After the first 20 minutes, the water temperature seemed to raise at a fairly constant rate of 0.0006 degrees Celsius per second. This raise in temperature means an raise in thermal energy, which we can calculate as:
Here M is a mass of stuff (in this case water) and C is the specific heat capacity – the amount of thermal energy needed to raise the temperature of a substance by 1 degree Celsius. For water, C is 4.186 joules per gram per degree Celsius. So, taking into account 1000 ml of water and the rate of temperature change, I get that the water needs a power of 2.51 joules per second (or 2.51 watts).
Oh, look at this. Even with such a basic measurement system, this is quite close to the power consumed by the Raspberry Pi. The difference is probably due to imperfect insulation. So you can see that the power of cryptocurrency is simply thermal energy. Honestly, I’m surprised it worked so well.
Show me the money!
While it’s possible to run a cryptocurrency miner to heat your home, that’s probably not why people do it. What is the payout? Well, let’s do some quick calculations. I ran the Raspberry Pi miner for 12 hours. How much money did it make? Wait… 0.00000006 XMR. When converted to US dollars, it is 0.0012 cents (not a dollar). Yes, it would be a tardy way to amass a fortune. If I worked 12,000 hours, I still wouldn’t be able to buy a piece of chewing gum. He probably didn’t even apply chewing gum.
And that doesn’t even take into account the costs. That is, mining is not free – you have to pay for electricity. Average cost of electricity in the province In the US, the price per kilowatt hour is 16.94 cents. If I run my excavator at 3 watts for 12 hours, that will be 24 watt hours, or 0.024 KWh. Given the price of electricity, it would cost 0.41 cents. Let me do some quick math here. Yes, 0.41 cents is more than the money I created. I’m not a financial expert, but this seems like a bad business model to me.
Of course, no one other than a physicist would mine cryptocurrencies on a Raspberry Pi. There are fancy mining machines (costing thousands of dollars) that allow you to mint coins faster and apply less energy. Another thing to consider is the future price of the cryptocurrency. Even if the cost today outweighs the reward, it may one day be worth much more. Finally, a cryptocurrency miner may be located in a place with cheaper electricity. It is even possible to run an excavator on solar energy.
But don’t forget that for every joule of energy you put into the excavator, you will produce 1 joule of thermal energy. You need to get rid of this heat, otherwise it will cause problems for your computers. However, cooling systems apply more energy, which can make it tough to produce profitable currency.
But it must work since there is a lot of mining in the US. It was estimated that in 2024 approx 2.3 percent of electricity went to cryptocurrency. That’s quite a lot, and I’m really not sure it’s the best apply of our energy resources – especially since cryptocurrencies are just a made-up thing.