So I’m about to make the leap from GPU to ASIC mining. Based off what’s available and in stock where I feel comfortable ordering… It looks like 1 Caanan Avalon 1066 and 10 of the Bitmain Antminer S9’s… My question is am i making a bad choice going with the S9’s? Will they stop being profitable Soon? I use all the online calculators and enter my residential electric rate and it seems If i get like 10 of them Ill make some decent money. Should I do what I’m thinking or instead order 1 unit of the newer more powerful ASIC’s? Additionally how can I figure out the max my Electric service can handle? I installed my own 200a service and adding circuits is no problem but do I just add wattage? How many ASIC’s per Breaker and how many Amps? I tried looking for all this information on the forum and even searching the terms but no luck. I appreciate any help, thanks!
Get advice from an electrician. You won’t regret it and will sleep better at night. Buy a clamp meter and read the amps being drawn as well. You can check it periodically as you addd machine and stay below the 80% max your circuit can handle.
Your best best is going with a more powerful machine such as S19 series, it comes with warranty, and is a very solid machine.
If you have a 200 amp service, and an S19 consumes about 3500 watts max, with 208 voltage that is 16.8 amps (3500 / 208), you should get a 20 amp circuit breaker, and you are good to go.
I was trying to plan the circuits in advance, I did my service panel upgrade myself and since I have plenty of space left in my box the mining equipment will all be getting dedicated vircuits. And I understand duty load tables and staying below 80% but again that’s why I was trying to do some quick math on how many breakers, circuits, etc.
But the info does help, so thank you
I do the profitability calculations and for what I spend on 1 s19 I will profit $38 daily, but with the same amount of money I can get an Avalon 1066 and 10 of the S9’s and I’ll make nearly $100 daily… Am I missing something here and this is why I’m asking around because I can’t find anything that tells me otherwise , I get having a warranty but honestly I’ll fix whatever breaks myself as I always do with PC components.
Appreciate the reply and info
@Aaron_Brown
You may make more having a bunch of older equipment. But it is old equipment, it’s unlikely to be in great shape. Given the history of Bitcoin prices and mining profitability a bear market is inevitable, and when that hits your S9’s will be useless. However if you get a more efficient S19 model It will stay profitable even in a bear market. This is more a question of risk management rather than what will make you the most money in the short term.
And this is the information I’m Missing, thank you. I don’t know what a Bear Market is, but I’m going to be doing a little research and see If I cant learn something new this morning. Any advice would be gratefully received, Thanks again!
This. And when there is a bear market, you’d want to be hashing with the S19 family of BTC ASICs rather than a 3-yr old generation of ASIC. In a market trough, the older machines could/would become unprofitable and shut down, reducing overall worldwide hashrate. As overall hashrate drops, the algorithm will correct (drop) the difficulty. While those with S19’s and equivalent will see their fiat/day as low, their fractional BTC/day will increase, potentially materially - and they’ll be patting themselves on the back when BTC roars back in a bull market so long as they held their BTC.
Then there’s the heat, noise and power consumption of running many ASICs vs fewer ASICs. I have an oversize 2-car garage and am running 3 modern ASICs now. I could probably manage a 4th after which the noise (and each ASIC is a noise abatement box), heat and stress on my breaker panel would be too much.
Thanks for elaborating, There are so many variables to consider when choosing to mine. Including the fact that Bitmain and others, keep pumping out new BTC miners raising the algorithm difficulty over time. Effectively just reducing the profitability of each individual unit. Despite all this I find the two most important variables to consider is first to buy the most efficient hardware and second use a cooling method that reducing the electric usage of your hardware as much as possible. Meaning keep them icy cold. The best way to do this is immersion cooling. To compete long term youre looking at a lot of money and a lot of time investment.
The real value to immersion cooling is overclocking your ASICs to get better yield, which will up electricity usage (there’s no free lunch). Side benefits are much lower noise, better heat control, potentially greater longevity and, if you don’t overclock, lower power usage if you eliminate the fans (though pumps and air-liquid or liquid-liquid heat exchangers’ fans will consume power too).
Well I’ve done immersion cooling before on a PC build, so I’ve already considered it but whatever I set up I will be handling Heat First, and then turning it up. Getting back into mining after an 8 year Hiatus and everything is different. Our current market, you all already know. But point taken on the difficulty correction. That means the S9’s and L3+'s Ive been looking at are doomed next month, Lots of hardware coming out that’s exponentially more powerful so now I’m starting my research over… IM wanting to initially invest around 7k on the Miner/s that’s just an ASIC I have budgeted everything for electrical HVAC Storage etc… Based off what I see available right now I’m considering Kadena mining, does that seem like a good idea? I can get a KD2 for 6k and some change and shipped from inside the US so at my door in a few days and then picking up a bobcat miner as well… Gotta start somewhere, but I want to start in the right place, I havent been at it and if I dont get off on the right foot when BTC explodes I will regret not doing my due dilligence. Trearting this just like my real estate investing and not like a Hobby as it was before for me… Did I mention I Zombied 30’some BTC that I mined back in 2010-13? Had I known then what I know now…
If you can get working KD2’s for $6k, that’s really a no brainer.