An ASIC miner, otherwise known as an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit, is a device that has been specifically designed for one purpose, cryptocurrency mining. The high level of specialization offered by ASIC units allows miners to solve cryptocurrency blocks faster with less electricity compared to any other method of cryptocurrency mining.
Think of them literally as “Cryptocurrency generating machines”.
Cryptocurrency mining was initially done on CPUs and then transitioned to the use of GPUs, but because that hardware can be used for a variety of purposes, like computer gaming, they require more electricity and offer less computer power for the specific task. GPUs have mainly been repurposed for speculative mining.
Nowadays all serious cryptocurrency mining is done with dedicated cryptocurrency mining hardware ASICs, usually in mining containers or data-centers with low-cost electricity.
ASIC Bitcoin mining is the act of solving complex “proof of work” algorithms to verify when someone sends Bitcoin to another person; how much, to whom, and ensuring sure the portion of Bitcoin changing hands hasn’t already been sent somewhere else. In exchange for lending their computing power to the network, Bitcoin miners are rewarded via transaction fees, and when new blocks of information are created.
All the information about every Bitcoin transaction is recorded into what’s known as a blockchain. Put simply, a blockchain is a chain of data blocks. When a transaction is put forth, an encrypted packet of data is created, called a hash, and Bitcoin miners work to decrypt the information and find the 64 digit solution to the mathematical problem.
When a hash is solved, the Bitcoin miners pass the information into a block on the public ledger. When a block fills up, a small bit of information about the previous block is also included before the ledger starts recording to a new block, in order to ensure the integrity of all future blocks.
Yes, Bitcoin mining is still profitable and will continue to be if you have the correct setup. While profitably mining in your basement may be behind us, there are thousands of people who have partnered with the right people that provide access to the two key factors in making it profitable.
These two key factors that determine if ASIC Bitcoin mining is profitable or not is the price of Bitcoin’s and your electricity rate.
Bitcoin mining is still very profitable if you can partner with a hosting provider or you yourself have access to power below $.06/kWh.
When Bitcoin was at its highest of almost 20k, Bitcoin mining was extremely profitable at rates as high as $.12/kWh.
The bear market has provided an amazing opportunity to start mining Bitcoin extremely profitability with a large-scale mining operation.
There have never been lower hardware prices or power rates accessible to capitalize on. Along with this, the low price of Bitcoin provides miners with a low difficulty rate and an ability to accumulate a large volume of tokens at a low price.
What we recommend for anyone looking to make the most with Bitcoin mining in 2019 is investing in reputably sourced used Bitmain S9s due to their extremely low cost and placing them in a MiningStore BitCave to access our incredibly low power costs.
To help miners calculate if they can be profitable with their current infrastructure there are dozens of websites that provide profitability calculators. You can input parameters such as equipment cost, hash rate, power consumption, and the current bitcoin price, to see how long it will take to pay back your investment.
Below are a few important factors when choosing your Bitcoin mining hardware that will affect whether it is a profitable investment.
Hash Rate – The number of calculations that your hardware can perform every second as it tries to crack the mathematical problem. The higher the machines hash rate is the more likely it is to solve the block and earn the reward.
Energy Consumption – How much power your machines requires to run. The more power it requires the more it will cost to operate every month. Finding a machine that creates more Bitcoin than what it costs you to run is crucial in your Bitcoin mining success.
Hashing speed / power consumption = mining efficiency
Price – You’ll want to invest in hardware that provides the best efficiency for the price. We’ve seen Bitmain’s 13.5/TH S9 Antminer be the best value with the massive price reduction they’ve seen over the past year.
Bitmain’s S9 Bitcoin miner has been leading the Bitcoin mining industry and has been deployed by the millions for miners across the globe. It continues to set the benchmark for hash rate and power consumption. One S9 produces 13.5 Th/s and consumes around 1350 watts. It is still profitable if your power rate is low enough and is a great way to continually accumulate Bitcoin.
The Dragonmint T1 represents the current peak of operational efficiency in the mining industry. Manufactured by Halong mining, the Dragonmint T1 hash rate tops out at 16 TH/s and requires a 1600 W power supply.
Priced at $2,700 USD, the 16T is far from the cheapest mining unit available on the market today but is a great machine that can deliver positive ROI given current Bitcoin prices. The Dragonmint T1 also implements the ASICBOOST algorithm, which boasts a 20% efficiency boost.
Developed by Bitmain, (the world’s largest Bitcoin mining organization who generated over $1 billion USD in profits in the first quarter of 2018 alone), the Bitmain Antminer S9 is one of the most popular mining hardware options on the market. The Antminer S9 hash rate clocks in at 14 TH/s.
The Antminer S9 Hydro, however, integrates a water-cooled system that allows the unit to reach a hash rate of 18 TH/s with a power consumption of 1728 Watts and is priced at roughly 1,080 USD, representing a reasonable entry point for hobby miners.
Released in November 2018, the Bitmain Antminer S15 delivers an impressive hash rate of up to 23 terahash per second. The S15 represents Bitmain’s first 7nm ASIC and offers two different modes — energy saving and high performance.
The Bitmain Antminer S15 high-performance mode consumers 1596 W, but boasts a hash rate of 28 TH/s with a power efficiency of 57 J/TH. The energy saving mode, however, is able to sustain 17 TH/s with a power consumption of just 850 W, suitable for miners seeking to reduce heat and noise or miners that lack the infrastructure necessary to support high power consumption.
The BitFury Tardis is one of the highest-powered hardware devices available on the market. Clocking in at 80 TH/s, the Tardis is not designed for the average Bitcoin mining hobbyist and is instead presented as an “enterprise-grade mining server.”
Bitfury doesn’t publicize the price of the Tardis, but with resellers capturing upwards of $7,000 per unit, it’s arguably one of the most expensive options available.
This machine mines the coin Z-Cash and is very attractive to miners due to its extremely low power requirements. Each machine produces around 10 Th/s and consumes about 400 watts of electricity. The machines can be overclocked to produce 50% better hash rate and receive even better returns.
Absolutely as used ASIC mining hardware has a massive resale market and can provide you with cheap alternatives to profitably enter the mining space.
Just make sure that you are sourcing hardware from a reputable supplier that can prove the functionality of the machine and can make you feel certain they were operated in the best environment to extend the hardware’s lifespan.
We recommend looking into used Bitmain 13.5 Th/s S9s since they have been the best value miners for the price we’ve seen.
Overclocking is essentially the process to optimize an ASIC miner. Overclocking is using custom software to increase the internal clock rate used by a computer chip in order to make it run faster.