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The Fund Mining Rig to be prepared for Bitcoin mining in 2018 is approximately $ 6k, but the cost varies by region. The main cost of Bitcoin mining is energy costs, and energy prices vary widely around the world. Meanwhile, rent, taxes and employee wages also vary by region. Furthermore, hardware costs should be considered. Furthermore, the return on mining is a matter of probability and mining that is difficult to adjust over time.
All these factors together make it impossible to offer one answer as to how much the cost of Bitcoin mining, but I think I can explain the facts about the mining costs well enough to give a satisfactory answer.
According to the 2018 study by Elite Fixtures (furniture company doing research to get attention, but it seems quite accurate based on what I know about energy costs), in terms of energy alone, the spread is between $ 500 (Venezuela, free energy) and $ 25k (South Korea, energy is very expensive).
Now the factors in rent, employee wages (if you run the team), taxes, and hardware and you get harder to calculate the answer because for example the big difference between wages, taxes, and rent in places like say London and rent in Venezuela.
However, although difficult to calculate, I would suggest that $ 6k is a reasonable rough answer for the average cost of mining, while $ 4k - $ 8k is a reasonable rough range.
In fact no one will go to South Korea to open a mining operation because of the cost, and in the meantime the places where it is really cheap to mine tend to have their own shortcomings. So most people will mine from a place where their cost will be around $ 4k - $ 8k.
Meanwhile, in a market where the average price of Bitcoin is below $ 8k (like the current 2018 market as time goes by), mining will consolidate to places where the cost is closer to the $ 4k - $ 6k range.
If more miners turn on their computers, lose or not, the trouble will go up and the cost will go up. If people are driven out of the market (further correction in 2018 can do this), then mining becomes more centralized, but mining costs tend to fall.
Miners ensure the Bitcoin system by processing transactions, the system will be damaged if the price is low enough, but will not be low enough to damage the system. The worst that will happen is mining will be consolidated to places like Venezuela.
Ideally, the Bitcoin system is healthier when different miners around the world compete, and thus it is important to have a market price that supports this, but we live in the real world, not the ideal, and thus the future may consist of mining being consolidated into in the hands of those able to mine at low cost but on higher difficulty.