The arms race of miners is gaining momentum – the queue for asiki is scheduled for six months ahead, and large companies prefer to charter private planes so as not to waste time on shipping by sea. The Bitcoin price has already updated the historical maximum, while the complexity of calculations remains below the May values.
This encourages participants to increase computing power, and manufacturers are working on the release of more efficient models. The world’s largest supplier of asics Bitmain recently presented the Antminer S19 XP model with a computing power of 140 terahash with a consumption of 3 kW of electricity. The energy efficiency of the new model is 37% higher than that of the top-end S19 Pro, thanks to the use of 5 nm chips versus 7 nm.
This gives an increase in profitability of 25% at the same level of electricity consumption.
The largest mining companies are public: on the one hand, they reduce their own financial risks by using the raised capital; on the other hand, they are forced to constantly update equipment to maintain investment attractiveness. This explains the high demand for ASICs and long pre-order queues (in addition to the shortage of semiconductors).
The first S19 XP will be received by Greenidge Generation Holdings (NASDAQ:GREE), Ault Global Holdings (NYSE:DPW) and Bitnile, and the machines will not be available to the general public until the summer of 2022. According to Luxor agency estimates, by the end of next year, Bitmain will release 280 thousand new ASICs, which together will give out ¼ of the current global hashrate.
Due to the high value of the coin, the average profitability of mining from the involved terahash is at the level of three-year highs and is 35 cents per day. Since a major correction of Bitcoin is not expected in the near future, we can expect a further escalation of the arms race and the growth of the global hashrate.
