Hosting your ASIC in Iceland for $0.08/kWh: worth it?
At French electricity prices, mining Bitcoin at home is becoming difficult. In this video (in French), we present the Iceland hosting offer we had at the time, at $0.08 per kWh: conditions, costs, commitment, which machines to choose and payback times. All of which answers a simple question: is it worth running your ASICs abroad?
Video from May 2023: the prices, conditions and payback times below date from that time. See "What about today?" at the end of the article.
Why host your machines in Iceland
In France, a standard electricity contract then cost between 17 and 20 euro cents per kWh. At that rate, an Antminer S19 XP is close to running at a loss on Bitcoin mining. In Iceland, hosting costs 8 US cents per kWh, or about 7.5 euro cents, with electricity from geothermal and hydroelectric power.
The hosting conditions
- All-inclusive rate: no fee is taken from the rewards, which are paid directly to your wallet;
- Remote monitoring: the machines can be monitored remotely, and you can see what you receive in real time on the pool;
- 3,000-watt slots: hosting is thought of less in terms of models than in blocks of 3 kW;
- Repairs: a service at €7 per month per miner, which we recommend taking;
- Installation: a €60 fee per miner;
- Commitment: 24 months minimum;
- Availability: a guaranteed uptime (SLA) of 97 to 98%.
A first pooled batch from three machines
To get a place in an Icelandic hosting facility, you normally need to commit at least 30,000 watts of consumption. By pooling several miners, we could offer hosting from three machines, with a first batch planned for July 2023. To take part, we pointed people to our hosting page.
Which machines to host?
- Antminer S19 XP: sold for €9,500 including VAT in our shop in October 2022, it had dropped to €4,008 at the time of the video. Hosted in Iceland, it paid for itself in around thirty months, about 36 months, i.e. almost 3 years. Another option is a 120 TH/s S19 version, cheaper but less efficient: it is up to each buyer to weigh the pros and cons.
- Antminer L7 (Litecoin and Dogecoin): about 15 months to pay back, it was then the most attractive machine. The L9 was announced for the end of the year, with the same power consumption and, if we remember correctly, 16 GH/s instead of about 9.
- Other coins: you can also host a K7 to mine CKB, or the upcoming KS3 for Kaspa. In our view, these projects are a little riskier in crypto terms.
What about today?
The machine prices, payback times and hosting conditions presented here are those of May 2023. Since then, the April 2024 halving has cut the block reward from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC, which changed the numbers for Bitcoin miners. For our current hosting offer, see our dedicated page.
Discover our miner hosting and estimate your earnings with our Bitcoin mining profitability calculator. For the machines mentioned here, browse our Litecoin and Dogecoin miners or read our Antminer S19 XP review.