Cryptocurrencies that are based on Proof-of-Work (PoW) often rely on special purpose hardware to perform so-called mining operations that secure the system, with miners receiving freshly minted tokens as a reward for their work. A notable example of such a cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, which is primarily mined using ASIC based machines. Due to the supposed profitability of cryptocurrency mining, such hardware has been in great demand in recent years, in-spite of high associated costs like electricity. In this work, we show that because mining rewards are given in the mined cryptocurrency, while expenses are usually paid in some fiat currency such as the USD, cryptocurrency mining is in fact a bundle of financial options. When exercised, each option converts electricity to tokens. We provide a method of pricing mining hardware based on this insight, and prove that any other price creates arbitrage. Our method shows that contrary to the popular belief that mining hardware is worth less if the cryptocurrency is highly volatile, the opposite effect is true: volatility increases value. Thus, if a coin's volatility decreases, some miners may leave, affecting security. We compare the prices produced by our method to prices obtained from popular tools currently used by miners and show that the latter only consider the expected returns from mining, while neglecting to account for the inherent risk in mining, which is due to the high exchange-rate volatility of cryptocurrencies. Finally, we show that the returns made from mining can be imitated by trading in bonds and coins, and create such imitating investment portfolios. Historically, realized revenues of these portfolios have outperformed mining, showing that indeed hardware is mispriced.

翻译：基于工作量证明（Proof-of-Work, PoW）的加密货币通常依赖专用硬件执行所谓的挖矿操作以维护系统安全，矿工通过获得新铸造的代币作为工作奖励。比特币是此类加密货币的典型代表，其挖矿主要使用基于专用集成电路（ASIC）的机器。尽管存在电力等高额成本，但由于加密货币挖矿被认为具有盈利能力，此类硬件近年来需求旺盛。本研究表明，由于挖矿奖励以所挖加密货币形式发放，而支出通常以某种法定货币（如美元）结算，加密货币挖矿实际上是一组金融期权的组合。每份期权行权时，将电力转换为代币。基于这一洞见，我们提出了一种为挖矿硬件定价的方法，并证明任何其他定价均会产生套利机会。该方法表明，与“加密货币高度波动时挖矿硬件价值更低”的普遍认知相反，实际效果恰恰相反：波动性反而提升硬件价值。因此，若某种代币的波动性下降，部分矿工可能退出，从而影响系统安全。我们将本方法所得价格与当前矿工常用工具获取的价格进行对比，发现后者仅考虑挖矿的预期收益，而忽略了因加密货币高汇率波动性导致的挖矿固有风险。最后，我们证明挖矿收益可通过债券与代币交易进行复制，并构建了此类模仿性投资组合。历史数据显示，这些组合的实际收益表现优于挖矿，证实硬件定价确实存在偏差。