Could the decentralization of the Bitcoin network be about to improve thanks to minimalist miners such as Nerdminer and Bitaxe?
Bitcoin – a centralized industry
The decentralization of the Bitcoin network is a vast subject. On the one hand there are the nodes and on the other hand the miners.
Hashrate unfortunately tends to consolidate in the hands of giants like the Americans Marathon, Core Scientific and Riot.
American miners now represent more than 40% of the global hashrate! Their installations are also mainly concentrated in Texas.
Even more worrying is the consolidation at the “pool” level. The latter centralize the hashrate of many miners in order to smooth profits. According to Braiins.com, the American pool Foundry USA represents 26% of the hashrate. The Bitmain pool (Antpool) takes 24%.
However, pools can censor transactions since they are the ones who construct the transaction blocks from which miners work.
It is therefore urgent that miners take control by adopting the Stratum protocol. If only half the energy spent debating BIP-300 could be devoted to Stratum…
It should also be noted that few companies are capable of manufacturing ASICs. Bitmain has long held more than 80% of the market. Furthermore, the only serious competitors (Canaan, MicroBT, etc.) are all Chinese.
We will have to wait for the Americans Circle and Blockstream to finish designing their own ASICs to gain decentralization on this side.
However, there is no need to fall into paranoia. There is no shortage of good initiatives and the arrival of very small miners is a potentially very important one.
Under the hood of BitAxe and NerdMiner
Bitaxe is a completely open source mini miner. The Ultra model is the third version and supports the BM1366 ASIC of the S19XP antminer. That is to say the best chip on the market.
For comparison, an S19 XP (~$3,900) includes 330 BM1366 ASICs. A BitAxe Ultra only has one.
So, even if the efficiency is the same (21 J/TH), the overall power of the BitAxe is only a fraction of that of an S19 XP miner. That is approximately 500,000,000,000 hashes per second compared to a global hashrate of 360,000,000,000,000,000,000 H/s.
So you shouldn’t expect to mine a lot of bitcoins. Especially since the BM1366 chip is not enough in itself. You obviously need to add a motherboard, a fan, connectivity (wifi), a temperature sensor, etc.
The cost of these components is negligible for an S19 XP with 330 chips. But this is not at all the case for the BitAxe Ultra which costs around $95 (including only $15 for the chip). In other words, a BitAxe costs eight times more than an S19 XP for the same hashrate.
Knowing that an S19 XP needs electricity at less than 12 cents per kWh to be profitable. We are around 22 centimes in France…
Can we expect a profit?
No. BitAxe is not even profitable with an electricity price of $0. The profit would be barely 20 dollars after three years (~0.001 bitcoin mined). That’s a loss of $75 when we subtract the initial investment of $95.
BitAxes with greater carrying capacity should be created to improve the offer. Using around ten bullet points would eventually help you find your way around.
But as engineer @skot who participates in the BitAxe project said:
“The goal is not necessarily to make a profit. This minor allows you to put your foot down to understand and learn. »
Indeed, building your BitAxe is certainly a very enriching experience. Here is a video showing the assembly from A to Z:
Concerning Nerdminer, we are talking about 55,000 hashes per second. It’s a laughable number. It is almost 10 million times less powerful than the BitAxe for a price of 35 euros. You might as well buy a lottery ticket…
Let’s finish by emphasizing that mining at home still allows you to obtain “virgin” BTC. That is to say BTC not linked to your identity. That said, you still have to go through the right pool since half of them now require you to show credentials (KYC).
It is in any case possible to participate in a Coinjoin to cover your tracks after having withdrawn your bitcoins from an exchange.
Receive a summary of the news in the world of cryptocurrencies by subscribing to our new service daily and weekly so you don’t miss anything of the Tremplin.io essentials!
