I have 7th and pay 0.064 and the BTC price is getting fairly close to where power cost will eat half my mining profit
I know, the current mining situation is not great. I thought BTC would be significantly higher in price right now, and definitely didn't think the price of BTC would go down significantly while difficulty keeps going up significantly.
At some point soon, the difficulty has to level out unless the price of BTC goes way up, doesn't it?
at a $400 BTC, I imagine the cheapest farms cost about 8c/kwh (all costs considered) and will be hitting the ceiling for 2w/GH right now, and very soon the ceiing for profitably running 1w/GH gear.
industrial power can be found for $0.03-0.06 USD/kwh in various areas of the world. Pair that with locations having very low rental costs (rural) and negligible internet costs and a barebones staff.
with winter coming though, we could see a slight resurgence of small-scale miners heating thier homes or mining in places where they dont pay for electricity. I personally will be relocating a lot of my equipment from a small office building (i am colocating in a corner for free, just paying electricity/cooling) to the basements of myself and a few family members so that the heat produced serves a utility and saves me money by saving gas heating bills or replacing existing space heaters.