Learn the mining numbers

Watts and kilowatt-hours

Watts measure instantaneous power. Kilowatt-hours measure energy over time: a 3,500 W miner running for one hour uses 3.5 kWh. Running for 24 hours uses 84 kWh. An electricity tariff prices each kWh, not each watt.

TH/s and J/TH

TH/s means trillions of hashes per second. J/TH means joules consumed per trillion hashes. Dividing watts by TH/s gives J/TH. Lower efficiency numbers mean less energy for equivalent hashing work. Manufacturer rounding can differ from a ratio calculated from nominal ratings.

Difficulty, reward and pool payouts

Bitcoin difficulty governs expected hashes per block. The subsidy and transaction fees form the block reward used in the model. Pool payout schemes, luck and rejected shares can cause actual earnings to differ from this statistical estimate.

Break-even and payback

Operating break-even electricity is the tariff at which mining proceeds after pool fees match electricity costs. Simple payback divides capital by positive daily net proceeds and holds all inputs constant. It is not a discounted cash-flow analysis or a forecast.

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