Behind the roaring growth of Bitcoin mining is the unassuming ASIC, or application specific integrated circuit. Since ASICs were first introduced to mine Bitcoin in 2013, we have seen the difficulty of Bitcoin mining take leaps forward as chips have become more powerful and more efficient.

A single ASIC-based miner today can pack more hash-power than the entire Bitcoin network had before ASICs were first introduced. To date in 2014 we have seen ASICs turbocharge the network difficulty forward nearly thirty times from the 1.4 billion it stood on January 5th, to the 40 billion at which it stands today.

In light of the tremendous growth Bitcoin mining has had behind it, this November marks a new milestone: the monthly daily average growth of the bitcoin network has dipped below half a percentage a day.

Check out this graph, complied by bitcoin.seba.be, which shows the average daily growth rate of the Bitcoin network slowly but surely cool down from a blistering 2% (every day!) to a more moderated 0.5% growth per day that we see now.


This is good news for miners wanting to predict how much their miners will make, as earlier this year, the network would grow more than 40% in a month (meaning in one-month, you'd earn 40% less Bitcoin per day) while now it's projected to grow 9% or less monthly.

If you want to see for yourself, check out Coinplorer's profit simulator. I suggest testing out the $800 Antminer S4 which runs at 2000 Gh/s at 1400 W.

So what does all this mean? Bitcoin mining is maturing, it has been transformed from a get-rick-quick gamble to a predictable enterprise albeit with lower margins.

Petamine, a mining co-op which was vigorous as late as this summer is sputtering in the face of increased competition. The Belgium-based mine gets its electricity from expensive wind and solar, and since it’s published its numbers, it has been revealed that 90% of its profits are now being used to cover its costs.

Clearly, miners who have access to cheap power in places like Iceland, Venezuela, Kuwait, and Washington are growing at the expense of miners established in places where they’re paying more than 10 cents/kwh for power, the cost of which is increasingly seen as prohibitive.

Are these new changes in the ecosystem permanent?

While the Bitcoin mining network may be snoozing right now, over $100M in venture funding has poured into Bitcoin-related startups which are working to develop applications that make it easy enough that your grandmother could use Bitcoin.

Also, on the horizon, in Q2/Q3 2015 there is yet another batch of more efficient ASICs due to ship which will send the Bitcoin mining difficulty spiraling to new heights.

KnCMiner has annouced that it will launch deployment of its "Solar" line of chips in Q1 2015.

Based in Sweden, KnCMiner has indicated that its new chip will have a 16 nm process, which represents an improvement over the 20 nm process which was used in the Neptune.

KnCMiner was first to market with a 20nm process with the Neptune, which achieved an efficiency of 0.7 W per Gh/s.

If a 20 nm process can achieve an efficiency of 0.7 W per Gh/s, then what do you think the Solar line of chips can achieve? Well, if sources at KNC are to be believed, a ten-fold improvement is to be had at 0.07 W per Gh/s.

In other words, a 1.4 KW miner which could run from your 15 amp home outlet could hash at a rate of 20 TH/s. Yikes!

The technology which enables this leap in efficiency is called FinFET which allows chip designers to scupt transistors in 3D, instead of the standard planar modeling.

The Solar ASIC, which features 5000 cores, has yet to go into full production. Whether the Solar manufacturing rollout goes smoothly or whether it will be plagued by manufacturing issues like those which sunk manufacturer Hashfast remains open question. Time will tell.

I'm sure by now, everyone has heard of that Bitcoin mine in Thailand which went up in a puff of smoke on October 14th that didn't have a dime of insurance to cover it.

The 5MW facility housed thousands of miners, with at least reportedly at least $2M from Spondoolies alone.

According to sources, the miners continued to run as the building was ablaze, each failing one-by-one like popcorn kernels in a microwave.

Upon hearing the news, the Bitcoin community was eager to pounce on the group that ran the mine, CowboyMiner, blaming them for their misfortune. Here are some comments from Coindesk:


Here's another:


Tough crowd, huh? But is the criticism justified or are people simply looking for a way to savor a drop in the network hashrate?

Unfortunately, it looks like there are some issues with the mine's design. The engineering firm that ASICSPACE is partnered with in the construction of it's new data center made the following comments when I showed them the above picture:



I'm no seasoned engineer, so I can't tell you to the extent to which these critiques are valid, but it looks like the engineering group is of the same opinion as the Coindesk peanut gallery.

Rumor has it that the entire facility was built for around $500k, while the miners stored in them were worth millions. With that much moolah sitting in one spot, I think I'd hire someone to stand there full time 24/7 with a fire extinguisher.

I guess you have to live and learn.

With it's retro graphics, you would not expect the phone game Bitcoin Billionaire to be as good of an addictive click-fest as it is, but as much am I am loath to admit it, Bitcoin Billionaire ended up wasting my entire evening last night. Good thing I'm here to blog about it.

Bitcoin Billionaire is a mining-inspired title, where you as a upcoming Bitcoin miner, start as a neckbeard in your mother's basement and slowly, with enough clicks, work your way up to living in a mansion on your private island.

Although this game has no skill required, it is satisfying to see the amount of virtual Bitcoins you have slowly rise until you can have a cup of tea with Satoshi himself.

Download it at the IOS App Store.

Spondoolies SP20 is a breath of fresh air after their latest offer, the SP35, which will overload your standard 15 amp home circuit.

The SP20 is geared towards the home mining market. At 1100 watts, you won't be flipping your circuit breakers, and it's overclockable to 1.8 terahash.

We can only hope that this miner will distribute the hashrate to a more diverse group of miners, although there is a catch: you'll need to choose and buy your own power supply: none are included.

Check out the SP20 on Spondoolies website: http://www.spondoolies-tech.com/products/sp20-jackson-october-batch-1

I hosted privately; until storms (typhoons) hit me and knocked out my power for a couple of weeks. Will let you know if I ever decide to do hosting again, but not likely given the price of electricity I get now.

Not only that, because its datacenter you need to hire security guard and someone to look over it when server is down. More cost..

DAMN! That's gonna cost! How many miners per 100 kW?

SP30 for instance runs at 3KW ... so you are charging $3300 to hook them up