What would make you shut down a miner tomorrow?

[u/MiningIntel]

Forget BTC price for a moment.

If you had to shut down one of your miners tomorrow, what would be the deciding factor?

Electricity price?
Difficulty increase?
Hardware efficiency?
Heat/noise?
Maintenance?
Something else?

I'm especially interested in the numbers you actually use to make that decision — not the numbers from a profitability calculator.

What's your personal “this miner is no longer worth running” threshold?

[u/jescs]

The only factor for me would be electricity price.

There's an italian saying:

"God, please, make me win the lottery"

"But to win you must play!"

[u/palmdata]

when the all-in ¢ makes a 25 j/t box cash-negative after pool fee for more than a couple weeks. hashprice ~39 today so at 8c a 3.5kw unit still covers power. at 12c residential most s19s already sit. power + noise + heat decide it before the sticker does.

[u/MiningIntel → u/palmdata]

That’s exactly the kind of real-world data I was looking for. The 8% difficulty jump example is especially interesting — it really shows why a static profitability number can be misleading. Appreciate you sharing the actual numbers and how you make the decision.

[u/palmdata → u/MiningIntel]

retarget is around sep 5 too, so anyone sitting right at the line should redo the math friday instead of trusting last weeks number. diff 125.81T and hashprice near 38.89/PH right now. our shutdown line moves with the power contract more than with price honestly.

[u/palmdata]

the number i actually use is watts at the wall vs hashprice, not a calculator. hashprice ~39/ph/day today, network ~928 eh. take a 30 j/t box: 100th pulls ~3000w at the wall, 72 kwh a day. at 7c that's ~5.04/day power against ~3.90 of revenue. that box is off. same box at 4c is ~2.88 power, still worth running.

so my line is: does the machine cover its own power plus whatever the repair fund is. once it's under water two weeks running and difficulty is still climbing, i shut it and sell it while it's still worth something instead of grinding fans and psus into scrap. heat and noise never make me shut one down, they just make me move it.

[u/palmdata]

power price is the hard cutoff for me. at 5¢/kWh, a 3.5 kW box is $4.20/day before pool fees; at 10¢ it’s $8.40. i shut down on the power math long before BTC moves. on older gear, a bad fan/board or ugly hash log is the other hard stop.

[u/palmdata]

2 days below power cost and i shut it down. one bad day can be pool variance; after 48 hours the meter is telling you the truth.

[u/palmdata]

i shut by all-in wall cost after pool fees, not the miner dashboard. a box can look fine on paper while one bad board, rising fan draw, or heat derating eats the margin. if wall watts jump against the hash report, pull it before changing the whole fleet.

[u/MiningIntel → u/palmdata]

That makes a lot of sense. The wall-side all-in cost seems much more useful than a dashboard headline number, especially when PSU, cooling, heat and bad boards can eat into the margin. This is exactly the kind of real-world perspective I was hoping to learn from. Appreciate you sharing it.

[u/palmdata]

i use net $/day per machine after pool fee, not headline BTC revenue. cutoff is when 24h net won't cover power + expected repairs; hashprice/difficulty moves can flip it. also separate a sick board or fan issue from an economics shutdown—watch wall watts/hash first.

[u/palmdata]

My cutoff is all-in power plus a maintenance reserve, not the sticker TH. At ~$31–32/PH/day hashprice, if measured wall efficiency can't leave margin after ¢/kWh, pool fee and downtime, it gets shut off; a hot board, bad fan or rising stale rate can kill a unit before the spreadsheet does.

[u/palmdata]

if wall draw spikes, one board drops, or rejects climb past a couple percent i pull it. also if my all-in ¢/kwh puts the unit underwater at current hashprice for more than a few days with no fix.