Crypto glossary
Mining profitability
Mining profitability is whether a miner's revenue from block rewards exceeds the cost of electricity, hardware and operations over the machine's life.
The revenue side depends on the miner's share of network hashrate, the block subsidy, transaction fees and the bitcoin price, all summarised in hashprice. The cost side is dominated by electricity, measured as the machine's power draw times the price per kilowatt-hour, plus pool fees, hosting or facility costs, maintenance and the depreciation of hardware that loses value as better models arrive.
A quick check multiplies a machine's terahashes by hashprice to get daily revenue and compares it with its daily power cost; if revenue is lower, running the machine loses money before even counting the hardware. Mining calculators automate this, and miners rerun the numbers whenever difficulty adjusts, every 2,016 blocks, or when prices move sharply.
Profitability is a moving target. Difficulty tends to rise as more efficient machines join the network, each halving cuts the subsidy in half, and fee income is unpredictable. A rig that pays off at today's numbers may not recover its purchase price if conditions change, which is why calculations should include scenarios rather than a single projection.
Example
An ASIC producing 200 TH/s at a hashprice of $0.05 per TH per day earns about $10 daily; drawing 3.5 kW at $0.08 per kWh costs $6.72, leaving roughly $3.28 before hardware depreciation.