hosted mining, sometimes called colocation, means you buy an asic and place it in someone else's facility. The host supplies power, cooling, racks and monitoring. You typically pay a hosting fee, often priced by electricity used. Done properly, you own a specific machine, choose the mining pool it talks to, and receive rewards to an address you control.
How it differs from cloud mining
Cloud mining sells a contract for hashrate. Hosting sells space and power for hardware that is yours. If the host fails, you should be able to retrieve or reship that machine. Ask for an invoice and a serial number. Words such as "hashrate package" or "mining share" are not proof of ownership.
The risks that remain
- You still trust the host with expensive hardware.
- Bankruptcy, downtime or sudden fee changes can leave your machine offline or hard to recover.
- The same economics as any mining business apply: electricity price and difficulty decide whether it pays.
Compared with mining at home
Hosting makes sense when you want industrial power and cooling you cannot get at home. If you already have cheap electricity and can live with the noise and heat, running the machine yourself removes the extra middleman. See Home mining for the household case.
Not financial advice.