C.L.ASIC or Why Bitmain Antminer S9 Became a 10s Mining Industry Leader
Triple DoubleThe other day, we offered our S9i owners to exchange their equipment for newer models. We decided to review the still very popular ASIC miner and tell you more about it.
The S9i is a more advanced configuration of the S9, featuring lighter weight, more efficient cooler fan, and lower power consumption. We see no point in disassembling it separately, because this is a modification of the same machine, which we can talk about in general.
Still in demand
BeMine has hundreds of users that have units of S9i whole or parts to share with others. This model has been removed from our sale in mid-2021, but we still got a lot of questions – whether the S9i will still be available and when it will be?
Honestly, we had some plans to buy these machines for limited sale to everyone through a personal account, but recently we decided to abandon this idea and offer our users the transfer to more modern miners. But interest does not arise from scratch – why is such an old model with a modest hashrate so popular? Let's see...
About
Bitmain Antminer S9I was introduced in May 2016. A highly profitable at those times and relatively inexpensive machine that fully paid off in a few months and consumed little electricity almost immediately became a classic. The miner takes up little space, often breaks down, but can be repaired easily and inexpensively, so it was the most popular miner in general. For those who bought one of the S9 models in the right time, it has become a golden goose.
Technically, the S9 models are very simple:
- Stackable aluminum body
- 2 cooling fans for intake and exhaust
- Control board with 189 BM1387 chips
- Power supply APW3+
Characteristics:
- Hashrate: 13-14.5 TH/S*
- Power consumption: 1320-1410W*
- Efficiency: 94-108J/TH*
- Algorithm: SHA-256 for mining Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, etc.
It is worth mentioning another important characteristic: in case of a breakdown, the S9 models are relatively easy to repair and have inexpensive components for replacement. Service maintenance is relevant for any equipment that works for wear around the clock. Such costs are an integral part of mining and it's worth to underestimate them when choosing a machine. “Nines” are champions in this point.
Market changes
By inertia from the past few years, Antminer S9 are still considered as profitable machines. However, the current difficulty is slowly showing how wrong this is with declining profit, which makes fans of the retro stuff reconsider this position. The energy efficiency of ~100 Joules per Terahash is not comparable to newer models that reach values of 30-50 J/TH – and this is the characteristic that mostly determines the cost/benefit ratio, if you exclude the initial price of the machine.
Experts predict that the current difficulty of the bitcoin network will double by the end of 2022. This will mean mining at a loss for S9 in most places on earth unless the price of bitcoin rises commensurately. The reason for this is the increase in the amount of connected mining equipment and their efficiency: despite the fact that new models do not come out as often as one might expect from modern technology, there are simply too many machines that plugged in. Even with a low price for electricity, the profitability will remain very low – since the summer of 2021 it has already fallen several times.
So
We regularly receive user questions in technical support about falling profitability with their "nines", but we cannot go back in time: like any computational equipment, Bitmain Antminer S9 has become outdated and can no longer cope with the requirements of the time when mining stopped to be a gold rush, but became an industry and in a less profitable but more secured and predictable way to invest. It makes sense to mine on S9, except perhaps with a free socket. But it was one of the best miners of its time: inexpensive, highly profitable and easy to maintain. He is still alive, but already history.