Bitcoin Forum

Hello everyone,

I have a task, but I need some advice from people who are introduced to the topic. Now, the company where I work wishes to start a mining project, on a bit of a larger scale. They wish to get somewhere between 300 and 400 Antminers S9 (more accurate, they would like to have 5000TH). The thing is, it isn't that easy to get such an amount these days, especially for some reasonable price. I contacted Bitmain, and was told that I am on a wait list, so for now, I'm hoping they will reach out to me soon.

Until that happens, my question to this wonderful society is, first of all, what do you think about such a project? Is there any hope of getting such amount of units (with it's price not going way over 2000$ per piece - power supply included)?
pick it up ourselves. We need new equipment and we need it as fast as possible...

Thank you so much, hopefully somebody will help me out.

P.S. It is my first post, although it's not spam, I really have this situation, and I'm just trying to do my job, but I need some extra knowledge in the field.

Not possible, sorry.

Your best option is to come up with a deal with Bitmain directly.

I would love to, but it seems to be difficult to get a hold of them... Any idea how I could do that?

You just have to keep trying. They are hard to get ahold of but at the money you are talking about spending, buying them from a third party with no warranty  would be a huge mistake.

Thank you guys very much, I'll keep trying with the factory. If you have any advice you would like to share, please do :) I'll be keeping an eye on the forum to learn even more, and hopefully share my experiences.

Personally I say screw Bitmain and go with Avalon's from Canaan.io. They *will* respond to your inquiries. FYI Canaan's Global Director of Marketing hangs out in their official A7 thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1673843.0).

Fly to China and bring proof you can pay for them, at that order size they will take your meeting.

potential alternative: http://bitfury.com/products#blockbox-ac

Not a problem, but I'm not flying there before they tell me they will take me in for a talk. It's not really like I'm walking into a grocery store.

You're worried about a $3K plane ticket on a 500K investment?  That seems odd

It's not about losing 3k, and it's not my money we're talking about here, it's about time waste.

Go to the canaan.io website and go to the bulk orders page, fill out the profile for quantity desired and time frames. They will be more than happy to give you a place in line for orders of more than 60 units.
ref https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1673843.msg26135091#msg26135091

As fast as possible doesnt really work in this industry. You need to work around the manufacturer release schedules. Sometimes you just have to wait 2 months to get hardware, there is nothing you can do about it that wont cost you money, time, and pain when you realize you bought a bunch of overpriced hardware with zero warranty.

Flying to Shenzen is actually a good way to go, but I wouldn't just go cold. Find a fixer in Shenzen that already has contacts with Bitmain and hire them as an intermediary. (Find the right one and you may not even have to go.  But you should, it's an experience!) There are also some resellers out of China who you could meet with and negotiate a reasonable price for an order like this - you can find some at eBay and Cryptonia marketplaces. Look for those based in China and screen well! A few of the bigger or older mining operations also have existing relationships where it's easy to order them before the public can get them. One of these people could also help you.

Setting up a mining operation requires quite a bit of work, a trip to China is probably a small percentage of that work.