Currently, with an electricity cost of $0.07 per kilowatt hour (kWh), only 18 application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) bitcoin mining devices are able to turn a profit at current prices.
Current SHA256 ASIC models are not profitable at $0.12 per kWh, only two devices are profitable at $0.10 per kWh.
On December 31, 2022, statistics show that the bitcoin hash rate is holding above the 300 exahashs per second (EH/s) mark after bottoming out on December 30 at 235 EH/s. In addition, data from macromicro.me indicates that the current production cost ($16,577) is almost equal to the current value of bitcoin on the spot market ($16,572).
Macromicro.me calculates the cost of production by “observing the daily electricity consumption and bitcoin issuance as provided by the University of Cambridge.” The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) shows that the Bitcoin annualized consumption as of December 31, 2022, is 84.74 terawatts per hour (TWh). With the current mining difficulty at 35.36 trillion and the current BTC at $16,572 per unit, many ASIC mining machines are not profitable.
For example, at $0.12 per kWh, none of the current ASIC SHA256 models are profitable with electricity costs at this rate. At $0.10 per kWh, two ASIC devices are profitable and can realize profits of $1.14 to $2.51 per day. The two best machines that can still be profitable at $0.10 per kWh are Bitmain’s Antminer S19 XP Hyd. with 255 terahash per second (TH/s) and Bitmain’s Antminer S19 XP with 140 TH/s.
18 ASIC mining systems cost-effective at $0.07 per kWh, alternative consensus algorithms are more cost-effective
At $0.08 per kWh, 13 different bitcoin mining ASIC machines can make profits between $0.13 and $5.08 per day. The machine with the lowest profits at $0.08 per kWh is Bitmain’s Antminer S19j Pro with 100 TH/s. At $0.07 per kWh, five more machines join the list of profitable machines, with a total of 18 profitable ASIC mining devices.
At the value of $0.07 per kWh, a bitcoin miner can earn between $0.23 per day and $6.35 per day, depending on the machine used. Bitmain’s Antminer S19 XP Hyd. with 255 TH/s and $0.07 per kWh in electrical costs will produce an estimated profit of about $6.35 every 24 hours.
While SHA256 bitcoin mining machines are seeing less profit than they were six months ago, machines mining alternative consensus algorithms are seeing better profits. The top three consensus algorithms today, in terms of profit, are Kadena, Eaglesong, Scrypt and Handshake.