Bitcoin mining is done by individual specialized computers called miners. Whereas an amateur Bitcoin miner might have several miners running in their home, an industrial scale Bitcoin mine will have hundreds or thousands of miners running.
Most Bitcoin miners (amateur and industrial) join mining pools to pool their mining power with many other mines. This helps to make their mining income more consistent and predictable. Mining pools charge a fee which is usually in the range of 1-2% of the mining rewards.
The largest operating expense of a bitcoin mine is the electricity used by the miners. Electric utility companies charge a rate per kilo watt hour (kWh). One kWh is the amount of energy used by a one kilo watt load for one hour. For example a typical clothes dryer uses about 3 kilo watts, so running a clothes dryer for one hour will use 3 kWh.
A hash rate is the measure of the processing power of the miner. The higher the hash rate, the higher the Bitcoin rewards generated by the miner.
This is the up front cost to purchase the miner. An important calculation that should be done when starting a Bitcoin mine is the time it will take to make back the purchase cost of the miners. This calculator makes that calculation simple.
This is the amount of energy used by each miner. This value along with the number of miners and the electrical cost will tell you how much it will cost to run your Bitcoin mine each month.
