The Broken Equipment Trap: Why Winter Kills Bitcoin Miners

Brian Snyder, CEO of Kaboomracks, says winter destroys more Bitcoin miners than summer does. He made that case on stage at Mining Disrupt Miami 2022, recorded July 26 through 28, 2022, in a talk billed as one weird trick to double your mining profits. Snyder apologized for the click bait up front. The one-word answer was his own company, and the real subject was the services Kaboomracks built to keep used mining hardware working.

Snyder, a bear market survivor on his third downturn, had simple advice for anyone in their first: don't pull out too much hair, and give it time. As he put it, "you're not wrong you're just early and sometimes being early makes you feel like you're wrong."

The company grew out of a familiar problem. Buy used equipment directly from China or another vendor, Snyder said, and about half of what arrives doesn't work. In his words, "there's too many experiences where people end up with a lot of broken mining equipment and they just don't have the resources to fix it." Kaboomracks refurbishes used machines so a buyer gets equipment that works, and a seller with old S9s collecting dust can ship them in and get a check.

The winter point came out of the company's engineering team, which fields questions about why operators lose miners in cold weather. Summer is about cooling, Snyder said, winter is about keeping miners heated, and recirculated air is the answer. A machine runs at 80 to 85 degrees, shuts down, and air at negative 20 degrees hits the board. Snyder described what happens next: "when the miner shuts down native 20 degree air moves across that pcb and the expansion contraction of the pcb causes it to be destroyed."

Kaboomracks sees that damage up close, because it spent the past year building a micro soldering department that replaces components the size of a grain of salt by hand under a microscope. Snyder admitted it was hard, but the team now offers repair services.

He also described partnerships with Raptor Power Systems and EDGE Data Solutions, one in immersion and one in electrical, with Kaboomracks in the middle supplying hardware and aftermarket work. With EDGE, the company has been prepping miners so they can overclock to six to eight kilowatts and go straight into immersion fluid on arrival.

Asked what the company is looking for, Snyder said the past year was spent becoming a one-stop solution for Bitcoin miners: procurement, engineering support, firmware, provisioning, tuning and service. Anything it can't do, its partners can.

The full story is on Mining Disrupt at miningdisrupt dot com, and many more like it play around the clock on Bitcoin Radio.