Ethan Zurka opened his presentation at Mining Disrupt Covid Online, recorded on July 22–23, 2020, with the question he said he gets asked a million times every day.
What [miner] should I buy
· 0:23
He introduced himself as a partner in business development with Crypto Mining Tools. He is now CEO of AsicZ. In a talk of a little over five minutes, he argued that buyers ask that question in the wrong order.
Zurka granted that it is a hard question to answer, and that people often bring calculators and profitability figures to it. His point was about timing.
It's actually the last question you should be asking.
· 0:51
The first questions, he said, are the ones that help a buyer know and understand their own situation.
Start with the budget
Budget came first. Zurka said someone with only a couple of hundred dollars to spend is very limited in which machines they can buy. That might mean some used S9s or some Litecoin miners, he said, but not the newest machines on the market. His advice was to settle on a reasonable budget the buyer can afford.
Be honest about power
Power came next. Zurka said miners need a lot of it, and that when he asks people about their electricity costs, some answer that it is free because the landlord pays for it all or because they live in an apartment.
Residential power is not going to power a lot of miners.
· 1:41
Even if someone can make newer machines run at home, he said, there is a second problem.
I'm pretty sure your landlord is going to be very upset with you when his power bill comes to him.
· 1:54
Free power at an apartment or a business might last a month, he said, but once the bill arrives, whoever pays it will expect the miner to make up the difference. He asked listeners to be realistic, consider their options and set reasonable goals.
Always have a plan B
Zurka told miners to stay flexible, to expect that the market may rise or fall, and to know in advance what they can do in either case.
Don't ever put yourself into a locked situation where you don't have options, you only have obligations.
· 2:37
Your own power or hosting
With a budget set, he said, the next choice is between running on one's own power and using a hosting facility. Machines can sit in a living room, he noted, and some people do run them that way, but the room gets hot, noisy and uncomfortable. For those with their own power or access to energy, he listed the questions to ask: the all in cost of power, how much is available today, and how much could be available tomorrow. He said he meets people with one or two megawatts now who could reach 5, 10, 20 or even 50 megawatts later. Those owners also need to know the capex of the build out, and whether transformers and panels are in place and only waiting on approval, or whether the site has to be built from the ground up.
For everyone else, hosting is the main question, starting with the type of service.
Do I want managed hosting where the hosting facility takes care of everything for me
· 3:58
The alternative, he said, is unmanaged hosting, where the miner takes on reboots, cleaning, maintenance and repairs and handles them remotely. He also told buyers to check a facility's capacity. It is a bad experience, he said, to buy 20 or 30 miners, place a second order of the same size, and then learn the facility has no room left. The final item on his list was the all in hosting cost.
Then and now
Zurka closed by saying every situation is unique, that no single answer always works, and that knowing one's circumstances leads to an informed choice that fits. He told listeners to be safe and to always do business with trusted vendors. Bitcoin traded at $9,530 when the talk was recorded in July 2020. On October 29, 2026, it traded at $79,778.