Good morning/evening

Due to now having solar power, it has got me thinking about miners again, not the DePin stuff, been there done that lol but more like a small Asic machine. I know they aren't for everyone and I know plenty of people will tell me I would be better off simply buying Bitcoin, Litecoin or Dogecoin instead. They may even be right. But there is still something appealing about owning a machine that works around the clock, earning crypto while I get on with everyday life.

The question is, what would I actually buy?

Part of me would absolutely love a Bitcoin miner. After all, Bitcoin is still my go to crypto. It has stood the test of time better than almost every other cryptocurrency, institutions are buying it, governments are paying attention to it and it is difficult to imagine a future where Bitcoin simply disappears as I do believe the whole quantum thing will get sorted out.

The problem is that Bitcoin mining has become an expensive hobby.

A modern Bitcoin ASIC such as the Bitmain Antminer S21 will typically cost somewhere between £2,000 and £4,000 depending on the model and where you buy it. The newer and more powerful machines can cost even more. On top of that you have electricity costs especially during the winter when I do not expect to get much from the solar, the noise, the heat and the fact that mining difficulty keeps increasing as more miners join the network.

That is where Litecoin and Dogecoin mining starts to become interesting. Because Dogecoin uses merged mining with Litecoin, a single Scrypt ASIC can earn both LTC and DOGE at the same time without using any additional electricity. It almost feels like getting a bonus every day.  I like the idea and learning about it all works, daily rewards and feeling like I was contributing to a network rather than simply holding coins in a wallet.

Of course there are plenty of disadvantages.

Noise is probably the biggest one. Most ASIC miners are incredibly loud. They are designed for warehouses and industrial units rather than sitting quietly in your spare bedroom. If I bought one, I would definitely need to think carefully about where it would live.

Then there is the heat, these machines produce a lot of it which may actually be useful during winter, but during summer it becomes another challenge altogether and Bulgarian summers are hot enough as it is!

Electricity is another major consideration, living in Bulgaria doesn't exactly give us some of the cheapest electricity prices in the world (we had another price hike this week). A miner that looks profitable in another country may struggle here simply because the running costs are much higher. Before buying anything I would definitely spend plenty of time with mining calculators using my own electricity tariff rather than relying on somebody else's figures plus our solar power has no batteries to store excess although we do have a cheaper price per KW during the night.

There is also the issue of resale value, every time a manufacturer releases a newer, faster and more efficient machine, older models tend to lose value. Unlike buying Bitcoin, where one Bitcoin is always one Bitcoin, mining hardware slowly becomes outdated and I would need to upgrade at some point.On the other hand, when crypto enters another strong bull market, the value of both the coins being mined and the mining hardware itself can increase surprisingly quickly. 

So where am I today?

If money were no object, I would probably buy a Bitcoin miner simply because I love Bitcoin. If I wanted the best balance between cost and earning potential, I think I would be leaning towards an LTC and DOGE miner instead. Being able to earn two cryptocurrencies from one machine makes the numbers look far more attractive, even if they are never guaranteed.

Will I actually buy one? I honestly don't know yet.

Part of me thinks I should simply buy more Bitcoin. The other part thinks it would be fun, another of my experiments so to speak! Then I think I should add more solar panels to dedicatedly run the miners.........Honestly I am torn, what are your thoughts? If you had a spare couple of grand would you consider a miner or just buy the crypto? Do you run miners and is the maintenance a large issue?

As always, thank you for reading and please feel free to comment.