Founders are usually asked what they got right. Ian Issa, who founded the multi-currency mining company HashNet in 2022, is more candid about what he got wrong.
Before starting the company, he held five common assumptions about multi-crypto mining. Building HashNet changed his mind on all five.
Myth 1: More coins means more chaos
It seems obvious: the more coins you mine, the harder the operation is to manage.
Issa’s answer is that it depends on structure. HashNet organises everything around algorithms. It mines six coins, but they fall into just four algorithm groups — SHA-256, Scrypt, Equihash and kHeavyHash — and machines only switch within their own group.
“That turns potential chaos into a set of clear choices,” he says.
Myth 2: Winning is about having the most machines
Hardware count matters, Issa acknowledges, but it is not the whole story. A smaller fleet that runs reliably and makes fast decisions can outperform a larger, poorly managed one.
That view shaped HashNet’s focus on automation and disciplined operations. Its Alpha Engine re-points hardware between coins in roughly 12 milliseconds (company-reported), and its AI models watch for the small patterns that come before a machine fails.
Myth 3: A good location just means cheap power
Power cost matters. But so do grid reliability, cooling climate, local regulation and the source of the energy.
HashNet chooses sites on high-reliability grids and, where available, lower-carbon or surplus power. The choice rests on a mix of reasons, not price alone.
Myth 4: Automation means fewer people matter
Issa expected automation to shrink the role of people. “The opposite happened,” he says.
As automation took on fast, repetitive work, HashNet’s people focused more on decisions that need experience: setting limits, investigating anomalies and improving the system. In his words: “Automation made expertise more visible, not less.”
Myth 5: Transparency gives away your edge
This was the hardest assumption for Issa to let go of.
HashNet still protects what must stay confidential. But making its model and its payout flow checkable built something competitors could not easily copy: trust. Its Bitcoin payouts land on-chain, on public addresses, every eight hours, where customers can verify them on a block explorer.
What the five myths have in common ?
Each myth rests on a simple measure: number of coins, number of machines, price of power, headcount, secrecy. In each case, Issa found the real answer was structural — how the operation is organised, run and held to account.
That may be the most useful lesson for anyone looking at multi-currency mining. The obvious metric is rarely the one that decides the outcome.