We are in the darkest season of winter now, and electricity can get very expensive. To hear Kanan tell it: Bitcoin fixes this.

A growing number of appliance manufacturers are trying to cushion the shock of high bills by offering Bitcoin miners that can also heat your home.

Canaan has become the latest company to throw its hat in the ring by unveiling easy-to-use plug-and-play devices for beginners. The company unveiled the new mining hardware at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Avalon Mini 3, priced at $899, aims to recycle excess heat generated by mining to heat living spaces — “providing homeowners with a unique way to offset energy costs and reduce environmental impact,” the company said.

But those dreaming of being chosen to validate a Bitcoin block with this portable heater and receiving rewards of 3,125 BTC (about $300,000), should probably crunch some numbers first.

The Avalon Mini 3 features a computing power of up to 37.5 terahashes per second (terahashes per second). Meanwhile, Coinwarz data shows The total hash rate of the Bitcoin network exceeded 800 million terahashes per second as of January 7.

For context, one terahash equals 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) hashes per second. In the context of Bitcoin mining, the hash rate per second is important because it determines how long it takes to complete a block.

More hashes means that the mining rig has a higher chance of completing a Bitcoin block and receiving the desired block reward.

In other words, Avalon Mini 3 users will have a 1 in 19.5 million chance of beating the competition to win a block reward every 10 minutes.

This doesn't mean it's impossible. Back in 2023, a single miner defied the odds of one in 26.9 million, and was the first to solve a block using a valid hash.

Kanaan joins other players in trying to put some money back into consumers' pockets during the cost of living crisis.

A little over a year ago, Heatbit founder Alex Bossarov said Decryption Its heating and mining equipment could offset 50% of a British consumer's energy bill, rising to 70% in certain parts of the US.

“It gets hot by mining Bitcoin but it doesn't make a lot of noise,” he said at Web Summit. "For people familiar with Bitcoin mining, it can be very noisy... We didn't build it for tech geeks, we built it for the general public. Like any other heater, you plug it in, connect to your mobile phone, push a button, and it works."

The concept of using excess power from Bitcoin hardware is nothing new. A spa in New York City Attracted a little heat (Ahem, controversy) in 2023 after the announcement of a small-scale mining operation that was helping keep swimming pools warm.

In 2018, heat generated by Bitcoin miners was used to grow tomatoes in greenhouses. The resulting “crypto tomato” even served as a base for bruschetta at an Amsterdam Bitcoin side event once.

Modified by Stacey Elliott.