A Hashrate Forward is a contract for future mining capacity or its financial value, with an agreed quantity, period and price. A deliverable contract requires mining work; a financial NDF settles a price difference without delivering that work. It is not a purchase of mining hardware or automatically a fixed amount of bitcoin.
Hashrate measures how fast machines perform calculations. A hash here is the result of a mining calculation. PH/s means petahashes per second, a unit of that speed. Hashprice instead expresses the expected daily revenue of a unit of capacity. Luxor publishes this measure in bitcoin and dollars. Imagine a farm whose machines run just as fast but earn less because competition on the network has increased. An agreed-price contract can soften that price decline. It does not itself pay for electricity, repairs or interest: revenue from computing power and net profit are different things. [1]
A deliverable contract involves more than watching a price on a screen. The seller must direct the agreed capacity to a specified mining pool, which combines many miners’ work. Luxor describes delivery to its own pool and an upfront-payment option that involves assessing the seller’s ability to perform. These are terms of a particular offering, not every forward. Collateral is property pledged to cover obligations. We therefore look beyond the price to the required collateral, the measurement of delivered work and the consequences of equipment downtime. [2]
NDF stands for non-deliverable forward. It works without physical delivery of capacity. Under the contract’s rules, the parties settle the difference between an agreed price and a reference Hashprice index. In Luxor’s model, the buyer receives index minus agreed price, while the seller receives the opposite difference; a negative result means paying the other party. We need to know how the index is averaged, over which period and in which currency. Luxor defines daily periods in UTC, the global time standard. A spot quote on a screen is not automatically the settlement price. [3]
USD stands for US dollars. In our simplified example without fees, a farm sells 10 PH/s for 30 days at 50 USD/PH/s/day: the daily dollar price for each PH/s of mining capacity. The notional value is 15000 USD. If the settlement index stays at 40 USD/PH/s/day throughout the period, the NDF seller receives 3000 USD. At an index of 60 USD/PH/s/day, the seller instead pays 3000 USD. We multiply capacity, days and the price difference. Notional value is a calculation base; it is not the settlement payment, net profit or an automatic upfront payment. [3]
Luxor quotes Hashprice in bitcoin (BTC) and in US dollars (USD). Bitcoin-denominated revenue depends on factors including block rewards, transaction fees and mining difficulty. Dollar revenue also changes with bitcoin’s exchange rate. A farm paying its electricity bill in dollars has therefore not necessarily settled its budget by agreeing a BTC price. If bitcoin falls, the same bitcoin amount covers a smaller dollar bill. Before calling a contract income protection, we compare the currencies of revenue, costs and settlement. Each can carry a different risk. [1]
Imagine that capacity becomes more valuable, putting the seller’s contract position under pressure. Luxor marks positions to market and may require additional collateral under its rules. Margin here means a required financial reserve, not the farm’s profit margin. A miner may need cash while its mining revenue is rising on paper but the funds are not yet available. Collateral is not automatically a ceiling on possible loss. Alongside the final outcome, we assess interim payments, the currency of the collateral and the risk that the other party fails to meet its obligations. [4]
A price contract does not remove operational problems. If equipment fails, the farm mines less, but the agreed quantity in a financial NDF does not shrink automatically. An outgoing payment may still be due when the corresponding mining revenue is missing. Luxor therefore describes contract parameters separately from physical delivery. A budget needs an estimate of actually accepted work, pool fees and Uptime—the time equipment really operates. Mining Hedging, reducing mining’s economic risks, should be assessed across the whole farm, not a single price line. [3]
Similar-sounding offers can work differently. Braiins Hashpower lets users agree a delivery speed and duration, but describes a price built from a variable daily FPPS base plus a fixed percentage markup. FPPS is a payment method based on expected block rewards, including transaction fees. The initial total is therefore an estimate, not necessarily an unchanging price. Before treating the offer as a Hashprice lock, check exactly what is fixed: capacity, the markup, or the entire unit price. The word “contract” alone does not answer that question. [5]
For the clearest picture, read this entry together with Hashprice, Mining Hedging, Uptime, Mining Share, Full Pay Per Share. The reverse links also lead from Mining Hedging.