Household Miners Anonymous: A Field Report From the Warmest Support Group in New Jersey

I found Household Miners Anonymous in the weird corners of the internet.The Discord server had eleven thousand members but only about forty people who posted regularly. Most of the channels were dedicated to technical troubleshooting and performance tips. But there was one channel called “IRL meetups” and buried in there was a recurring event listing for Parsippany, New Jersey. Every Thursday at seven PM. Back room of a chiropractor’s office. All welcome. I sent a message to the organizer asking if I could attend. A guy named Derek responded within three minutes saying that journalists were welcome as long as I understood that no one in the group was giving financial advice and also could I bring folding chairs if I had any because they were always short on seating.That was last February. I went to the meeting. I took notes. I met people who heated their homes with Bitcoin mining rigs and were deeply committed to this choice in ways that seemed both completely sincere and totally unhinged. I wrote the piece. Then I sat on it for nine months because I couldn’t figure out if I was documenting something real or just making fun of people who’d made expensive mistakes.But now it’s November and winter’s coming and I keep thinking about Derek and Gordon and all the others who’ll soon fire up their machines again, who are probably already checking their electricity rates and their Bitcoin wallets and convincing themselves that this year will be different. This year the math will work out. This year it’ll all make sense. I don’t think it will make sense. But I also think they deserve to have their story told before they spend another winter sweating in their own living rooms.So here’s the report.The meeting room smells like hot electronics and desperation. Also lavender, because someone brought a plug-in air freshener that’s doing its absolute best against impossible odds. There’s a poster on the wall about lifting with your legs, and a vinyl-cracked adjustment table pushed into the corner. Everyone in the circle of folding chairs is sweating. Outside it’s nineteen degrees. Inside it’s unclear what temperature it is but it feels like the kind of heat you associate with broken saunas and fever dreams.I’m sitting in one of the chairs I brought, a flimsy camping chair that Derek accepted gratefully when I arrived twenty minutes early. Derek apologizes for the heat when I arrive. “We keep it warm in here,” he says. He’s wearing a T-shirt that says “Stack Sats Stay Warm” in a font that suggests it was designed by someone who learned graphic design from a YouTube tutorial. While we wait for others to arrive, he tells me about founding the group six months ago after his wife threatened to leave him if he didn’t find other people to talk to about his mining setup.“She said I needed community,” Derek says, arranging the chairs in a circle. “So I built community.”I ask how it’s working out.“Pennsylvania. With her sister.” He looks at me. “These things are unrelated.”People start filtering in around seven. There are eleven tonight, which Derek announces is actually a great turnout considering Bitcoin dropped eight percent this morning. Everyone nods. They understand. Several people are still checking their phones, presumably looking at their wallets. One guy hasn’t stopped checking his phone since he sat down.Derek calls the meeting to order by standing up and clearing his throat. The fluorescent lights flicker in Morse code. He explains the rules, which are simple. You share your name. You share how many miners you’re running. You share what your home temperature is. You share one thing that happened this week related to your setup. You don’t talk about selling. Selling is for people who’ve given up.“We’re all bag holders here,” Derek says, and several people repeat it back to him like a call and response.The first to share is a man named Aaron who introduces himself and then immediately apologizes for how he smells.“I’ve been troubleshooting a thermal paste issue for like four hours,” he says. “Didn’t have time to shower.”“Safe space,” someone says.“Safe space,” Derek confirms.Aaron looks relieved. He pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through photos. “So I’m running three S19s in my finished basement. Well, it was finished. The heat kind of warped some of the drywall and I had to pull down two panels.”“Did you fix it?” someone asks.“Not yet. I installed better ventilation instead. Check this out.” He holds up his phone. The photo shows what looks like a conspiracy theorist’s bunker, all dryer hoses and aluminum foil ductwork snaking across exposed studs.“That’s beautiful,” someone says.“Is that up to code?” another person asks.Aaron looks up from his phone. “I don’t think code applies to things you build yourself.”No one challenges this interpretation of construction law. I’m writing this down and Derek catches me doing it. He smiles a little, like he’s proud someone’s documenting this.Next is a woman who looks younger than most people here, maybe late twenties, and she seems self-conscious as she introduces herself.“I’m Stephanie. I run a Heatbit in my studio in Hoboken. Just one unit. It’s kind of entry level, I guess. I’ve only been doing this for like nine months.”“How’s it working out?” Derek asks.“My apartment’s four hundred square feet and it stays at seventy eight degrees. I sleep with the window open. Year round now.”“Even in February?” someone asks.“Especially in February.”A guy across the circle laughs. “What’s your power bill look like?”Stephanie shifts in her chair. “It’s not great. But I spent nine hundred dollars on the thing so it feels wasteful to turn it off.”Everyone nods. Writing this down now, nine months later, I realize this was the moment I understood what held this group together. Not the Bitcoin. Not the heat. The sunk costs.There’s a couple here named Mike and Lauren. They look exhausted in a way that goes beyond just one late night. When it’s their turn to share, Mike starts.“We bought three units. Black Friday deal. The website said it would gamify home heating.”“Our bedroom’s at eighty three degrees,” Lauren adds. “We sleep under one sheet and still wake up soaking.”“Can’t hear our own thoughts anymore,” Mike says. “Just fans.”“Have you thought about turning them down?” someone asks.They look at each other. There’s a long pause.“That would mean we made a mistake,” Mike says quietly.The room goes silent. I try to keep my face neutral but I must fail because Derek glances at me with an expression that’s hard to read. Maybe defensive. Maybe just tired.Then there’s Gordon. I notice him before he speaks because he’s the only person in the room wearing what looks like tactical cargo pants and a fleece vest over a thermal shirt. When Derek calls on him he doesn’t stand, just leans forward with his elbows on his knees.“Gordon. Two units. Off-grid cabin in Sussex County. Solar and generator. Current temp is seventy.”“Nice and comfortable,” someone says.“It’s freedom temperature,” Gordon says. “Feels different than regular temperature.”I wait for someone to ask what that means. No one does.“The government can regulate the grid,” Gordon continues. “Can’t regulate heat produced by a sovereign algorithm.”“Can they regulate your generator?” someone asks.Gordon stares at this person. Just stares. The person looks away. Gordon reaches into his wallet and pulls out a laminated card. I can’t see what it says from where I’m sitting but several people nod like they’ve seen it before.“Satoshi quote,” Derek says to me quietly. “About peer-to-peer transactions.”“Does it apply to home heating?” I ask.Derek shrugs. “We’ve stopped asking.”A younger guy introduces himself as Tyler. Early twenties, maybe a college student. He lives with four roommates in New Brunswick and set up a miner in their common area without asking permission.“How’d that go over?” Derek asks.“They were pissed for like three days. Then they realized the house was staying warm and we weren’t paying a heating bill. Now they love it. We named it Doug.”This gets a laugh from several people.“It lives in the corner next to our fern. The fern’s doing really well actually.” Tyler grins. “We ask Doug questions. He doesn’t answer but his LED lights blink in what I call a supportive way. One of my roommates tried to put a hat on Doug last week.”“What happened?” someone asks.“It melted.”Everyone laughs. It’s the first moment that feels genuinely light.A man in his forties introduces himself as Carl. High school physics teacher. He has the deliberate speaking style of someone used to explaining things to teenagers.“I use my setup as a teaching tool,” Carl says. “For my kids. My actual kids, not my students.”“How old?” someone asks.“Seven and nine. Two daughters.”“What do you teach them?” Derek asks.“Hash rates. Difficulty adjustments. Network dynamics.” Carl says this with complete sincerity. “Instead of bedtime stories I show them charts.”He reaches into a backpack and pulls out a spiral-bound book. The cover has clearly AI-generated illustrations of a cartoon ASIC miner with eyes.“I wrote a children’s book about it. ‘The Warm Little Miner Who Could.’ It’s about a miner trying to earn enough satoshis to buy a new fan bearing before winter.”He passes it to Derek, who accepts it with the solemnity of someone receiving a religious text. Carl glances at me. “They know what a mempool is. They don’t know Frozen.”I must make a face because he quickly adds, “They’re learning valuable skills.”No one argues with him.A quiet woman named Patricia is next. She seems almost reluctant to share, like she’s embarrassed to be here.“I’m Patricia. I run four units in my garage. I use the exhaust heat for a small greenhouse. Growing tomatoes. In January.”This gets approving nods from around the circle.“That’s brilliant,” someone says.“That’s the most practical thing I’ve heard tonight,” I say before I can stop myself.Patricia looks at me and smiles a little. “It feels too sensible. Everyone else has better stories.”“You’re working with natural law,” Gordon says. Off-Grid Gordon, no…Oggy, I write in my notes. “Agriculture heated by sovereign computation. That’s aligned.”Patricia doesn’t know what to do with this. She just nods and sits back.Then there’s Marcus. I’ve been watching Marcus since he arrived because he brought a laptop and a leather portfolio and has the energy of someone about to give a presentation. When it’s his turn he opens the laptop.“Marcus. Six units. Two-bedroom condo. Custom shelving. I installed additional breakers myself.”“YouTube?” someone asks.“YouTube,” Marcus confirms proudly.“What’s your power bill?” Derek asks.“Seven hundred a month.”Someone whistles.“What are you earning?” another person asks.“About one fifty in Bitcoin. Per month.”There’s a pause while everyone does the math.“So you’re losing five hundred fifty a month,” someone says.“You’re not accounting for heating offset,” Marcus says quickly. He’s already pulling up a spreadsheet. “See, my heating bill would have been…”“Would it have been five hundred fifty dollars?” I ask.Marcus looks at me for a long moment. “Look, we’d be paying for heat anyway. The sats are just…” He trails off, hand still on the laptop. “A rebate from the universe.”When I think about this moment now, months later, I wonder if that was the first time Marcus actually did the math all the way through.But then he closes the laptop and smiles. “The thing is, I love them. I named all six. I do weekly performance reviews. I track their attitudes.”“Their attitudes?” I ask.“Yeah. Like how they’re feeling. Performing.” He’s serious. Completely serious. “Mentoring them gives me purpose.”Nobody laughs because, I realize, everyone in this room has also given their miners personalities.Derek asks if anyone has questions for the group. A new guy raises his hand tentatively. His name is Gio and this is his first meeting. He bought a Heatbit last week. He’s thinking about buying two more.“Is that a good idea?” Gio asks.The room goes completely quiet. This is apparently a complicated question.Derek speaks first. “Technically we can’t give financial advice here.”Gordon: “Freedom is about making your own choices.”Carl: “My daughters would probably say yes. But they’re seven and nine.”Stephanie: “I regret it sometimes. But also I can’t imagine my apartment without the sound anymore. Like I can’t sleep in silence now.”Mike and Lauren just look at each other. They don’t say anything.Gio takes all this in. “I think I’m going to buy them.”Everyone congratulates him. Derek pulls out a worksheet from a folder. Temperature readings, hash rate, power consumption, Bitcoin earned. And at the bottom, something called “emotional satisfaction index” rated one to ten.“What’s emotional satisfaction index?” Gio asks, looking at the worksheet.“It means whatever you want it to mean,” Derek says.Gio looks at me like he’s hoping I’ll tell him this is a joke. I don’t say anything.The meeting continues. Someone shares a story about cleaning dust filters. Someone else talks about firmware updates. There’s a lengthy debate about whether to run miners at full capacity year-round or throttle down in summer.“Throttling is cowardice,” Gordon says.“Seasonal adjustments just make sense,” Patricia counters.“I have a spreadsheet about this,” Marcus says, already opening his laptop again.The debate gets heated. I’m sweating through my shirt. Everyone is sweating. I realize then why the room is so hot. They’ve all recalibrated. Normal room temperature probably feels cold to them now.Someone admits they unplugged their miner for twenty four hours last week.Everyone gasps.“Why?” Derek asks, and his voice has the tone of someone asking why you’d betray a family member.“I had family visiting. The fans were so loud nobody could talk. We just sat there yelling at each other.”“Was it worth it?” someone asks.“No. They left early anyway.”Gordon leans forward. “This is what happens when you compromise your principles.”“Everyone makes mistakes,” Derek says, shooting Gordon a look.The person looks like they might cry. Marcus offers them a copy of his performance review template. “This helps me stay accountable,” he says gently.The meeting was supposed to last an hour but it’s been ninety minutes and nobody has moved. People don’t want to leave. Outside it’s cold and their homes are overheated. Here they’re with people who understand.Derek starts wrapping up. He reminds everyone about next week. He says they’re all part of something bigger than themselves.“Even if that something is just us,” he adds, and a few people laugh.Before everyone leaves, Derek asks them to share their current home temperature.“Seventy six.”“Eighty one.”“Seventy nine.”“Eighty four.”“Seventy three, but I opened every window.”“Seventy. Freedom temperature.”Then Derek asks for everyone’s comfort-adjusted hash rate. People call out numbers. Marcus says ninety four point three. Someone says sixty seven. Gordon says his can’t be measured by conventional metrics.I lean over to Derek. “What is comfort-adjusted hash rate?”He thinks about this. “I made it up like three months ago. It’s kind of like how warm you feel versus how much Bitcoin you’re mining. But there’s no actual formula.”“So people are just making up numbers?”“Yeah.” He grins. “But it makes them feel like they’re tracking something.”The meeting ends. People file out into the parking lot. Several acknowledge me on the way out, say it was interesting to have a journalist here, hope I’ll tell their story fairly. I promised I would. I’m not sure I kept that promise.Derek drives home to an empty house. His wife is still in Pennsylvania. His miners are still running in the basement at seventy nine degrees. He could turn them off. He won’t turn them off.I tried to reach Derek for a follow-up this November. The Discord server is still active but the IRL meetup channel has been quiet since March. The Heatbit Trio is still for sale, still promising to mine Bitcoin while keeping your home warm, still not quite paying for itself. I don’t know if any of this happened exactly as I’ve written it, or if it happened at all. But the Heatbit Trio is real. And every day someone clicks add to cart. That part I know to be true.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​