner $0.08/kWh (roughly current breakeven) then my revenue might be around $1/day, and my ROI on the entire system is more like 21 years, not including brief increased revenue during bull markets. Since I already have the hashbox and batteries I can increase production by simply adding more panels, which helps to dilute the sunk costs of hashbox and batteries. With that my system cost could easily surpass $10k, but my revenue should be closer to $3/day with the increased panel production and increased miner efficiency, and ROI closer to 9 years, not accounting for bull runs. With a newer gen miner like a kPro or XP I may be able to push that revenue up further, but I’d then have to consider the cost of the miner as well.

In conclusion, to build one of these systems and do well you have to go big. You cannot buy 3.5kw of panels for a 3.5kw miner and expect good results. Here’s what you need to do to build the stock system and do well if ROI is your primary goal (it shouldn’t be):

– Access to SUPER cheap, low voltage panels. I overpaid.– Access to enough space for 7kW of panels. This is a LOT of space.– Think in Amps, not Watts.– Understand these terms: Voc, Vmp, Isc, Imp. Isc is the key one for the stock build(Short Circuit Current). These are standard solar panel specs listed on every solar panel. Production in perfect sun will be pretty close to this number. Use Imp (Max Power Current) for a slight underestimate in perfect sun.– Understand voltage drop along wires, especially with high currents, and how to calculate it.– Price your panels in $/Amp (Isc) instead of $/W (Read “PWM vs MPPT” to understand why). I paid $11.50/A. Others have done much better.– Aim for at least 300A of rated power output which is enough to run a miner with a small overclock and top off a battery at the same time. More is better. The box can handle up to 400A, so maxing out the box might produce enough for two lower power miners like the kPro, doubling your revenue.– My total cost so far of around $8k is too low. A higher cost of $10-12k would allow for twice as many panels, and likely 4x the revenue due to increased efficiency at higher power levels. This is VERY counterintuitive, see the section “Understanding Direct DC Efficiency” for more.

Additions and Modifications

What I’ve described so far is essentially the stock build. I’ve made and am making certain additions and modifications to the stock box to better suit my purposes. I haven’t included their cost since they are highly customized and mostly related to remote monitoring and data collection.

First, I added another Raspberry Pi and special USB data cable from Victron. On this I am running the open source version of Victron’s solar monitoring software, Venus GX. This lets me remotely monitor system voltage and current through the miner, and control the relay which powers on the miner. I can also get historical and forecasted solar irradiance data for my system’s location.

 My tracker controllers and motors are powered from the same system batteries. I also tested using a Bitaxe to provide a gentle 15W of steady heat to keep the batteries warm throughout the day and night. I need to build a better enclosure, but this did work just fine. It also added a nice level of redundancy, in that if the Bitaxe was still hashing, then the local internet must still be working.

I am in the process of adding a few more things:

– DC shunts to measure amperage production from the two trackers. I’d like to run experiments with locking one and letting the other track, to get real world comparison data on using a tracker vs. fixed rack in various weather conditions.– MPPT controllers: See the later section on why. I’d like to add 2-3 MPPT charge controllers to replace the PWM variety that come in the stock box. These are more expensive, but can pull more usable power from the same panels. Again, I’m mostly interested in collecting real world data and to trial whether they are usable for powering miners. Hopefully I’ll add enough to power half the panels, and leave the other panels using the stock PWMs, and then gather comparison data.– Voltage or current monitors on the stock PWMs. These are VERY cheap, $50 charge controllers that are primarily used to limit the voltage coming in from the panels to something safe for the miner and batteries. I’ve had several glitch out and turn off. There is no way to know one is dead except physically going to the box and testing voltage on each solar terminal. Since my system is remote, I’d like a way to know quickly if/when one dies so I don’t lose out on that production.

Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) vs. Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT)First, math.

Power (Watts) = I (Current or Amps) x Volts

Everything hinges on understanding this.

See this guide for a more in-depth overview of these two different methods of driving solar panels:

https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Technical-Information-Which-solar-cha rge-controller-PWM-or-MPPT.pdf

In brief, solar panels are kinda strange. Photons smash into the panel and free up electrons which can then flow through wires and do work for you. Panels will produce a relatively constant number of electrons, i.e. a constant current almost no matter what voltage they are at up to a point. So you can pull 10A off a panel at 1 volt and produce 10 Watts, or you can pull the same 10A of the same panel in the same sunshine at 48 volts and produce 480 watts. In a chart, this relationship looks like this:

There is a special point on the curve where the maximum power is produced, called appropriately the “Maximum Power Point (MPP).” The ideal way to pull power from a solar panel is to drive it precisely at that MPP, i.e. to vary how much current is pulled off the panel such that the panel voltage remains at the MPP. This creates our first problem, those watts are now probably at a weird voltage that is too high to safely charge batteries or run a hashboard. So we have to do DC to DC buck conversion, which takes high volts and low amps and turns it into low volts and high amps. So now you can take the 10A and 48V from our example and produce 34A at 14V (480W/14V), minus efficiency losses of 1-15%. This maximizes the number of Watts produced, but the second problem is that the circuitry involved in doing that voltage conversion is really expensive. Quality MPPTs that can handle 100A are around $600, over 10x the cost of the PWM controllers used in the 100 Acres Box. Four of those would more than double the cost of the Hashbox.

This cost is the main reason why 100 Acres opted for PWM controllers. A PWM controller is essentially just a voltage limiter circuit. It limits the solar panel to a voltage safe for charging batteries. It pulls whatever amps it can off the panel at that voltage. They are cheap because they are simple, they don’t do any voltage conversion. Another advantage is that raw current production is relatively unaffected by panel temperature, so production is more consistent throughout the year (except for clouds). See the second chart above to understand this relationship. The downside is they will produce fewer total Watts than an MPPT. My low voltage panel’s MPP is around 18V. Chopping this down to 14 means I’m only losing maybe 20% of the Watts that an MPPT controller could produce. If however you try to use 48V panels (like I did at first), the PWM will chop that 48V MPP down to 14V, essentially leaving 70% of the rated power on the table.

This is unfortunate because the solar industry in the US at least seems to have commoditized around large, 500W 48V panels. Huge solar farms, subsidized by the fiat system and further manipulated by the insurance industry, regularly throw away perfectly productive 48V panels. This was my first set of panels, cast offs from a large commercial farm. They were extremely cheap, but the stock 100 Acres system cannot make use of those panels efficiently. You have to deal with voltage conversion to take advantage of those.

My understanding is 100 Acres Ranch is working on future versions and upgrades that will work on higher voltage systems. The holy grail would be a 100A buck converter that can adjust output voltage to follow commands from the miner control board. In the meantime, you can try to source low voltage panels, or you can try something new (see “Future Ideas and Experiments”).

Understanding Direct DC miner Efficiency

Everything you think you know about miner efficiency is wrong. The standard model of miner efficiency assumes that there’s a sweet spot for efficiency somewhere a little below stock hashrate. For most machines you can underclock a bit and keep them profitable a little longer, or during bear market bottoms. Overclocking a bit reduces efficiency, but can generate more revenue per machine, so may make sense in certain business environments like maximizing the use of limited rackspace. This perspective is only true of standard mining off of AC power using the stock power supply. Direct DC is entirely different. To understand why, we have to break down the mining machine into its components and understand how the PSU and Hashboard efficiency curves interact. After that, the promise of Direct DC mining will make sense.

AC to DC Power Supply Efficiency

Below are charts of several Bitmain PSU’s AC to DC conversion efficiency at various power levels. The general shape of this curve holds for almost all voltage conversion methods. There is a sweet spot that is actually somewhat below the designed operating current. Reducing hashrate actually raises PSU efficiency, to a point. Conversely, increasing hashrate reduces PSU efficiency, and is likely the primary reason that miners assume that overclocking reduces J/TH efficiency.

DC Hashboard efficiency

The hashboards themselves are an entirely different story. From my own tests on a 96TH S19 jPro, I’ve observed that:

– Hashrate is essentially linear with frequency (unless voltage or temperature are too low and the trons can’t get through the logic gates fast enough, causing unhealthy chips )

– Amperage is linear with frequency too, except for variations from temperature.

– Most importantly: The Y intercept of Amps vs. Freq isn’t 0. There is overhead current required from just having a board powered on. “Powering Off” a hashboard in Luxor OS firmware, which I did my testing on, does not remove this overhead current. Even putting the miner in “curtail” mode with fans off still drew about 160W.

A note on temperature

The following chart is a test run I did with constant (very low hashrate), slowly drawing down battery voltage. Blue line is volts, red line is amps. The key things:

Most of the test, fans were held constant at 50%In the blue circle I set fans to “automatic”, which favored 10-20%In the red circle fans were 100%.

This is a pretty counterintuitive result, but aligns with data gathered by Braiins on S19 chip temperature (https://braiins.com/blog/impact-of-temperature-on-efficiency-of-antminer-s19-models). At manual 50% fans the chips were nice and cool, around 34C. When the auto mode reduced fans and allowed the chips to warm up, amperage draw increased even though voltage was relatively constant. Hashrate was constant too, so I was actually losing a LOT of efficiency by allowing them to warm up.

What this also means is that given the same voltage, you will be able to push more amps through the chips (and can do more hashes if the frequency is increased accordingly) if you allow the chips to warm up first.

I believe the reason this occurs has something to do with the fact that semiconductors have a negative temperature coefficient. “In semiconductors, the energy gap between the conduction band and valence band decreases with an increase in temperature. The valence electrons in the semiconductor material gain energy to break the covalent bond and jump to the conduction band at high temperatures. This creates more charge carriers in the semiconductor at high temperatures. The higher concentration of charge carriers decreases the resistivity of the semiconductor. As the resistivity of the semiconductor decreases with an increase in temperature, it becomes more conductive. A semiconductor exhibits excellent conductivity at high temperatures.

How I currently understand miner efficiency in the DC regime

Now understand the PSU and the hashboards together. While the hashboards are more efficient at higher hashrates because they dilute the overhead of just powering the board on, this seems to be more than offset by efficiency losses in the PSUs themselves. This is why everyone assumes that overclocking reduces efficiency.

Next, eliminate the PSU. This is how miner mining energy efficiency works on a direct DC system. It is not simply that you gain 10% by eliminating AC to DC conversion, or 20% by eliminating both the inverter and PSU as in a standard solar off-grid system. If you have the amperage available (because you used a LOT of good low voltage panels), and if you allow the chips to get warm enough to easily flow the current, you can run the hashboards at far higher frequencies than normal without pushing the stock PSU deep into the far right portion of its power curve and offsetting all your hashboard efficiency gains. The catch is, you MUST have the raw amps to do it. You cannot build an underpowered direct DC system and expect to do well simply because you’re underclocking it. In fact with direct DC the more you underclock, the worse your efficiency gets.

This means that there is a minimum viable size to get a stock Hashbox running well, and that likely means 300 -400 amps worth of panels, or about 5-10 kW rated power (depending on panel voltage), not 3.5kW. A single hashboard version would likely perform very well, and would make the total system size and cost much more accessible. I understand a single hashboard version is under development by 100 Acres Ranch and look forward to them releasing it.

In my tests, I’ve been able to achieve about 10% better efficiency than a stock jPro. My system does not yet have enough power installed to overclock and really test the limits of Direct DC or the theory that I presented above. The best I’ve observed so far was 25.6 j/TH with the 100 Acres autotuning, at 12.67V and 75TH, or around 13% better than stock efficiency. Not earth shattering, and is basically accounted for by eliminating the 10% loss in the PSU and a bit of tuning/undervolting. Given that the 100 Acres box does not do any voltage conversion whatsoever, the important efficiency metric here is actually Amps/TH, not j/TH anyways.

Further, I think it’s an open question whether j/TH or amps/TH are even useful metrics when trying to maximize a particular intermittent power system. Really what you want to maximize in an isolated mining system like this is hashes per day, or hashes per hour of available sunshine. Sometimes lower efficiency might make sense if you need to burn off excess energy, and storing it in batteries would incur efficiency losses itself. Perhaps a better metric for solar mining would be total shares submitted per day, or total hashes per day. Then normalize that for total daily irradiance. Systems designed for Arizona vs. Michigan almost certainly require different optimizations to squeeze every available hash out of the power available.

To push on this, even 17 j/TH efficiency measured directly at the shunt before it enters the hashboards is mostly a party trick, especially if the whole system is only making barely 200TH out of 19kW installed capacity (to use a hypothetical example). How much energy is lost in the wires due to the low voltage and high current runs? How much energy is never generated because the PWMs are driving the solar panels at a suboptimal voltage? How much energy is lost when charging and discharging batteries? While j/TH efficiency and power rate are the primary determinants of grid based mining profitability, they are at best secondary tools when optimizing a solar miner.

The limitations of batteries

The batteries are by far the most annoying part of this entire system. They are necessary to smooth out power fluctuations from the panels when clouds or other shadows cut-off the wireless photonic power transmission system from the nuclear fusion reactor in the sky. They buffer the power and allow the miner to stay turned on and hashing instead of constantly rebooting.

Unfortunately, batteries are expensive, can be finicky. Most importantly in this particular system, the batteries are wired directly to the main system bus with no voltage conversion. Normal LifePo4 voltage at rest is 13.1-13.2V. If you are producing more power than you are burning through the miner, the PWMs will push the voltage up towards 14V and charge the batteries at the same time. Once they are charged it holds voltage there until production decreases.

If you would like to burn precisely your production and not excessively charge the battery, then you must throttle the miner to maintain 13.2V. That voltage may or may not be appropriate from an efficiency standpoint for the amount of power you would like burn off.

Perhaps the most difficult scenario though is with a very underpowered system. When the sun comes up and pushes voltage high enough to trigger the relay and turn on your miner, it will immediately start burning more power than is being produced. The difference comes from the battery. All batteries sag in voltage when power is drawn out. The amount of voltage sag depends on the size of the power draw relative to the size (in AH-amp hours) of the battery bank. On my 800AH system voltage can sage as much as 1V if I’m pulling 150-200A from the batteries. This means that the hashboards must now run at 12.2V instead of 13.2V or 14.2V. Underclocking will reduce the power draw on the batteries, helping them to last longer. But, this also increases system voltage, decreasing my j/TH and Amps/TH efficiency. Even a large battery bank is unlikely to last more than a few hours.

One solution is to simply charge the batteries fully with the miner off, then run them down at a high hashrate to maintain good efficiency through the miner. However, running batteries hard like this actually creates efficiency losses in the batteries themselves during the energy round trip, further hurting total system efficiency.

The only real solutions in this underpowered case are to physically disconnect 1-2 hashboards or increase the number of panels. When doing direct DC with batteries and without real voltage control, the best mode of operation is to run the boards really hard as long as you have the power to keep voltage high.

Future ideas and experiments

This first foray into solar mining has been extremely enlightening and rewarding, if not exactly profitable yet. What I would really love to see however is exploration of smaller sized systems with a grid tie in.

Using MPPTs to drive the panels, while expensive, would open up panel sourcing options and reduce the total number needed, further reducing the total size. Making use of the stock PSU for grid tie-in could eliminate the need for batteries, reducing system cost and complexity and allowing finer control of system operating voltage.

I have successfully run the 96TH jPro underclocked to 40TH using an APW3 to provide 250W of grid power with the rest provided by the direct DC solar. Measured at the wall, I was netting 6 J/TH, at least while the sun was shining. Crucially, to do this I didn’t need an expensive inverter, nor did I need batteries. I was able to rely on the grid tie to buffer clouds and occasional power dips, while using the solar to provide the bulk of the power for hashing. An untested extension of this idea would be to get rid of the Loki modification and allow the stock PSU to control system voltage according to control board firmware commands (rather than the battery/PWMs). This would make underclocking far more efficient.

In the slightly more distant future, a collection of Bitaxes could throttle their power use far more quickly than a stock Bitmain hashboard, further simplifying system design and eliminating the capacitor and possibly even the MPPT controller. Stock Bitmain hashboards cannot throttle power up and down quickly without potentially damaging themselves. This is due to their circuit design of long chains of series connected chips on separate voltage domains.

Conclusion and other aspects worth considering

It’s true, this system is expensive. When totalling the system costs, it can be difficult to get ROI below 10 years just in fiat terms. The picture is FAR worse in Bitcoin terms. But there are other advantages to this method of mining which are difficult to quantify but should not be overlooked. They can be summed up as: power sovereignty.

From a business perspective, my solar system can continue to earn sats regardless of inflating power prices, local regulations, network fees, or global hashrate. With this I don’t think about paying my next power bill, my rate tariff, or whether I’m still running efficiently enough to be profitable. This means that I can take advantage of times of extremely low hashprice to continue to stack sats. In fact lower hashprice is better because that generally means other miners have to give up. I can slap in their castoff machines to upgrade my box. I have a MUCH longer time horizon, and zero month to month concerns. From a business perspective, it’s a completely different strategy than the monthly $/MWh standard game.

Additionally, it means I enjoy more freedom than any other miner. If I think spam is damaging to the network, I can point to Ocean. If all the pools are suspect I can mine solo if I want to. Most concerningly, the state may choose to subsidize “compliant” pools and miners and push hashprice so low that only the biggest most compliant miners can survive. The uncomfortable reality is that profit dependent miners, who mine “as a business”, can be paid to tax or destroy the network. They are mercenaries, not patriots, and they will work for the highest bidder. I will have the freedom to choose not to comply, to remain ungovernable, and to defend what I find valuable because I have prepared ahead and secured my own sovereign power source. Will you?

Afterword:

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and learned something that will help you in your endeavors to secure the greatest money the world has ever known. If you’d like to tip me or contribute to my further experiments here is an address:

On chain: Bc1q9z6k8y843ckhj66k3msqczc4fvwz9jqa2sqyey

Lightning: keegreil@strike.me

Appendices

Acronyms:

BMS – Battery Management System PWM – Pulse Width ModulationMPPT – Maximum Power Point Tracking AH – Amp HoursAC – Alternating CurrentDC – Direct Current

How I calculate voltage drop:

Calculating voltage drop is a very important part of sizing your cables and designing your system layout. I use the calculator here, but there are many. The entry “Voltage (max)” is the voltage applied to the wire at the panel end. As a rule of thumb, enter your panel’s maximum power point voltage (Vmp) minus 2V. This accounts for about 10% drop in Vmp if the panel is really hot from baking in the sun. To be more precise, typical Voc temperature coefficients are around -0.25% / degree C. Panels in the sun can get 40 degrees C over ambient, especially with no wind.

 Thus Voc, and Vmp can drop 10% or more in the heat. For an 18V panel, this means a 1.8V drop in Vmp, or 16V. If the panel is driven anywhere near or above Vmp, its current output will drop off quickly.

https://www.alternative-energy-tutorials.com/photovoltaics/temperature-coefficient.html

Back in our Voltage Drop calculator, for “Current” enter your panel’s Short Circuit Current (Isc), which will be a slight overestimate. After calculating, check that the final voltage at the PWM controller is greater than 14.8V. If it isn’t, then on a hot day you potentially could get poor performance and be unable to raise system voltage enough to charge batteries quickly or run the miner at its most efficient settings.

In actuality, voltage at the box will be anywhere between 12 and 14.8V, depending on battery charge state and how hard the miner is running. Thus the solar panels will experience a voltage of: Box Voltage + Voltage Drop. If the panel voltage is near or above its Maximum Power Point (Vmp), you will get a significant drop in current production. In that case, system voltage would drop until the panel was able to start producing current again and balance out based on how much current the miner and batteries were drawing. Basically, our nice low voltage panel doesn’t have enough voltage leftover to actually shove the huge mass of trons all the way down the wire to the hashbox. Voltage drop is power loss (Vdrop x Current = Watts lost), so keeping it low is the goal.

If you don’t have enough voltage at the box, you can either select slightly higher voltage panels, shorten your cable run somehow, buy fatter wires, or add extra runs of thinner wires in parallel (akin to the power cables on an S9).

Local solar data estimation

When planning my system I found the NREL PV Watts calculator to be extremely helpful. It is simple to use, but just detailed enough that you can generate quite accurate estimates for total energy production at your precise location with various system parameters. More specifically, you can create hypothetical systems with or without trackers, bi-facial panels, or with various wire losses accounted for.

Crucially however, this calculator assumes that you are building a standard DC to AC system with MPPT controllers and inverters. Thus there are a couple modifications you should make if you want more accurate results.

First, under “Advanced Parameters: DC to AC Size Ratio” enter 1, instead of the default value of 1.2. Solar inverters are expensive, and fixed systems only briefly produce full power in the middle of the day. Consequently, inverters are typically undersized compared to the total power rating of the panels. This is called “inverter clipping”. “For a system with a high DC to AC size ratio, for times when the array’s DC power output exceeds the inverter’s rated DC input power, the inverter limits the array’s power output by increasing the DC operating voltage, which moves the array’s operating point down its current-voltage (I-V) curve. PVWatts® models this effect by limiting the inverter\’s power output to its rated AC size.” (NREL). Since we don’t have an inverter on this system, we can pretend that our “inverter” is huge and turns every possible Watt into useful power. You can also set “Inverter Efficiency” here to 99.5% (highest option) since we don’t have an inverter.

Second, when entering “DC System Size”, you cannot simply put the nameplate wattage rating of your panels with the stock 100 Acres box unless you modify it heavily to use MPPT charge controllers. To estimate how much power (watts) your system will produce through the PWMs, multiply your panel’s Imp (Maximum Power Current) by 14V, which is the voltage the PWMs will typically hold the panels at. For example, my 300W rated panel’s Imp is 16A. 16A x 14V = 224W. I have 12 panels, so 224 x 12 = 2,688W or 2.688kW. In the PVWatts calculator I would enter 2.688 for “DC System Size”.

https://ungovernable.network/writings/the-us-energy-information-agency/Mon, 04 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://ungovernable.network/writings/the-us-energy-information-agency/“BassLoad breaks down the EIA's overreaching survey targeting cryptocurrency miners — who the agency is, what they're asking, and why singling out one industry is a waste of everyone's time.”

Author:

BassLoad

Recently an initiative by the US government to obtain “identified” commercial/industrial “cryptocurrency miners” was instituted by the Energy Information Agency (EIA). Interestingly, only the ‘identified’ ones are ‘required’ to provide detailed information back to the government or else be fined ~$10,000/day. While we can unpack this a little bit, let’s first discuss who the EIA is, what they do, why the survey is a weird request, and their authority to request such a survey.

The EIA was started in 1977 as a statistical agency for the Department of Energy. According to the DOE: It provides policy-independent data, forecasts, and analyzes to promote sound policy making, efficient markets, and public understanding regarding energy, and its interaction with the economy and the environment. Now here is the EIA definition of themself from their website: The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is the statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy. EIA collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent and impartial energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment. EIA is the nation’s premier source of energy information, and, by law, its data, analyses, and forecasts are independent of approval by any other officer or employee of the U.S. government. Note the differences between the definitions; remember the DOE birthed the EIA.

Interestingly, the EIA was the first government within the DOE to have an internet presence. On July 1, 1995, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) became the first agency within the U.S. Department of Energy to venture onto the Internet. They are supposed to have unbiased data ranging from natural gas storage, drilling productivity reports, and beyond. The EIA claims it’s an “independent” entity, if you wanted to challenge their data or ask from where they collect data, that data can be disclosed as part of a public inquiry. However, going down this avenue is extremely tiresome and could leave a false hope to find accurate data. I will say that the EIA does have the exposure to collect data that energy traders trade around and take large financial positions based on said data. The question remains, can you challenge their data in the name of accurate transparency in US energy markets? My response is yes, but again, just like dealing with any governmental body, be prepared that it could go nowhere while you’re sprinting in your hamster wheel.

A look at ‘Form EIA-862”

The EIA is asking cryptocurrency miners things like, ‘who is your electricity supplier’ (they have 5 rows of input) and note how they define an ‘electricity supplier’: ‘Please report the company name of the facility’s electric service provider. The electric service provider is the company that provides electricity services to the facility and to other end-users that are in its service territory. It may or may not supply the energy component of the service to the facility.’ They are asking, what kind of mining equipment the miners have, they want to see electricity invoices, and more. If you identify as a ‘cryptocurrency miner’ ask yourself: does anyone else do this as an industrial consumer of electricity? Why do I need to show electricity invoices to the federal government and risk getting fined for not doing so? Why should I have to disclose this information if my mining facility is in a deregulated electricity supplied marketplace? Isn’t the whole idea of deregulation, the ability to do PRIVATE negotiations for electricity supply between customer and energy entities without being required to disclose the strategy you negotiate?

Full disclosure, the EIA data is quite good with providing articulated data in multiple different types of energy types in my humble opinion however we are all humans, and we all make mistakes. Could the ask to comply with the form be an overreach or a form of singling out a business type? My challenge to the EIA, if miners must do this, why not require every industrial consumer do the same?

The conclusion is that this survey is an unnecessary waste of time. Most electric utilities have smart meter data and can read consumption accurately. Are the utilities identifying their rate payers or customers appropriately? When the utility was (and still is in some places) the monopoly, they didn’t need to, because any consumer of power or natural gas was getting electricity or natural gas delivered and supplied by one entity and one entity only. I would much rather see a more collaborative approach with the EIA providing real, accurate data, because that’s what it’s all about, right?

Final Thought: The EIA has a unit of measurement in Form EIA-812 entitled ‘burden hours’ (top right corner). Yes, you read this correctly. They are measuring the ‘burden’ of you punching that information into a keyboard, in hours. Really?

Peace Bass

Within the Bitcoin space, ‘creeping KYC’ is a disease that is slowly spreading. If you purchase through one of these regulated entities, you essentially tag your bitcoin addresses to your personal identity. This makes it trivial for chain surveillance firms, the companies they work with, or worse, governments, to potentially… Track your spending habits

• Prevent you from using other regulated services
• Confiscate your bitcoin
• Come after you for tax liabilities
• Generally know more about you than they should

We get it, auto DCA from a Bitcoin only company makes ‘stacking sats’ super simple and easy. We aren’t saying these companies are bad actors, far from it. We merely want you to think about what you have to give up or risk for this simplicity. Read on and come to your own conclusion…

What information will I have to provide?

To buy bitcoin from a KYC exchange, users will need to provide personal information. How much you need to supply varies from one to the next, some may require a simple name for small amounts (you could easily supply an alias) and others may require them all. Most will ask for any combination of the following…

• Name
• Address
• Phone number
• Drivers license
• Government ID
• A selfie holding a piece of paper with the name of the exchange and the date
• A video call with the exchange

Why is providing this information a risk?

Data leaks

KYC information ties your personal identity to any bitcoin you purchase. The exchange knows…

• How much you bought
• When you bought it
• Your banking information
• Where you withdraw to

A central party holding millions of people’s sensitive and personal information creates a huge honey pot at risk of being stolen due to incompetent security practices at some of these companies. How would you feel if your name, address, photo and exactly how much Bitcoin you own was stolen from an exchange and being sold to the highest bidder on a darknet market? This sounds like scaremongering but data leaks happen all too often!

Censorship

Most of these exchanges work, in some shape or form, directly with chain surveillance firms (and some, directly with government agencies!) to remain compliant in their chosen jurisdiction. The completely transparent nature of the Bitcoin blockchain means that anyone with the correct toolset (such as a chain surveillance firm) can follow your activity. If you withdraw to, or deposit from an entity that the exchange does not like, they can freeze or even close your account. Not exactly fitting with the censorship resistant properties that Bitcoin is renowned for!

6102 type order

Executive Order 6102 is an executive order signed on April 5, 1933, by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt “forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States.”

If the government in your country were to exercise a similar order against Bitcoin, anyone who bought bitcoin via a KYC source would be an easy target for confiscation. The excuse that you ‘lost it in a boating accident’ isn’t going to get you far when under duress from a three letter agency. Tax agencies worldwide put the onus on the individual to prove innocence, it isn’t for them to prove that you haven’t paid tax.

Not to mention the fact that they will know the addresses you withdrew to and could watch those for any movements (The blockchain is completely transparent don’t forget).

Coinjoin can obfuscate the final address of your coins if you practice good postmix spending habits, but this does not change the fact that they know exactly how much you bought and when you bought it.

Do I have any other options?

Thankfully there are some options out there to purchase Bitcoin via no KYC sources. These are all P2P (peer to peer) exchanges where you are trading directly with another individual and not a centralised third party. Unfortunately some sell other coins as well as bitcoin so we urge you to take care.

• Hodl Hodl
• Bisq
• LocalCryptos
• Local Coin Swap

You can find more at KYC, not me! and here

Bitcoin ATMs

ATM’s are another great option, but use with caution as some still require varying levels of identification depending on the amount being purchased. A lot will just require a phone number so ensure you use one that is not tagged to your personal identity. Check out Coin ATM Radar for a great overview of what is available in your local area.

Doesn’t buying no-KYC bitcoin come with a hefty premium?

It is absolutelty true that you will see some offers to purchase bitcoin on P2P exchanges for some very high premiums over the spot price. However if you are patient enough you can pick some up at spot or just marginally (1-4%) above. Both Bisq and Hodl Hodl allow you to create a ‘Buy offer’ which is essentially, you telling the market that you want to buy ‘X’ amount of bitcoin at ‘X%’ relative to the spot price. All you need to do then is wait for a seller to accept your offer and complete the trade.

We personally take this approach and have never waited for more than a day for someone to accept the offer of around 2-4% premium, which we are all too happy to pay for the vast increase in privacy gained.

A thought experiment regarding the no-KYC ‘premium’

If you ever sell KYC bitcoin, depending on your jurisdiction, you will likely pay around 20% of your gain in Capital Gains Tax (or equivalent VAT/GST obligations). If you buy a 1 BTC at $10,000 and sell at $20,000, you are liable to pay around $2000 in taxes.

If you bought that same 1 BTC with a 4% premium over the $10,000 spot price you would have paid $10,400 for the same amount of sats and the only person who knows you own them is your trade counterparty.

How else can I get some no-KYC bitcoin?

There are a number of ways, each with varying levels of difficulty and complexity…

• Earn it
• Sell unwanted goods for it
• Buy it from a friend or at a local meetup
• Provide value to others and have a donations page
• Pay for dinner when out with friends and ask them to reimburse you via bitcoin (perhaps for a slight discount?)
• Mine it (check out this great piece on garage mining)

What is ‘shotgun’ KYC?

This is where an exchange offers account signup without KYC and subsequently requests it from users when they try to withdraw funds. You can avoid this by steering clear of centralised exchanges with a single point of failure and sticking with P2P options listed above.

Can I un-KYC myself?

Once you have purchased Bitcoin from a KYC source you can never undo that. Not even with advanced techniques like Coinjoin that create forward looking privacy. You have three main options…

Go back out the way you came and start fresh

Sell your KYC bought coins back at the exchange you bought them from. Depending on your jurisdiction, this will likely create a taxable event that you will need to contend with but you will then have a paper trail to prove you no longer own those coins. This process provides you with a ‘clean start’ from which you can begin obtaining bitcoin via a non-KYC source, safe in the knowledge that you are no longer at vulnerable to the risks outlined above (apart from the data leaks as the regulated entities are required by law to hold these records for a while).

Keep two stacks

Cease purchasing bitcoin via KYC sources immediately and completely segregate and label those funds. Start obtaining bitcoin via a non-KYC source, ensuring you maintain complete segregation. This option still leaves you vulnerable to some of the risks outlined above but may be more paletable for those with smaller KYC amounts or those not wanting to sell and deal with taxable events.

You should also consider coinjoining your KYC stack. This will not erase your KYC history but it would give forward looking privacy for future transactions. Whirlpool is by far the easiest and most effective coinjoin implementation, learn more here.

Move jurisdictions

This is more on the extreme end of the spectrum, but moving jurisdictions could be an option to free you from future obligations. Of course this is not a 100% guarantee as certain jurisdictions may have information sharing agreements (the EU for example).

KYC is dangerous, ineffective and puts people at risk.

Avoid the creep.

no-KYC only.

Bitcoiner Guide – Bitcoin Q&A

This article is written by Bitcoin Q&A and was first published on bitcoiner.guide.The guide brings you the necessary know how on everything related to bitcoin, security and privac

Author:

Bassloader

Over the course of my career folks have asked me, ‘How do I know how to speak to my electric or natural gas utility?’, or ‘I’ve tried and tried to speak to my electric utility about an issue and I can’t get anywhere, how can I get the electric utility to understand?’ Have you experienced the communication breakdown and or just a failure to communicate properly to any one of the utilities, energy providers and others? Well here’s a hard truth. It’s one of the most complicated things out there to accomplish and this article will not solve the problem. Sorry to disappoint right out of the gate. However I will attempt to give you first some definitions of the entities involved, who they are, what they do, and what is important to them. Then I will provide some ‘tips’ to understand when speaking to utilities and to help you become more of an effective communicator to these types of companies in the energy world. First, here is a flow chart of how it works, then definitions, then tips. Here we go:

This chart shows the flow of electricity from a power generation facility to a home and everywhere in between. It’s important to understand this flow as I will be discussing the entities that are responsible for generating, transmitting and distributing electricity to consumers. Keep in mind, for example, in some areas of the US providing electricity to consumers is done by one single entity where they own and operate all of these responsibilities. In some areas of the US, the generation, transmission and distribution can be done by multiple parties as I will explain. Now onto the definitions:

Electricity utility: A corporation, person, agency, authority, or other legal entity or instrumentality aligned with distribution facilities for delivery of electric energy for use primarily by the public. Included are investor-owned electric utilities, municipal and State utilities, Federal electric utilities, and rural electric cooperatives. A few entities that are tariff based and corporately aligned with companies that own distribution facilities are also included.

Comment: I generally agree here. Essentially an electric utility can own a generation asset that generates electricity OR NOT. Some make their own distribution network to step down the voltage.

source:https://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/index.php?id=Electric%20utility

IPP- independent power producer- A corporation, person, agency, authority, or other legal entity or instrumentality that owns or operates facilities for the generation of electricity for use primarily by the public, and that is not an electric utility.

Vertically integrated utility - The combination within a firm or business enterprise of one or more stages of production or distribution. In the electric industry, it refers to the historical arrangement whereby a utility owns its own generating plants, transmission system, and distribution lines to provide all aspects of electric service.

Co-op - An electric utility legally established to be owned by and operated for the benefit of those using its service. The utility company will generate, transmit, and/or distribute supplies of electric energy to a specified area not being serviced by another utility. Such ventures are generally exempt from Federal income tax laws. Most electric cooperatives have been initially financed by the Rural Utilities Service (prior Rural Electrification Administration), U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Municipality - A village town, city, county, or other political subdivision of a State. Services as a vertically integrated utility where all of the energy flow is owned and operated by one entity.

PUC’s - Public utility commissions (PUCs) regulate electric, gas, telecommunications, water and wastewater utilities. In most states a single agency will regulate these sectors; however, in some states these functions may be split between more than one agency.

REP’s – An energy provider is a business or entity that sells power, such as electricity and natural gas, to consumers. Retail energy providers may buy energy at wholesale from producers, or they may operate their own power plants such as nuclear generators, or wind and solar farms.

QSE’s – Qualified scheduling entities (QSEs) submit bids and offers on behalf of resource entities (REs) or load serving entities (LSEs) such as retail electric providers (REPs). QSEs are able to submit offers to sell and/or bids to buy energy in the Day-Ahead Market and the Real-Time Market.

LSE’s – any entity, including a load aggregator or power marketer, that serves end-users within a control area and has been granted the authority or has an obligation pursuant to state or local law, regulation, or franchise to sell electric energy to end-users located within the control area.

Curtailment service providers- are businesses that sponsor demand response programs and that recruit and contract with end users, selling the aggregated demand response to utilities, RTOs and ISOs. A Curtailment Service Provider is sometimes called an Aggregator and is not necessarily a load‐serving entity.

Regional Transmission Organization – A regional transmission organization (RTO) in the United States is an electric power transmission system operator (TSO) that coordinates, controls, and monitors a multi-state electric grid.

Regulated electricity supply market – Utilities in traditionally regulated regions operate as a monopoly in their territories, which means that customers only have the option to buy power from them. To keep electricity rates reasonable for customers, state regulators oversee how these electric utilities set electricity prices.

Deregulated electricity supply market - This trend is called deregulation or restructuring. Utilities in deregulated markets are prohibited from generation and transmission ownership and are only responsible for distribution, operations, maintenance from the point of grid interconnection to the meter, and billing ratepayer

Now that you have the definitions there is something else you will need to understand. Although all of these entities are playing their own specific role in the electricity landscape, they all speak their own unique language. Some speak in kilowatts, some speak in kilowatt hours, some speak in megawatt hours and some just speak in a language that is surrounded by safety and reliability. But don’t fret readers. Here are some very general tips on how to have an effective conversation:

Don’t sound technical in the beginning, you’ll run into a wall

Most of these entities are indeed technical in conversation however when you first engage with them, I usually tell folks to sound dumb in the beginning. The reason for this is because you need to do more listening first and then comprehend how they are responding to your questions. If you come firing questions at them in the beginning with highly technical adjectives and nuanced descriptions along with abbreviations, you will lose most folks and won’t really get anywhere. Be a person to them and talk to them in a very basic way. Just because you’re talking about electricity does not mean that you need assume that everyone is as technical as you. Just know that everything will go slow when speaking to folks in the energy industry, and therefore just speak simple and direct in the beginning. Develop the relationship first, it will go a long way then to try to validate that you’re the ‘grand master’ of electricity.

Nothing will go fast, get over it

Most entities don’t really move fast like some city folk. Especially in the vertically integrated utility world, it’s important to know that you’re operating on their timeline in the beginning. For any questions that you need answered, just layer in another couple of days and sometimes weeks until you actually get the answer you need (not to mention it may not be the correct answer to begin with haha). Whether it is a utility project upgrade, a rate classification question, or just a new electric service request, nothing, ever, goes according to your timeline. The only thing, as an example, that moves electric distribution utilities quickly is when there is a maintenance or service issue. An electric utility’s primary goal is to deliver electricity to consumers in a reliable way. If you want to discuss rates with them, take a number and get in line.

Proper communication is key

When you speak, you want to speak in a way that you want the other person (or sometimes computer) to understand either the question or the statement that you are trying to make. You might say, well no crap Bass…now what? Well you may need to think again. Talking with any of these folks is really difficult for one because they are dealing with one of the most complicated industries to manage (electricity in this example). One could assume then ALL of the representatives that are affiliated with the entities are above.

Smile when your on the phone with them because it will be funny

Have an open mind when you talk to any of the entities mentioned above. They are humans that are doing a job. Smile! Don’t forget your on a recorded line for quality and training purposes.. You may as well have some fun while talking with these folks or else you could bang your head into the wall (speaking from experience).

Regarding billing, as for a sample invoice

When referring to pricing for your electric utility, I would highly recommend asking if they have a rate calculator OR a sample invoice to see what all the line item coefficients that would be available to you. Even if you’re talking to a retail electric provider, I would ask them for a sample invoice also to get further clarity. This industry there are a lot of line items to consider, take a GOOD look. Get someone else involved and dont be shy to ask.

Who cares about what?

Electric Utilities- they care mostly about delivering electricity to the consumers inside of their distribution network safely and reliably. They will focus on providing ongoing maintenance to the distribution network. If you are in a monopolized electricity utility where the generation, transmission and distribution all are provided by the same entity then you have almost 0 way to negotiate on the price of that electricity and that is just the fact. In fact the PUC and the electricity utility have rate base filings in the court system to approve rates for the consumers. You are a rate payer to the utility.

Electric Utility that is a co-operative- They care in the same way the electric utility companies care however they are not under significant federal guidelines. They have electricity and natural gas tariffs for you to see what the pricing looks like, however if you develop a relationship with them, they may be able to negotiate prices with you. This is a unicorn situation but it can be done. Some may own the generation and transmission, some may not. You are a rate payer to the electric co-op.

PUCs- Public Utility Commission. They are supposed to care about the consumers, hence why they were created in the first place. The PUC’s are supposed to stand in the middle between the utility and the consumer. They also do care about the utilities, and sometimes are more weighted on the utility side at times.

REP’s/QSE’s- Retail Electricity Provider, Qualified Scheduling Entity. in a deregulated electricity supply market, most of these entities exist inside of those walls. They 100% care about negotiation, especially in markets like ERCOT and PJM as an example. Knowing HOW to negotiate will take years however it can be done if you dedicate yourself and if electricity is important to your operation. Here you are considered as a customer simply because you are a customer of the REP for supply and because of electric choice, the customer has the choice which REP they want to deal with. REP and QSE also do a level of KYC to understand their credit exposure to the electricity consumer and also to ERCOT. Since they have the ability to negotiate in an open and free market, let freedom ring then.

If you have trouble just ask someone who has energy experience

If you’re having trouble or you’re scared to talk to these people, there are people that can give you some guidelines. Every utility bills differently, speaks differently, and almost everyone is unique from Washington state to Maine to Florida to Texas. Reading tariffs are really hard, but people do them. There are good folks out there that are positioned in a way to help you navigate the wild west of electricity. There is no reason for anyone to fall victim to improper charges or rates. Think about this, every utility has their rates published especially if the rate was determined by a rate case filing in the court system. It’s technically open source! However reading one will cause you to fall asleep and or stare at the thing for hours.

Conclusion

I could write about 10 papers on each individual electricity entity, what they do, what’s important to them, how they operate, why they operate the way they do, and so much more. This will be the first step and hopefully this article can bring some information to you that is meaningful and can get you on the right path. Remember, there are humans that can help with this also.

*ALL views and opinions are my own. All compiled data can simply be looked up by a simple search engine.

From Proposal to Phenomenon

#PlebMinerMonth initially started as a proposal to feature Pleb Miners at a mining conference. But what began as a small idea soon snowballed into something far more impactful. Max and Jon merely set the wheels in motion, but the real magic happened when the #PlebMinerMonth crew took charge. As the month progressed, more and more Plebs joined in, adding their voices and energy to the movement. What we’ve ended up with is a self-sustaining force, running on its own momentum.

Kicking Off with a Bang

We launched #PlebMinerMonth with Jon’s “What is a Pleb Miner” Bitesize Bitcoin video, followed by a podcast featuring Max and @Diverter_NoKYC. This was a fitting beginning, as many Pleb Miners were inspired to dive into the world of mining because of Diverter’s “Mining for the Streets” article. Just as that article sparked a mining revolution, we hope that #PlebMinerMonth will ignite the same passion in the next generation of miners. The excitement and engagement throughout this month show us that the Pleb Miner movement is here to stay.

A Month Full of Learning, Sharing, and Giving Back

Throughout the month, we featured a wealth of articles and updates from some amazing people in the Bitcoin mining space. @Smidnico, @Marketsbylili, @Schnitzel, @bitcoinbassload, and @SovrnBitcoiner all shared valuable insights into the world of Pleb Mining, from energy market updates to technical guides. @YooperHODL provided a helpful BlackBox build guide, while @BingBong_BTC and @ZuccThis offered Bitesize Bitcoin segments. We also aired a series of inspiring interviews, with more yet to be released.

The generosity within the Pleb Miner community has been nothing short of remarkable. We gave away ASIC miners donated by @Kaboomracks, @pwmarcinko, @btctwatterpants, @406Bitcoin, @DCentralTech, @mrcdbrown3, and Jon himself. The willingness of the Plebs to #HashTheTorch and contribute to the success of the movement has been incredibly moving. We also had the pleasure of awarding UngovernableMisfits.com gear, including Pleb Miner Skull t-shirts and hoodies, alongside gear donated by @onthebrinkie and @NoderunnersShop.

A Huge Thank You to Our Sponsors and Donors

None of this would have been possible without the support of our incredible sponsors. Braiins played a major role, donating limited edition clothing, Bitcoin mining handbooks, and a generous sum of sats to cover shipping for all the giveaways. @ZuccThis also donated 3D printed fan shrouds from ASICFanShrouds.com, and we were fortunate enough to give away @SeedSigner build kits, @FOUNDATIONdvcs Passports, and even a @RoninDojoNode Bakuto. The amount of equipment and prizes we were able to distribute was far more than we expected, thanks to the remarkable generosity of the Bitcoin Pleb movement.

A Heartfelt Thanks

A massive thank you goes out to everyone who contributed to this unforgettable month. Max, Mr. Crown, Jon, and Sarah want to extend their gratitude to everyone listed above, as well as @TheGianMendoza, @artdesignbySF, @HodlRev, @bitcoinbabybee, @BonHodl, @stillBTC, @urningushem, @x218935, and, of course, to all the Plebs who listened, interacted with us on Fountain and Twitter, and read the articles. Your engagement and enthusiasm have inspired us in ways you may not even realize.

The success of #PlebMinerMonth proves that when a community comes together with a shared passion, the sky’s the limit. This is only the beginning—LFG!

OP RETURN

Author:

 - Diverter
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Gents,

A little background and info on the Ocean Mining/ Samourai situation.

OP RETURN is a transaction output in bitcoin that is provably unspendable and allows for storing data bytes. This data is prunable, meaning once a node has downloaded the bitcoin blockchain it can discard unnecessary info, such as these OP RETURN codes and not have to store them forever. Prior to 2014 transactions containing OP RETURN were not related by all nodes, even though they were “valid” transactions. In 2014 Bitcoin Core v0.9.0 was released and included a default setting to relay OP RETURN codes up to 40 bytes in length. Then, in 2016 Bitcoin Core v0.11.1 increased this OP RETURN relay default to 80 bytes length. It has remained at 80 bytes for going on 8 years now.

Luke Dashjr, a Core dev, use to run a mining pool called Eligius. He always considered anything like OP RETURN “spam” and “abuse” of the chain. So in his old pool he began filtering out all “spam”, and notably also began enabling literal blacklists to prevent transactions from gambling operations like SatoshiDice being mined into a block. See article here. He is notorious for this stance, including comments that BIP47 (PayNyms) notification transactions are spam due to their usage of OP RETURN and should not be implemented at all.

Now, with the backing of Jack Dorsey, Luke has essentially reopened his Eligius mining pool, but under the name Ocean Mining. The name changed, but his supposed “spam” filtering did not. Luke maintains his own custom fork of Bitcoin Core called Knots. Rather than using Bitcoin Core to create block templates for his mining pool, he is using his custom fork. In this fork, he changed the rules set in Bitcoin Core, so instead of relaying transactions with an OP RETURN of 80 bytes or less, Knots only includes OP RETURN transactions of 42 bytes or less. The difference in code between Bitcoin Core, which nearly everyone runs, and his custom Knots fork is very clear.

Bitcoin Core OP RETURN relay code is at https://github.com/Flavien/bitcoin/blob/a9306587a42eac7fb889b9c8d03140980fdf1398/src/script/standard.h#L28 while Luke’s custom Knots fork is at https://github.com/bitcoinknots/bitcoin/blob/aed49ce8989334c364a219a6eb016a3897d4e3d7/src/script/standard.h#L39

Samourai Whirlpool uses the ZeroLink protocol, and an initial “setup” transaction called a Tx0 (Tee Ex Zero, or Transaction Zero). In this transaction there is contained an OP RETURN output which facilitates spoofing protection amongst other functions, and it contains 46 bytes. So when Luke’s Ocean Mining Pool builds a block template to mine, it will exclude all Whirlpool Tx0’s because the 46 bytes exceeds Luke’s custom 42 bytes setting. Put another way, Ocean Mining is considering Whirlpool Tx0’s in the same boat with Ordinals or Inscriptions–Luke says they are all “spam” and that miners literally have a DUTY to filter out “spam”.

Additionally, Samourai has implemented BIP47 Reusable Payment Codes, also known as PayNyms. In PayNyms, when you want to “connect” to another PayNym user so you can derive addresses that only the two of you know (a huge privacy boost) you have to send a “notification transaction”. This initial notification transaction contains an OP RETURN output as well, but this output must contain the full 80 bytes allowed by Bitcoin Core. So again, by using Knots instead of Core, Ocean Mining would not consider a PayNym notification transaction as valid, it would consider it “spam” and not include it in their block template.

There are plenty of opinions to be had on this subject, but the facts remain that Bitcoin Core consensus rules allow a transaction with an OP RETURN up to 80 bytes to be completely valid. Luke’s custom fork called Knots changes those consensus rules to only allow 42 bytes. Ocean Mining is using Knots to build blocks, so as of December 6, 2023 any block mined by Ocean Mining will exclude/filter out all Samourai Whirlpool Tx0’s and PayNym notification transactions

Authors:

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There is a new Bitcoin War on the horizon: the Bitcoin Transaction War, similar to the Blocksize War but this time about which transactions are going to be included by miners in blocks. While this might seem strange at first glance, let me explain why I think this will happen and what we can do about it.

Miners fulfill a very important role in the Bitcoin network: They create blocks that include transactions created by users using the Bitcoin network. A block is generated roughly every 10 minutes and can include around 2,500 transactions. One often forgotten aspect is that the miner and only the miner chooses which transactions to include into a block. The game theory of Bitcoin says that it makes sense for a miner to include transactions with the highest fees in their block in order to receive the biggest reward for mining of the block.

There is, however, nothing that prevents a miner from not including a specific transaction that the miner might not like, even if it’s one with very high fees. Companies like Chainalysis or TRM Labs already today rank every address in the Bitcoin network with a risk score determining if the address, or more specifically the Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) might have been used for illegal activities. The company zkSNACKs, which runs one of the biggest coinjoin coordinators, already announced that they will blocklist specific addresses/UTXOs from using their conjoin coordinator. While a zkSNACKs blocklisted address could still do a normal on-chain transaction, it’s not far fetched that some miners will start to blocklist addresses which then could possibly block an address from transacting altogether or make it very hard. In fact, there was a mining pool started in March 2021 that censored specific addresses from being added to blocks. Luckily, they stopped this practice just a couple of weeks later in June 2021, but the precedent is there.

Now, of course, this doesn’t mean that an address could be blocked completely from transacting on the Bitcoin network. If there are many censoring miners, the inclusion of a censored address could take quite a long time to be included, possibly making Bitcoin for these blocked addresses almost unusable. Additionally if non-censoring miners are including all addresses, censoring miners could orphan entire blocks that contain a blacklisted address. If enough censoring miners work together to reject non-compliant blocks then these larger, censoring miners will preferentially mine on each other’s chains disregarding blocks they do not agree with.

As some mining companies are adding massive amounts of hash power, this could become a problem.

Sanctions & Bitcoin Miners

We need to understand that today big parts of Bitcoin mining are unregulated, while every other part of global trading needs to comply with sanctions. For example the United States has very strict sanctions against Iran which every company in the country has to comply with. Companies not complying will face high penalties or even prison sentences.

Today, the US accounts for around 35% of all Bitcoin hash rate (and rapidly growing). It would be possible for the government to require US based mining companies to comply with specific sanctions and block transactions from a specific country. US crypto exchanges already have to comply with sanctions against Russia. These sanctions prevent Russian-originated Bitcoin addresses from using these exchanges. Just recently the United States sanctioned Bitriver, a Russian crypto miner, in an attempt to prevent Russia from mining their excess energy, which they now have because of other sanctions.

It’s just a matter of time until governments realize how mining really works, and that they technically have leverage via the Bitcoin miners and will require miners to comply with sanctions.

Long story short: While it’s awesome to see that Bitcoin mining is massively growing, helping to stabilize the electrical grid and encouraging building of more renewable energy, we should be careful to not end up with a centralized mining infrastructure of a few big companies. Governments will force the miners to comply like the exchanges are complying with sanctions. The fewer mining entities exist, the easier it is for governments to control high percentages of mining and that could cause a great amount of damage and pain to the Bitcoin network. Just imagine a future where NATO decides that all its member states need to force the miners in their countries to sanction specific Bitcoin addresses.

Not your miner, not your block

Bitcoin wouldn’t be Bitcoin if it wouldn’t have a solution to this problem.

Like we already use: “Not your keys, not your coins” to explain to people to store their Bitcoin by themselves not at an exchange

• “Not your node, not your validation” to encourage people to run their own Bitcoin node to ensure the Bitcoin network validates transactions correctly.

So we also should start saying:

“Not your miner, not your block”

to explain to people that if they want to ensure a fair inclusion of transactions in blocks, they should mine themselves, at home.

Only with home mining can we ensure that the Bitcoin network is fair and works for the people.

Side note 1: I’m focusing specifically on miners and not pools. Bitcoin mining pools are a form of centralization which incentives miners to join pools as they create a more stable income for miners. Due to this effect it’s difficult to truly decentralize hashrate. Though If a pool would start to misbehave and start sanctioning transactions, it would be easy for miners to point their hashrate to another pool, therefore creating a game theory where it doesn’t make sense for governments to force pools to comply. Also with Stratum V1 (the protocol miners use to connect to pools) it’s the pool that chooses the transactions included in a block. There is a new version 2 of Stratum that includes “Job Selection” which allows a miner instead of the pool to define which transactions they want to include. There is growing support for Stratum V2 within pools.

Side note 2: There are mining companies (like Compass Mining) that allow you to mine in someone else’s data center, unfortunately there have been numerous delays in getting miners up and running, plus the US sanctions against Russia forced Compass Mining to shut down their Russian data center and they are liquidating all miners. Therefore I do not suggest using such a service, as it’s like with anything else in Bitcoin: If it’s not your location and electricity it’s not your hash.

Therefore I believe that we should all start to mine at home, luckily there are already companies like FutureBit and Coinmine that provide plug and play home miners which do not require any knowledge of how to build a mining rig.

Plus we could actually save money while doing it.

Home mining take one:a no-brainer electrical heat replacement

Bitcoin miners convert the energy they consume 100% into heat. The same is true for electric water heaters, electric space heaters, electric water kettles and anything else that uses electric resistance heating. Therefore it would make sense to replace these heaters with a Bitcoin miner. The miner will use the same amount of energy, produce the same amount of heat, but also generate Bitcoin at the same time. Such a heater would therefore save you money as you would have spent the energy anyway.

We could go even so far and describe an electric resistance heater as a dumb miner.

Of course a Bitcoin miner has a higher upfront cost than a space heater, the higher cost will be covered over time with the value of the mined bitcoin, but not everybody has the capability to buy a $1000+ space heater.

Also you can’t fill your miner with water to get it to boiling, but these problems will all be solved in the future, like the company Block is building an open Bitcoin mining chip which will allow companies to buy just the chip and build miners in any shapes and use cases. This could allow a water heating company to produce a water heater where the electric coils are replaced by ASIC chips. Such a water heater would use the exact same energy as a normal water heater, but also produce Bitcoin along the way.

Today such a water heater does not exist yet, so I’m working on a slightly more complex system with immersion cooled miners that heat a regular water heater. Such a system is definitely not something for every home, but it allows to prove the point of the equal amount of energy use. I will publish data as soon as I have them. Others have made attempts to incorporate miners into their home heating systems with immersion technology, for example @StateFall, @WiseMining and @techengineer21 however, commercially available off-the-shelf solutions remain a unicorn.

Home mining take two:excessive solar energy usage

Anybody that ever planned a solar panel system for their home knows the struggle of sizing: If it’s too small you will still buy a lot of energy from the grid. If it’s too big you end up with excessive energy that you will have to inject to the grid for a bad deal (some places pay less than the regular kWh price, some give you credits that you maybe never use and in some places you won’t even get anything at all). It’s logical that the grid operators don’t really want your electricity, as a home solar system owner generates too much energy when the sun is shining, the solar panels of the grid itself also generates more energy, so buying energy from home owners doesn’t make sense for the grid operators.

A home mining setup connected to the solar panels could solve this problem: Technically a bitcoin miner can ramp up and down their energy usage within seconds and even can use partial amounts of its total energy usage. Therefore the miner could monitor how much energy is produced by the solar panels, if there is too much energy produced, instead of giving it back to the grid, the miner could convert the excess energy into valuable Bitcoin which will be worth more than what the grid would pay for the energy.

I’ve been playing with setting up such a system, the problem is that all miners from Antminer and Whatsminer are built to use a constant amount of energy. While Antminers with Braiins software can scale down their energy usage up and down, the process itself takes a couple of seconds and involves a short restart of the miner which stops the miner from using power for a short time, not something you want if there is excessive energy existing. Over time the mining software will become better, or some hardware manufacturer will build a miner that can scale up and down fully uninterrupted. The miner could even include the required power measuring hardware so that it could just easily be connected to any solar panel system. There are companies like TrulySolar.com already existing that lease your roof and install solar panels with a Bitcoin miner, currently this is a completely separate system from your normal electrical home usage, but we definitely see innovation.

TL;DR: Bitcoin Home Miners: Start your ASICs!

While Bitcoin is becoming more and more adopted by governments and most probably is here to stay for good, this doesn’t mean that governments will start to use the Bitcoin miners to enforce their agendas, starting the Bitcoin Transaction War:

• Precedence has already been set for censoring transactions.
• Incentives exist for miners to become as large as possible.
• The larger the miner, the easier of a target they become for regulations.
• Incentives exist for large miners to comply with these regulations as a way to create regulatory moats around their businesses.
• Decentralizing hashrate is difficult but it starts with good protocol solutions like Stratum v2 and getting as much hashrate into the hands of the many as possible.
• There is no shortage of creative ways to incorporate a miner into one’s home.
• Upcoming availability of individual miner chips will open up possibilities to include miners in any type of devices.

The future is bright, let’s keep it that way, one home miner at a time.

Additional resources:

To learn more about the risks posed to the censorship resistant tenants of Bitcoin through large scale miners, check out these other resources:

• Article of Bob Burnett
• Podcast by Aaron van Wirdum and Sjors Provoost talking about Mara Pool and Mining Censorship
• Podcast by Will Foxley and Steve Barbour talking about The Folly of the Mega-Mines

Thanks

Thanks  to the author @Schnitzel

@BikesandBitcoin, @jyn_urso, @techengineer21, @econoalchemist for helping writing this article.

Whatsminer is a beast, it eats kilowatt hours for breakfast. An M30S++ 100-110T is rated at 31 W/TH when compared to its competitor, the Antminer S19J Pro being rated at 29.5 W/TH. The reported efficiency is +/-5% less than the Antminer. And, that has a significant impact on the power bill. However, bear in mind that you will see pleb miners opting for the Antminer. Further, with aftermarket firmware such as Braiins OS+ or VNISH you can tweak the settings to overclock or underclock any of the Antminer rigs. I prefer Whatsminer regardless of the efficiency gain of the Antminer running stock.

In a low hashprice environment at home, miners look for as much efficiency as possible.The more efficient, the more innovative the miner is. We have seen these guys innovate ways to reuse waste heat back into their HVAC, even how to heat the water in their home, and some have even heated their pools and dried laundry with the excess heat. This essentially allows the miner to double spend on the utility bill. But, unfortunately hashprice has drastically plummeted since the spring of 2021.

Hashprice as defined by Luxor

Hashprice, a term coined by Luxor, refers to the expected value of 1 TH/s of hashing power per day. The metric quantifies how much a miner can expect to earn from a specific quantity of hashrate. You can denominate Hashprice in any currency or asset, but we display the metric in terms of USD or BTC (sats). For example

– $0.20 per terahash/second per day ($0.20/TH/s/day)

– 475 satoshis per terahash/second per day (475 sats/TH/s/day)

Hashprice is a function of three inputs: network difficulty, Bitcoin’s price, and transaction fees. Bitcoin’s hashprice will change with every new block added to the blockchain. Luxor’s Bitcoin Hashprice Index uses a 144 lagging SMA to account for transaction fees.

Hashprice is positively correlated with changes to Bitcoin’s price and transaction fee volume and negatively correlated with changes to Bitcoin’s mining difficulty.

Since we don’t all geek out over technical analysis or predictions, we won’t be going over them in this article. That is not the purpose of this piece and I don’t care to read tea leaves. The Hashprice Index over the last year is provided by Luxor in the following chart. And we can see by the visual representation of the downward sloping trajectory that the hashprice is clearly tanking. While it seems in the lower right space to be climbing somewhat steadily in the early weeks of 2023, we have twelve more months ahead to be able to clearly analyze the data instead of making predictive analysis. We can only hope for an upward trend; but don’t be surprised if it dips and pops back up again. One thing is for certain, we are still early and we are in for a bumpy ride.

There have been minimal efficiency options for Whatsminer owners other than factory Low Power setting. I have been a fan of Low Power Mode since this summer. When Low Power Mode is enabled, a user is able to hash more efficiently by reducing power consumption and reducing the Watts/Terahash. Low power mode can be +10% more efficient than normal mode. Whatsminer updated firmware to allow for more customized settings. They released a firmware and Whatsminer Tool update in October 2022 that allows for more control and better efficiency.

The most recent Firmware Update allows for frequency and power limit settings. Make sure to update the firmware and the tool for full functionality. It is available on their website for download.  See the photograph below for more detail:

The video tutorial can be viewed here.

*The classic power modes are illustrated here from the tool user guide  .Link

The October update allows the ability to adjust frequency and power consumption. The up-frequency option is only available for water cooled rigs. For the plebs with air cooled rigs, the frequency can be lowered or power limited in an effort to increase efficiency thereby decreasing the W/TH (J/TH for our non U.S. pleb miners). I have yet to tinker too much with it but, I can tell you I have been able to reduce the W/TH further than the classic Low Power Mode.

In addition to Frequency Adjustment there is also a Power Limit Setting.

I have been running a few M30S++ with a -30% frequency and seeing about 27 W/TH. I have also adjusted one with a power limit of 1,930 watts with less efficient results. Below are three M30S++ 110T models in both frequency adjusted and power limit adjusted scenarios. It appears the frequency adjustment is working more efficiently than the power limit set to a similar wattage.

Both the Frequency and Power adjustment can be executed in bulk by selecting the IP addresses in the tool you want to change. For those thinking, “what is the reading on the wall?” I feel you. I can not compare second by second; but spot checking the WM tool data with my Iotawatt I observe +/- 10-20 watts between the two data points. The WM tool data is pretty damn close to what I am seeing off the circuits.

I wanted to write this quick post because I keep running across folks that say I wish I could adjust my Whatsminer wattage. Well you can bro. The efficiency gains are worth the time to tinker with. I also want to note that this release came out before Antiminer Christmas present. Imagine that? Hope this helps someone save some fiat on the power bill while hashrate, difficulty, and electricity pumps. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to any of the pleb miners on Twatter or join Steve Barbour’s Home Miining Wizards telegram channel. With constant upgrades and tweaks, Whatsminer is a beast. There is just no other way to put it.

Happy HashingBarnminer @btctwatterpants

Author:

Max

Humans have access to boundless information, we can express opinions, share knowledge and communicate globally. We used to get information from a handful of sources, news papers for global and national , local news was discussed at the church, pub or in the local paper. Behaviour was learned from parents and peers.

The world has changed, Fake news, endless political scandals, Cambridge analytica, Edward Snowdens surveillance revelations and the Panama papers are warning shots. Social and alternative media are taking a growing share of our attention but In uncertain times where do we look for truth?

Who can we trust?

Information is controlled by corporations, banks and governmentsMoney is controlled by corporations, banks and governmentsFreedom is controlled by corporations, banks and governments

Take a deep breath, that’s it, Breeeeaaaaattthhhh, Now think!Be honest with yourself and assign a number between one and ten to the questions below.

How much do you trust Corporations?How much do you trust Politicians?How much do you trust Banks?How much do you trust Bureaucrats?How much do you trust Governments?

Who should we trust to own, monitor, store, sensor, and control us?The answer is ourselves. It’s time consuming, it means questioning and fact checking. It also means working together to build tools and networks to ensure we can all communicate and trade freely, safely and with ought censorship or control.

What are we without Privacy?What are we without Ownership?What are we without Freedom?

Claim your self sovereignty, Hunt for truth, fight fiercely when morals are attacked. Without freedom of speech or original thought you will devolve into a pet at best, or maybe caged in a foie gras production line, your eyes fixed on a small steam of sunlight through a patch in the tin roof. The cold tube force feeds but you don’t want to consume any more, you know now this system was not for your benefit but for your owners. Freedom is a distant memory, you can barely remember why you traded something so precious. You pray for another chance, you would do anything to go back, fact check, think and control your destiny.

Few People truly fight for freedom of speech and those that do are often demonised. Their words are twisted and taken out of context and fed to the public.  Jordan Peterson, Dave Chappelle and  Russell Brand are among the last people brave enough to stand up for what they believe. People want to ban words, there is outrage from millions of individuals who are offended because today the subject discussed did not fit within there narrow view of the world. The people standing against them are trying to remind us that when someone says “you can’t say that”, they are wrong, you just did!

Own It

Own your words, thoughts and actions. Say whatever the fuck you want but be prepared for the consequences.If you don’t believe in free speech for people who you hate, fear and disagree with, then you don’t believe in free speech.

It is important we distinguish the difference between correct and political correctness.It is important we distinguish the difference between illegal and immoral.It is important we distinguish the difference between legality and morality.

Think before you allow the creation of more rules, regulation and red tape, after standing complicit or participating in their creation you might regret it. They will be sold as the best way to save you, the planet and the children. It will be so easy to just go with the flow, not to question anything relinquish control and allow rules and laws that harm many to serve few. Your masters will promise you strong steel shields for your protection, this is an illusion. In reality they will become cages of which you will die behind wishing for a second chance to fight. What if I told you I know of a tool that could break us free, I believe used correctly it can steer humanity towards a bright future with verifiable, programable trust recorded on an immutable record of truth. The tool Im talking about is generally perceived to be dangerous, delusional , dull or a combination of the three. I believe the reality is quite the opposite but almost nobody agrees so its likely I’m just crazy.

Have you guessed what it is yet?

Obviously, this is Bitcoin. After all, what do politicians, banks, bureaucrats and governments have in common? The control over money, in a fiat system that is corrupt and doomed to fail.

Don’t take my word for it.Do your own research.In case I’m not wrong, it might be worth checking considering the alternative.

Just a thought,

Max