Mining Bitcoin from a garage in South Africa is possible, but it is a business decision, not a hobby that pays for itself.
What mining really is
Miners compete to add the next block to the Bitcoin ledger and are paid in new Bitcoin plus fees. The competition is measured in hashing power, and the global total keeps rising.
The two South African problems
Power and heat. A mining machine runs all day and draws a serious load, so your electricity bill is a running cost, and loadshedding interrupts the work. Add the noise and the heat in a small room and most home setups fail on practicality before they fail on Bitcoin.
Where the maths can work
It works best where electricity is cheap or already paid for, where you can use the heat, and where you treat it as a long-term bet rather than monthly income. Run the numbers with your actual rand-per-kilowatt-hour before buying hardware.
A simpler first step
For most people, learning to buy and safely hold Bitcoin beats trying to mine it. Mining is an industrial game now.
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