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oldcynic

Making and selling shovels seems to be still the best way to go then.

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I remember reading somewhere they also use the shovel for a while before sending it off.

If triple dipping is the norm for ISPs, why not let hardware manufacturers double dip?

Triple dipping?

Is that 1. End user, 2. Content provider (e.g. “fast lanes” for Netflix), and 3. Government subsidies?

Another possibility is selling data, primarily to advertisers

Yes, see AntPool with ~15% of the current hashrate.

https://coin.dance/blocks

I would assume that significant fraction of bitmain's customer mine on antpool, as that is what the devices are preconfigured for.

I mean they need to make sure they work first right ;)

Not if you're very high on the food chain. It inverts there.

It's better to be Aramco, Exxon or Shell than Baker Hughes or Schlumberger. Much less a lowely oil equipment maker (the shovel makers).

It's better to be the railroad (BNSF, etc) than the car maker (eg Greenbrier), or really any other rail equipment maker.

Better to be the largest natural gas companies, than the fracking sand provider (eg U.S. Silica), or the natural gas equipment makers.

It's better to be Glencore, BHP Biliton or Rio Tinto than the company that makes the mining equipment.

It's better to be DeBeers than a diamond jewelry equipment maker.

It's better to be Pfizer or Merck than a company making various equipment for big pharma.

It's better to be Intel than Applied Materials.

It's better to be Apple or Samsung than Foxconn or most any component maker.

It's better to be BMW, Toyota or Telsa than a parts supplier.

Are these things true or equivalent? These areas are not necessarily booming. They are stable with few consumers of the goods.

At this point, every scheming hustler is in the market for a bit coin miner. Same in a gold rush -- any fool can dig with a shovel. It's not until boredom or consolidation happens that the shovel maker margins start getting thinner.

Better is to think of it as making something a lot of people want. Lots of miners = lots of people who want shovels/ASICs. Whereas mature industries like those end up as monopsonies i.e. a single buyer with lots of suppliers.

In most of those cases the guys higher up the food chain have appreciating assets such as land, consumer brand value, mining rights, developed oil fields and mines, etc. The guys lower down the food chain make depreciating assets and have to get up every morning and make new stuff to sell every day or they go out of business.

Those companies at at the top all still have competition who need to buy the same supplies, so they aren't monopsonies, but they're close enough that this is an opportunity to use the word 'monopsony'.

In a war the group that profits the most is arms dealers.

In a situation where there's a demand for a certain type of goods, those who create those goods are going to profit.

Comparing crypto mining to a war is unnecessarily evokative and manipulative.

Not when most of it is a cheap trick to rob you of your money and life...exactly like pointless wars

In this case, the shovel seller is believed to use the shovels a bit before selling them. In that way, they extract all the value from the shovels themselves, before a purchaser ever digs.

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