CHAIN
block verified
“Ed Harris”, our little Antminer S7 (with only two functional circuit boards) ran semi-continuously from September 2019 to March 2020, only shut off intermittently for maintenance and oil leakages (which happened quite a few times). Here are the final revenue and energy use figures:
Amount of Auroracoin generated: 140 AUR = $6.76 USD
Cumulative energy use in kilowatt-hours (9/13/19 - 3/16/20): 583.5 kwh
Cumulative energy cost: $79.33 USD
The Bitmain Antminer S7 was neither economically, nor energy-efficient in its operation. Its cumulative energy use was a little more than an average refrigerator uses in a year. Had we used a newer model, and/or more than one miner, we could have possibly made more money than we lost. The cryptocurrency mining industry at large negotiates operations in much the same way, constantly balancing energy use against the setup and efficiency of available equipment. These issues are not immaterial, but political, on-the-ground negotiations by numerous, often conflicting groups of actors. It is never as easy as just plugging in these machines and letting them go. In setting up and maintaining our tiny operation, Etienne had to work with a host of different folks across Penn’s campus, and consult the builders of the Auroracoin network itself, in order to just open a network connection to our miner.
Etienne Jacquot
My role in this project was predominantly behind the scenes, as getting Ed Harris (the AntMiner S7) to actually mine Auroracoin took a summer’s worth of trial and error. There is sparse documentation on solo mining AUR, so many of my initial attempts seemed hopeless. I am greatly appreciative of the support from the Icelandic anarcho-cryptovist community, as their guidance and advice was invaluable in making this idea a reality.
The complications of configuring this exhibit extend beyond the technical limitations of SHA256 cryptography and the Auroracoin blockchain, as I quickly found the project constrained by bureaucracy, aesthetics, and the laws of thermodynamics. Cryptomining at UPenn is illegal, so many administrative hoops were jumped through to allow this to happen. Presenting all this information (such as hashrate, coins earned, power consumed, etc.) in an accessible and engaging layout was of significance because after all this is an art exhibit. Working with a device which produces tremendous noise and heat was the true challenge, but I am grateful for the mineral oil immersion tank as this made the exhibit possible.
Setting up this cryptominer was just one complimentary element of Zane’s multimodal approach to critically engage a sprawling array of modern problems and I’m happy to have been a part of. I’m grateful to the Annenberg School for letting us use our talents and our curiosity to explore this unusual technology and spend so much time on something whose main purpose is so abstract although its broader implications reverberate profoundly through our everyday world.
