Bitcoin mining economics can be divided into three components: revenue, operational expenses, and capital expenses. These three pillars can be used together to better understand the profitability of mining and its return on investment.
There are several leverages miners can use to increase their revenue:
1. Elimination of hashrate. Miners produce hashrate the value of which is largely beyond their control — it primarily depends on the networks they are mining in. However, the miner decides which pool to sell his hashrate to.
2. Coin selection. At any given time, profitability between coins varies based on ever-changing variables such as network complexity, coin price, transaction fees, market depth, and other factors.
3. Forecasting income. Miners need to make assumptions about a new hashrate going into the market, the amount of hashrate, electricity, and operating costs for miners, broken down by the type of hardware they use, coin prices, transaction fees, etc. Building a model with this general architecture will allow a miner or investor to predict the value of his hashrate in the future.
4. Operational expenses. Undoubtedly the most important part of a mining company's long-term success is the cost of electricity. Reducing electricity costs even by 1 cent saves miners almost ~ 90 thousand USD / MW per year in electricity costs. Low maintenance miners are isolated from large fluctuations in mining revenues. They can also buy old equipment at a very low price and still use it profitably.
5. Capital expenses. The important part here is the purchase of equipment. The most experienced miners know how to work with both hardware manufacturers in the primary markets and resellers in the secondary markets. For example, the Hashrate Index service has a machine price tracker, which can be conveniently used by mining operators to determine when in a cycle is the best time to buy machines. Miners need to consider when in the mining cycle to buy machines. There are times when the machines are cheap and their return of investment period is fast.