my fantasy: if i ever manage to get some property somewhere with one or two consistent sources of renewable energy (solar, flowing water, wind, geothermal), i'd set up some kind of home mining rig to turn that free energy into sats.
You aren't a Bitcoiner if you aren't contributing to the hashrate imo.
It doesn't have to be expensive - you can mine with older/cheaper hardware via solar essentially for free - just set it up so it turns itself on and off with the sun.
But I have an electrician friend with some spare solar panels and expertise is wiring everything up. We've thought about setting up a small operation starting with one ASIC.
I'm a little nervous about spending that much money on an ASIC and not having it arrive or something but I would like to give it a go.
Yep. And don't forget you are adding security to the network. I would love to see a future where mining is a part of every heater.
Another valid use case is excess solar energy being converted to bitcoin. If you have access to wasted or stranded energy bitcoin mining is a great tool.