A large amount of capital has poured into the field of bitcoin mining, and the computing power has risen sharply.

In June, Bitcoin rose sharply, and the currency fund was ready to move.

However, the price of the altcoin is weak and the quality projects are scarce. Therefore, the transformation of mining is becoming a new trend of the currency fund.

However, mining is not an easy task. In the face of the mad rising mining difficulty and the volatility of the currency, the mine's return cycle and anti-risk ability do not seem to have both.

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Today, the Sichuan Fengshui period is coming to an end. Some people predict that the low-power mining machine represented by Ant S9 will soon withdraw from the historical stage.

After the end of the flood season, the best time for the currency fund to enter the mine may have just begun.

01 marching into mining

" As far as I know, more and more currency funds have entered the mining industry this year. " A TokenFund partner Chen Sheng told a blockchain.

In the circle, these funds for mining are called “computation funds”. In May of this year, Fundamental Labs, a well-known blockchain investment institution, launched a $150 million computing power fund, raising $44.5 million in the first phase.

“The attempt of Fundamental Labs represents a new trend in the digital currency industry – investment institutions are shifting from investment projects to investment power,” Chen Sheng pointed out.

In his view, the biggest reason for the transformation of investment institutions is that the investment projects have not made any money.

He observed that this round of so-called bull market is very different from the last round of bull market.

Previously, the bull market star project was ETH and ETH-based ICO projects. The core of this round of bull market is bitcoin. While ETH has been falling, ICO is almost unattended.

"In addition to Bitcoin, other currencies have not received much increase and attention." Chen Sheng said.

Transforming bitcoin mining has become a common choice for many investment institutions.

Based on the electricity bill of 0.35 yuan / kWh, the current cost of ants S17 dig a bitcoin is 1966 US dollars, far lower than the price in the secondary market. “Digging is more reasonable than the coin.” Chen Sheng said.

However, the process of mining bitcoin is much longer than buying coins in the secondary market.

The most concerned issue of the calculation fund is the return period of the mining machine.

“The return cycle is affected by factors such as currency price, mining difficulty and electricity price,” said miner Wu Di. “We can only calculate the static return period.”

The so-called static return period is the calculation result based on the current currency price, mining difficulty and electricity price. The premise is that all parameters are unchanged.

Taking the ant mining machine S17 as an example, according to the custody price of 0.35 yuan/degree, the amount of coin per day of a S17 is 0.00147854 BTC, and the daily electricity cost is 20.02 yuan. According to the current currency price, the daily net income of an ant S17 is 79.81 yuan, plus 3% of power loss, the daily net income of an ant S17 is 79.2 yuan.

In the current market, the price of Ant S17 (August Futures) is 24,000 yuan. Based on this calculation, the return period of this mining machine is 297.7 days.

A blockchain is represented by ant S17, core T20T and ant S9k. The current cycle of the high, medium and low power mining machines is calculated, as shown in the following table:

It is not difficult to see that the return cycle of low-power mining machines is shorter than that of high-computing mining machines with higher prices.

But there are also risks lurking in them. “ Low-computing mining machines have a short return period, but their ability to resist risks is poor. Once the price of the currency drops, they will shut down first. Although the high-powered mining machine has a long return period, it has high anti-risk ability. In the bear market, there are still gains. " Wu Di told a blockchain.

Nowadays, in the mining circle, the currency fund has been transformed into mining, and three models have been derived.

The first model is to package computing power into wealth management products – the organization promises investors a certain annualized return. If the market is good, the organization may receive a good return; on the contrary, the organization is at its own risk.

The second mode is to build a computing trading platform. "Big funds generally choose this model, use the funds raised to buy machines, find mines to cooperate, and then sell the power through leasing," said mine director Zhou Ping.

In the industry, this model is often referred to as the "cloud computing platform." Niubit, the Bitcoin.com mining pool, the House of Computing Power, 58coin, and the bit deer of Bitcoin are among them.

The third mode is joint mining. The fund directly cooperates with the mine. One party pays out, one party produces, contributes, and mines. The two sides finalize the mining machine model and start mining. The income is divided into proportions.

"In addition, there are also companies that package the mines into the company's assets to make bright financial reports and facilitate financing." Zhou Ping revealed.

02 Risk

Investment, always opportunities and risks coexist, bitcoin mining is no exception.

In the mining area, mining machine prices, currency prices, mining difficulty and electricity prices are all fluctuating. Any change in the impact factor will cause the mine's return cycle to be difficult to predict.

“The return cycle of the mining machine is the result of market dynamic adjustment.” Wu Di said, “and we can only calculate the theoretical return cycle.”

At present, the rapid growth of Bitcoin's entire network computing power has become the number one problem encountered by many miners.

On June 14 this year, the highest price of Bitcoin was 8,447 US dollars, which has not exceeded the US$10,000 mark. At that time, the total network computing power was 56.77 EH/s, and the mining difficulty was 7.4T.

After a month of bull market, on July 24th, the total network computing power has reached 63.93EH / s, the difficulty of mining has also risen to 9.01T, up 21.8%.

For more than a month, Bitcoin's total network computing power increased by 7.16EH/s, equivalent to 440,000 16T computing ants S9SE into the market.

"If the increase in the price of the currency does not keep up with the difficulty of mining, the miner's return period will be extended." Wu Di said.

In addition to the increase in computing power, there are many factors that affect the return cycle of the mining machine, such as natural disasters and man-made disasters.

In June last year, a flood in Sichuan caused many bitcoin miners to suffer heavy losses. The torrential floods destroyed several low-altitude mines, with more than 20,000 mining machines being flooded and miners losing more than 100 million yuan.

Some mines survived the floods but received bad news from the power plant – the flood caused the plant to be forced to stop supplying electricity. As a result, the mine was shut down, and the computing power of Bitcoin fell by 30%.

In addition to unpredictable natural disasters, the damage caused by man-made disasters to miners may be more common.

How to find a reliable mine is the first lesson for many new miners.

"There are a lot of pits in the mine, and some mines will have power outages for no reason." The miner Wang Yong told a blockchain.

Behind frequent power outages is often a game between mines and power stations. The power station may break the mine's electricity for various reasons, and even have a precedent for the power station to forcibly annex the mine.

In addition, some miners have revealed that some mines will secretly transfer the customer's computing power to their own account in the middle of the night to make a profit.

In the mining circle, hacking is also a common occurrence. Although the poisoning of mining machines can be directly repaired by means of brushing, etc., how to restore hundreds of mining machines in a short period of time and quickly resume production is still a test of the operation and maintenance level of the mine.

"It is very important for newcomers to enter the mining circle and find a reliable mine. Otherwise, they will encounter pits that cannot be stepped on." Wang Yong said.

03 Future

Right now, what miners can foresee is that bitcoin's overall network computing power will continue to skyrocket.

On July 20, Yuhong, the founder of the three o'clock community, revealed on Weibo that the weekly sales of the mining machine manufacturer Shenma Mining Machine had reached 700 million yuan.

Shenma Mining Machine official website shows that the current performance of Shenma's most powerful mining machine Shenma M20S is 68T, priced at 19,496 yuan. Based on this calculation, 700 million funds can purchase 35,904 Shenma M20S, with a total power of 2.44 million T.

This means that only Shenma mining machine, a weekly power of 2.44 million T will enter the Bitcoin network. Coupled with the sales of bite mainland, Jia Nan Zhi Zhi, core dynamics and other mining machine manufacturers, the surge in computing power is inevitable.

The skyrocketing power of computing will inevitably lead to an increase in the difficulty of mining.

"As a result, the low-power mining machine with low anti-risk capability such as S9 will also be amplified," said Zhou Ping.

Calculated at a price of 0.35 yuan / kWh, the cost of the ant S17 mining machine "Daily per T calculation power" is 0.378 yuan; and the cost of the ant S9 mining machine is as high as 0.842 yuan. The latter is 2.2 times the former.

"Therefore, after the increase in the computing power of Bitcoin, once the price of the currency falls, the low-power mining opportunities such as Ant S9 will be eliminated first," Zhou Ping explained.

The higher the calculation power, the lower the mining cost per unit of calculation power, the stronger the anti-risk ability and the longer the mining period.

The replacement of mining machines is inevitable.

"After the end of this year's flood season, the previous generation of mining machines will be eliminated in large numbers," Zhou Ping said.

This is because, after the end of the flood season, a large number of water mines in Sichuan and other places will be closed, and the mining machine will be transferred to the thermal power mine with higher electricity prices.

“The thermal power mine has limited space, and the miners are also pursuing cost-effectiveness. Therefore, smart miners will sell low-power mining machines and convert them into high-calculation mining machines.” Zhou Ping said, “At that time, the previous generation of mining machines The life cycle is over."

Next year, Bitcoin will achieve production cuts as planned. The reduction in production will also promote the popularization of high-calculation mining machines and the development of next-generation mining machines.

In Zhou Ping's view, the investment institutions entering the mining circle should first confirm their investment return cycle before purchasing the mining machine – different investment cycles, and need to follow different investment logic.

He believes that for a fund with a half-year cycle, it is obviously inappropriate to invest in mining machines. After the flood season, the cost of electricity will rise immediately, and as a result, there will be investment risks.

For a fund with a one-year investment cycle, he believes that it is not the best time to buy a mining machine.

“The most suitable time is in October and November. After the end of the flood season, the net computing power will drop, the old mining machine will flow into the market, and the price of mining machines will also drop,” he said.

Bitcoin is skyrocketing, quality projects are scarce, and the best choice for a currency fund can only be mining.

But they may find that the difficulty of this matter is not small.

Even with a heavy hand, in the turbulent mines, the computing powers may still step on the pits.

* Some of the respondents in the text are pseudonyms.

Text | Pizza

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