Bitcoin Forum

Hi all,

Forgive my newbie post. I want to learn about mining so I should order a couple Antminer S9's.
I have seen a few horror story posts. Some related to the Bitmain company itself and so forth.
Please advise who / which companies can be trusted to purchase this equipment.

Also, can 2 Antminer S9's run in a small air conditioned room without heat issues or must special
fans be setup?

Thanks,
~g

Bitmain so far is the only Bitcoin miner maker that sells to the Public on a regular basis. Once again they are sold out.
Avalon *is* taking orders and should start shipping their miners Nov 21st. In the past they have been trustworthy.
There really are no other reputable Bitcoin miner makers -- but there ARE a lot of scammers so beware!

1st rule of mining: NEVER spend money you cannot afford to lose. If you have spare cash to spend then think of it like a vacation at a casino. Maybe you will make money, maybe not.

2nd: ONLY buy new miners direct from the manufacturer or their authorized distributor as-listed on the companies website. It is the only way there will be any Warranty on new equipment. It is also the 1st step in avoiding scams.
https://Bitmaintech.com for s9's
https://canaan.io for Avalon miners

3rd: If starting out 'to learn' then look for a used s7. Much more manageable in terms of noise and reliability. Also a helluva lot cheaper that the s9 is.

On the heat: Plug in and run 2x 1,250w heaters in the room for a day. If it stays a comfortable temp you would be fine.

Bitmaintech.com

As for the heat, counteracting the heat is not the answer, ventilation is key, so having cool air go into the room is fine, but you need to expel air as well, or you're going to double your electricity cost's by running a heater and air conditioner at the same time.

Also I agree, start with the S7, the use the same power, so once they are running and you have it figured out, upgrading to an S9 isn't a big deal.
And initial startup cost's are not to big.

Be sure you have access to dedicated circuits, and preferably 208+Volts, not just 120.

As for the horror stories, I've yet to see a company that hasn't had SOME form of complaints posted, as far as bitmain goes, they are one of the most reliable.

Excellent information here, thanks, and especially for Avalon. I am thinking to start with 2 Avalon 721's.
What power supplies are folk using? I don't see any listed on their site.

Any psu will work, EVGA's are popular
As for the avalon, the ROI on those is even harder to get then that of the S9...

If I may suggest ( Had a sr.members account so dont mind my newbie status )

please think about the following ;

Noise : If you are alone in your house and have a dedicated room for it, it could be a solution. Don't expect to run your miner in the living room, or worst, in the bedroom. Not only your wife will leave you, but you won't make ROI in a loooong time.

Electricity cost : In which country are you living ?  Do you know that if you don't have a good deal on electricity you'll get to spend more than you'll actually mine ?

If you are able to live with those 2 main points, then it should be ok. Otherwise, if either one of them will cause problems, you would be best to buy Bitcoins directly and hold instead.

I'll repeat again...You MUST have a garage or a separate room for the noise, you are warned.

Electricity is not ALWAYS the big issue some thing.

In Canada where I live, temps hit -40 at times in the winter. and we have electric heat, or at least I do..
My furnace room is large and well ventilated, So I run my Miners in the winter, near my furnace, and pipe the heat into the return.

I essentially heat my home with the miners.
The Efficiency is hard to measure. but I like to think they burn near the same power to produce the same heat.
So I'm effectively running the miners for free.
At least in the cold months :)

Yup, living in canada here too.

Perfect for electricity cost, but still loudly. One can be ok, but more than that...Gosh...Glad I had a garage for my jet engine S4.

The S5 was tolerable though.

Hell I replaced my basement space heater with 3 S3's on an EVGA, that I run year round to keep the humidity in check and chill out of the floor.
I almost bought one of them home miners they just launched, but price was to high.

I bought the 14th S9, so I'll look at throttling it down over summer a bit to keep noise better and just do the same thing with my basement :)

Help, I am a computer guy. I see a lot of talk about EVGA and power supplies but no one mentions UPS.
UPS is not required or not desired or?

UPS' can be used if you have power outages often or have an unreliable power source, but using them upfront isn't a good idea. They also don't have nearly as good of a lifetime; you're better off just buying a PSU from EVGA or other reliable brands. Don't buy the cheapest you can find; try aiming for 90% efficiency from a good brand.

UPS is designed to run an office pc for 20 minutes.
A UPS big enough to handle a mining rig would be retardedly expensive.

That being said, running your modem/router/hubs on one is a good idea, as the miners can come online faster then the internet.
and then can lag on rebooting them.

Excellent information here, thanks to all of you that have commented!

Does anyone know how much bitcoin an Avalon 721 can mine in a day/week/month on the average?
I believe I am going to buy 2 tomorrow regardless of the answer just to have the experience. I have
seen a lot of "costs" studies but I cannot think about that until I know exactly how much electricity
is going to cost and so forth. At any rate if I hate it after 3-6 months I can always sell them at a
loss.

Best regards all!

Enjoy : https://alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator

The cheapest way to buy S9s is to buy from Bitmain's CN interface - 13TH model PSU included currently sells at RMB11100 and if you are a secondtime customer, they give you RMB 200 coupon.

If you mine in China, the shipping cost is well within USD 35 and you can expect them to arrive in about a week after payment confirmed.

The trick is that you can't ship the miner to your home country easily without paying too much - that is exactly what SinoHash (https://sinohash.com/) expect to solve - We are offering USD0.045 per kWh hosting fee (this is all you need to pay and you pay at the end of the first month; no hidden fees). The price is prob cheaper than the electricity you pay in your country, not to mention removing the need to do proper cooling, network, security and deal with the noise.

Thanks.
A few questions;
1. web site says that you don't sell the miner to me even if i pay $1700 upfront for S9. I understand that technically you simply transfer the ownership of miner that you got from Bitmain/Avalon or place an order in lieu of customers order, but in the west it is considered selling and/or being a reseller. Nothing is wrong with that as long as you maintain the record that customer OWNS the miner. I would clarify this page:
https://sinohash.com/collections/miner-models/products/bitmain-s9
2. Sinohash only promises to help cutsomers sell their miner on the seconhand market at the BEST available price. Two comments: how this best available price is/will be established? I say it should be be ebay instead of some underbidding internal dealer. Second, why no provision of sending miner to the owner or a third party? It might still be cost-effective.
3. if cost is RMB 11100, why the charge is $1700 instead of $1607? A small detail, but explaining helps understanding.

TL;DR Very good hosting price, high miner price (about $200 higher than latest Bitmain sale including shipping to US), not clear re ownership record, not clear re sending miner to owner, not clear re secondhand price to sell.

The website was built about two months ago when the price was higher - 11300 as opposed to 11100 and that price also accounted for the shipping cost, power cable, and paypal withdrawal charge applicable to CN users.

Bitmain releases new batches at irregular intervals and the prices often vary slightly as well as the per unit hashrate - for instance, they recently released a batch of 13.5TH model for 11,500 as opposed to the 11300 for 13TH model. So far I have yet paid too much attention to track their releases.

So yes you are right the price is not accurate and I deliberately price the unit slightly higher than I have to pay Bitmain just to make sure I won't lose money from "reselling". Still it is cheaper than what I hear ppl in north america are paying for.

I have since then been mostly preoccupied with building my farm and also began to sell hosting. When I talk to prospects, I always encourage them to buy the miners themselves and as a result, NONE useD the SinoHash website to pay for the miners - two used it to pay for 10 dollar 24 S9 trials though. In most circumstances, I check Bitmain's CN site when I saw a new batch released, I would notify the customers and prospects - some of them paid 0.05BTC per unit to preserve space. They then would specify the number they intend to buy, if they do and I subsequently place orders with Bitmain and inform my customer the total cost and payment address. They would pay on their end in bitcoin. So in the process, they just pay Bitmain directly and I never touched the money. Once the order is settled, the shipment would be dispatched to my address.

So right now the website merely serves as a information board & advertisement for the service, rather than the platform where the real transaction takes place, as it was originally intended to be.

 

The process is that I get a quotes from a number of reputable dealers once the owners expressed intension to sell and then the owners will have 24hrs to decide. Of course I can send the miners back to the owners with shipping cost borne by the owner.

I have been toying with the idea of doing an exchange for people to buy and sell secondhand hardware to increase the transparency, but right now too busy with the sinohash project.

I acknowledge what you suggested are real issues and hopefully they will be solved progressively.

Any place where i can get a legit used s7?

What is  Bitmain's CN interface ?

not if you mine with them for a month then sell them on ebay for twice the price u paid then order two more

 ???

Is it possible to get a BITMAIN ANTMINER S9 - 14 TH/s + BITMAIN 1600W PSU (both brand new), for 1250 USD ???
The seller is 8yrs on  alibaba.com

If you are totally new to mining then I advice you to take your time to learn more before investing your money.
Even if you plan to buy just one Antminer you should prepare an aerated space and also think about electricity consumption.
Mining hardwares usually produce huge noise so you have to take that in consideration aswell.
If you are determined to by those Antminers, don't buy used machines it is always better to invest more than loosing all your money.

I have already contacted sellers on alibaba few weeks ago. 2 things you ought to know:

1. Many sellers there arent trustworthy. Too many scam cases.
2. Even if they are not scammers, the price are not updated. They will quote you usd$4000 there-about for an S9, instead of the advertised price of less than usd$2k.

Hope this helps.

This seller actually quoted us$1,250 today to me via email. I just don’t see how a reseller will sell equipment cheaper than the manufacturer, unless they already used it for 6months or something...
I’m asking them now.

Chances are it's a scam. Every "real" site on the web has them for 4k-6k. A one off deal for 1250 sounds scammy.
I know how you feel right now....excited to mine! Q1 is right around the corner and new machines will undoubtedly be released.
When this happens the price gouging will slowly go down on the S9. I also eagerly await machines that are ready for release.

Or, they will not deliver immediately...

[WTS] 15 S9s (159THs of Profitability) In Hosted Location or Pickup, $50K Firm

15 S9s from various batches, various THs.  Hosting in location on the West Coast of the US.  WILL NOT SHIP.  In location only. Hosting is $100 per month per miner.  Price Firm. Escrow Philipma1957.

At $3.50 per TH this pack of 159THs pulls in over $16.7K per month.   That is an ROI of 3 Months.  Can you live with $566 per day?


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2567981.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2567981.0)

Anybody who can help me get 50 S9?

Thanks

I guess you’re right. My only problem is that I can’t seem to place any s9 order on Bitmain’s website. All grayed out.
Do you know when next it will be available?

add bitmain on twitter when they know about the next batch you will know about the next batch