Introduction
Recently I was out for a walk and I think I convinced myself that any given asic owner should theoretically make more money by pointing their asic at a hashrate market instead of directly at a particular pool, but only if there is no broker.
When I began thinking that way, there was something counterintuitive about it, which I'd like to address first.
Definitions
I'll start by defining three terms: "Owner" refers to a person who owns an asic and lists it for rent on a hashrate market. "Renter" refers to a person who visits a hashrate market and pays to temporarily rent someone else's asic. "Broker" refers to a person who runs a hashrate market — e.g. whoever bought the domain name, assuming it has a website.
