What is bitcoin mining hardware

Bitcoin Mining Hardware Guide

The best Bitcoin mining hardware has evolved dramatically since 2009

At first, miners used their central processing unit (CPU) to mine, but soon this wasn’t fast enough and it bogged down the system resources of the host computer. Miners quickly moved on to using the graphical processing unit (GPU) in computer graphics cards because they were able to hash data 50 to 100 times faster and consumed much less power per unit of work.

During the winter of 2011, a new industry sprang up with custom equipment that pushed the performance standards even higher. The first wave of these specialty bitcoin mining devices were easy to use Bitcoin miners were based on field-programmable gate array (FPGA) processors and attached to computers using a convenient USB connection.

FPGA miners used much less power than CPU’s or GPU’s and made concentrated mining farms possible for the first time.

Today’s modern and best bitcoin mining hardware

Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners have taken over completely. These ASIC machines mine at unprecedented speeds while consuming much less power than FPGA or GPU mining rigs. Several reputable companies have established themselves with excellent products.

Bitcoin Mining Hardware Comparison

Currently, based on (1) price per hash and (2) electrical efficiency the best Bitcoin miner options are:

AntMiner S7

AntMiner S9

Avalon6

Best Bitcoin Mining Hardware

Two major factors go into determining the best bitcoin mining hardware: (1) cost and (2) electricity efficiency.

Bitcoin mining is difficult to do profitably but if you try then this Bitcoin miner is probably a good shot.

ASIC Bitcoin Mining Hardware

Application-specific integrated circuit chips (ASICs) are bitcoin mining hardware created solely to solve Bitcoin blocks. They have only minimal requirements for other normal computer applications. Consequently, ASIC Bitcoin mining systems can solve Bitcoin blocks much quicker and use less less electricity or power than older bitcoin mining hardware like CPUs, GPUs or FPGAs.

As Bitcoin mining increases in popularity and the Bitcoin price rises so does the value of ASIC Bitcoin mining hardware. As more Bitcoin mining hardware is deployed to secure the Bitcoin network the Bitcoin difficulty rises. This makes it impossible to profitably compete without a Bitcoin ASIC system. Furthermore, Bitcoin ASIC technology keeps getting faster, more efficient and more productive so it keeps pushing the limits of what makes the best Bitcoin mining hardware.

Some models of Bitcoin miners include Antminer S5, Antminer U3, ASICMiner BE Tube, ASICMiner BE Prisma, Avalon 2, Avalon 3, BTC Garden AM-V1 616 GH/s, VMC PLATINUM 6 MODULE, and USB miners.

AntMiner U2

BPMC Red Fury USB

GekkoScience

Best Bitcoin Cloud Mining Services

For those not interested in operating the actual hardware then they can purchase Bitcoin cloud mining contracts. Being listed in this section is NOT an endorsement of these services. There have been a tremendous amount of Bitcoin cloud mining scams.

Hashflare Review: Hashflare offers SHA-256 mining contracts and more profitable SHA-256 coins can be mined while automatic payouts are still in BTC. Customers must purchase at least 10 GH/s.

Genesis Mining Review: Genesis Mining is the largest Bitcoin and scrypt cloud mining provider. Genesis Mining offers three Bitcoin cloud mining plans that are reasonably priced. Zcash mining contracts are also available.

Hashing 24 Review: Hashing24 has been involved with Bitcoin mining since 2012. They have facilities in Iceland and Georgia. They use modern ASIC chips from BitFury deliver the maximum performance and efficiency possible.

Minex Review: Minex is an innovative aggregator of blockchain projects presented in an economic simulation game format. Users purchase Cloudpacks which can then be used to build an index from pre-picked sets of cloud mining farms, lotteries, casinos, real-world markets and much more.

Minergate Review: Offers both pool and merged mining and cloud mining services for Bitcoin.

Hashnest Review: Hashnest is operated by Bitmain, the producer of the Antminer line of Bitcoin miners. HashNest currently has over 600 Antminer S7s for rent. You can view the most up-to-date pricing and availability on Hashnest’s website. At the time of writing one Antminer S7’s hash rate can be rented for $1,200.

Bitcoin Cloud Mining Review: Currently all Bitcoin Cloud Mining contracts are sold out.

NiceHash Review: NiceHash is unique in that it uses an orderbook to match mining contract buyers and sellers. Check its website for up-to-date prices.

Eobot Review: Start cloud mining Bitcoin with as little as $10. Eobot claims customers can break even in 14 months.

MineOnCloud Review: MineOnCloud currently has about 35 TH/s of mining equipment for rent in the cloud. Some miners available for rent include AntMiner S4s and S5s.

Full List of Mining Hardware

Miner	Capacity	Efficiency	Price
AntMiner S1	180 Gh/s	2.0 W/Gh	N/A
AntMiner S2	1000 Gh/s	1.1 W/Gh	N/A
AntMiner S3	441 Gh/s	0.77 W/Gh	N/A
AntMiner S4	2000 Gh/s	0.7 W/Gh	N/A
AntMiner S5	1155 Gh/s	0.51 W/Gh	N/A
AntMiner S5+	7722 Gh/s	0.44 W/Gh	N/A
AntMiner S7	4.73 Th/s	0.25 W/Gh	N/A
AntMiner S9	13.5 Th/s	0.098 W/Gh	N/A
AntMiner U1	2 Gh/s	1.25 W/Gh	N/A
AntMiner U2	2 Gh/s	1.0 W/Gh	N/A
AntMiner U3	63 Gh/s	1.0 W/Gh	N/A
ASICMiner BE Blade	11 Gh/s	7.72 W/Gh	N/A
ASICMiner BE Cube	30 Gh/s	6.67 W/Gh	N/A
ASICMiner BE Sapphire	0 Gh/s	7.59 W/Gh	N/A
ASICMiner BE Tube	800 Gh/s	1.13 W/Gh	N/A
ASICMiner BE Prisma	1400 Gh/s	0.79 W/Gh	N/A
Avalon Batch 1	66 Gh/s	9.35 W/Gh	N/A
Avalon Batch 2	82 Gh/s	8.54 W/Gh	N/A
Avalon Batch 3	82 Gh/s	8.54 W/Gh	N/A
Avalon2	300 Gh/s	N/A	N/A
Avalon3	800 Gh/s	N/A	N/A
Avalon6	3.5 Th/s	0.29 W/Gh	N/A
bi*fury	5 Gh/s	0.85 W/Gh	N/A
BFL SC 5Gh/s	5 Gh/s	6.0 W/Gh	N/A
BFL SC 10 Gh/s	10 Gh/s	N/A	N/A
BFL SC 25 Gh/s	25 Gh/s	6.0 W/Gh	N/A
BFL Little Single	30 Gh/s	N/A	N/A
BFL SC 50 Gh/s	50 Gh/s	6.0 W/Gh	N/A
BFL Single ‘SC’	60 Gh/s	4.0 W/Gh	N/A
BFL 230 GH/s Rack Mount	230 Gh/s	N/A	N/A
BFL 500 GH/s Mini Rig SC	500 Gh/s	5.4 W/Gh	N/A
BFL Monarch 700GH/s	700 Gh/s	0.7 W/Gh	N/A
BitFury S.B.	N/A	N/A	N/A
Bitmine.ch Avalon Clone 85GH	85 Gh/s	7.65 W/Gh	N/A
Black Arrow Prospero X-1	100 Gh/s	1.0 W/Gh	N/A
Black Arrow Prospero X-3	2000 Gh/s	1.0 W/Gh	N/A
Blue Fury	3 Gh/s	1.0 W/Gh	N/A
BTC Garden AM-V1 310 GH/s	310 Gh/s	1.05 W/Gh	N/A
BTC Garden AM-V1 616 GH/s	616 Gh/s	1.05 W/Gh	N/A
CoinTerra TerraMiner IV	1600 Gh/s	1.31 W/Gh	N/A
Drillbit	N/A	N/A	N/A
HashBuster Micro	20 Gh/s	1.15 W/Gh	N/A
HashBuster Nano	N/A	N/A	N/A
HashCoins Apollo v3	1100 Gh/s	0.91 W/Gh	N/A
HashCoins Zeus v3	4500 Gh/s	0.67 W/Gh	N/A
HashFast Baby Jet	400 Gh/s	1.1 W/Gh	N/A
HashFast Sierra	1200 Gh/s	1.1 W/Gh	N/A
HashFast Sierra Evo 3	2000 Gh/s	1.1 W/Gh	N/A
Klondike	5 Gh/s	6.15 W/Gh	N/A
KnCMiner Mercury	100 Gh/s	2.5 W/Gh	N/A
KnC Saturn	250 Gh/s	1.2 W/Gh	N/A
KnC Jupiter	500 Gh/s	1.2 W/Gh	N/A
KnC Neptune	3000 Gh/s	0.7 W/Gh	N/A
LittleFury	N/A	N/A	N/A
Metabank	120 Gh/s	1.42 W/Gh	N/A
NanoFury / IceFury	2 Gh/s	1.25 W/Gh	N/A
NanoFury NF2	4 Gh/s	1.35 W/Gh	N/A
BPMC Red Fury USB	2.5 Gh/s	0.96 W/Gh	N/A
ROCKMINER R3-BOX	450 Gh/s	1.0 W/Gh	N/A
ROCKMINER R4-BOX	470 Gh/s	1.0 W/Gh	N/A
ROCKMINER Rocket BOX	450 Gh/s	1.07 W/Gh	N/A
ROCKMINER R-BOX	32 Gh/s	1.41 W/Gh	N/A
ROCKMINER R-BOX 110G	110 Gh/s	1.09 W/Gh	N/A
ROCKMINER T1 800G	800 Gh/s	1.25 W/Gh	N/A
Spondooliestech SP10 Dawson	1400 Gh/s	0.89 W/Gh	N/A
SP20 Jackson	1.3-1.7 Th/s	0.65 W/Gh	N/A
Spondooliestech SP30 Yukon	4500 Gh/s	0.67 W/Gh	N/A
Spondooliestech SP31 Yukon	4900 Gh/s	0.61 W/Gh	N/A
Spondooliestech SP35 Yukon	5500 Gh/s	0.66 W/Gh	N/A
TerraHash Klondike 16	5 Gh/s	7.11 W/Gh	N/A
TerraHash Klondike 64	18 Gh/s	7.06 W/Gh	N/A
TerraHash DX Mini (full)	90 Gh/s	7.11 W/Gh	N/A
TerraHash DX Large (full)	180 Gh/s	7.11 W/Gh	N/A
Twinfury	5 Gh/s	0.85 W/Gh	N/A
Avalon USB Nano3	3.6 Gh/s	0.85 W/Gh	N/A
GekkoScience	9.5 Gh/s	0.33 W/Gh	N/A

Bitcoin Mining™® © 2011-2021 Hesiod Services LLC | Terms | Privacy

Источник

Mining

Contents

Introduction

Mining is the process of adding transaction records to Bitcoin’s public ledger of past transactions (and a «mining rig» is a colloquial metaphor for a single computer system that performs the necessary computations for «mining». This ledger of past transactions is called the block chain as it is a chain of blocks. The blockchain serves to confirm transactions to the rest of the network as having taken place. Bitcoin nodes use the blockchain to distinguish legitimate Bitcoin transactions from attempts to re-spend coins that have already been spent elsewhere.

Mining is intentionally designed to be resource-intensive and difficult so that the number of blocks found each day by miners remains steady. Individual blocks must contain a proof of work to be considered valid. This proof of work is verified by other Bitcoin nodes each time they receive a block. Bitcoin uses the hashcash proof-of-work function.

The primary purpose of mining is to set the history of transactions in a way that is computationally impractical to modify by any one entity. By downloading and verifying the blockchain, bitcoin nodes are able to reach consensus about the ordering of events in bitcoin.

Mining is also the mechanism used to introduce Bitcoins into the system: Miners are paid any transaction fees as well as a «subsidy» of newly created coins. This both serves the purpose of disseminating new coins in a decentralized manner as well as motivating people to provide security for the system.

Bitcoin mining is so called because it resembles the mining of other commodities: it requires exertion and it slowly makes new units available to anybody who wishes to take part. An important difference is that the supply does not depend on the amount of mining. In general changing total miner hashpower does not change how many bitcoins are created over the long term.

Difficulty

The Computationally-Difficult Problem

Mining a block is difficult because the SHA-256 hash of a block’s header must be lower than or equal to the target in order for the block to be accepted by the network. This problem can be simplified for explanation purposes: The hash of a block must start with a certain number of zeros. The probability of calculating a hash that starts with many zeros is very low, therefore many attempts must be made. In order to generate a new hash each round, a nonce is incremented. See Proof of work for more information.

The Difficulty Metric

The difficulty is the measure of how difficult it is to find a new block compared to the easiest it can ever be. The rate is recalculated every 2,016 blocks to a value such that the previous 2,016 blocks would have been generated in exactly one fortnight (two weeks) had everyone been mining at this difficulty. This is expected yield, on average, one block every ten minutes.

As more miners join, the rate of block creation increases. As the rate of block generation increases, the difficulty rises to compensate, which has a balancing of effect due to reducing the rate of block-creation. Any blocks released by malicious miners that do not meet the required difficulty target will simply be rejected by the other participants in the network.

Reward

When a block is discovered, the discoverer may award themselves a certain number of bitcoins, which is agreed-upon by everyone in the network. Currently this bounty is 6.25 bitcoins; this value will halve every 210,000 blocks. See Controlled Currency Supply.

Additionally, the miner is awarded the fees paid by users sending transactions. The fee is an incentive for the miner to include the transaction in their block. In the future, as the number of new bitcoins miners are allowed to create in each block dwindles, the fees will make up a much more important percentage of mining income.

The mining ecosystem

Hardware

Users have used various types of hardware over time to mine blocks. Hardware specifications and performance statistics are detailed on the Mining Hardware Comparison page.

CPU Mining

Early Bitcoin client versions allowed users to use their CPUs to mine. The advent of GPU mining made CPU mining financially unwise as the hashrate of the network grew to such a degree that the amount of bitcoins produced by CPU mining became lower than the cost of power to operate a CPU. The option was therefore removed from the core Bitcoin client’s user interface.

GPU Mining

GPU Mining is drastically faster and more efficient than CPU mining. See the main article: Why a GPU mines faster than a CPU. A variety of popular mining rigs have been documented.

FPGA Mining

FPGA mining is a very efficient and fast way to mine, comparable to GPU mining and drastically outperforming CPU mining. FPGAs typically consume very small amounts of power with relatively high hash ratings, making them more viable and efficient than GPU mining. See Mining Hardware Comparison for FPGA hardware specifications and statistics.

ASIC Mining

An application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, is a microchip designed and manufactured for a very specific purpose. ASICs designed for Bitcoin mining were first released in 2013. For the amount of power they consume, they are vastly faster than all previous technologies and already have made GPU mining financially.

Mining services (Cloud mining)

Mining contractors provide mining services with performance specified by contract, often referred to as a «Mining Contract.» They may, for example, rent out a specific level of mining capacity for a set price at a specific duration.

Pools

As more and more miners competed for the limited supply of blocks, individuals found that they were working for months without finding a block and receiving any reward for their mining efforts. This made mining something of a gamble. To address the variance in their income miners started organizing themselves into pools so that they could share rewards more evenly. See Pooled mining and Comparison of mining pools.

History

Bitcoin’s public ledger (the «block chain») was started on January 3rd, 2009 at 18:15 UTC presumably by Satoshi Nakamoto. The first block is known as the genesis block. The first transaction recorded in the first block was a single transaction paying the reward of 50 new bitcoins to its creator.

Staking

Staking is a concept in the Delegated proof of stake coins, closely resembling pooled mining of proof of work coins. According to the proof of share principle, instead of computing powers, the partaking users are pooling their stakes, certain amounts of money, blocked on their wallets and delegated to the pool’s staking balance.

The network periodically selects a pre-defined number of top staking pools (usually between 20 and 100), based on their staking balances, and allows them to validate transactions in order to get a reward. The rewards are then shared with the delegators, according to their stakes with the pool.

Although staking doesn’t require lots of computing power as mining, it still needs very stable and fast Internet connection in order to collect, verify and sign all transactions in the queue within a small timespan, which can be as short as one second. If a pool fails to do so, it doesn’t get the reward, and it may be shared with the next pool in order.

A lot of altcoins are using staking. Staking is often marketed as a much more efficient alternative. Unfortunately staking has the potential to not be much different than politics. A good example is that it’s easy for a big actor to take over the network by simply buying enough coins. This actually happened in 2020 when TRON’s Justin Sun took over the Steem «forum» network and then did some things that made some people unhappy.

Источник