When it comes to cryptocurrency mining equipment, there is one name on everyone’s lips. For the past decade, Bitmain Technologies has been the industry innovator at the very forefront of the sector. Their brand Antminer provides the technology, performance and energy savings crypto miners need to increase profitability and efficiency to new heights.
Bitmain’s specialism for creating mining machines that make rigs more sustainable, durable and mutually beneficial has seen a number of mining hardware series and models come to the marketplace, each of which has offered a fundamental improvement on the last.
In this article, we take a closer look at Bitmain’s achievements to date, their most recent innovation to hit the market (namely the liquid-cooled Bitmain S19 Hydro), and what the future holds for the company, its technology offering and the cryptocurrency miners that rely on their mining machines.
Source: datacenterknowledge.com
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Bitmain Technologies – the story so far
Bitmain – officially Bitmain Technologies Ltd – was founded in 2013 at a time when Bitcoin was experiencing its very first major spike in price. During this period, Bitcoin rose from 13 USD at the beginning of the year to 250 USD during the spring. The price of Bitcoin stood at more than 1,100 USD by December.
Bitmain was just one of the organisations that identified a gap in the market for BTC miners, and launched with its very first, mass-produced mining machine the same year. Subsequent series and models followed the Antminer S1, with the debut of Antminer S2, S3, S4 and S5 all taking place in 2014. In 2015, Bitmain was named the top Bitcoin mining server on the planet, with the launch of its S9 Series – a range that remains bestselling to this day – following a year later. Its flagship S9 Series ushered in a new era of efficiency thanks to its 100 J/T ratings.
Several mining servers and a dedicated cryptocurrency mining service platform later, the Antminer S17 Series was born. While it was a series blighted by high failure rates, it did lead the way with its 40 J/T efficiency. The Antminer S19 Series was much better received.
Featuring five mining models – including the Antminer S19 95TH/s, S19 Pro 110TH/s, S19j 90 TH/s, S19j Pro 104TH/s, and T19 88TH/s – the 2020 series paved the way into the era of 30 J/T, which was reduced to 20 J/T a year later thanks to the debut of the Antminer S19 XP. Bitmain’s cutting edge hydro cooling miners and containers (including the Bitmain S19 Hydro) represent the latest innovations to be introduced, and they’re already making Bitcoin mining more profitable and efficient than ever.
Source: sai.tech
Bringing a new way to cool to rigs everywhere
Liquid cooling is changing the Bitcoin mining rig for good. Delivering higher hash rates, and enhanced performance and efficiency as a result, liquid-cooled models like the Bitmain S19 Hydro are certainly a step in the right direction.
The Bitmain S19 Hydro is one of the very first models to use liquid cooling technology well. While it’s no new thing – the use of liquid cooling has been touted increasingly during the past couple of years as a better alternative to traditional air-cooling – liquid cooled systems have really come into their own thanks to innovations like the Bitmain S19 Hydro.
Liquid cooled rigs even have the edge over immersion cooling setups, a system that has become well known as a more efficient option for dissipating heat at scale, especially when compared with air cooling.
Instead of using the non-conductive oil utilised during immersion mining, the Bitmain S19 Hydro calls on the latest innovations in liquid or water within a closed system to cool components and unlock several more advantages for crypto miners and their hardware. The result is a cooling method that is simpler to use, far less messy and easily accessible. In contrast, immersion liquid is costly, oily and hard to administer.
Source: bitmain.com
Is the Bitmain S19 Hydro a worthy investment?
While the Bitmain S19 Hydro is currently only available for larger, industrial scale operations, making it unsuitable for home mining, it could be accessible in the future for small scale rigs. There is even talk of it being utilised in a similar way to air cooled systems by home mining operations to ensure excess energy generated, and otherwise wasted, could be used elsewhere as home heating.
When compared to other models, including the Antminer S19 XP, the Hydro may not have the edge on efficiency but the increased hash rate of 158TH/s will certainly be appreciated. The forthcoming and recently announced S19 Pro+ Hydro even boasts a 198TH/s hash rate using the very same 7nm chip, so there’s lots more to look forward to from Bitmain and its ASIC miners.
Investing in the Bitmain S19 Hydro is an investment in the technology of the future. Liquid cooled rigs are certainly where it’s at, especially considering the limitations of air-cooled ASICs. Liquid cooling miners, like the Bitmain S19 Hydro, represent a new evolution for the mining market, with the long-term advantages of investing in a hydro model ensuring prolonged service life and better overall efficiency to name but a few benefits.
Source: coindesk.com
There’s more to come for Bitmain and its miners…
As well as the Bitmain S19 Hydro and the upcoming launch of the 198TH/s S19 Pro+ Hydro to look forward to, 2024 brings yet more innovations from Bitmain. This summer, Bitmain revealed the ground-breaking S21 Series, technology that represents a brand new and more efficient era for Bitcoin miners everywhere.
The next generation, liquid-cooled Antminer S21 Hyd system is set to have a hash rate of 335TH/s and efficiency of just 16 J/T. It’ll be the most efficient and powerful piece of Bitcoin mining hardware yet, with the opportunity to harness the model with a lower hash rate (200TH/s) and slightly higher J/T of 17 making it affordable for those with smaller budgets.
The first sales phase is already underway, with initial deliveries placed now due to be received in 2024.
