Mining

Bitcoin Difficulty Touches All-Time High, 120 Exahash of Hashpower Remains Strong

13/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

The network difficulty for the Bitcoin network spiked over 9.8% on Monday bringing the difficulty to its highest point ever. The record high of 17.35 trillion makes it much harder for bitcoin miners to profit. However, the overall Bitcoin network hashrate has remained consistently above the 120 exahash per second (EH/s) zone.

On July 13, 2020, the Bitcoin (BTC) network saw it’s largest difficulty metric ever, as it touched the 17.35 trillion mark on Monday. Basically, difficulty is the value used to measure how difficult it is to find a hash below a target defined by the Bitcoin network.

The network has a global block difficulty and validated blocks must have a hash below the given target. Essentially the lower the difficulty, the easier it is to find blocks on the BTC network, and the higher the difficulty means acquiring bitcoins via mining is much harder. The difficulty changes every two weeks depending on hashrate speed or approximately every 2016 blocks.

The Bitcoin (BTC) network sees the highest difficulty jump ever.

The 17.35 trillion is the highest the difficulty has ever been, which means it is the most difficult time ever to mine bitcoins right now. Moreover, it was only just recently on May 11, 2020, when the block reward was cut in half, and miners saw 50% revenue losses overnight.

Now the upwards spike in difficulty over 9.8% wasn’t as large as the 14.95% jump on June 16, 2020. However, at that time the difficulty was only 15.78 trillion. The second-largest difficulty height happened three days before the grueling March 12 market crisis, otherwise known as ‘Black Thursday.’

The Bitcoin (BTC) network hashrate continues to climb higher.

Despite the jump in difficulty to 17.35 trillion, the overall BTC global hashrate has remained high above the 120 EH/s range. There are 16 unique mining pools hashing away at the BTC network and the top mining pool is F2pool.

This is followed by operations such as Poolin, Btc.com, Antpool, and Huobi respectively. F2pool’s hashpower is roughly 16% of the network while Poolin has a touch over 15%. The latter three pools have around 10% or more of the entire BTC global hashrate.

The hashrate increase has bitcoiners discussing the mining difficulty situation via social media and crypto forums. Many are conversing about the overall security of the BTC network and whether or not the hashrate will drop or rise from here.

If the overall BTC hashrate continues to climb higher, then the difficulty will rise again in two weeks’ time. If there is a substantial exodus of miners shutting down machines temporarily, then the difficulty will drop after the next 2016 blocks are consumed.

What do you think about the Bitcoin network’s difficulty jumping to its highest metric ever? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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Mining Company Ebang’s Stock Listed on Nasdaq Down 11%, Firm Plans to Launch Offshore Exchange

03/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

The bitcoin ASIC mining rig manufacturer, Ebang International Holdings, was recently listed on Nasdaq last Friday on June 26. Ebang is now the second mining rig manufacturer to have a U.S. initial public offering (IPO) by selling company shares. Since the initial sale on opening day, Ebang’s Nasdaq-listed “EBON” is down 11.5%.

So far, the Nasdaq shares dubbed “EBON” haven’t changed too much in price and since the IPO launch. This week Ebang also revealed it is launching an offshore crypto exchange later this year.

The firm Ebang International Holdings is an ASIC mining rig manufacturer that specializes in fabricating bitcoin miners. Last Friday, on June 26, the company joined its mining rig manufacturing competitor Canaan on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

The launch of NASDAQ: EBON on Friday, saw 19.3 million shares offered and the firm raised $101 million. On June 26, at 12 p.m. ET, EBON stocks on Nasdaq opened at $4.85 and by 4 p.m. ET, it was up to $5.

However, since then EBON is currently trading at $4.29 on July 2, 2020, suffering a loss of -11.5% since the opening price on Friday. At the time of publication, 24-hour stats show the price of EBON is up 0.33% on Thursday.

So far Ebang is doing much better than Canaan Creative’s initial IPO run, which saw the company raise less on opening day selling only $90 million. Canaan (NASDAQ: CAN) initially sold for $8.99 and today it is trading for $1.88. This means since Canaan launched on CAN on November 21, the Nasdaq listing lost -79% since opening day.

Of course, Ebang’s IPO is much newer and Canaan’s stock has been listed on Nasdaq for months. Despite the fact that both ASIC mining manufacturers are listed on Nasdaq, Ebang wholeheartedly thinks they are separate from the competition.

“According to public information disclosed by Canaan Inc., its key development direction is focusing on [artificial intelligence] AI,” an Ebang representative told the press this week. “Although we are peers in bitcoin mining machine industry, Ebang focuses on the blockchain industry chain, integrating the digital economy industrial ecosystem,” the representative added.

Additionally, Ebang says it plans to create more revenue by launching an offshore exchange. Ebang’s chief financial officer (CFO), Chen Lei, told Bloomberg that the exchange will likely double the company’s revenue. Chen said that the company, at the very least, expects to hit that target by 2022.

Moreover, the CFO explained that Ebang is going to draw in sales from other nation-states. The interview with Chen Lei highlights that 90% of Ebang sales stem from mainland China, while the rest are being sold in other countries.

What do you think about Ebang’s IPO launch last Friday and the exchange announcement? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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Bitcoin Miner Hut 8 to Add 275 PH/s of Mining Capacity With $8.3M Capital Raise

01/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

Hut 8 Mining Corp. has raised $8.3 million from the sale of 6% of its shares to investors. The Canadian bitcoin miner originally intended to raise $7.5 million from the sale, but it was oversubscribed.

Totonto Stock Exchange-listed Hut 8 issued about 5.8 million “units” at a price of $1.45 each. Each unit is comprised of one common share. From this, investors have the option to buy another share for $1.80 between now and December 2021.

The Alberta-based miner said funds from the offering will be used to upgrade its range of mining hardware including Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) miners. The upgrade will add up to 275 petahash per second (PH/s) to Hut 8’s existing mining capacity of 952 PH/s.

Once installed, the new machines, which include “more efficient processing chips from Microbt” will also add 12.6 megawatts (MW) of power to the company’s current 107 MW maximum operating capacity.

“Hut 8 has been testing the Microbt equipment for the past three months in preparation of this upgrade… [we] expect to receive equipment between July and November 2020,” said the firm in a press statement.

In recent months, Hut 8 has seen the amount of bitcoin mined at its data centers in Canada decline. During the first quarter of 2020, the company extracted 1,116 BTC, down 54% from 2,405 BTC mined in the comparable year ago period.

The company blamed the decline on “the increasing network difficulty” which “impacted…production negatively with much fewer bitcoin mined.” For the March quarter, Hut 8 reported that its net loss widened to $8.4 million from $6.1 million a year earlier.

The Canadian miner is now hoping that its latest acquisition of more efficient mining equipment will help turnaround company fortunes, already facing a squeeze from the recent bitcoin supply cut event, which reduced the bonus paid to miners by 50% to 6.25 BTC per block.

Shares of Hut 8 are up 2% at CAD$1 (~$0.73) in Toronto trading on Tuesday. Over the last 52 weeks, the stock has reached a low of $0.37 and a high of $1.99.

What do you think about Hut 8’s bitcoin mining ambitions? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Bitcoin’s 5% Drop in Value Puts Pressure on BTC Mining Operations and Older ASIC Rigs

01/07/2020 by Idelto Editor

During the last seven days, the price of bitcoin has dropped 4.8% from a high of $9,700 on June 24, to a low of $8,965 on June 27. Since then the price has increased and the price per bitcoin is back above the $9k zone but much lower than before. The lower price has affected the profits of miners hashing away to find blocks on the network. Ever since they lost 50% of the block reward on May 11, gathering profits have been tough on miners with bitcoin prices at these levels.

Mining bitcoin is an extremely competitive industry and after the BTC reward halving on May 11, 2020, it has been much harder to mine the rare digital currency. At the time of publication, the price of a single BTC has been hovering between $9,050 to $9,250 during the last few days.

This has given the crypto asset an overall market valuation of between $165 billion to $170 billion during the course of the week. The price is over 4.8% lower than it was on June 24, when BTC prices were hovering around $9,700 last Wednesday.

Of course, the price of BTC directly affects miners and the tens of thousands of ASIC mining rigs housed in warehouses all around the world. An example of this trend is how the Bitmain Antminer S19 Pro (110TH/s) is the only profitable machine if a mining operation is paying $0.12 per kilowatt-hour (kWh).

With this electrical cost, the Antminer S19 Pro would only make $0.97 per day while a number of other miners would be mining at a loss. Now we all know that in places like China and other regions worldwide, those operations pay much less than $0.12 per kWh.

At today’s BTC exchange rates and at a much lower rate of $0.04 per kWh, a much larger number of SHA256 miners would be profitable. At $0.04 per kWh, a total of 49 SHA256 ASIC mining rigs are profitable at today’s spot market price.

The top five mining rigs making the most profit at the electrical rate of $0.04 per kWh, includes the Bitmain Antminer S19 Pro (110TH/s), Bitmain Antminer S19 (95TH/s), MicroBT Whatsminer M30S (86TH/s), Bitmain Antminer T19 (84TH/s), and the Bitmain Antminer S17+ (73TH/s).

The machines that are making the worst profits at $0.04 per kWh and BTC’s current exchange rate include miners like the GMO miner B2 (24TH/s), Innosilicon T2 Turbo (24TH/s), Bitmain Antminer S9 SE (16TH/s), Bitfily Snow Panther B1+ (25.5TH/s), and the Canaan AvalonMiner 921 (20TH/s).

Miners who are mining BTC at a loss at $0.04 per kWh include Bitfily Snow Panther B1 (16TH/s), Aladdin Miner (16TH/s), and the Ebang Ebit E10 (18TH/s). ASIC mining rigs that offer terahash below the 20TH/s level are likely not making profits unless they are paying less than $0.04 per kWh. Many of these older generation mining rigs would need to pay around $0.01 per kWh or get electricity for free.

Just like the blockchain analytics provider Tradeblock wrote in a report back in February, the company said that it estimated the cost to mine BTC should be over $12,500 after the halving.

“The [data] suggests that miners are likely expecting the price of bitcoin to rise to higher levels (above $12,000-15,000 per BTC) around the halving allowing them to continue to generate a profit,” Tradeblock wrote at the time. “Or they likely will look to reduce resources following the halving resulting in a hash rate decline as profitability falls,” the company added.

The price of BTC has yet to keep the $10k zone for very long and every time it does it’s been pushed back down below the psychological region. If the price of BTC does in fact jump back to above $12,000-15,000 per BTC like Tradeblock’s report suggested, miners of course, would do a whole lot better.

At $12,000-15,000 per bitcoin, older generation miners that process hashpower below the 20 terahash per second level would likely be turned right back on. It’s likely that many older generation miners with low terahash outputs are sitting and waiting to do just that.

What do you think about the profitability of ASIC mining rigs at today’s exchange rates? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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US Contract Miner Core Scientific Buys 17,600 Bitcoin Miners From Bitmain

30/06/2020 by Idelto Editor

U.S. contract mining firm Core Scientific has agreed on a deal to buy 17,600 mining rigs from Chinese bitcoin hardware maker Bitmain Technologies Inc.

The company is buying Bitmain’s next-generation bitcoin (BTC) miner, the Antminer S19, it said in a statement on June 29. The miners will be fully installed at data centers operated by Core Scientific in the U.S. over the next four months, it added.

Washington-based Core Scientific did not provide details about cost, but the deal might come to a total of between $30 million and $42 million. Each S19 machine is currently selling at $1,785 while the newer S19 Pro is going for $2,407, according to the Bitmain shop.

Core Scientific said that the purchase is on behalf of its institutional customers and for its own use. It also claims the deal to be the largest acquisition of S19 BTC miners by a single blockchain hosting company.

Company president and chief executive officer Kevin Turner commented:

Core Scientific has received and begun testing the first of Bitmain’s newest ASIC miners, and has seen material success in increasing existing hashrate to achieve a 110 TH/s ± 3%.

Bitmain confirmed the deal in a blog post. The Antminer 19 series uses the latest generation of SHA256 Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) from Bitmain, making it more energy-efficient compared to previous models from the Beijing-based entity.

According to F2pool, a large global bitcoin mining network, the Antminer S19 model generates up to $3.03 of profit each day. The Antminer S19 Pro, Bitmain’s latest offering, makes a profit of $4.12 per day. The figures are based on an average electricity cost of $0.05 per kilowatt-hour (kWh).

The Antminer S19 has a computing power or hashrate of 95 terahash per second (TH/s) and power efficiency of 37.5 joules per terahash (J/TH). The Pro version comes with 110 TH/s and a power efficiency of 29.5 J/TH.

Bitcoin miners have been forced to look for more efficient mining equipment since the supply cut event of May 11, which slashed miner revenue by 50% from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC per block. The United States appears to be upping its game on this front.

What do you think about Core Scientific’s ambitions? Let us know in the comments section below.

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