One research project I’m embarking on is one that I actually thought of accidentally. It will be looking at different thermal conductivity in thermal paste used on ASIC chips to measure performance in hashrate. It may sound weird, I know. But while reapplying thermal paste to several hash boards, I inadvertently used two types of thermal paste with different thermal conductivity, and saw a minor difference in temperature readings when testing them. I’ll be using different thermal pastes (based on W/mK) on a control (S19j Pro 100 TH/s) with an adequate sample size (likely 3 known fully hashing machines) and I will look at power draw, chip temperature, and hashrate over the average of 12 hours in a controlled climate. There is, of course, a point of diminishing returns, and I hope to find that to see the peak optimization in a machine based on a tiny factor such as thermal paste. It may be minute, but it very well could be large enough to consider. Much to be done!
“Profitability” in mining is very subjective. Most people count it as covering costs to run the machine with the rewards it produces. This is usually at a large scale. To me, I personally believe that as long as you can run the machine, you are operating profitably. The first KYC free sats that you earn (in my eyes) put you in the black. It’s all relative to your time horizon.
Some of the main things I plan on talking about here: - Bitcoin news (more specifically on a protocol level) - Mining news - Mining research I’m doing - Progress on my essay (which will include questions to you)