It Is All About BTC, LTC, ETH, DOGE, KAS mining as well as other alternative crypto currencies
It he last week or so the price of the Litecoin (LTC) has been growing with a good pace, essentially doubling from its previous long term level and today it has even passed the $5 USD mark. The exchange rate of Bitcoin has also been rising amidst the trouble in Greece and the general uncertainty in Europe, but not as much as the Litecoin. So could this be a signal it is time for the LTC to rise up and start catching up its lost positions? Interestingly enough with the increase in price of the LTC the interest in mining for Litecoins is also increasing, but there are no up to date ASIC miners or even cloud mining services left to offer Litecoin mining. That is not the case for people that have older Scrypt ASIC miners lying around and collecting dust as with the current price of LTC there is a reason enough to dust them off and start mining with them again.
On the other hand the timing of SFARDS Technology’s SF100 Dual-Miner that is expected to be available for order sometime this month could not be better. This miner is capable of providing a hashrate of 47 MHS with a power consumption of just 180W as per the information released from the manufacturer in single LTC mining mode. So the only thing remaining unknown is when it will be released and where you will be able to buy the miner from and for how much as the price is one of the key moments here. Unfortunately since the decline in home mining and end user’s interest in mining hardware there are not much stores selling ASIC miners, so it could be hard for people to get their hands on the Dual-Miner from SFARDS.
With the current situation on the crypto currency markets and especially the low exchange rate of the Litecoin it is no wonder that we are seeing another ASIC manufacturer cancelling their plans to release a new Scrypt ASIC Miner. The problem with these kinds of actions is that manufacturers are loosing users trust, even though they may try to compensate their customers in some way. Back when BitMain announced the pre-order for the L1, something new for them back then, we weren’t that happy and now we are also not very happy with the fact that BitMain waited up until now to announce they are cancelling the L1 when they were supposed to actually start shipping the finished product. Below you can find quoted the official announcement from BitMain about the discontinuation of Antminer L1 along with what options they offer to customers who have pre-ordered the miner:
Dear loyal customers,
The decision has been taken not to continue production of the Antminer L1
In response, all customers will be able to choose one of three options:
1) The original order value of $599 will be refunded at 105% value [$629] by bitcoin at current market rates. Customers will receive bitcoin payment.
2) The original order value of $599 will be refunded at 110% value [$659] by bitcoin at current market rates. This will be credited against any new S3/S4/C1 order placed in the web store.
3) The original order value of $599 will be credited at 115% value [$689] against an S5 order placed in the web store. This will be issued in the form of a 15 day coupon, each coupon valued [$344.5].Please await an email info@bitmaintech.com for further instructions.
Though we are sorry that we do not deliver this time, it still turns out that buying L1 from BITMAIN is a very best way to earn more Litecoin.
Data Analysis: In the beginning of L1 sales, you only need to pay 115.86LTC to buy one L1 per the LTC/USD exchange rate 5.17 in the early September. However, you will get 193.22LTC under current LTC/USD exchange rate 3.1. And then plus extra 5% value, a total amount you get is 202.88LTC per unit. Return on investment is 75%. If you choose coupon compensation, Return on investment is 91%.
It is not very clear weather BitMain has already finished with the development and has actually produced some mining hardware or they are cancelling things before they have actually been finalized. The problem is that after ZeusMiner cancelled their Volcano miner and 3rd generation Scrypt ASICs and now the same happening with BitMain and their AntMiner L1 Scrypt ASIC things do not look that good for Litecoin and other Scrypt crypto currencies. The low exchange rate of LTC at the moment makes older Scrypt ASIC miners not very profitable to run due to their high power usage and with no newer generation more efficient miners announced to be coming soon things could get even worse.
After over a month of silence with no updates Alpha Technology have released a new update on their status on the Viper Scrypt ASIC miners showing some photos of what seems to be the final enclosure of the miner as well as a board with 12 ASIC chips installed on it. Alpha Technology claims a better than expected performance of 1.5 MHS per chip and also says the chips could be overclocked further, the claim of these chips being “the most efficient on the market” however seems like an overstatement. The most important thing missing is information in the new update from Alpha Technology on when are they planning to stat shipping exactly as customers are already tired of things getting postponed for a later date. This Time Alpha Technology says soon, but how soon exactly and how many people are actually let that did not request to get a refund. Even if they do manage to ship any hardware anytime soon or at all we won’t be surprised to see the situation with KNC’s Titan miners repeating. Meanwhile there is already a dedicated website called Fight Alpha Technology Scam that is a forum dedicated to helping with useful information and advice people that want to get their money back from Alpha-T.
– To check out the Fight Alpha Technology Scam website for some useful information…