Monero is a private, decentralized cryptocurrency that keeps your finances confidential and secure – more info on the offcial website getmonero.org.
It is different from bitcoin in that transactions are not publicly viewable. Only the sender and receiver should know about the transaction.
The process of mining monero (ie. acquiring monero by using proof of work to find the next block to store current transactions) is also different. Bitcoin use specialised asic miners that can mine much faster and more efficiently than retail components like CPUs and GPUs.
Monero uses RandomX to try keep things more equal. This allows regular people with CPUs to compete for block rewards as efficiently as everyone else as no specialised hardware can give them an advantage.
So this post is a real world attempt to see if Monero mining is profitable in South Africa.
Electricity Cost in South Africa
The cost of electricity is important as electricity powers the CPU that is running RandomX to try get the block reward.
The cost in this post will ignore the hardware and focus on the running costs and electricity is the main expense.
| User Category | Tariff Range (ZAR/kWh) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Residential | R1.23 – R4.79 | Peak-hour rates in metros |
| Commercial | R1.85 – R3.12 | Includes demand charges |
| Industrial (MegaFlex) | R0.50 – R1.10 | Time-of-use discounts apply |
| Special Agreements | R0.12 – R0.30 | For energy-intensive users |
The above table shows electricity cost for different categories as at 2024 from ecoflow.com
Working it out from my latest bill (residential) showed a payment of R3.40 per KWh (Excluding fees to get connected)
How Much Electricity is Used?
Using a Power Meter plug and running my 12-core CPU at 6 cores for mining (as suggested by the monero gui application) it used:
0.523 KWh in 4 hours and 42 minutes
0.523 KWh in 282 minutes
0.1112765957446809 per hour
2.67 KWh per day
Notes:
- CPU Used: AMD Ryzen 5 5600
- Desktop computer has gfx card, peripherals etc that may be increasing usage
Hash Rate
The Hash rate given by the monero GUI app was: 3650 H/s
That is 3650 hashes per second
As a solo miner – not contributing to a pool that gives my mining operation an average ward frequency of 1 block reward every 5.48 years.
Notes:
- Mining stats came from http://monero.how
Block Reward
The current block reward is 0.6 XMR. Seems this is the tail emissions limit
So the block reward in rands is: 0.6 310.86 USD 17.86 USD/ZAR exchange rate
The block reward in South African Rand is: R3331.17
Is it Profitable?
So with this current mining setup:
Electricity to on average get 1 block reward:
2.67 KWh per day 365 days in year 5.48 years
= 5340.5 KWh
At R3.40 per KWh the total is:
On average I would spend R 18157.81 to acquire 1 block reward.
The block reward currently worth R 3331.17
Net income is -R14826.64. I will lose R 14826.64 for every monero block reward acquired
It is not profitable at current levels.
A net profit margin of: -445.08 %