Archive for the ‘Mining Hardware’ Category

Innosilicon A8+ CryptoMaster is Yet Another CryptoNight ASIC Miner

13, Apr 2018

Innosilicon is also joining the game with CryptoNight ASIC miners as the company has just announced their new Innosilicon A8+ CryptoMaster. An ASIC miner for CryptoNight capable of delivering 240 KH/s with 480 Watts of power usage with delivery time starting from 16th April, 2018. No official word on pricing yet announced, thouhg they should be cheaper than What Bitmain is currently selling their X3 miners at in order to be competitive since Innosilicon is slower, but will start shipping earlier.

Here are the official specifications of the Innosilicon A8+ CryptoMaster CryptoNight ASIC miner. Innosilicon advertises the device as suitable for mining many currencies on the CryptoNight, including XMC, ETN, KRB, DCY… so just 4 of the “many”. Do note that Monero (XMR) has already forked to the new CryptoNightV7 POW and will not be compatible with these ASIC miners, other coins using the old CryptoNight algorithm have akso forker or are planning to fork soon to the new V7, so by the time you get the device the many coins may be just a few.

– Here is the official announcement of the Innosilicon A8+ CryptoMaster…

Baikal Miner Adds Nist5 and X11Ghost Support to the BK-X ASIC

11, Apr 2018

The Baikal Miner BK-X ASIC miner has received an update adding support for two more crypto algorithms, namely Nist5 and X11Ghost, bringing the total number of supported algos to 7 with more promised to be added later on. The Baikal Miner BK-X was originally introduced as Baikal Giant X10 and it had support fonly for X11, Quark and Qubit algorithms, but since then support for Myraid-Groestl, Skein and now Nist5 and X11Ghost has been added with even more apparently coming. In order to get access tot the two new mining algorithms you will need to update the OrangePI Zero controller that the miner uses to the new version 1.2 on your Giant X10 or BK-X ASIC miner.

On a side note Baikal Miner has been running some “crazy” sales on their other two ASIC miners, The Baikal Miner BK-N for Cryptonight and Cryptonight-lite is in pay 1 get 5 sale ($1900 USD) and the Baikal Miner BK-B for Blake256R14/Blake256R8/Blake2B/Lbry/Pascal is in pay 1 get 2 sale ($2699 USD). This is a hint that there is not much demand for the two devices apparently, especially for the Cryptonight ASIC where the competition is very big and coins have already started switching to the new CryptonightV7 like Monero (XMR) leading the way that is already not mineable with these devices.

– Here you can find the updated OrangePI Zero image that you need to flash on the device…

Bitmain Antminer E3 Ethash ASIC Miner is Now Official

3, Apr 2018

There were rumors, leaks and information about an upcoming Ethash ASIC miner from Bitmain for months, but now it is official as the company has announced their Antminer E3 device. The first ASIC miner capable of mining Ethereum (ETH) and other crypto currencies using the Ethash / Dagger-Hashimoto algorithm is capable of delivering 180 MHS hashrate at 800W of power usage and will cost you $800 USD. The first batch of Antminer E3 Ethash ASIC miners is scheduled to start shipping 16-31 July according to Bitmain’s website, so the devices should start appearing in the first user’s hands sometime in August, although the devices will probably be up and running on the network before that.

Looking at the specifications, you are essentially getting the equivalent of a regular GPU mining rig for Ethereum in terms of hashrate and power usage, but in a more compact and cost efficient format with the Antminer E3. Unfortunately the word is that besides Bitmain a couple more companies have also been working on Ethash ASIC miners, so soon we may start seeing more announcements with different specs similar to what happened with the recent wave of Cryptonight ASICs. So you should be careful when you are doing the math and considering if you should invest in the first generation of Ethash ASIC miners now, you if you should wait a bit more and see… especially considering they are not shipping immediately at this point. We also need to see what will be the response of Ethereum to the ASIC miners now that they are available as they may decide to follow the same road that Monero (XMR) choose – to fork the mining algorithm with the idea to continue to be ASIC-proof or switch to POS sooner than expected.

– For more details about the new Bitmain Antminer E3 Ethash ASIC miner on the official website…


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