Records television shows well. Mines bitcoin not so well. Source: EngadgetBitcoin mining in the form of SHA-256 hashing requires serious processing power, and the higher the difficulty, the more power needed. That’s why it seems counterintuitive to create ARM-based bitcoin mining malware.Sure, recently discovered Linux-based bitcoin mining malware already seems like a bad enough idea, but the concept of ARM processor mining malware that can infect digital video recorders (DVRs) is just downright inefficient.There is potential for lower-powered chips to mine bitcoin in the future, but that’s only going to happen on smaller nodes of silicon that are using ASICs designed for that specific purpose. Anything else is just going to be a complete nuisance.Also to be filed under pointless mining malware is the one announced on 25th March, that gets your Android device mining for dogecoins – veeery slooowly.City-sized electricity bill for minersFreakonomics recently released a bitcoin podcast that featured venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and Stanford professor Susan Athey.If anyone ever thought that bitcoin was a resource hog, take this comment from Athey as an idea of how much energy mining might use:“So it’s just burning a lot of electricity, enough to power many, many homes. I’ve heard estimates as high as 3 million homes could be powered with the electricity that goes to bitcoin mining.”Athey’s number for bitcoin mining’s electrical consumption is just an estimate, but given ever-increasing network power, it’s likely to end up being far higher than that.As a result, technologies that can improve the efficiency of miners are going to become highly important, which brings us onto …Spondoolies Tech now shipping power efficient miners 
Spondooliestech Sp10 Dawson, still in the box. Source: MineforemanIsrael-based manufacturer Spondoolies-Tech has begun shipping units of its new power-efficient miner.Called the Sp10 Dawson, this rig should produce 2.1 TH/s per kilowatt of energy, claims the company – a figure that Spondoolies-Tech reached by reducing the toggle rate of its 40nm ASICs.However, Neil Fincham from Mineforman reviewed one of these units and found that the miner hashes at 1.49 TH/s. The SP10 Dawson does draw at less than 1 Watt per gigahash, though – adds up to 1388W while running.The unit weighs in at 14kg, which gives it the heft of a regular server and means it needs to be housed in a proper rack.Solar-powered bitcoin mining 
The unit has a battery for cloudy days. And those pesky nighttime hours. Source: Solarminer.Some people try to locate miners in places where there they can find cheap prices for all that power their miners will eat up, but if you don’t want to move to Iceland or the US’s Pacific Northwest, you could opt to go green.Solarminer is now selling a USB hardware product that the company says uses nothing more than sunlight in order to operate.The device uses three 150W solar panels and 288Wh LFP batteries to harvest and store energy, and costs $889.Solarminer customers do have to buy USB miners for the unit’s 16 slots. However, there are a lot of different USB mining options available, and using something like, for example, the BitFury RedFury USB miner you could hash at 40 GH/s from one of these, just with sweet sunlight.The ‘Bitcoin Baron’ 
Selling at every single peak. Source: WiredWired recently ran a story on a couple of data geeks, Kai Chang and Mary Becica, that took the leaked Mt. Gox data and made a bunch of visualizations from that information. One user that stood out was referred to as the ‘Bitcoin Baron’ – a Mt. Gox exchange trader that mostly sold BTC at the top of every market peak.The speculation is that the Bitcoin Baron might be a big-time miner, or perhaps a pool operator. Many (but not all) of those who operate large bitcoin mines or pools are hesitant to divulge any information regarding operations. But if this chart is true, it shows that big-time miners are always closely looking to make the best fiat profit that they can.2.5 TH/s Bitfury Razz 
BitFury’s slogan is “Extreme Performance. Source: BitfurystrikesbackBitFury, a chip manufacturer that claims it powers 20-30% of the bitcoin network, is now selling mining units.The ecommerce site Bitfurystrikesback is offing the 2.5 TH/s ‘Razz’ unit, which sucks up 3kW of power for its hashing ability.The Razz costs €7,250, or about $9,947. Interestingly, it is marked as a ‘used’ model, which would logically lead one to assume that BitFury has used these Razz units to mine prior to putting them up for sale.When CoinDesk asked Bitfurystrikesback’s CEO Niko Punin about the used status of the machines, he offered no comment.However, Punin did say that there would be another version of the Razz for sale soon with even better specs.1.2MW, liquid-cooled, bitcoin mining container 
Industrial mining evolved. Source: Allied ControlFor those inclined to study data centre architecture and design, the concept of the modular container has been considered one of the best ways to pack servers into a small area. Google did it in secret for a while, and then Facebook open-sourced it.Allied Control, which is a startup partnering with 3M on a special type of cooling fluid, has written a paper on modular bitcoin mining design.It involves immersion cooling using six 200-240kW flat-rack tanks and is designed so that ASIC boards can be easily swapped when they become obsolete.Each of these modular units can support a whopping 1.2MW of power. That is a figure that even Allied Control admits would not have seemed fathomable in bitcoin mining a year ago, but has become a harsh reality.Got a cryptocurrency mining tip for future roundups? Contact us.Disclaimer: This article should not be viewed as an endorsement of any of the companies mentioned. Please do your own extensive research before considering investing any funds in these products.Electrical lines image via ShutterstockBitfurycontainer miningminingSolarminerSponoodlies TechSusan AtheyOriginal author: Daniel Cawrey