# Bitcoin Mining with Compass By [spiritedGarlic9](https://paragraph.com/@spiritedgarlic9) · 2022-05-12 --- In its purest form, Bitcoin mining is the process of contributing your computing power to the Bitcoin network and getting rewarded for your efforts. Now it is not as easy (or as hard) as it sounds. There are typically a lot of costs associated with the process of mining Bitcoin. Typically hardware and electricity costs are some of the most considerable costs. There are several different ways to mine crypto. In Bitcoin’s case, there are two common methods: GPU mining and ASIC mining. GPU mining involves the use of graphics cards while ASIC mining involves the use of specifically created chips that are specifically designed for mining Bitcoin — and nothing else! As one might expect, the cost of an ASIC mining rig is generally much more than buying graphics cards, however, they are also much more powerful and therefore (generally) more profitable. Now it is also worth mentioning that there is also a higher amount of risk when it comes to mining with an ASIC miner. Namely, an ASIC miner is not good for much else either than mining Bitcoin. If Bitcoin were to lose its luster, it is possible that owning such a piece of hardware could no longer have any economic incentive. If this were to happen, there would likely be a flood of similar machinery as people look to offload their equipment, which would push prices down. I personally don’t think the odds of this are likely. The rig that I purchased in an AntMiner T19, which is rated for 88TH. TH is short for Terra-Hash, which is a measurement for processing power. The higher the processing power, the more money you will earn when it is contributed to the Bitcoin network. My particular investment cost me about $72 per TH. For my particular endeavor, after purchasing my mining rig, I signed a contract to have it hosted by a third-party, Compass Mining. They host and operate the rig and I simply pay them for this service. My journey with Compass began several months ago. After first hearing about them, it took me a few months of research before I bought my first (and as of now only) mining rig from them. I purchased the rig in July 2021 with an expected online date in September, however it ended up going online in mid-November after a couple of delays. In all honesty, I am not sure how much these delay were the result of Compass’ doing or issues beyond their control. They did, however compensate me a total of $1,000 dollars for the delays. They seemed to be rather on top of the whole thing, and it ended up working out in the end. The miner the I purchased is rated for 88TH, which according to data from CryptoCompare.com was expected to net about .0005 BTC per day — which according to the price of Bitcoin at the time of my purchase (around $50,000) was abut $900 a month. Now $900 a month sounds great for a $6,300 investment, but there are a few considerations that need to be factored in. The first of which is the hosting expense. This is the fee that I pay to Compass for them hosting and operating my mining rig. They charge $0.063 per KWH, which comes out to around $150 month. This hosting amount covers everything from warehouse space to electricity, cooling really any costs associated with mining aside from the cost of the machine itself. Once this is factored in, I am really netting around $750 per month, which is still not bad, but there is a catch: The amount of revenue is subject to volatility and is also likely to decrease over time. There are two factors that affect this The first comes down to simple supply and demand. Every 10 minutes, 6.5 Bitcoin is minted and distributed between all of the miners proportional to their respective contribution to the network. The more computing power a miner contributes, the higher the share of the new minted coins they will receive. There is a dark side to this however: when you buy a mining rig, the amount of computing power it is capable of producing remains fixed, but the overall amount of computing power in the network does not -rather, it tends to increase over time, making your rig’s respective share smaller and smaller. It is hard to predict the rate at which this will happen, but the moral of the story is that you can expect your revenues to decrease over time. Another consideration is the price of Bitcoin itself. The revenue received from mining is denominated (paid out) in Bitcoin. This means that your overall revenue will increase or decrease with the price of Bitcoin. Over the long term, I expect that the price of Bitcoin will generally trend upward, but it is hard to speak with certainty on this — especially when you try to put a timeline to it. I do think, however, that the general uptrend of the price of Bitcoin might counteract some of the downward pressure from an increase supply of computing power, but its hard to say by how much. One important note: every four years the amount of Bitcoin minted gets cut in half. This is referred too as the halvening. The next one is scheduled for 2024. There is also one final consideration, and that is the lifetime of the equipment. It’s very difficult to prescribe a precise timeline for how long a typical bitcoin mining rig will last. Some of this has to do with upkeep — a properly maintained piece of hardware will generally last longer than a piece of hardware that is poorly maintained. However, even properly maintained hardware can have a relatively short lifetime. Based on everything, I have read about the mining rig I purchased, I am expecting 2–3 years of useful life. This might not sound like a very long amount of time, and it’s not, but the machine should have paid for itself before the first year is over, so it will more than likely be a rather profitable investment. Well, it has been a little over 2 months since my rig has gone online, and I am proud to say that my rig has done around 0.025 BTC worth of mining. (That is around $1200 with current Bitcoin prices). Subtract out start-up and hosting expenses of $600, and then add in the $1,000 in credits I received for the delays, I am left with around $1600 worth of “profit.” (I still have to pay taxes). That’s really not bad considering that it was a $6300 investment. Assuming that everything continues smoothly, I should reach my break-even point around the middle of next year. I am also, all about transparency, so if you would like to see live stats from my mining rig, please feel free to do so from this link: [https://www.f2pool.com/mining-user/3226b467d2de95dfbcd23322b8583de0](https://www.f2pool.com/mining-user/3226b467d2de95dfbcd23322b8583de0) I hope this article helps you to better understand the process of Bitcoin mining is like. If you would like to learn more, I encourage you to check out Compass’s website. Please also reach out if you have any questions, and would love to help out in any way I can! compassmining.io (This is not an affiliate link and I make no money if you decide to buy or host through them) Also, feel free to buy me a cup of coffee :) bc1q3lnsj0y7fgsksz8836mq0x8fkq2mxyvap02zue --- *Originally published on [spiritedGarlic9](https://paragraph.com/@spiritedgarlic9/bitcoin-mining-with-compass)*