Bitmain to start shipping new Bitcoin Antminer T21 in January 2024

October 26, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin miner supplier Bitmain has released its brand-new Antminer T21, featuring a computing power of 190 TH/s and an energy efficiency ratio of 19 J/TH.

Bitmain, a major global manufacturer of Bitcoin (BTC) application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC), has officially released its new air-cooled BTC miner, the Antminer T21.

Bitmain took to Twitter on Oct. 26 to announce the world premiere of the new Antminer T21, the firm’s new air-cooling miner that can withstand ambient temperatures up to 45 degrees Celsius.

According to Bitmain’s head of marketing, Xmei Lin, the Antminer T21’s global release happened at the Blockchain Life 2023 Forum in Dubai, where Bitmain was a “diamond sponsor.”

Bitmain’s brand-new mining device is expected to start shipping in January 2024, the company’s spokesperson told Cointelegraph. The air-cooling miner supports the SHA256 mining algorithm used for mining proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, as well as forked coins like Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin SV (BSV). The T21 provides a computing power of 190 terahashes per second and an energy efficiency ratio of 19 joules per terahash.

At the event, Bitmain also offered Antminer T21 buyers an opportunity to get Bitmain’s price protection plan, which is designed to support miners in case of a decline in cryptocurrency prices. Available until Nov. 25, 2023, the plan allows customers to be protected against the downside fluctuation of BTC price for a period of one month, three months or six months.

Customers will get compensation in cash if the BTC price falls below the strike for any reference day within the protected period, the firm said, adding that compensation shall be paid “immediately upon the triggering event.”

*Bitmain’s fluctuation protection plan. Source: X (formerly Twitter)*

Antminer T21 is one of Bitmain’s several mining devices, produced alongside a wide diversity of ASIC miners by other firms like Canaan, MicroBT, Bitfury and others.

Chinese Canaan (formerly known as Avalon) was among the first firms in the world to release a Bitcoin mining ASIC in January 2013, which enabled consumers to mine cryptocurrency on a mass scale due to a significant boost in hashing power compared to GPU and CPU setups.

Ten years after releasing its first mining device, Canaan still produces new mining machines. In mid-September, Canaan officially released its new A14 series miners on its 10th anniversary. On Oct. 26, Canaan launched its sustainability-focused A1466 and A1466I miners in the Middle East. The new miners feature liquid-cooled and air-cooled options.

Despite firms like Canaan and Bitmain rushing to introduce new mining devices, the ASIC industry has seen some challenges in recent years. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, ASIC miners’ price per terahash plummeted more than 80% from its peak in 2021 as of late 2022 amid new miners continuing to flood the market.

In August 2023, blockchain technology firm Blockstream sought to raise $50 million to purchase and store mining equipment on secondary markets in anticipation of the Bitcoin halving in 2024.

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Bitcoin ASIC manufacturer Bitmain pauses employee salary payments: Report

October 9, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitmain

The firm cited difficulty in achieving “net positive cash flow” in making the decision.

Bitcoin application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) manufacturer Bitmain has paused employee salary payments for September and beyond.

According to recent local news reports, citing multiple Bitmain employees familiar with the matter, the firm has allegedly cut all “bonuses and incentives” for its staff and still has not paid remuneration due since last month. In addition, employees face a 50% cut to their base salary. A message allegedly from Bitmain reads:

“For the month of September, the company has yet to achieve a net positive cash flow, especially in the orders of [new] ASICs. The Executive Management Team therefore decided that salaries for the month of September will be paused, to be reviewed after October 7 after the holiday.”

Founded in Beijing, China in 2013, Bitmain is one of the world’s largest Bitcoin (BTC) mining ASIC manufacturers, with an estimated 70% market share during its peak. The firm’s Antminer ASIC series currently leads the industry in terms of hash rate computations for mining Bitcoin.

In August, Bitcoin miner Hive announced the purchase of 2,000 Bitmain S19 XP ASIC miners for immediate deployment in its rigs. The S19XP ASIC miners have a listed price of $4,653 on Bitmain. Hive said that after its integrations, the firm’s mining rigs will generate a combined $80 per megawatt hour in revenue, including both old and non-Bitmain models.

In 2021, Jihan Wu, co-founder of Bitmain, announced the settlement of a year-long ownership dispute with co-founder Micree Zhan. Under the agreement, Wu would resign as chairman and CEO of Bitmain and sell his ownership stake to Zhan for $600 million. At the time, Bitmain planned for an initial public offering at a $5-billion valuation by late2022. Such plans are believed to have been shelved due to the ongoing bear market.

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Core Scientific seals $77M Bitmain deal for 27K Bitcoin mining rigs

September 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin mining

The deal was first finalized in August, with Anchorage as another party agreeing to an equity stake in the bankrupt crypto miner.

Cryptocurrency mining hardware maker Bitmain and bankrupt crypto mining firm Core Scientific have agreed on a combination of equity and cash to finalize the deal on expanding mining facilities.

The deal between the two mining companies will see Bitmain supply 27,000 Bitcoin (BTC) mining rigs for $23 million in cash along with $53.9 million worth of common stock of the bankrupt firm. Apart from the mining hardware purchase deal, Bitmain and Core Scientific have signed a new hosting arrangement to assist Bitmain's mining operations.

The deal was finalized earlier last month when a court filing highlighted Bitmain’s plan to sell mining hardware in exchange for cash and equity as part of Core Scientific’s restructuring plan. Apart from Bitmain, the restructuring plan also included Anchorage, BlockFi and Mass Mutual Asset Finance. Apart from Anchorage, all other three firms chose a mix of cash and equity options to settle their claims.

The expansion and investment plan by Bitmain will come into force by the fourth quarter of this year pending approval from a judge slated for the final quarter. Once approved, the added hardware will potentially add 4.1 exahashes to Core Scinfitic’s hash rate. The two crypto mining focused companies have also agreed to work together to upgrade Bitmain’s last-generation miners hosted at Core Scientific’s data centres to increase the firm's productivity further.

Core Scientific filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2022, citing the financial crisis and declining price of Bitcoin as the key reasons behind their decision. The firm started facing trouble in the weeks leading upto its eventual collapse in December owing to the market turmoil.

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Core Scientific’s bankruptcy plan includes equity stake for Bitmain and Anchorage

August 8, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Anchorage

If the plan is approved, Core Scientific could buy 27,000 Bitmain miners for roughly $23 million in cash and $54 million in company equity.

Cryptocurrency custody firm Anchorage Digital and major mining manufacturer Bitmain could take equity stakes in Core Scientific as part of the firm’s restructuring plan.

According to an Aug. 8 filing in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Bitmain plans to sell Core Scientific 27,000 S19j XP Miners in exchange for roughly $23 million in cash and $54 million in company equity through new common interests. In addition, Anchorage Digital was the only company that had lent funds to Core Scientific that chose an equitization option for its claim.

Other firms, including BlockFi and Mass Mutual Asset Finance, opted for their claims to be handled through negotiated settlements. The proposed plan will likely be subject to a vote by creditors before approval, though the debtors said it would reduce its capital needs by more than $30 million by offering equity in lieu of cash and reaching a settlement with Celsius Network.

Today’s $CORZQ daily self-mined #Bitcoin for the last reported 24-hour period (7-AUG-2023): 31.9 pic.twitter.com/nLox88iC22
— Core Scientific (@Core_Scientific) August 8, 2023

Core Scientific filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2022, citing decreased revenue and falling Bitcoin (BTC) prices. The company had been reporting financial issues in the weeks leading up to filing amid the collapse of Celsius and the crypto market crash. The firm had been one of the largest mining companies by hash rate and has continued to mine BTC amid the restructuring process.

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Bitcoin mining firm Bitmain reportedly fined for tax violations in China

April 11, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitmain

Bitmain has reportedly failed to pay personal income taxes in accordance with China’s laws on the administration of tax collection.

Beijing-based cryptocurrency mining firm Bitmain has reportedly violated tax regulations in China, with local authorities imposing major fines.

Bitmain Technologies has been slapped with a tax penalty from the Beijing Municipal Office of the State Administration of Taxation, the local news agency Sina Finance reported on April 11.

The authority fined Bitmain about 25 million Chinese yuan ($3.7 million), the report notes, citing details from China’s data registry of private and public companies, Qichacha.

According to the data, Bitmain was penalized on April 4, 2023, with the firm allegedly failing to pay personal income taxes in accordance with China’s laws on the administration of tax collection. The statement specifically referred to certain violations related to taxes on the income from Bitmain employees’ salaries, bonuses, labor dividends, allowances and more.

The tax authority also mentioned that tax inspectors delivered notice on certain tax violations to Bitmain in August 2022. So far, Bitmain’s Beijing unit has failed to pay personal income tax totaling 16.6 million yuan, or $2.4 million.

Founded in 2013, Bitmain is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining companies, widely known for manufacturing crypto mining-specific hardware and solutions. The company was reportedly forced to stop its business in China in October 2021 in response to a blanket ban on crypto imposed by the Chinese government in September 2021.

It’s unclear how the firm has been running its operations since. Bitmain did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

Despite regulatory uncertainty and a major bear crypto market in 2022, Bitmain’s business has continued to see success. In December 2022, Bitmain’s latest Antminer device reportedly sold out in less than a minute despite tanking mining profitability.

In September 2022, Bitmain founder Jihan Wu set up a $250 million fund to support the mining industry affected by the prolonged cryptocurrency winter. After leaving Bitmain in 2021, Wu founded Bitdeer, a new crypto mining firm and a spin-off of Bitmain.

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‘Bad batch’ or flawed design? Compass Mining flags problems with new ASIC miners

March 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Aluminium

The Bitcoin mining company is stumped as to why Bitmain changed the design of the S19 Antminers.

Bitcoin mining company Compass Mining claims to have found “three issues” in the ASIC design of the two new Antminer S19 miners, units that are primarily used to mine Bitcoin (BTC).

These issues could result in the machines overheating and in some cases, completely breaking down.

The firm’s mining operations team warned in its Mar. 6 post that “Miners need to be ready,” particularly those who purchased the S19 90T and S19 XP Antminers manufactured from 2022 onwards.

Bitmain changed its ASIC design. Miners need to be readyhttps://t.co/cs8z96lR1L pic.twitter.com/2NN4O3sEfP
— Will Foxley (@wsfoxley) March 7, 2023

While the firm stated that “other versions could be affected as well,” the three flaws the firm identified stemmed from a lack of a peripheral interface controller (PIC) on units, the implementation of aluminum plating instead of laminate material, and the bunching up components onto just one side of the board.

According to Compass Mining, peripheral interface controllers, or PICs, are used to control and monitor a range of devices and systems across all sorts of electronics. In ASICs, they’re used to interface with hashboards individually, rather than addressing them as one unit.

This, however, has been removed in the most recent design, said the firm.

“In ASICs, a PIC sits at the top of a hashboard and allows each hashboard to be spoken to individually. Without it, you have to address the unit as one unit, instead of three hashboards.”

Compass Mining explained that this lack of PIC means that should one hashboard fail, the entire unit “fails completely.”

“Instead, a miner fails completely. We’ve found this to be the case with our S19 XP 141 TH units, which have failed completely when only one board is having issues.”

*The red dot in the center represents the PIC, which was present on older models S19 Antminers. Source:* *Compass Mining.*

The mining company also said that by implementing aluminum plating on the hashboard, it may overheat and therefore lead to a higher “failure rate” than those built on printed circuit boards (PCBs) — which is what the old S19s were built on.

This would lead to “higher servicing needs,” the company said.

Meanwhile, the company has also raised concerns about the mining unit’s transition to aluminum, referring to it as “net negative.”

“We view the design decision to swap to aluminum-plating on hashboards as a net negative–one that will increase ASIC failure and underhashing while increasing service and maintenance costs,” it wrote.

The firm also explained that the presence of the aluminum would make it more difficult to replace malfunctioning chips:

“The lack of a PIC is compounded by the abrupt change to aluminum-plates on all hashboards. If a board overheats because of the aluminum's heat dispersion properties, then the entire unit will go down instead of just one board.”

Compass Mining said they first realized the drop in performance when they deployed the S19 XP at its Texas partner facility — which could have been impacted by humidity and heat.

As for the third issue, the firm noted that by implementing the aluminium plating without changing the chassis — the base frame of the ASIC — would also contribute to the higher failure rates.

Because aluminium is very heat emissive, the metal will cause “convective heating” inside the chassis, the firm explained, before proposing some solutions:

“A solution to this in an air-cooled environment would be to increase the mass air flow sufficiently to dissipate the heat stored within the miner – a different design or stronger fans.”

Other possible solutions proposed by the firm include finding third-party firmware that allows the frequency and voltage of the machine to maintain reasonable temperature and humidity levels in order to get more longevity out of the mining machines.

*Some of the latest S19s do not have a PIC on each hashboard of the ASIC. Source:* *Compass Mining.*

The firm did however acknowledge that they may have just gotten a “bad batch” from Bitmain, noting it is “common knowledge” in Bitcoin mining not to buy the first batch of Bitcoin ASICs.

“Unknown errors are often only revealed over time, so it's best to have others find them out first,” it said.

Cointelegraph reached out to Bitmain for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Bitmain Antminers have been used to mine proof-of-work cryptocurrencies such as BTC, Dogecoin (DOGE) and Litecoin (LTC).

Bitmain

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