Bitmain launches their Antminer E3 Ethereum mining ASIC

Bitmain launches their Antminer E3 Ethereum mining ASIC

Bitmain launches their Antminer E3 Ethereum mining ASIC

Ethereum is one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies, bringing chaos into the GPU industry as the currency’s value prompted miners to invest in gaming graphics cards en masse to take advantage of the coin’s profitability. 

While the value of Ethereum has decreased significantly in recent months, it is undeniable how much the currency has impacted the gaming market, leaving many gamers praying for the price to continue to drop or for mining ASICs (application specific integrated circuits) to be created to lower the demand for graphics hardware.    

Bitmain has officially revealed their Antminer E3, the company’s first Ethereum mining ASIC, which can deliver 180MH/s of hashing power with a power consumption of 800W. While this is not much more electrically efficient than an optimised GPU mining setup, it is undeniable that this unit costs a lot less than an equivalent GPU-based miner, with Bitmain taking pre-orders for this unit for $800 US.   

The Antminer E3 will ship in mid-late July, with Bitmain planning to optimise their units to deliver higher levels of efficiency before their shipping date.  

Bitmain launches their Antminer E3 Ethereum mining ASIC  

Bitmain has been expected to have successfully created an Ethereum mining ASIC for quite some time, with many alleging that the company has used the power of their newly designed units to mine the cryptocurrency while its difficulty rating remained low.

In short, it is likely that Bitmain has been profiting from these ASICs long before this unit was publically launched, explaining why Ethereum has gotten a lot more difficult to mine in recent months. Increasing the hashing power on a cryptocurrency mining network increases the difficulty of mining, making mining less profitable, eventually leading to hardware becoming unprofitable, as electricity costs become higher than the value of Ethereum (or any cryptocurrency) earned.  

You can join the discussion on Bitmain’s Ethereum mining Antminer E3 on the OC3D Forums.Â