The software will tell the ASIC what to mine, where to mine, and who to send the mined BTC to while the pool is a group of other miners that choose to help each other mine together and share the rewards. One way of gaining energy independence at home is through solar energy. Mark, a student at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, joined the online marketplace for individuals to mine cryptocurrency for willing buyers in They are designed for the sole purpose of mining Bitcoins. It requires big investments in technology and results in huge electricity bills. A key component in converting sunlight into electrical energy for domestic consumption is the solar panel. An ASIC can have , times more computational power than a standard desktop computer equipped with a few graphics cards.