News Cryptominers made $100,000 from mining at an Airbnb for three weeks — the guests ran up a $1,500 electricity bill

[Admin]

After guests' electricity use cost her thousands of dollars, an Airbnb host was forced to implement what she considers bizarre new rules for her guests.

Cryptominers made $100,000 from mining at an Airbnb for three weeks — the guests ran up a $1,500 electricity bill : Read more

 

[BillyBuerger]

Instead of no-mining crypto, I would think they could just check the electric meter as part of their setup/cleanup process between guests and check for any unusually high usage. An agreement that any extremely high electric usage would be charged. There's lots of things people could do to waste electricity from a rental. The EV charging she mentioned makes sense as well as something people could do that could be overused if someone wanted to.

 

[USAFRet]

I agree with the no crypto thing.

You are renting a residential home. Not a commercial server farm premises.

Instead of someones AirBNB, why can't these cryptonerds do this from their own house?

 

[Wolfshadw]

Just wondering how many times they did this BEFORE they got caught.

-Wolf sends

 

[Jay29992]

If it only cost $1500 in electricity to make $100,000 people wouldn't steal the electric. The numbers in this story are so drastically off.

 

[scottsoapbox]

If it only cost $1500 in electricity to make $100,000 people wouldn't steal the electric. The numbers in this story are so drastically off.

Exactly. They probably made $1400 minus airbnb fees.

Heck, if they were making good money mining they wouldn’t mess with EV charging. What is that making - a few hundred bucks at most? $1400 in revenue is probably too high.

Edit: Thinking about it more, at $100K every 3 weeks, the cost of not mining due to moving between airbnbs would be more than the electricity.

 

[thisisaname]

Exactly. They probably made $1400 minus airbnb fees.

Heck, if they were making good money mining they wouldn’t mess with EV charging. What is that making - a few hundred bucks at most? $1400 in revenue is probably too high.

Edit: Thinking about it more, at $100K every 3 weeks, the cost of not mining due to moving between airbnbs would be more than the electricity.

Assuming they loss one day out of that 3 weeks to move, set up and pack up at the end they would loss 5K in mining. To cover the electricity bill only around 7.5 hours of mining.

Something is very off with the numbers!

 

[markleaf]

I agree with the no crypto thing.

You are renting a residential home. Not a commercial server farm premises.

Instead of someones AirBNB, why can't these cryptonerds do this from their own house?

They probably do, they only allot so much power per house. Pull more power would need a more powerful transformer on the power lines and maybe other improvements.

An Airbnb is a commercial business, it is literally taking away residential housing and is partially responsible for the housing crisis. Perfectly good residential houses being repurposed for a commercial business.

 

[mattcintosh]

The numbers line up. 8,000 kwh @18 cents each is $1,500. Thats 16 kW that is easily doable on a 100 amp service. 10 computers pulling 1.4kw each would easily hit that number.
The EV charging is a red herring though. Lets say they drove 2,000 miles the time they were there. The average ev gets 3.5 miles per kwh. 571 kwh, add another 10% for charging losses. Comes to about $115. Or about $5.50 a day. Thats almost splitting hairs

 

[_Taco_]

The numbers line up. 8,000 kwh @18 cents each is $1,500. Thats 16 kW that is easily doable on a 100 amp service. 10 computers pulling 1.4kw each would easily hit that number.

The numbers about the amount made over 3 weeks using that little electricity over a standard residental electrial service don't line up.

Let's assume 10 rigs with 6 cards using 2kw/hr per rig... you'd be mining in total close to $300/wk +- the volatility in the coin. Let's round up and say they made $1k... that is 1% of what the article claimed.

I think the person may have made 100k lifetime, not 100k during the stay.

 

[RayThePlay]

I have free electricity, lots of space, and no noise requirements/problems. I need these guys to call me.

 

[Pierce2623]

I agree with the no crypto thing.

You are renting a residential home. Not a commercial server farm premises.

Instead of someones AirBNB, why can't these cryptonerds do this from their own house?

Probably because they’re super shady people using stolen hardware of some sort that they don’t want at their home.

 

[Pierce2623]

The numbers about the amount made over 3 weeks using that little electricity over a standard residental electrial service don't line up.

Let's assume 10 rigs with 6 cards using 2kw/hr per rig... you'd be mining in total close to $300/wk +- the volatility in the coin. Let's round up and say they made $1k... that is 1% of what the article claimed.

I think the person may have made 100k lifetime, not 100k during the stay.

Yeah but if they were just straight mining instead of using a pool and they hit a block thats 2x$55000 or whatever it is now. Not everyone mines in a pool. Just recently there was a story on here where a dude hit a block with a tiny USB mining machine, supposedly.

 

[HideOut]

The numbers about the amount made over 3 weeks using that little electricity over a standard residental electrial service don't line up.

Let's assume 10 rigs with 6 cards using 2kw/hr per rig... you'd be mining in total close to $300/wk +- the volatility in the coin. Let's round up and say they made $1k... that is 1% of what the article claimed.

I think the person may have made 100k lifetime, not 100k during the stay.

What kills me is that "journalists" from THG post something this bad. If people were able to turn 1500 into 100K in 3 weeks every person on the planet would be doing it. Let me guess, there was a link somewhere in this story selling you crypto mining gear that THG gets a cut off right?

 

[sebastienbarre]

If your source is a TikToker, you have no source.

 

[vanadiel007]

Find out what they were mining. I would gladly pay $1,500 in electricity costs if I get $100,000 back in digital crypto currency and only have to buy 10 computers.
Even if I have to buy 20 computers and pay $3,000 in electricity costs I would do it.

Something is off with the numbers in this article. If it was this easy and cheap to generate $100,000 everyone would be mining right now...

 

[ShotgunSunrise]

Completely ridiculous. Numbers are way off!

 

[kealii123]

if i had to pay $97,000 in electrical fees for $100k of profit I'd do it. Thats still $1000/week

 

[ShotgunSunrise]

if i had to pay $97,000 in electrical fees for $100k of profit I'd do it. Thats still $1000/week

Maybe but it gets a lot riskier because if the price changes substantially (of either the electricity OR the crypto) you could be losing a ton of money

 

[pyao88]

If it only cost $1500 in electricity to make $100,000 people wouldn't steal the electric. The numbers in this story are so drastically off.

Mining reward is by chance not a guarantee, they got lucky this time to make the $100k. Most of the time the electricity cost would exceed the reward.

 

[epobirs]

They probably do, they only allot so much power per house. Pull more power would need a more powerful transformer on the power lines and maybe other improvements.

An Airbnb is a commercial business, it is literally taking away residential housing and is partially responsible for the housing crisis. Perfectly good residential houses being repurposed for a commercial business.

I greatly doubt turning a small subset of long term rentals into short term rentals is more than a blip on housing stock. Especially when compared to the mass importation of new residents into the market.

 

[epobirs]

I find the miners' claims of profitability highly dubious. If they just needed a large space with sufficient supply of power, why not be honorable and arrange to be billed for their power usage up front? At their claimed earning level, it would be a minor business for a good tax accountant to find a deduction to exploit. When someone behaves in a scammy manner, there is likely a scam. They probably only settled up with the property owner out of fear of being banned from the service.

 

[USAFRet]

I greatly doubt turning a small subset of long term rentals into short term rentals is more than a blip on housing stock. Especially when compared to the mass importation of new residents into the market.

In some areas. it is not simply a small subset.

A corporation buying an entire floor or two of a new condo building, or several single family homes in the same area.

It is no longer simply renting out a spare room. If it ever was.

Nationwide, or even globally, it is small.
But in some areas, it is pretty bad.

"Airbnb guests are unwittingly renting houses in Florida from an unusual host: One of the world’s largest private-equity firms"

Airbnb guests are unwittingly renting homes in Florida from an unusual host: One of the world’s largest private-equity firms

Homes listed for Airbnb nightly rentals are, surprisingly, owned by TPG, the world’s sixth largest private-equity firm.

fortune.com

 

[Ultimacanam]

Doesn't had up at all. I am a small scale btc minner and those numbers are way off.

My s19s cost 185 a month to run at 7.5 cents. Using a mining pool they are earning about 160 dollars a month. They are 220volt and pull 3500 watts. No house is going to have that many 220 volt outlets or enough power to run that many rigs. If they where solo mining a won a block that's 3.125 BTC worth around 180k.

There are a few proof of work crypto still around so maybe they were mining something else that just happens to be way more profitable than btc.
My guess, Just a made up tic to video to get views.

 

[Pierce2623]

Find out what they were mining. I would gladly pay $1,500 in electricity costs if I get $100,000 back in digital crypto currency and only have to buy 10 computers.
Even if I have to buy 20 computers and pay $3,000 in electricity costs I would do it.

Something is off with the numbers in this article. If it was this easy and cheap to generate $100,000 everyone would be mining right now...

The catch has to be that they were mining on their own instead of in a pool that just pays for hashing. If you just luckily hit a block on your first try, you could get $100k out of $.50 worth of electricity or less. That’s the thing about crypto mining. Stuff with guaranteed payouts is minimal. To really make money you have to have the computing power to hit blocks by yourself. The “pools” have to pay for your GPU use whether they hit a block or not so payouts are minimal.