Update: Mining crypto to heat my 1 bedroom flat
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I was folding@home on my media server as part of this experiment.
I did try and do this a couple years ago with folding@home on both machines but didn't make it all the way through December, although i did have different hardware at that time.
I did briefly look at doing it again this year but setting it up to work with an AMD gpu seemed to be unsupported. the mining software seems easier to script with too
That's kind of what I was thinking.
I used to run Folding@Home, as well as others, as a screensaver. It's been a while, but I think you had some control of how hard to work the computer. As someone who regularly works with 30 year old computers that run 24/7, it seems weird to kill a GPU by running it,but if it runs cooler maybe it will last longer? Although that defeats the purpose kind of.
Now you need to use the money you saved and the $15 in crypto to buy two identical computers, then run one flat out and the other at around 50% and see how long they last. Report back every couple of years.
Excuse me while I look at extreme uptime posts.
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was fun tho. and if those coins do pop in future then i stand to make a decent amount of money.
I've spend more on the lottery for worse odds
Honestly, thank you for posting the details and results. Regardless of anyone's opinions, it's a fascinating thought experiment.
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So a couple months ago i made this post
I was downvoted pretty heavily by lemmy standards but there were a decent amount of constructive comments so i deduce that there is some interest in this topic, so thought i would update.
I've gotten through the coldest months of the year here in the UK and i have been mining less and less as a result now that spring is springing.
This isn't a professional set up at all, I have an AMD 3900x processor and a Radeon 6800X GPU. I decided to mine Raven on the GPU (seems to be a dead coin tbh) and Monero on the processor. I also have an old quad core intel media server that runs Folding@home in the same room, so generating heat, but not crypto income. As far as actual crypto earnings are concerned it didn't really yield a whole much; i am the proud owner of 546RVN (current market rate about $6.74USDT) and 0.033 XMR (approx $6.84USDT value). so not even going to bother selling it, will just hold it and hope it pops one day.
The real return though is the reduction in electricity usage. The flat was kept not quite as warm as previous years but still warm enough to be comfortable so long as you wear socks and occasionally put on a jumper on the really cold days. With this experiment i was for the most part only heating a single room. As a result my power usage plummeted for the normally heaviest months.
2024 peaked at around 1,100kWh in Jan normally heating my flat with its in built resistive element electric heaters (no gas here)
2025 peaked at 800kWh in Jan
Costs are generally averaged out over the course of the year here in the UK and my energy supplier has told me they're reducing my Direct Debit by -£30.48 a month, i'll assume this holds for the rest of the year.
So with that in mind my net gain was (£30.48 * 12) + (13.58USDT converted to GBP at current rate of £0.77... £10.48)
£376.24
Admittedly there are other variables i'm not really controlling for, the cost of power peaked in 2023ish and have been reducing since for instance.
i had fun though, will try again next year
For the monero mining, did you solo or pool mine? Also p2pool+xmrig ?
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I keep space heaters in every room (except kitchen and bathrooms). Why heat the whole place when I'm just one person in one spot? (She bundles under blankets because the space heaters dry her skin, but similar end result.)
There is an actual reason to heat the whole space. But it depends on a number of factors including the size of the space heater, interior wall insulation, and external temp. If the exterior was -20F then using a single room space heater would not work and might be more expensive than bringing the whole floor to 58F in the long run.
The gist is your home has a thermal envelope. When you're only heating that one room, without insulation, the heat is evacuating to neighboring rooms. So you're still heating everything just poorly.
On top of that, a well insulated home drops heat slower than it take to heat up. If the home is built correctly all the heaters would work in tandem to bring the base temp up to a set point then shut off and allow it to slowly drop.
But again. There's a ton of factors here (heater size and type are huge).
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For the monero mining, did you solo or pool mine? Also p2pool+xmrig ?
pool mining on the lower difficulty pool
and yeah used gupax for the cpu so p2pool+xmrig is built in
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So a couple months ago i made this post
I was downvoted pretty heavily by lemmy standards but there were a decent amount of constructive comments so i deduce that there is some interest in this topic, so thought i would update.
I've gotten through the coldest months of the year here in the UK and i have been mining less and less as a result now that spring is springing.
This isn't a professional set up at all, I have an AMD 3900x processor and a Radeon 6800X GPU. I decided to mine Raven on the GPU (seems to be a dead coin tbh) and Monero on the processor. I also have an old quad core intel media server that runs Folding@home in the same room, so generating heat, but not crypto income. As far as actual crypto earnings are concerned it didn't really yield a whole much; i am the proud owner of 546RVN (current market rate about $6.74USDT) and 0.033 XMR (approx $6.84USDT value). so not even going to bother selling it, will just hold it and hope it pops one day.
The real return though is the reduction in electricity usage. The flat was kept not quite as warm as previous years but still warm enough to be comfortable so long as you wear socks and occasionally put on a jumper on the really cold days. With this experiment i was for the most part only heating a single room. As a result my power usage plummeted for the normally heaviest months.
2024 peaked at around 1,100kWh in Jan normally heating my flat with its in built resistive element electric heaters (no gas here)
2025 peaked at 800kWh in Jan
Costs are generally averaged out over the course of the year here in the UK and my energy supplier has told me they're reducing my Direct Debit by -£30.48 a month, i'll assume this holds for the rest of the year.
So with that in mind my net gain was (£30.48 * 12) + (13.58USDT converted to GBP at current rate of £0.77... £10.48)
£376.24
Admittedly there are other variables i'm not really controlling for, the cost of power peaked in 2023ish and have been reducing since for instance.
i had fun though, will try again next year
A bit off topic... Ever thought about getting a heat pump? Even the cheap, loud air-air ones (with two hose mods) could save you a noticeable amount of money.
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There is an actual reason to heat the whole space. But it depends on a number of factors including the size of the space heater, interior wall insulation, and external temp. If the exterior was -20F then using a single room space heater would not work and might be more expensive than bringing the whole floor to 58F in the long run.
The gist is your home has a thermal envelope. When you're only heating that one room, without insulation, the heat is evacuating to neighboring rooms. So you're still heating everything just poorly.
On top of that, a well insulated home drops heat slower than it take to heat up. If the home is built correctly all the heaters would work in tandem to bring the base temp up to a set point then shut off and allow it to slowly drop.
But again. There's a ton of factors here (heater size and type are huge).
Very interesting. Cheers!
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A bit off topic... Ever thought about getting a heat pump? Even the cheap, loud air-air ones (with two hose mods) could save you a noticeable amount of money.
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As long as it costs less than traditional electric heating, it should be fine.
It would not. All work puts out an equal amount of heat for the amount of power drawn. A 1500 Watt electric heater will put out 1500 Watts of heat, and a 1500 Watt computer puts out 1500 Watts of heat, but only if it's putting in enough computing work.
That computing work might be worth something if you're lucky, which is where the actual savings are. OP ended up saving much more money from heating less than from earning any crypto.
Precisely. The crypto part might have some extra value. That’s the key difference. The rest of it is just traditional thermodynamics. You pay the same amount in electricity and you get the same amount of heat.
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For the same reason you typed this post.
If I believed this was all an echo chamber I wouldn’t stuck around.
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See? I don't mind what you say or what you may ask, so I simply choose to ignore you.
I’m more mean why are you hanging around if you believe this place to be an echo chamber?
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I was feeling indulgent.
I think the word you’re searching for is “petty.”
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I’m more mean why are you hanging around if you believe this place to be an echo chamber?
"Echo chamber" has a negative connotation but doesn't actually mean anything negative by default. A group that all parrots the same idea, whether it's beneficial or negative, is an echo chamber
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