ASIC hosting: placing miners in a data centre

ASIC hosting means placing your own mining hardware in a data centre: you remain the owner of the device, while the site provides space, power, cooling, network and maintenance for a fee, usually priced per kilowatt-hour. Before choosing, compare not just the price but also the contract terms, uptime guarantees, remote monitoring options and how breakdowns are handled.

How ASIC hosting works

You buy the device (or already own it) and ship it to the site, where it is racked, connected to power and network and configured to connect to a pool. From then on the hardware runs under the operator's supervision while you follow hashrate and income remotely. The device stays your property, and you are entitled to choose the pool, set up wallets and take the equipment back.

This is what separates hosting from "cloud mining": there you buy abstract hashpower and never see the hardware, while here you have a specific device with a serial number, statistics in your own pool account and ownership rights. The risks of cloud schemes with opaque hardware are a separate topic; they do not apply to hosting as long as you can see your own device in the pool statistics.

Hosting is especially convenient if conditions at home are unsuitable: noise, heat, wiring and power consumption limits make apartment placement difficult. These constraints are covered in our home mining guide.

Tariff: what the hosting price consists of

The base of the tariff is the electricity consumed by your devices, most often priced per kilowatt-hour, plus the site's service margin. Other models exist: a fixed monthly fee per device, a rack-space fee or mixed schemes. Always find out:

• What is included. Electricity only, or also cooling, network, installation, basic maintenance and monitoring.
• How consumption is measured. By a meter per rack or per device, or by rated power. The second option is unfavourable if you run a reduced power mode.
• One-off payments. Installation, deposit, security payment.
• When and how the tariff changes. Whether it is fixed for the contract term or tied to market prices.
• Currency and payment method. Consider exchange-rate risk and fees.

To see whether hosting pays off at a given tariff, enter the price per kilowatt-hour in the profitability calculator. The result is a calculation on current parameters, not a forecast or a promise of income: price, network difficulty and tariff can change, and mining always carries risk.

The contract: what you must check

Hosting your equipment is a long relationship with legal consequences, so read the whole contract and ask for clarifications. Pay particular attention to:

• Title to the equipment. The contract must state explicitly that the device remains yours and that the site may not hold it without lawful grounds.
• Return of equipment. The timing and conditions under which you can collect your devices and who pays for transport.
• Liability for damage. What happens in case of fire, flooding, theft or power outages. Whether there is insurance.
• Termination terms. Minimum term, penalties, notice procedure.
• Settlement and arrears. What happens if you pay late: whether you are cut off immediately and whether the equipment is withheld.
• Permitted modes. Whether you may change firmware and overclock, and whether there are power limits.
• Confidentiality and access. Who has access to your devices and their settings.
• The legal side of mining. Ask how the site handles Russian legal requirements (including the Federal Tax Service register for entrepreneurs and legal entities) and regional restrictions, and how this is reflected in the documents.

If the sum is significant, show the contract to a lawyer. Tax matters (personal income tax and the 3-NDFL return for individuals, obligations of sole proprietors and companies) are best discussed with a tax adviser.

Uptime and cooling: what the site promises

Every hour of downtime is lost hashrate, so site stability matters more than a small tariff difference. Ask:

• Guaranteed uptime. What percentage does the contract state and how is it measured? Is there compensation if the level is not met?
• Power supply. How many power feeds, whether there is redundancy, and how the site acts during grid restrictions at peak periods.
• Cooling. The cooling type, how summer heat is handled and what temperature range is guaranteed.
• Network. The uplink, redundancy and latency to the pool stratum. Mining needs a stable connection, not high speed.
• Security. Guards, fire alarm, access control.
• Response time to failures. How quickly the site notices a failed device and what it does.

Ask for evidence, not just promises: uptime reports, photos and videos of the site, references from other clients. If possible, visit in person.

Remote monitoring and the watcher link

When your hardware is hundreds of kilometres away, you need an independent view of its operation, not only the site's reports. The main tool is the pool's statistics: you see each worker's hashrate and its history. Create a separate worker for every device: in the ASIC's user field enter subaccount_name.worker_name; the password can be anything. That way you immediately see which device dropped.

If you want to give the site operator access to statistics without sharing your password, use a watcher link: it shows statistics without the ability to change settings. The iOS and Android apps help you spot a hashrate drop quickly wherever you are. Find out how the site alerts you to problems and whether it has its own monitoring panel, and compare its data with the pool statistics.

Keep in mind that the pool's statistics should remain your main source of truth on hashrate, not just the hosting provider's reports.

Maintenance and repair on site

Clarify who repairs the equipment and how: whether the site has its own engineers, whether the work is billed separately, who buys spare parts and how fast fans, power supplies and boards are replaced. Find out what happens to the device while it is being repaired and whether the downtime counts against uptime. If repair on site is impossible, you will have to ship the device to a workshop; repair guidance is collected in the repair section of our market. Also ask whether you are allowed to visit and service the hardware yourself.

When hosting pays off and when it does not

Hosting wins where the site's electricity is cheaper than yours and its cooling and network are better than what you have at home. For an owner of one to three devices it removes noise, wiring and power-limit problems of the kind described in the home mining guide. But there is a flip side: a site margin on top of the kilowatt-hour, dependence on someone else's infrastructure and one more link that can fail. If you own a plot with cheap, reliable electricity, enough ventilation and tolerable noise, your own premises may come out cheaper.

To avoid a mistake, compare two scenarios in the same calculator: your own kilowatt-hour plus electrical and ventilation work against the site's tariff. Include shipping, downtime during transport and possible damage on the way. If the difference is small, reliability and your time should tip the balance.

Typical risks and how to reduce them

• Losing control of wallets. Set up the pool and payout addresses yourself instead of handing them to the site.
• Quietly understated hashrate. Compare device hashrate in the pool statistics with what is expected for the model. If it is consistently lower, find out why.
• Site insolvency or unavailability. Do not send your whole fleet to one place, keep documents and serial numbers, and agree in advance how equipment will be returned.
• Tariff increases. Fix the tariff in the contract for a term or clarify how it can change.
• Regulatory restrictions. Ask how the site acts under regional mining restrictions and allow for possible downtime.

Choosing a site: a short checklist

1. Compare the full cost of a kilowatt-hour including all surcharges and fees.
2. Check the contract: title to equipment, return, liability, termination.
3. Request data on uptime, power supply and cooling.
4. Make sure you can configure the pool and wallets yourself.
5. Set up independent monitoring via pool statistics and a watcher link.
6. Start with a small batch rather than shipping the whole fleet at once.

Hosting offers are collected on the ASIC hosting page.

FAQ

How is ASIC hosting different from renting hashpower?

With hosting you own the device and place it at someone else's site. With hashpower rental you pay for hashrate without owning hardware. The terms, risks and economics of the two are different.

How much does ASIC hosting cost?

The price depends on the region, the electricity tariff and the site's terms, so quoting a figure would be meaningless. Ask for the price per kilowatt-hour and all accompanying fees, then check it in the calculator.

Can I choose the pool and wallet when my ASIC is hosted?

You should be able to: configuring the pool and wallets is your responsibility. If a site requires mining to its own credentials, that means you do not control the income, and such an offer should be evaluated separately.

How do I monitor an ASIC at a remote site?

Use pool statistics with a separate worker per device, a watcher link and the mobile app. Compare them with the site's reports to see the real picture.