El Salvador's Bitcoin Mining Ambitions

I think this might be the start of a downward trend for bitcoin mining profits. Governments often jump into things that end up being money pits. They’ve got all the power but no real profit motive, so it'll probably just make mining harder and harder. But hey, hardware manufacturers might see a price boost from this.

Yeah, some folks are entering the space while others are stepping back. In the end, we all face the same issue: finding ASICS is only getting trickier. If production stays low, I doubt difficulty will exceed 45 T.

El Salvador isn't breaking new ground with its mining. They already get a good chunk of their energy from geothermal, so using volcano power isn't really a big deal.

He said he mined like $400 in two days, but I’m seeing S9s in those pictures. That means he’s running like 50 or 60 miners max. If he had more, he’d be posting way more updates. Honestly, I doubt his mining setup will even hit 1% of the total hashrate in six months.

Haha, my bad for the earlier confusion. Posting while tipsy isn't ideal.

About TSMC cutting back on orders, look at this article I found.

TSMC only canceled orders for Huawei because it's a state-run company. They’ve been blocked from using advanced tech for chips. And the article says Apple and MediaTek are the ones scaling back, not TSMC.

There’s some back and forth here. Stompix mentioned that TSMC did cancel some 5nm chip orders. I shared an article talking about customers of TSMC scaling back on orders. I’ve worked in semiconductors, and cancellations usually happen for serious reasons.

Right, but the cancellations for Huawei are because of political issues. So it’s not just random.

Honestly, this issue seems to be more about TSMC and Bitmain. I’ve seen articles about Bitmain complaining about chip prices going up, and they cut down on some orders. Doesn’t mean it’s all orders but still, fewer chips means fewer miners.

The link you shared doesn’t work for me. But this one says TSMC raised prices by 20%. No mention of them canceling orders, but Bitmain might reduce orders since they still have stock.

Bitmain could sell all their chips right now if they lowered prices a bit. They’d still make a huge profit.

There’s a lot of chatter about this. It seems like there’s a rumor going around about a 20k wafer order getting canceled. Maybe they just have excess stock.

Definitely could get unprofitable, especially if governments jump in. If they’re willing to pay top dollar, it’ll push home miners out of the market.

This convo is drifting off topic... maybe we should take it to my other thread?

Sounds like a plan.

Geothermal energy should be used for homes instead of mining. Bitcoin shouldn’t hog resources that could help communities.

What happens if a recession hits? The government can’t just make more Bitcoin. And what about all the whales who own more than the government? If they decide to sell, it could crash.

If they mine like crazy, it could drain resources. But honestly, I bet they’re more interested in holding than mining for dwindling rewards.

LOL, I see you’ve only posted 13 times. But it seems like you’ve said the opposite in some posts.