<blockquote>
<p>Are there any more reasons why a miner might switch off his/her system given that the complete process is automated?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I can think of a few more reasons a mining operation would be disrupted, they are perhaps more rare, but possible:</p>
<ul>
<li>The miner loses access to the electricity needed to run the mining ASICs. For example, if a mining operation is capturing excess/waste energy from a hydroelectric dam or oil field, there will be times when there is no excess, and thus mining will be halted.</li>
<li>The miner experiences some sort of disaster (fire, flood, theft, earthquake, etc) that forces them to stop mining</li>
<li>The miner is forced to stop by some local regulatory or judicial body (ie, they are mining somewhere that they were not allowed to, and were caught)</li>
<li>Personal conviction: perhaps the miner just simply decides to invest their time and energy into a different project, and so they shut down their mining operation. This decision could be made for any reason, seemingly logical or not.</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-06-25T01:50:44.697Z
2020-06-25T01:50:44.697Z
chytrik
<p>One of the most common reasons for which miners go offline is when their profitability drops below the cost of electricity - this could either be the result of the BTC price dropping, or their local operating costs (costs including air conditioning, power, networking, hardware depreciation, etc.) rising, or the total network hashrate rising faster than they are able to acquire a new set of machines to proportionally increase their hashrate.</p>
<p>Remember that most miners aren't usually operating a single machine - they usually operate a mining farm, where a single machine's hardware failure or thermal shut off won't actually take the miner's entire operation offline, just reduce their effective hashrate. For a noticeable removal of hashpower from the network, such as when an entire farm is shut off, the cause is usually economical.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-06-25T01:47:55.070Z
There is one more factor affecting profitability: the relative portion of total hashpower controlled by the miner. If BTC price stays constant, electricity price stays constant, but the miner's share of total hashpower decreases, then so too will their profits (because they will receive a smaller portion of the total reward).
chytrik
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-06-25T02:05:48.213Z
Good point, I'll edit that in
Raghav Sood
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-06-25T09:33:50.740Z
It doesn't matter how fast they can buy new machines to increase their hashrate; either electricity costs are more than the mining rewards, or they are less - since (for an individual miner) both increase linearly with the number of machines.
Criticize SE actions means ban
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-06-25T10:58:40.043Z
It does matter, if the network hashrate is going up significantly - at the same electricity cost and the same BTC price, an increase in network hashrate results in a decrease in your returns
Raghav Sood
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-06-26T05:15:45.877Z
Just a bit out of context but is validating other people's solution also automated or does it need manual intervention?
shubham kumar
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-07-08T19:44:44.687Z
@user253751: new machines may be more efficient, giving more hashrate per kwh.
Chris Dodd
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-19T11:35:40.023Z
@shubham kumar: every full node (including non-miners) automatically validates every block mined. Hence even a majority of miners can't set validity rules.
Jürgen Strobel
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-06-24T08:18:33.883Z
2020-06-25T02:06:48.943Z
2020-06-25T02:06:48.943Z
Raghav Sood
<p>As per my understanding mining process in bitcoin is fully automated. A manual intervention is needed only when:
(i)  A hardware failure occurs
(ii) You might want to cool down the hardware
(iii) You completely shut it off (can be due to various reasons)</p>
<p>Are there any more reasons why a miner might switch off his/her system given that the complete process is automated?</p>

<mining-theory><mining-hardware><mining-software>
Why do miners go offline?
shubham kumar
# Why do miners go offline?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-06-24)

As per my understanding mining process in bitcoin is fully automated. A manual intervention is needed only when:
(i) A hardware failure occurs
(ii) You might want to cool down the hardware
(iii) You completely shut it off (can be due to various reasons)

Are there any more reasons why a miner might switch off his/her system given that the complete process is automated?

**Tags:** mining-theory, mining-hardware, mining-software


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2020-06-24. Score: 33 | Accepted answer

One of the most common reasons for which miners go offline is when their profitability drops below the cost of electricity - this could either be the result of the BTC price dropping, or their local operating costs (costs including air conditioning, power, networking, hardware depreciation, etc.) rising, or the total network hashrate rising faster than they are able to acquire a new set of machines to proportionally increase their hashrate.

Remember that most miners aren't usually operating a single machine - they usually operate a mining farm, where a single machine's hardware failure or thermal shut off won't actually take the miner's entire operation offline, just reduce their effective hashrate. For a noticeable removal of hashpower from the network, such as when an entire farm is shut off, the cause is usually economical.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: There is one more factor affecting profitability: the relative portion of total hashpower controlled by the miner. If BTC price stays constant, electricity price stays constant, but the miner's share of total hashpower decreases, then so too will their profits (because they will receive a smaller portion of the total reward).  
> **username_2**: Good point, I'll edit that in  
> **username_3**: It doesn't matter how fast they can buy new machines to increase their hashrate; either electricity costs are more than the mining rewards, or they are less - since (for an individual miner) both increase linearly with the number of machines.  
> **username_2**: It does matter, if the network hashrate is going up significantly - at the same electricity cost and the same BTC price, an increase in network hashrate results in a decrease in your returns  
> **username_0**: Just a bit out of context but is validating other people's solution also automated or does it need manual intervention?  
> **username_4**: @user253751: new machines may be more efficient, giving more hashrate per kwh.  
> **username_5**: @username_0: every full node (including non-miners) automatically validates every block mined. Hence even a majority of miners can't set validity rules.  

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### Answer by username_1 on 2020-06-25. Score: 5

> Are there any more reasons why a miner might switch off his/her system given that the complete process is automated?

I can think of a few more reasons a mining operation would be disrupted, they are perhaps more rare, but possible:

* The miner loses access to the electricity needed to run the mining ASICs. For example, if a mining operation is capturing excess/waste energy from a hydroelectric dam or oil field, there will be times when there is no excess, and thus mining will be halted.
* The miner experiences some sort of disaster (fire, flood, theft, earthquake, etc) that forces them to stop mining
* The miner is forced to stop by some local regulatory or judicial body (ie, they are mining somewhere that they were not allowed to, and were caught)
* Personal conviction: perhaps the miner just simply decides to invest their time and energy into a different project, and so they shut down their mining operation. This decision could be made for any reason, seemingly logical or not.


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