alt Hacker NewsI did Crypto Mining as an alternative to heating. In my centrally cool apartment my office was the den which had the air return. So my mining rig ran RIGHT in front of that, it sucked the heat out and pushed it all over the house. Then summer came, and in Texas the AC can barely keep up to begin with. So then my GPUs became part of a render farm instead.
I did that some after eth stopped mineable.
My office-room was heated mostly by resistance, plus whatever gas-fired heat trickled in through the doorway.
I didn't have as much power available there as I had in the basement, but I had enough to mine a bit of crypto to supplement the resistance heater. :)
From one perspective: It was never directly profitable to do this. Other than eth, nothing has ever been profitable-enough for me to care about.
From another perspective: I was going to burn the energy anyway. The Joules cost the same and add the same amount of warmth either way, so I might as well get them with a side dish of free crypto.
Good times.
(These days, I transcode videos with Tdarr during the winter.)