ASIC miner for $0 power bills?

[VoRMkI]

I have bills included in my rent for the foreseeable future and am in a fairly stable financial situation.

I was looking at some ASIC miners and it seems you can get some for £200-300 used* that can mine currently £5ish worth of their respective crypto a day

This seems like it would be a worthy investment especially as these things have been around for a few years and the newer miners aren't THAAAT much more powerful that I worry another will come out before the payback time and increase the mining difficulty to insane degrees.

I'm asking if this is thought to be a decent investment given my circumstances.

Are there any pitfalls I haven't laid out will 1500w of power draw 24/7 get me kicked out? (I mean I've not heard of that kind of thing happen ever and I'm going via a decently sized firm for housing so I can't imagine them being able to kick me out for using the power they provide.)

Are there cheaper miners out there?

Do used miners much like used GPUs have reputations?

 

Thanks for your time.

[harryk]

Without directly addressing the ethical issues of such a setup, yes there is a good chance you would get caught. 1500W 24/7 is over 1000kWh per month and will be noticed on the electric bill. Then your landlord will do everything in their power to stop you and or evict you. Depending on the terms of your lease they may not be able to evict you for crypto mining but there may be other less direct policies they can enforce on you. And don't expect to be welcome when it comes time to renew.

 

[VoRMkI]

10 hours ago, harryk said:

Without directly addressing the ethical issues of such a setup, yes there is a good chance you would get caught. 1500W 24/7 is over 1000kWh per month and will be noticed on the electric bill. Then your landlord will do everything in their power to stop you and or evict you. Depending on the terms of your lease they may not be able to evict you for crypto mining but there may be other less direct policies they can enforce on you. And don't expect to be welcome when it comes time to renew.

 

OK Cheers

[Teddy07]

good way to make your landlord angry but hey you make a buck

[greenhorn]

Such a power consumption is highly indicative of a commercial use of your apartment, which is probably not allowed unless it is explicitely permitted. It is even possible that the police will come and check your apartment because that power consumption profile could be consistent with something like running a professional indoor plantation...

[Curious Pineapple]

Check your tennancy agreement for any restrictions on power usage. Using energy is NOT gounds for eviction, however using over £140 per month in electricity is not normal and will most likely have the police at the door.

 

You'll quickly get told to stop, possibly asked to pay it back.

 

I'm assuming you're in the UK where we have laws to protect tenants and a landlord can't just turn up, open the door and say get out.

[Teddy07]

Also asics are pretty loud.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, Teddy07 said:

good way to make your landlord angry but hey you make a buck

“Make” may not be the right word.  “Free” electricity isn’t free, it’s prepaid.  this is because the landlord hasn’t bothered to go through the effort to put meters on the lines.  It’s not impossible to do, merely annoying.

If I was  the landlord I’d simply put a meter on you line that shut off after a certain point, so you could run your miners for x days a month and live entirely without electrical power for the rest of it.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Curious Pineapple said:

Check your tennancy agreement for any restrictions on power usage. Using energy is NOT gounds for eviction, however using over £140 per month in electricity is not normal and will most likely have the police at the door.

 

You'll quickly get told to stop, possibly asked to pay it back.

 

I'm assuming you're in the UK where we have laws to protect tenants and a landlord can't just turn up, open the door and say get out.

Can’t do that in the US either.  Generally there is a required notice period.  What they could do in the US is put what happened in your rental history which would make it harder for you to get any apartment at all ever in the future.

[Bombastinator]

21 hours ago, VoRMkI said:

I have bills included in my rent for the foreseeable future and am in a fairly stable financial situation.

I was looking at some ASIC miners and it seems you can get some for £200-300 used* that can mine currently £5ish worth of their respective crypto a day

This seems like it would be a worthy investment especially as these things have been around for a few years and the newer miners aren't THAAAT much more powerful that I worry another will come out before the payback time and increase the mining difficulty to insane degrees.

I'm asking if this is thought to be a decent investment given my circumstances.

Are there any pitfalls I haven't laid out will 1500w of power draw 24/7 get me kicked out? (I mean I've not heard of that kind of thing happen ever and I'm going via a decently sized firm for housing so I can't imagine them being able to kick me out for using the power they provide.)

Are there cheaper miners out there?

Do used miners much like used GPUs have reputations?

 

Thanks for your time.

Is it a good investment?  Investment is risk/return.  We know a few of the risks.

 

- Not making the money you spent on the machines back in the first place (remember how much a given machine produces per watt is constantly dropping.  Last weeks numbers will be better than this weeks numbers.  How old are your numbers?)

 

-becoming homeless and losing everything.

 

Risk seems pretty high.  What is the return?

 

[dizmo]

I mean, technically if you wanted you could offer to pay them the difference, and you'd still make a little money, it just wouldn't be that great.

For example, if I ran that 1500w unit 24/7 at an income of $8.60/day (about what it is converted) I'd make about $1,500/year after paying for hydro.

$125/month isn't much, but that'd still pay for my cell phone and internet *shrugs* I'd do it if you're able. If anything, just give the landlord a heads up.

 

As for asking if you'd get kicked out? Pointless to ask on a forum. We don't know your lease agreement, and we're not in the position to claim anything.

Don't ask for legal advice from a tech forum of (mostly) teeners.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I mean, technically if you wanted you could offer to pay them the difference, and you'd still make a little money, it just wouldn't be that great.

For example, if I ran that 1500w unit 24/7 at an income of $8.60/day (about what it is converted) I'd make about $1,500/year after paying for hydro.

$125/month isn't much, but that'd still pay for my cell phone and internet *shrugs* I'd do it if you're able. If anything, just give the landlord a heads up.

 

As for asking if you'd get kicked out? Pointless to ask on a forum. We don't know your lease agreement, and we're not in the position to claim anything.

Don't ask for legal advice from a tech forum of (mostly) teeners.

Good point. As useless as asking for medical advice.

[RonnieOP]

We cant tell you without knowing what your lease says.

 

Depending on your lease and your state laws the landlord might not legally be able to kick you out even if he finds out (this is assuming the landlord wasnt smart enough to put a clause in the lease saying you wold pay for extra electricity used).

 

But even if you were safe from being evicted the landlord could elect not to renew your lease.

 

So if you have a year lease. and your making 5 a day. Thats roughly 1800 a year. subtract the cost of the miner (300) and youve made 1500 that year.

 

To me 1500 isnt worth having to move at the end of the lease. The move will take a good chunk of that profit away and then the time and hassle of moving. To me I would feel like I lost money in the end.

 

 

 

[Yoinkerman]

If you have a huge spike in power your landlord will definitely investigate, unless you're not telling us it's actually just your parents.

[Bombastinator]

50 minutes ago, Yoinkerman said:

If you have a huge spike in power your landlord will definitely investigate, unless you're not telling us it's actually just your parents.

Cops may first.  They watch the power company draw levels looking for illegal hydroponic grow sites.  That sort of thing takes a lot of electricity.

[Curious Pineapple]

23 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Can’t do that in the US either.  Generally there is a required notice period.  What they could do in the US is put what happened in your rental history which would make it harder for you to get any apartment at all ever in the future.

We don't have a rental history as such here. Hardly anyone bothers to report rental payments to the credit agencies either, happy to perform a credit check before offering a tennancy, but can't be arsed with the trouble of following up and reporting years of payments. It was only a couple of years ago the govermnent decided that landlords shouldn't be able to evict tenants for reporting bad and unsafe properties.