Original | Odaily Odaily( @OdailyChina )
Author: Golem ( @web3_golem )
The Fractal mainnet has been online for more than half a month. In terms of ecological tools such as BRC 20 and CAT 20 and community development, it is successful; but in terms of mining and coin price performance, Fractal's current performance is not satisfactory.
According to Fractal's official browser data, since its launch, its combined mining power has been relatively stable, maintaining above 200 EH/s, but the power of permissionless mining has fluctuated and decreased since reaching 35.5 EH/s on September 13, and the current permissionless mining power is only around 16 EH/s. At the same time, according to CoinGecko data, the price of Fractal's network governance token FB rose to a high of $40 on September 15 and then began to fall, once halving to $13.
Fractal merged mining and permissionless mining power, from: Fractal official browser
Since the Fractal mainnet has not been online for a long time and the token liquidity is not sufficient, Fractal miners are also the biggest influencer of the decline in FB prices. Now that the hashrate of permissionless mining has decreased and the price of coins has fallen, how are the miners who use mining machines to mine FB? Should miners be held responsible for the continued decline in FB prices? As an ordinary user, is it still a good time to participate in FB mining?
In order to explore the above questions, Odaily Odaily interviewed San Xiu , the founder of Fractal mining pool MoonX . As a witness of Fractal mining, he provided a more professional perspective. Based on our interview with San Xiu, the preliminary conclusion we can draw is:
For permissionless miners, the price of the coin is close to the cost, while merged miners are still making a profit;
Judging from the selling pressure, miners (license-free mining) may not be the main source, but the projects that profit from the ecosystem are;
From the perspective of mining participation opportunities, whether it is a small mining pool or retail investors, the cost-effectiveness of participation is relatively low now.
The following is a transcript of an interview with San Xiu for Odaily Odaily
Odaily Odaily: Please briefly introduce MoonX.
Sanxiu: MoonX was one of the first teams to test mining on the Fractal testnet in the early days, and also worked with the official to correct various problems during the testnet. When the Fractal mainnet was launched on September 9, the MoonX mining pool was launched immediately and ranked first in block production efficiency in the first week. Although the subsequent mining pools are fiercely competitive, according to the official Fractal browser data, MoonX's computing power and number of blocks still rank fourth among the permission-free mining pools.
Odaily Odaily: What is the current cost of FB mining? Are license-free miners already losing money?
Sanxiu: For Antminer S 21 (computing power 473 T, power consumption 5676 W), the electricity price is assumed to be $0.13 per hour, and the daily electricity fee is about $17.7. Using the official mining pool data 1 T = 0.0042 FB/DAY, the daily mining income is: 473* 0.0042 = 1.9866 FB, which is about $25.8 at the current price of FB tokens of $13.
In the above example, with the current price of the currency, the electricity cost of mining can still be covered, but this is calculated based on the most efficient model. However, this type of machine usually chooses to mine BTC, which has higher returns. Most FB miners usually choose old mining machines, which have a relatively poor efficiency-output ratio.
For example, we use S 19 pro (computing power 110 T, power consumption 3250 W) for comparison. The cost per day is about US$10, but 110 T can only mine about 0.462 FB per day, which is about US$6 when converted to US dollars. This is already a loss.
Therefore, for most miners' costs, the price of FB is close to the shutdown price.
Odaily Odaily: Does Fractal merged mining have no additional costs beyond mining BTC? Is 1/3 of the merged mining output too much?
San Xiu: The original purpose of Fractal's merged mining was to maintain the stability of the chain, which is also the result we have to accept. In addition to higher consumption and more wear and tear on the mining machine, the basic cost of BTC and FB dual mining is extremely low.
There are many considerations in the output ratio of merged mining, although it is not clear why the official setting is this way. But I personally think that if the ratio of merged mining is too low, for example, 1/5, then when the number of people doing permissionless mining decreases sharply like it is now, the number of blocks produced decreases, which can easily lead to malicious behavior on the chain.
In short, if the output of merged mining accounts for too small a proportion, firstly, it will become less attractive to large miners, and secondly, a 1/5 proportion is equivalent to one block being produced every three minutes, which will have an adverse impact on the stability of the chain.
Odaily Odaily: FB price drops, is the selling pressure mainly caused by miners?
San Xiu: Miners may dig, withdraw and sell, but I don’t think that is the main reason for the price drop. There are many interesting projects going on in the chain now, and these projects will have profit-taking. When there are large profits, there will definitely be profit-taking shipments, which should be the main reason.
For veteran miners, long-term holding of coins is also a belief. At present, apart from the airdrop of 1 million FB, the biggest output is mining. So I think the selling pressure from miners will definitely be huge in the future, but the current price drop is not caused by miners.
However, although the FB price is also an important factor, it is still recommended that everyone pay more attention to the Fractal ecosystem, where there may be greater benefits.
Odaily Odaily: As the computing power of permission-free mining decreases, is the current competition among mining pools still fierce?
San Xiu: Take MoonX as an example. Although it had some advantages at the beginning, it also fell behind in the competition among various mining pools. Some large mining pools, such as F2Pool and AntPool, already have a large number of miners and are more trustworthy. As a small mining pool, we are easily questioned and eliminated by the market.
After all, MoonX is not from the mining industry and has not signed long-term cooperation contracts with mining farms (we do not want to kidnap miners), but we will continue to provide services until there are no miners left.
Odaily Odaily: Is it still a good time for retail investors to participate in FB mining?
Casual Miner: It is more difficult for ordinary users to enter the mining market, mainly because Fractal uses the BTC Sha 256 algorithm, which gives miners who already own BTC mining machines a considerable advantage, and it is much more difficult for ordinary people.
Currently, in addition to purchasing hardware mining machines, retail investors can also enter the market through cloud computing and other models. However, I believe that everyone will calculate the cost and choose to participate in a way that is responsible for themselves.
Conclusion
The current circulation of FB is only about 2.28 million. Calculated at a price of $13, its circulation market value is only $29.64 million, and its total market value is $2.73 billion. According to Coingecke data, the Gate exchange currently has the highest share of FB transactions.
In the short term, after the recent carnival of FLUX, CAT 20, BRC 20, various new protocols and NFTs, the Fractal ecosystem has also entered a relatively cool-down period. Users' demand for FB consumption has declined, and the market cannot digest the selling pressure caused by miners' daily output and individual project profits. As FB prices fall, miners' costs also rise relatively. Some miners shut down their machines, and the permission-free computing power decreases. Therefore, FB may not make any splashes during this period of silence on the chain; even if the price now reaches the shutdown price of most miners, it may not be the lowest buy the dips price, and participating in mining and selling is not a good choice.
In the long run, if you believe that FB will be able to be listed on mainstream exchanges and increase liquidity in the future, and if you still have hope for the future construction of BRC 20 and CAT 20 in the Fractal ecosystem, and firmly believe that the next outbreak of the Fractal ecosystem will drive the market's demand for FB consumption, then the current price of FB may be a good time to participate - whether it is hoarding and participating in on-chain projects to consume FB, or participating in mining and holding it for a relatively long time.
