Posts Tagged ‘Bitmain’

AntRouter R3-LTC, a WiFi Router and Clock That Mines Too

25, Feb 2018

It seems that Bitmain is moving more into the direction of making smaller and lower power miners that do more than just mine crypto currencies and their upcoming AntRouter R3-LTC is a proof of that. The company has previously released a WiFi router that mines Bitcoin and then Litecoin, but these were pretty low power devices. The upcoming AntRouter R3-LTC adds improved specs for mining Litecoin and as a WiFi router and even adds a handy clock on the front of the device. The device is based around the BM1485 Scrypt ASIC chip, Bitmain’s Litecoin Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). We cannot say there is no potential in devices that do something useful and mine as well, these however have to be cleverly designed and made in a way so that mining does not impact their normal use.

The device offers 300 Mbps 2.4 GHz 802.11g/n WiFi as a router and comes with 6x BM1485 ASIC chips for mining inside capable of delivering 9.9 MHs as Scrypt hashrate with a power consumption of 23.2 Watts according to the specs. On yes and it comes with a LED clock on the front to show you the time, so it is essentially a 3-in-1 product that can sit on your desk and mine while it provides you with Internet connectivity and shows yo the time. The only not so great thing about the device is the noise level rated at 50dB at 1m from the ventilation ducts, at an ambient temperature of 30°C, in a silent room. We highly doubt anyone will be willing to have a noisy WiFi router on the desk, even if the device is also earning some money by mining Scrypt cryto currencies such as Litecoin. The last and most important thing as usual is the price of the device, we don’t know how much it will cost you as Bitmain has not yet announced pricing.

– For more information about the AntRouter R3-LTC WiFi router, Scrypt Miner and a Clock…

Bitmain Has Announced The Antminer V9, a “NEW” 4 THS ASIC

7, Feb 2018

The demand for Bitcoin mining hardware seems to causing some strange decisions among the ASIC manufacturers and one such is apparently the announcement of the Bitmain Antminer V9. A small 4 THS SHA256 ASIC miner that uses 1 KW of power, so not very efficient, but it comes cheap at just $345 USD. There are already some speculations that this could as well be old hardware renamed and refurbished as a new product to clear up some old mining hardware used by Bitmain in their mining farms in China instead of having to relocate it to a new place. This batch has a MOQ (minimum order quantity) of 5 units and all ordered quantities can only be multiples of 5 (10, 15, 20 units and so on) with the maximum number of units in a single order up to 300. The shipping for all confirmed orders will start after March 1st and payment accepted is only in Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and USD wire transfer.

Bitmain Antminer V9 Specifications:
– Product model: V9
– Hash chip type: BM1580
– Total quantity of hash chips: 135 PCS
– Total quantity of hash boards: 3 PCS
– Total hash rate: 4TH ±5%
– DC voltage input: 11.60~13.00 V
– DC current input @12V DC: 79.59 A +10%
– DC Power @12V DC input: 955 W +10%
– 220VAC Power @25℃, 93% conversion efficiency of APW3: 1027 W +10%
– 220VAC Power efficiency @25℃, 93% conversion efficiency of APW3: 253mJ/MH+10%
– Weight (without package）: 3.05 kg
– Operation temperature: 0-40 ℃
– Storage temperature: -40-85 ℃
– Operation humidity: 5%RH-95%RH, prevent condensation
– Noise: 76 dB
– Networking connection mode: Ethernet Cable
– Power connection mode: All three PCI-E ports are required to power the board. You can use one PSU to power multiple boards, but do not attempt to power one board with two PSUs.We suggest to prevent the control board to be powered up before hash boards be powered up.
– Size (Length*Width*Height, without package): 301mm*123mm*155mm

All in all not a very exciting new announcement of a new ASIC miner from Bitmain, efficiency wise the “new” hardware is disappointing for the performance it offers at the rated power usage. So it seems to be targeted at users looking for cheap hardware that have really cheap or even “free” power, otherwise it just does not seem economically reasonable to buy these miners at the moment.

Bitcoin ASIC Miners Still Hard to Get for Small Miners

28, Jan 2018

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.


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