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 application specific integrated circuit (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 United States Dollar (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（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代币作为工作报酬。比特币是这类加密货币的典型代表，主要采用基于专用集成电路（ASIC）的机器进行挖矿。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，尽管其相关成本（如电力）高昂。本研究证明，由于挖矿奖励以被开采的加密货币形式发放，而支出通常以美元（USD）等法定货币支付，加密货币挖矿本质上是一组金融期权组合。每次行权时，该期权将电力转换为代币。我们基于这一洞察提供了挖矿硬件的定价方法，并证明任何其他价格都会产生套利空间。我们的方法表明，与“加密货币高波动性会降低挖矿硬件价值”的普遍认知相反，实际情况正好相反：波动性会提升硬件价值。因此，若某币的波动性下降，部分矿工可能退出，从而影响系统安全。我们将本方法得出的价格与矿工目前常用工具的价格进行比较，发现后者仅考虑了挖矿的预期收益，而忽略了因加密货币高汇率波动性导致的固有风险。最后，我们证明挖矿产生的收益可通过债券与币种交易进行复制，并构建了此类模仿投资组合。历史数据显示，这些组合的实际收益表现优于挖矿，表明硬件定价确实存在偏差。