It Is All About BTC, LTC, ETH, DOGE, KAS mining as well as other alternative crypto currencies
If you are a small crypto miner and not a large mining operation you may find it very hard to acquire up to date Bitcoin ASIC miners as the demand is still pretty high and the wait time is long. If you manage to find an ASIC miner is stock the chances are the price will be significantly higher as they are being resold with serious profit by people that prefer to make money this way instead of mining with the devices. At the moment there are pretty much 4 main manufacturers of Bitcoin ASIC miners that sell to end users and in small quantities and as you might expect they do not have anything in stock as the wait time is in months.
1. Bitmain AntMiner S9 (13.5 THS)
Bitmain is the most popular name among the ASIC manufacturers and probably the biggest one as well and even they are struggling to have stock of the AntMiner S9 ASIC miners they produce. It is interesting to note that the S9 has started shipping in the summer of 2016 and is still their top product. Bitmain has already sold all of their production up until the end of March, so when they release a new batch it will be scheduled for delivery sometime in April earliest.
2. Canaan AvalonMiner 821 (11 THS)
Canaan has been making their Avalon miners for years, though they were a bit slower in terms of specifications as compared to Bitmain and not as popular among end user miners. Their latest AvalonMiner 821 was announced in December last year and just started shipping its first batches for people that have preordered early. You can currently preorder AvalonMiner 821 for shipping/delivery in the second half of March, so you can probably get these a bit earlier than if you wait to preorder an AntMiner.
3. Ebang Ebit Miner E10 (18 THS)
Ebang’s Ebit miners are mostly popular in Asian countries, though they are trying to get to a wider market and their latest announcement of a 10 nm ASIC miner – the E10 made some waves. It is however an expensive device and still hard to get with a minimum purchase quantity of 20 units and all batches already sold through the end of March.
4. Halong Mining DragonMint 16T Miner (16 THS)
Halong Mining is a newcomer that just recently announced their plans to enter the Bitcoin ASIC miner market to try and fight with the market dominance that BitMain already has. They are still yet to start shipping their first devices in March this year and you cannot currently preorder units on their website with new batches probably to be available for April earliest.
If you think that BitMain has too much control over the Bitcion ASICs out there being one of the main manufacturers on that particular market, then you might be happy to learn that there is a new alternative coming next year. There are of course the Canaan Avalon miners and the Ebit E9 miners already available, though they are also hard to get, just like the Antminers from Bitmain lately. The just announced DragonMint 16T Bitcoin ASIC miner from a new company called Halong Mining is looking very promising. What makes this announcement even more interesting is the fact that one of the Bitcoin Core developers – BtcDrak seems to be directly involved in the development of the miner and with Halong Mining who developed it. According to the initial information the project has been started quite a while ago with a lot of people contributing and with a serious investment in order to be able to bring the much needed competition and innovation to the Bitcoin mining arena. The only possible problem here is that it might still be hard to acquire for some small miners and users willing to get just a single ASIC miner to play around with once it becomes available, especially if demand from large scale mining operations is as high as it is with Bitmain’s products.
The DragonMint 16T is supposedly the world’s most efficient Bitcoin miner, running faster and cooler than any competing miners currently available. It is based on the DM8575 ASIC chips that run at 85 GHS per chip with power efficiency of around 0.075 J/GHS according to the developers. If you are wondering what is the catch here, well the new miner is not yet available for sale, it is expected to start shipping in March 2018 or in about 4 months from now. You can however already pre-order the device with a minimum order quantity and a regular price tag of $1595 USD (with first day promo at $1350 USD per device). That price does not include a power supply, just the miner, but you can also add a 1600W PSU for $125 USD ($115 USD on promo), though again this is a pre-order. As with all other pre-orders and promises for a new product that is to start shipping in the future it is advice to proceed with caution, especially in cases such as this one where it is from a newcomer in the crypto space (new company)!
DragonMint 16T Specifications:
– ASIC Type: SHA256
– Hash power: 16 THS
– Network: Ethernet port
– Miner power consumption: 1205 W ±6%
– Chip efficiency: 0.075 J/GHS ±6%
– Fans: dual fan variable 6000rpm (100W)
– Power Supply: Not included (1600W recommended)
– For more details about the new ASIC miner check the official website of Halong Mining…
Bitmain is apparently setting a very ambitious goal of their new miner called AntMiner R4 and that goal is to bring back home mining of Bitcoin. What they are doing in order to get home miners’ attention is trying to make the miner more compact and less noisy while still managing to provide quite a serious hashrate rated at 8.6 THS with just about 845 W of power usage. What will make the most difference for home users however is the price of the new miner and if it is not right, then why would you bring one or even more of these home, guess we’ll know in a few days as sales start at 23:00 (GMT+8) on 29 August when we’ll probably also get an idea about the price of the device.
Bitmain AntMiner R4 Specifications:
– Miner Hash Rate: 8.6TH/s (Variation of ±5% is expected)
– Power Consumption: 845W +9% at the wall (with Bitmain APW5 PSU)
– Power Efficiency: 0.1 J/GH +9% at the wall (with Bitmain APW5 PSU)
– Noise level: 52dB (at an ambient temperature of 35°C)
– Chip quantity per unit: 126 x BM1387
– Default Frequency: 600MHz
– Rated Voltage: 11.60 ~13.00V
– Network Connection: Ethernet
– Operating Temperature: 0°C to 40°C
– Product size: 515mm (L) x 100mm (W) x 222mm (H)
One of the most interesting things that you will notice with this miner is the cooling fan it uses, Bitmain calls is “a groundbreaking custom-design fan” that is intended to reduce the noise coming from the miner. Instead of using traditional computer fans (designed for servers) that are not intended to be silent, but instead to do their job providing good cooling they have opted out for a different design for the R4’s cooling. The fan that Bitmain uses in the AntMiner R4 is apparently inspired by the fan of a silent split air conditioner, so it was designed to make less than half the noise of the standard miner fan. Furthermore the rotational speed is being automatically controlled to ensure it never creates more noise than is absolutely necessary to keep the miner cool and running, so the noise will also depend on the ambient temperature.
Bitmain will be also offering an optional custom-built PSU for further noise reduction to go along with the AntMiner R4 – the Bitmain APW5. The power supply works with both 220V and 110V (the standard in North America) input to deliver 2600W and 1300W, respectively. It has a dynamically controlled fan that runs at full speed only after heat sink temperature is 80°C. The Bitmain APW5 should start selling along with the Antmier R4 miner in a couple of days, do note that this is a 12V only power supply that is capable of delivering a very good efficiency of up to 93%. So it may be a great choice to go along with the R4, unless of course you already have some spare 1 KW or more computer power supplies sitting idle.
– For more details about the upcoming release of the Bitmain AntMiner R4 Bitcoin ASIC miner…