近期，一個名叫Chris McCann外國人發表了一篇《Overview & Landscape of the Mining Industry》文章，全面調研了加密數字貨幣挖礦產業鏈全景圖，在這裡和大家分享。
As of July 2019, Bitcoin miners generate $6B+ in revenues (mining rewards + transaction fees) on an annualized basis.
Mining and the underlying hardware that secures Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency projects is an often overlooked market within the cryptocurrency sector. However in conjunction with the exchange landscape, mining is one of the core markets which generates significant revenues.
In this post I will share an overview of the Bitcoin & crypto mining space, the underlying hardware which powers mining, an ecosystem landscape, and dive into the revenue & market size of the space.
截止 2019 年 7 月，比特幣礦工年均創造了超過六十億美金的收益（挖礦獎勵+交易手續費）。
在加密數字貨幣領域，確保比特幣及其它加密數字貨幣網絡安全的基礎硬件和挖礦活動是一個經常被人忽視的市場。然而，挖礦和交易，都是創造可觀利潤的核心市場。
在這篇文章中，我將分享比特幣及其它密碼學貨幣挖礦領域的概況、支撐挖礦的基礎硬件、行業的生態，並深入探究這個領域的收益和市場規模。
How Cryptocurrency Mining Works 密碼學貨幣挖礦原理簡介
Proof-of-work (mining) is the process in which new transactions are added to the Bitcoin blockchain and how the correct order of such transactions are agreed upon (consensus).
One of my favorite analogies of the process is to think of it like a sudoku puzzle. It’s a puzzle that takes a lot of brainpower to solve, but once it’s solved it's very easy for everyone else to verify that you have found the correct answer.
（這裡放了一個youtube的一個視頻解釋挖礦的原理，鏈接不過來，所以刪除了）
Essentially, miners (computers geographically distributed around the world) compete to solve a computationally intensive puzzle which verifies the next block in the blockchain (in addition to the underlying transactions within the block). The miner who solves this puzzle first is the person who is able to claim the reward (the “coinbase reward” + transaction fees). Once the next block is found all of the miners on the network are able to verify that the block is correct, and move onto solving the next block in the chain.
工作量證明（挖礦）是指將新交易添加到比特幣區塊鏈上、並對這些交易的合理順序達成一致（共識）的過程。
關於這個過程，我最喜歡的一個類比就是把它想象成一個數獨謎題（譯者注：需要在一個 9*9 的盤面上根據已有的數字推演出其它數字，保證每一行、每一列、每一個粗線設置的九宮格內的 1~9 都不重複）。它是一個需要燒死大量腦細胞才能解出來的難題，但是一旦解出來了，其他人就很容易驗證你的答案是否正確。
從本質上來說，礦工（地理上分散在世界各地的計算機）相互競爭著解決一個計算密集型的難題，一旦解出來就可以確證區塊鏈上可（連帶打包在區塊中的交易）產生下一個區塊。第一個解決難題的礦工可以獲得區塊獎勵（“coinbase 獎勵” + 交易手續費）。一旦新區塊被創建，網絡中的所有礦工都可以驗證該區塊的正確性，然後進入到解決下一個區塊難題的競爭中。
The Role Miners Play in the Bitcoin & Crypto Ecosystem
礦工在比特幣和區塊鏈生態系統中扮演的角色
All of the computers around the world racing to solve the next puzzle are the participants that make up the mining ecosystem. The collective computational resources are one of the core ingredients which provides the underlying security guarantees Bitcoin provides.
Through this network, Bitcoin participants are able to expect:
- Their transactions will be confirmed on the Bitcoin blockchain.
- Their transactions will be in the correct order (protect against double spends).
- The history of the Bitcoin blockchain will stay intact (immutability).
In return miners are compensated both in newly minted Bitcoin (“coinbase rewards”) + the transaction fees associated with each transaction. If participants want stronger guarantees on when their transaction will be added to the Bitcoin blockchain, they can increase the transaction fees they are willing to pay for their transactions.
世界各地競爭著解決下一個難題的所有計算機都是挖礦生態系統的參與者。可彙總的計算資源是為比特幣提供基本安全保障的核心要素之一。
通過這個網絡，比特幣的使用者們可以期望：
- 他們的交易將被比特幣區塊鏈所確認。
- 他們的交易將按照合理的順序被打包（防止一筆錢花兩次）。
- 比特幣區塊鏈的歷史將保持不變（不可篡改性）。
作為回報，礦工可以同時獲得新挖出的比特幣（“Coinbase 獎勵”）和區塊中每筆交易的手續費。如果用戶希望自己的交易被及時打包到比特幣區塊鏈上，他們可以自願增加為自己的交易所支付的手續費。
Hardware Used in Mining用於挖礦的硬件
While in the beginning of the Bitcoin network, it was profitable to mine Bitcoin using consumer grade central processing units (CPU’s), the Bitcoin network has developed to such a scale where it is impractical to do so now.
The Bitcoin ecosystem is largely dominated by application specific integrated circuits (ASIC’s). For most other cryptocurrencies, graphics processing units (GPU’s) and field-programmable gate array (FPGA's) are the dominant form factors. A number of coins also exist with the same hashing algorithm at Bitcoin (SHA256) that are compatible with Bitcoin mining ASICs.
在比特幣網絡的早期，使用消費級的 CPU 挖比特幣還有利可圖，然而，比特幣網絡發展到如今的規模，再這樣做已經不切實際了。
目前，比特幣生態系統內的礦機由專用集成電路（ASIC）主導。對於其它絕大多數密碼學貨幣而言，圖形處理器（GPU）和現場可編程門陣列（FPGA）是主要的礦機形態。還存在許多和比特幣使用同一種哈希算法（SHA256）的密碼學貨幣，它們也兼容比特幣的 ASIC 礦機。
Mining Ecosystem Landscape挖礦生態系統的景觀
Below is a graphic of the mining sector in its totality, from the chips to the end user services:
下面是一張從芯片到終端用戶的挖礦生態系統全景圖：
Foundry代工廠
Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) and Samsung are the two core semiconductor foundries which produce all of the silicon wafers which go into mining hardware. Taiwan in particular has a dominant share of the chipset supply chain.
For example: NVIDIA, AMD, Xilinx, Bitmain, and Cannan all use TSMC for their core production lines.
臺積電（TSMC） 和三星是兩家核心的半導體制造商，它們生產了所有挖礦硬件所採用的硅晶片。尤其是臺積電，它在芯片組供應鏈中佔據了主導地位。舉例來說：英偉達、AMD、賽靈思（Xilinx）、比特大陸和嘉楠耘智全部使用臺積電作為其核心生產線。
Packaging, Testing, Assembly打包，測試，組裝
Once the wafers are complete you need to test them, cut them apart, package them into the final chip, and retest. This whole process is typically handled by OSAT companies (outsourced assembly and test companies) with the two largest of such being ASE Group (Taiwan) and Amkor Technology.
晶片生產出來之後，你需要對它們進行測試，切分，並把它們封裝進最終的芯片中，然後重新測試。整個流程通常由 OSAT 公司（外包封裝測試公司）處理，其中最大的兩家公司是 ASE 集團（臺灣）與 Amkor Technology。
IC Design and Manufacturers 集成電路設計與製造商
* 絕大部分集成電路公司都沒有披露它們的 OSAT 供應商。
The companies which design and sell the chips are typically referred to as fabless chip companies (the fabrication itself is left to the foundry and OSAT companies).
For GPU’s, the two top manufacturers are NVIDIA and AMD. For FPGA’s, the top manufacturer is Xilinx. For crypto specific ASIC’s, the top three companies are Bitmain, Canaan, and Pangolin Miner (producer of the Whatsminer line).
In addition to these three manufacturers there are other IC design companies in the space including: Ebang, Innosilicon, Bitfury, Obelisk, and others.
設計和銷售芯片的公司通常被稱為無晶圓芯片公司（製造本身由代工廠和 OSAT 公司負責）。
對於 GPU 而言，最頂級的兩個製造商是英偉達和 AMD。而對於 FPGA 而言，最頂級的製造商是賽靈思。對於專門用來進行密碼學貨幣挖礦的 ASIC 芯片而言，最頂級的三家制造商則是比特大陸，嘉楠耘智，和穿山甲礦機（Pangolin Miner）（神馬(Whatsminer)礦機系列的製造商）。
除了這三類製造商之外，這個行業中還有一些其它的集成電路設計公司，包括：翼比特，芯動科技，Bitfury，Obelisk，等等。
英偉達和 AMD 為所有的用例生產 GPU，而不僅僅是挖礦。市場份額來自 Jon Peddie Research 的估算。 表中的估值是在比特大陸和嘉楠耘智赴港交所上市失敗後的最後估值。
Miners & Mining Farms礦工和礦場
After the chips have been produced, they can now be used to mine cryptocurrencies. ASIC’s are especially designed to mine one mining algorithm (typically SHA256 & Bitcoin) while GPU’s have more flexibility built in.
Miners include: people using one machine to mine, small mining operations (5-10 machines), medium sized mining farms (10-100 machines), large scale mining operations (100-1,000 machines) to industrial scale mining farms (1,000+ machines). Some of the largest operations I’ve heard of so far are in the range of 100,000’s of machines across multiple geographies.
In addition to designing the chips some of the manufacturers mine themselves as well (Bitmain, Canaan, Pangolin). Bitmain, for example, publicly discloses their “self-mining” monthly.
Any sized mining operation can be pointed at a mining pool (more on these later) or if large enough they can self mine - aggregating all of their hashpower to find blocks directly, without commingling their hashrate with other miners.
*It is quite controversial that the mining chip producers potentially use their own machines to mine before selling them. However if you really do have a device that generates revenue, there is no reason why you would leave it unused in inventory, but rather you would utilize it until you could sell it.
芯片被生產出來之後，就可以用來挖密碼學貨幣啦。ASIC 芯片被設計成專門挖一種挖礦算法（通常是 SHA256 或者說比特幣），而 GPU 則更具靈活性。礦工包括：使用一臺機器進行挖礦的人，小型挖礦作業（5-10 臺機器），中等規模的礦場（10-100臺機器），大規模礦場（100-1,000臺機器）到工業規模的礦場（1,000 臺以上機器）。迄今為，我聽說過的最大規模的礦場在多個地區運行了多達 100,000 臺礦機。
除了設計芯片以外，一些製造商自己也參與挖礦（例如比特大陸，嘉楠耘智，穿山甲）。舉例來說，比特大陸每個月都公開披露他們自己的挖礦狀況。
大大小小的礦工都可以加入到一個礦池（將在後文詳細介紹）中，如果礦場的規模足夠大，他們還可以 solo 挖礦—— 只彙集自己的哈希算力來直接尋找區塊，不與其他礦工混合算力。
* 一個頗有爭議的地方在於，挖礦芯片的製造商在出售芯片之前，可能會提前使用它們進行挖礦。然而，如果你真的有一臺能產生利潤的設備，你也沒有理由把它閒置在倉庫裡，你也可能會在賣出去之前用它來挖礦。
Pools (Single and multi-currency)礦池（單幣種和多幣種）
For individual to non-industrial miners it is more economically rational to join a pool rather than to self mine. Pools aggregate the hashpower of many miners together to smooth out the reward curves for each individual miner. The pool is in charge of optimizing all of the hashpower, running the mining notes, collecting & distributed rewards, and taking a fee on top for the service.
There are some pools that specialize in specific cryptocurrencies (Sparkpool: Ethereum & Grin) and other pools which have setup various pools covering all of the top cryptocurrencies (Antpool, F2Pool, Poolin, Slushpool, etc). All of these pools started by specializing in one cryptocurrency (typically Bitcoin) and have thus expanded to cover all forms of cryptocurrencies.
One of my favorite analogies of how mining pools work is to think of it like the office lottery pool. By pooling together all of the lottery tickets, all of the individuals (miners) have a better chance of winning the reward (block reward).
However with mining pools you are both trusting the service to both report the correct earnings and the correct number of tickets everyone in the pool has. To bring transparency there are services like PoolWatch that try to track and compare the reporting across various mining pools.
對於從個體到非工業級別的礦工來說，在經濟上更加合理的做法是加入一個礦池，而非自己單獨挖礦。礦池把許多礦工的哈希算力彙集了起來，使得每個礦工的回報曲線能夠更加平滑。礦池負責優化所有的哈希算力、運行挖礦程序、收集並分配獎勵，並對這些服務收取額外的費用。有一些礦池專注於挖特定的密碼學貨幣（例如星火礦池，專注於以太坊和 Grin），而其他礦池則設置了多種礦池，覆蓋了所有主流的密碼學貨幣（螞蟻礦池，魚池，幣印礦池，Slushpool，等等）。所有的這些礦池一開始都是專注於挖一個密碼學貨幣（通常是比特幣），後來才擴展到涵蓋所有形式的密碼學貨幣。
關於礦池的運行方式，我最喜歡的一個類比是將它想象成辦公室的彩票池。通過把所有人買的彩票彙集到一起，每個人（礦工）都有更大的機會贏得獎勵。
然而，使用礦池就意味著要信任礦池 —— 每個人擁有的準確算力份額以及合理的收入，都由礦池來記錄並分發。為了提高透明度，有一些類似 PoolWatch 的服務會跟蹤和比較各種礦池的報告。
Hashrate Marketplaces算力市場
As a miner in addition to using your own hashrate for mining, you also have the option to sell your hashrate to someone else. Often, this is done in a marketplace - the biggest of such marketplaces is NiceHash. A smaller, peer-to-peer marketplace is Mining Rig Rentals.
On these marketplaces, people can both sell their hashrate and/or purchase hashrate on any given set of mining algorithms across any kind of cryptocurrencies. Although there are a lot of reasons why someone would want to buy hashrate, one of the top reasons is buying hashrate is used as a form of onramp into cryptocurrencies.
Often times people are using hashrate to speculate on various cryptocurrencies — e.g. want to purchase SHA256 hash rate and use it for Bitcoin SV instead of Bitcoin. (a terrible trade…)
礦工除了直接挖礦以外，還可以把自己的算力賣給別人。現實中也是有這樣的算力買賣市場的——目前最大的市場是 NiceHash。除此以外，還有一個更小的點對點的算力市場：Mining Rig Rentals。
在這些市場中，人們可以同時出售他們的算力 和/或 購買算力——任何密碼學貨幣的任何算法都行。儘管人們購買算力的原因很多，然而其中最主要的一個原因就是購買算力是一個擁有密碼學貨幣的入口。
很多時候人們使用算力來炒作各種密碼學貨幣——例如，想要採購適合 SHA256 的哈希算力來挖 BSV 而不是比特幣（實在是一筆不划算的買賣···）
Cloud mining雲挖礦
Cloud mining are services where consumers can purchase hashrate contracts directly, instead of operating any hardware themselves. It’s similar to the hashrate marketplaces above the cloud mining services typically are operated by one central supply.
Two of the biggest companies in this space are Genesis Mining (US) and Bitdeer (Asia). Again similarly to above one of the top reasons is buying hashrate is used as a form of onramp into cryptocurrencies. Through this method, people can use fiat to purchase Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies directly without going through an exchange.
雲挖礦即直接買賣的算力合同，消費者無需接觸任何硬件。有點類似於上面提到的算力市場，通常是由一箇中心化的供應商來運營的。這個領域中最大的兩家公司是 Genesis Mining（美國）和 Bitdeer (亞洲)。也與上面提到的類似，人們使用雲挖礦服務的一個主要的原因是購買算力被當成獲取密碼學貨幣的一種入口。通過這種方式，人們可以使用法幣來直接購買比特幣或其他密碼學貨幣，而不用通過交易所。
Smart Miners智能礦工
Smart miners is a new category that has emerged. Mining is a complex endeavor in which participants need to have an understanding of hardware, networking, energy, forecasts of hashrate, optimizing for specific algorithms, etc. On top of this, all of these inputs are constantly changing on a daily basis with new long tail cryptocurrencies constantly coming and going.
Smart Miners, like Honeyminer, aim to optimize all of these factors to allow miners, both consumers and professionals, to earn as much as possible with the hashpower they have. Two other similar products are HashFish and Cudo Miner.
In a short period of time these products have aggregated a considerable amount of the supply side hashpower of the marketplace.
智能礦工是最近出現的一個新的品類。挖礦是一個複雜的任務，它要求參與者瞭解硬件，網絡，能源，算力預測，以及針對特定算法的優化等等。此外，隨著新的密碼學貨幣不斷湧現以及舊的密碼學貨幣的消亡，所有的這些因素每天都在不斷地變化。像 Honeyminer 這類智能礦工軟件，旨在同時優化上述所有的因素，使得普通的消費者和專業人士都可以通過擁有的算力盡可能多地掙取收益。另外還有兩個類似的產品——HashFish 和 Cudo Miner。
在短時間內，這些產品在供應端聚集起了可觀的算力。
Size and Revenue of the Mining Market挖礦市場的規模和收益
The crypto mining industry generates over $8 billion in revenue on an annualized basis.
Revenue comes from both the block rewards + the transaction fees included in every single block on all proof-of-work blockchains. Based on the most recent CoinMetrics data on June 25th, 2019 the mining rewards, here is the weekly, monthly, and yearly revenue run rates of mining in total.
以年為單位計算，密碼學貨幣挖礦行業每年創造超過 80 億美金的利潤。
在所有基於工作量證明的區塊鏈中，利潤來自區塊獎勵和每個區塊中包含的交易手續費。根據 CoinMetrics 在 2019 年 6 月 25 日公佈的最新的挖礦獎勵數據，下面是挖礦行業每週，每月，以及每年的挖礦收益。
比特幣佔到所有加密數字貨幣挖礦領域的75%
However the overall revenue the mining sector generates is directly tied to the price of the underlying cryptocurrency, so it is highly reflexive back to the underlying cryptocurrency market (hence why Wall Street will have a tough time understanding the companies in this sector). More on this below.
這也與今天（2019 年 7 月 1 日）比特幣佔據主導地位的市場份額相符合。根據 CoinMarketCap 的數據，比特幣佔據了 60% 的市值。
然而，挖礦行業創造的整體利潤與其所挖密碼學貨幣的價格直接掛鉤，所以它會反過來直接影響密碼學貨幣市場（因此，華爾街很難理解這個行業裡的公司）。下面將詳細介紹。
Understanding the Profitability of the Mining Sector理解挖礦行業的盈利情況
The overall revenue, cost, and profitability of participants in the mining sector is hinged on a few key factors.
挖礦行業參與者的整體利潤，成本，和盈利情況受到少數幾個關鍵因素影響。
Capital Expenditure (Capex)
The main capex expense for miners is the cost of the mining machines themselves + any facilities/buildout which are needed to run the operation.
For example if you wanted to purchase 10,000 of the most recent Bitmain S17 models, this would cost $16M at retail price. Large miners can get special pricing; however, when machines are highly in demand it’s hard to even secure supply much less negotiate on rates.
This does not take into account the cost of setting up the facilities which have turned from hobbyist activities into real professional industrial scale operations.
資本支出（Capex）
礦工主要的資本支出是挖礦機器本身的成本加上運營該機器需要的所有 設施/建築物。舉例來說，如果你想要按照零售價採購 10,000 臺最新的比特大陸生產的螞蟻礦機 S17，需要花費 1,600 萬美金。大型礦工可以特價採購。然而，當礦機的需求很高以至於很難保證供應時，價格的優惠力度會很小。
這還沒有把建設設施的成本考慮進來，這些設施將挖礦從業餘愛好變成真正專業的工業規模項目。
Operational Expenditure (Opex)運營成本（Opex）
The main opex expense for miners is the cost of electricity to power the machines on a daily basis.
For example. if you were running 10,000 Bitmain S17 miners 24/7 this would cost you $36,000 per day (~$13M per year) in energy cost at $0.05 per kilowatt hour (kWh) - just to power the miners alone.
The average cost of electricity is highly variable based on where you live and what electricity source you are using:
對於礦工來說，主要的運營成本是每天運行礦機所需的電費。舉例來說，如果你 7*24 小時地運行 10,000 臺比特大陸的 S17 礦機，按每度（kwh）電 0.05 美金計算，每天將會花掉你 36,000 美金（每年大約 1,300 萬美金）的電費——僅僅是支撐礦機運行而已。
電費的平均支出視礦機所在地域和所用電力來源而定，差別很大：
Miners are inherently incentivized to find the cheapest sources of energy around the world, which is why Coinshares estimates that 75% of the energy that powers the Bitcoin network comes from renewable sources, largely hydroelectric energy.
In addition to the energy costs to power the mining machines, the other ongoing opex costs include: cooling, staff, maintenance, security, and general facility operations. A general rule of thumb is to 1.5x the energy cost to give a rough estimate on the ongoing opex costs.
Following our example above for a mining operating of 10,000 Bitmain S17 a rough estimate on the cost side would be:
- $16M Capex + $3M (import tax) + $4M (Facilities + security)
- $20M Opex (yearly)
- $67M Revenue potential (based on today’s Bitcoin price).
This is a rough estimate just to show the scale of factors miners are dealing with. The true cost would be highly dependent on your geographic location, buildout, etc.
However even these factors are always in flux, due the the market factors which will we will cover below.
礦工的本性激勵他們去尋找世界上最便宜的能源，這就是為什麼 Coinshares 估計支撐比特幣網絡運行的 75% 的電力來自可再生能源，主要就是水力發電。
除了維持礦機運行所需的電費以外，其它不間斷的運營成本還包括：散熱，人工，維護，安全和普通設施運營。一般來說，可以粗略地估計不間斷的運營成本是電費的 1.5 倍。
根據我們上面關於運營 10,000 臺比特大陸的 S17 礦機的例子，可以粗略地估計其成本為：
- 1,600 萬美金的資本支出 + 300 萬美金（進口稅）+ 400萬 美金（設施+安全）
- 2,000 萬美金的運營成本（每年）
- 6,700 萬美金的潛在收益（基於今天的比特幣價格）
以上只是一個粗略的估計，僅僅是為了展示礦工需要付出的各種成本的規模。真正的成本將完全取決於你所處的地理位置和所用建築等。然而，由於我們下面將介紹的市場因素，上述成本將不斷變化。
Market factors
While opex and capex are two factors miners can control, there are market forces at play which greatly determine the profitability of mining.
市場因素
儘管資本支出和運營成本是兩項礦工可以控制的因素，但市場的力量在很大程度上決定了挖礦的盈利情況。
Miner costs & available supply礦工成本 & 可見的供給
Unlike many traditional products, the mining producers (Bitmain, Canaan, Whatsminer, etc) will vary the price on the mining machines based on the profitability (the Bitcoin price) of the machines.
During big pull runs the price swings of the underlying cryptocurrencies + the mining machines themselves can swing wildly. In crazy periods there are whole secondary markets dedicated to just purchasing more hardware, and older machines can even become profitable again too.
In general I would always expect the price of machines to be priced close to the fair value the machine can generate at that point in time.
On top of this mining hardware tends to be supply constrained, especially with the newer machines. In keeping with our Bitmain S17 example, these machines are entirely sold out. Talking to some of the people on the team they don’t expect to have supply available until November at the earliest.
與很多傳統的產品不同，礦機制造商（比特大陸，嘉楠耘智，神馬礦機等等）會根據礦機的盈利情況（比特幣價格）來調整礦機的價格。當密碼學貨幣的價格出現大幅拉伸時，礦機本身的價格也會隨之劇烈波動。瘋狂時期，整個二級市場都在搶購更多的礦機，即使是老的礦機也能鹹魚翻身。總的來說，我總是希望機器的定價能接近在那個時間點可以創造的公允價值。除此之外，礦機的供用往往是比較受限的，尤其是比較新的礦機。繼續拿上面提到的比特大陸的 S17 礦機為例，這些機器已經被搶購一空了。與團隊中一些人交流時，他們告訴我，他們並不指望在 11 月初以前能保證充足供應。
Hashrate
The chance of a miner solving the next block is directly proportional to their hashrate relative to the hashrate of the total Bitcoin network (using Bitcoin as an example for simplicity).
An oversimplifying example to illustrate this is if you as a miner controlling 1% of the Bitcoin hashrate (compared to the overall Bitcoin hashrate) then you would expect to earn 1% of the total rewards from the Bitcoin network.
算力
礦工獲取下個區塊打包權的機會與他們的算力佔整個比特幣網絡算力的比重成正比（為了簡單起見，使用比特幣來進行說明）。用最簡單的例子來說明，如果你作為一名礦工，擁有的比特幣算力佔全網算力的 1% ，那麼你就可以期望自己從比特幣網絡獲得總獎勵的 1%。
However, the overall hashrate of the Bitcoin is always changing so the profitability of each miner depends on how many miners enter or leave the ecosystem. The Bitcoin protocol does have an internal method on adjusting the difficulty level .
不過，比特幣網絡的總算力總是處於不斷變化之中，因此每個礦工的盈利情況取決於有多少礦工加入或離開這個生態系統。比特幣協議有一套內部的方法來調整挖礦難度。
Bitcoin Price
Since the block reward is paid out in the underlying cryptocurrency. For example if you are mining Bitcoin, the block reward you earn is paid out in Bitcoin itself. Given this the reward amount is directly tied to the price of Bitcoin itself.
The more Bitcoin is worth, the more mining rewards are worth. To engage in mining you have to be inherently long the cryptocurrency you are mining, because your profitability is dependent on it.
One of the major reasons why Bitcoin is the dominant cryptocurrency (outside of being first) is Bitcoin’s transparent, open, and fair supply schedule. From the genesis block, Bitcoin has a fixed supply schedule with a fixed supply - there will only be 21M Bitcoin ever created.
Mining is the way new Bitcoin are created and emitted into the world. Today each Bitcoin block reward is 12.5 Bitcoin; however, this amount decreases every 210,000 blocks. At block #630,000 (estimated around May 24th, 2020) this reward will drop to 6.25 Bitcoin - this is referred to as the halvening event.
To see how halvening events have affected the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency networks before, check out this great post by CoinMetrics looking at prior halvening events.
If you would like to go even further into the supply schedule of Bitcoin and what happens after all of the Bitcoin is created, see these two posts about Bitcoins supply and overall security budget (shoutout to Dan Held for covering this topic throughly).
TLDR - The price of Bitcoin and underlying supply schedule of Bitcoin greatly affects the profitability of mining itself.
比特幣價格
因為區塊獎勵是直接以底層的密碼學貨幣支付的。舉例來說，如果你在挖比特幣，那麼你賺到的區塊獎勵就是用比特幣來支付的。因此，獎勵的價值與比特幣本身的價格直接掛鉤。比特幣越值錢，挖礦的獎勵就越值錢。要從事挖礦行業，你必須發自內心地看好你所挖的密碼學貨幣，因為你的盈利情況取決於它。
比特幣在所有密碼學貨幣（除第一名之外）中佔據主導地位的主要原因之一就是它透明、開放而公平的發行計劃。從創世區塊開始，比特幣就有一個固定的發行計劃，規定了它發行的上限——最多隻會有 2,100 萬枚比特幣被創造出來。
挖礦是創造比特幣並將其流通到全世界的一種方式，今天每個比特幣的區塊獎勵是 12.5 個比特幣；然而，這個數量隨著每挖出每 21 萬個區塊就減少一次。當第 63 萬個區塊（估計是在 2020年 5月 24 日左右）被挖出來時，區塊獎勵將減少到 6.25 個比特幣——這也被稱為減半事件。
想要了解之前的減半事件是如何影響比特幣和其它密碼學貨幣網絡的，請查看這篇來自 CoinMetrics 的非常棒的文章，他們梳理了以前的減半事件。如果你想更進一步瞭解比特幣的發行計劃，以及當比特幣都被挖完以後會發生什麼，請參閱這兩篇關於比特幣發行和總體安全預算的文章（為 Dan Held 帶來的全面報道打 call）。
一句話總結 —— 比特幣的價格和比特幣的基礎發行計劃極大地影響了挖礦本身的盈利情況。
My Key Takeaways
After diving deep into the cryptocurrency mining space here are my biggest takeaways:
- While often overlooked the mining industry & underlying hardware plays a very important role in blockchain networks.
- Hashrate = cryptocurrency = money. For many people hashrate is the key on-ramp into the crypto world.
- Just like we see the financialization of Bitcoin, I predict we will see a similar financialization of hashrate.
If you are an entrepreneur working in this space building marketplaces, exchanges, financial products, or any related services within the mining industry I’d love to chat with you. My contact info is listed on our fund website: Proof of Capital.
A big thank you to Edith Yeung. Noah Jessop, Jane Wu, and a few other large miners who prefer to stay anonymous for providing feedback on this writeup.
我的主要收穫
在對密碼學貨幣的挖礦領域進行深入研究之後，以下是我最大的收穫：
- 我們往往忽視了挖礦行業和基礎硬件在區塊鏈網絡中扮演的重要角色。
- 算力 = 密碼學貨幣 = 金錢。對於許多人來說，算力是進入加密世界的關鍵。
- 正如我們看到比特幣的金融化一樣，我預測我們將看到算力也會類似地金融化。
如果你是在這個領域內開辦算力市場，交易所，提供金融產品，或任何與挖礦行業有關服務的企業家，我很樂意和你交流。可以在我們基金的網站上找到我的聯繫信息：Proof of Capital。非常感謝 Edith Yeung，Noah Jessop，Jane Wu，以及其他幾位願意匿名為這篇報道提供反饋的大礦工們。（完）
原文鏈接: https://www.chrismccann.com/blog/crypto-mining-101-overview-and-landscape-of-the-mining-industry
