Bitcoin mining has become one of the most profitable ventures of the past nine years, where single individuals started their tech journey, mining at home, slowly moving mining powers to facilities and data centers. Everything started with GPU mining, and ended with highly efficient ASICs, that nowadays are hard to get, deploy, and maintain. These details are especially important when it comes to choosing the right hardware for mining.
Hardware Basics
Many inexperienced readers may ask what bitcoin miners are? Basically, individuals and companies mine cryptocurrencies using so-called ASICs(application-specific integrated circuit), that are manufactured to mine specific cryptocurrencies based on different cryptographic algorithms, such as SHA26, Scrypt, and others. This hardware dramatically outperforms “old school” CPUs and GPUs mining, because it contains dozens of specialized chips, that can be narrowly used only for specific cryptocurrency mining.
When it comes to deploying your own mining farm, it’s crucial to pay attention to small details, besides the profitability. In the long run, it’s essential to maintain equipment, understand what manufacturers provide durable hardware that can last for long, what models are prone to overheating, how it is engineered and assembled in the factories.
Being on the market for more than 2 years, Cryptouniverse has used a wide range of mining hardware from different manufacturers such as Bitmain, Canaan, Innosilicon, Ebang, and others. The company has disclosed interesting facts regarding hardware from the first two manufacturers, that can be considered as the most widespread on the market.
Nikita Gribkov, the VP of Cryptouniverse:
“ Choosing the right hardware from the beginning is the number one priority when it comes to data center deployment. It should work for years with minimum maintenance, providing high stability, and sufficient hashing power. ”
Positive And Negative Aspects of Antminers(Bitmain) and Avalonminers(Canaan)
Considering the hardware for Bitcoin mining and Litecoin mining, both companies offer competitive solutions on the market. But, the problem lies not even in performance or electricity usage, but in general characteristics, that differ between these two manufacturers.
From an engineering standpoint, Antminers’ components leave much to be desired, which results in lower repairability, and if there’s a need to change some elements, only original parts can be used. Very often such miners as S9 to S11 overheat, due to poor cooling system design, which results in lower performance and requires a relatively cold environment with efficient ventilation. On top of that, these miners have hot spots, which may lead to accidental ignition of wiring.
It’s different for Avalonminers, that come with well-designed cooling systems, high-quality components that can be changed with custom parts. Overheating occurs rarely, but the significant disadvantage lies in its deployment, which requires additional components such as proprietary microcontrollers or Raspberry Pi microcomputers, and power supplies that have to be ordered separately. But, the Antminers come with a power supply and controller at a lower price than Avalonminers, which makes it more attractive for individuals.
Antminers durability doesn’t last for long, and often they get defective, and If there’s a need to make reparations, the outcome is unpredictable due to low-quality components. Avalon miners rarely come problematic and can be easily repaired, and If a person decides to start this business at home, there will be significant problems if something gets broken, because, without the electrical engineering skills, the hardware can become dysfunctional. Moreover, when ordering new parts from China, it takes around a month for them to arrive.
Mining at home represents huge risks associated with wiring ignition, which is caused by an electricity network that simply can’t hold such a voltage. Hardware can work unstably because the electricity network may get overloaded. In the end, everyone can conclude that delegating the hardware deployment and maintenance to a company, or simply joining a cloud mining, is a much better and profitable decision, where the company bears all risks and takes care of all issues.
The Solution To Individual Mining
According to the mining profitability chart, it can be concluded that individual miners suffer from such competition on the market, and only big companies can afford to buy thousands of ASICS, deploying profitable mining operations.
Nikita Gribkov, the VP of Cryptouniverse:
“ It gets more expensive every single year to deploy mining farms for individuals, and profitability leaves much to be desired. Buying used hardware can lead to even higher losses because of low durability due to extended usage. And organizing a profitable business requires cheap electricity that only companies can afford.”
Specifically for this, Cryptouniverse has created a large data center in Kirishi town, near Saint-Petersburg, which allows deploying your mining hardware at relatively low costs. The company conducts maintenance if some units get broken with the help of highly skilled electrical engineers that were certified in China. Furthermore, it has direct connections with big suppliers that allow buying and testing miners before they get deployed, ensuring the quality service delivery in time.
Everyone interested can register on their official website and choose the hardware they want to deploy. Most of the miners come almost at market prices, for example, Avalonminer 1041 comes at $1,331, Antminer S9 SE is at $559, T3-50T is at $2,200, and many other models that can offer good returns on investment.
What’s important to mention, is the final hardware price, which includes the import tax, VAT and delivery costs, that usually have to be covered by the buyer when ordering internationally, making the purchase attractive for everyone. And direct partnerships with biggest manufacturers allow Cryptouniverse to provide new hardware for its customers within a month or two after release.
Cryptouniverse is expanding its operations to the Siberian region, where another facility is building at the moment, which will be opened in the middle of July 2019. The advantage of cold climate, mining-friendly legislation, and close location to several hydropower plants will allow the company to have one of the lowest prices on electricity in the world.
The size of the facility will allow accommodating 67,000 miners, and modern infrastructure will ensure high reliability of the mining operations. Cryptouniverse should become one of the most influential companies across the world, which offers good hardware, competitive prices and really cares about its customers’ business.