This weekend was the World Digital Mining summit 2023 which was held in Hong Kong and was hosted by BITMAIN who are the worlds leading Crypto Currency miner hardware manufacturers in the world, best known for their ANTMINER range. The theme set for this year was Mining for the Bull Market with the primary focus on supporting their clients develop strong mining strategies in the current bear market in order to profit in the next bull market.
The summit also provided the opportunity for Bitmain to launch their new miner the Antminer S21 boasting a hash rate of 200Th/s and a profitability of USD 2.13 per day based on USD0.12c per KW. Bad luck if you live in Australia as this bad boy will set you back by providing you a net loss in power price. However, it is one of the most powerful Crypto currency miners to be released on the market to date.
One thing you might be lucky for if you live in the land down under is the fact we have a lot of sun and you could power two of these bad boys with a 10KW solar system for a few hours each day. Incorporating a solar battery will enable you to capture the additional energy and should carry your operations for a longer period throughout the night. This will give you a possible chance of turning a positive income.
But with current Australian solar rebates offering AUD.14c per Kw generated and supplied to the grid you might have the ability to make a higher income from just selling power back to the grid. But you'll miss out on the speculation aspect of Bitcoin.
You can purchase the mining equipment from Mineshop, MillionMiner or AKMiner all varying in price from USD 4683 (AUD 7,200) to USD 5,699 (AUD 8,800) so you'll be waiting a long time for a decent return on investment.
This year's event focused on efficiency and sustainability with costs of living continuing to increase along side interest rates and the cost of energy Bitcoin mining profitability has taken a hit as electricity prices continue to sore. The ANTMINER S21 does most the best efficiency rate seen thus far but still requires a whopping 3500W per hour to operate.
This keeps the Miner out of reach for many people wanting to venture into Crypto Currency Mining . Those that do wish to venture in have no other option but to seek alternative cheaper energy sources. Hydro and Solar have seen growth within the mining community to offset increased electricity costs. However, Solar and Hydro do present challenges which is why Bitmain have focused on reducing the energy consumption rate and will continue their R&D operations on making more energy efficient miners.
There is a big reason a head for Bitmain to focus this years event on sustainability and strategizing a way forward, in a few months there could potentially be a lot less miners out there if action isn't taken now.
April 2024 ushers in another Bitcoin Halving event which will significantly impact the profitability of mining Bitcoin's as it will become a lot more expensive to do so. Miners will need to increase their mining amounts or risk halving their profits but with the increasing energy costs and high interest rates with many Bitcoin mining firms taking out loans to purchase Bitcoin mining equipment. The profitability of these operations are already on a knifes edge.
Miners only have very few options when it comes to what they can do and much of it they are at the hands of manufacturers and their products. This means manufacturers need to be researching and developing new products that can mine more bitcoin, faster and for a lot less energy.
This also means miners need to be aware of the upcoming halving in order to prepare and plan on how their business will pivot and react to the challenges a head. Failure to do so puts the entire Bitcoin community and sector at risk.
Overall the event was a great success and a focus from most key note speakers was on renewably energy and tackling the greenhouse gas emissions cause by Bitcoin mining. With a primary focus of impacts on profitability of mining operations and the different economic impacts in each nation.
There were further discussions on what technologies will impact the crypto sector in the future provided by Tether CEO, Paolo Ardoino and a broad range of other core topics discussed around integration and market adoption in relation to Fintech.
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