Here's my guess:

• 9.4 THs
• 1300 watts
• $1100
• Accepting orders on June 15th
• Shipping by June 30th

How did I come up with these wacky numbers? First, I figured they'll try to double the output of the S7, shooting for 10 THs but not making it (just like the S7 didn't make it to 5 THs). This assumes they've either got a 16 - 14 nm process chip, or can pull off some last ditch trick (like ASIC-boost) to squeeze more out of their current process.

The power consumption number is because I think they want to keep the per unit consumption similar to what they have now with the S7. Their goal would be to replace the S7 units in their farm with S9s by swapping boxes, rather than adding more power supplies, using more physical space, and increasing the power to their DC.

The price is based on the trend I've noticed from Bitmain where the ROI is generally in excess of 200 days. If I remember, the S7 was around 240 days at 3% difficulty (which was much lower than reality, as we all know). Anyway, for the S9 I projected out 250 days at 3%, then cut the earnings number in half since it's unlikely that any S9 will be in customers' hands and mining before the halving.

Of course, they could just as easily price batch 1 as double that amount hoping people won't factor in the halving. There will almost certainly be a large number of idiots willing to pay that. But if the initial price really ends up being $2200, I won't be one of those idiots this time.

Regarding my guess for availability, they will want to fully deploy S9s in their DC before the halving (or their mining revenue stream is cut in half) and with enough time to work out any kinks in the manufacturing process, and to physically move the S7s out as part of a "used" sale. So let's say they're shooting to be deployed by mid June at the latest. At that point they'd probably have enough confidence to offer them for sale, with a couple of weeks for delivery, because everyone knows that you can do anything in two weeks

Also, I checked for Chinese national holidays around this time. There's a three day holiday on June 9th for the Dragon Boat Festival. I doubt that three days will make much difference either way, especially if they don't start accepting orders until after the festival.

Maybe one way we can possibly verify the above predictions early will be to see if we can spot a sustained hash rate increase of roughly double Bitmain's estimated mining operation sometime in early to mid June. That should be noticeable enough to be visible, and not just variance.

Hopefully Bitfury and BW have already bulked up for the halving. Because if they haven't, then between them and Bitmain the difficulty might very well explode in June.

LOL! You forgot that the compensation will be crappy, and also very late

I was bit by that stupid holiday week shipping delay of 2/3rds of my B1 S7 order. The question is whether I'll be stupid enough to order batch one again. Hopefully this time logic will win over irrationality.

You could be right. But Bitmain is a huge consumer of its own products. I doubt they'd release a product that causes themselves an expensive infrastructure reset. More likely would be that they will evolve from their current PSUs and data center power capacity to something new over time.


That really is the big question. On the one hand, I'd love to see a smaller process chip make it to market. On the other hand, no one has really done this.

Bitfury hasn't delivered anything. BW seems close, but since they've been consuming their own products and not offering them for sale, no one outside of their company really knows what they have. All we know is what their press releases say.

If Bitmain has 14-16nm chip based miner for sale before the end of this month, they'll be the first company in the world to pull this off.

Agreed. But I would add that they probably don't want to release a design that would force any significant changes to their existing data center infrastructure.

Therefore the S9 will likely be a drop-in replacement for the S7. In addition to not overtaxing their existing PSUs and not requiring new cabling, it will likely be the same form factor. If true, that would be good news for those of us who already have a PSU infrastructure geared towards S7s.

I have no doubt that Bitmain will try to offer sales in May so that they can cut BW off at the pass. I think that BW said that they won't offer their 14 nm miners till June. But I wouldn't be surprised if that slips past the halving, well after they've sucked out all the sweet pre-halving difficulty that they can.

Regardless, BW's publicly announced plans offer Bitmain another opportunity to pounce and conquer, if they can execute well. Not clear if they will compete on efficiency or cost. Although I suspect that Bitmain doesn't have a smaller nanometer process ready to go. That would suggest that probably trying for another efficiency gain with the existing process, as they did with the S7.

This would further suggest that they can dramatically undercut BW's prices and still be profitable, so it might be wise to not buy the first batch of S9s (as if it's ever a good idea to be the first penguin off the ice flow in this market; my B1 S7s definitely got eaten by the killer whale called "difficulty").

The main open questions are how efficient will the S9 actually be, and what will it cost? Although whatever it costs, it will be too much

The cats are back! The crazy little one says:

+6.6 = edonkey

To help Phil out, you should format it like this:

+1.4 = ahmedjamal1998

Like Mikestang, I'm holding out a bit for my guess.

Looks like a block was found this morning so everyone's bestshare was reset. That adds a kind of fun twist. Sort of like a nuke that starts everything over.

Of course the bestever value is still there. But since that value could span a period before the race, maybe that shouldn't count.

In my case I used a new BTC address for the race, so all of my stats are new instead of historic.

Well, ok then. I'm in:

edonkey
US
18mztP2vq8u79oBPjFvTrMpy53mKHiFQNt.gekko1
18mztP2vq8u79oBPjFvTrMpy53mKHiFQNt.gekko2

I'm using Minera and went the easy way of using the "--balance" option to split between the two Compac sticks.

Is it too late to join?

This is looking like 0.4%, or a bit lower.

Probably going to be another roll over.

You have to use the Coinbase exchange, not Coinbase itself. Basically you have to transfer BTC to your Coinbase exchange wallet, then set up your sell order. Conversely you can set up buy orders and withdraw as desired.

I've gone through this process and it was pretty straightforward. I had a sell order up for something like 10 days before it fired off (I set a pretty high price).

Although I did run into friction withdrawing the funds from the exchange. Part of the problem was that their web interface allows comma separators, but if you use them to specify the withdraw amount it fails with an unhelpful and misleading error. I had pasted the amount to withdraw and it included a comma. Removing the comma made it all work.

There are other exchanges of course. I thought about using Gemini for my sell order. But it was just too convenient to use Coinbase.

None of the cats want to guess this time, so I'm on my own.

+2.7% = edonkey

Bump!

It's been a while since I've played with an S3 (I had a couple of batch 3's). But I'm between miners now and might be interested.

Can you remind me how much power they draw?

Also, will you be shipping in the original boxes, and if so, what are the dimensions? That info is useful for estimating shipping.

We feed some stray cats. Since our indoor cats keep striking out recently, I asked an outdoor cat for the difficulty this time.

+2.6 = edonkey

We named this particular cat "Lucky". Hopefully he lives up to his name.

I discovered that two of the PSUs have bad fans, although it doesn't seem to matter.

I updated the original post with an edit disclosing the fan issue.

Unfortunately shipping is going to be very expensive. The package weighs around 23 pounds and is 21" L x 12" W x 9" H.

Here are the shipping choices that I've found to your zip in France (lowest to highest):

• USPS: $134
• DHL: $248
• FedEx: $276
• UPS: $289

Maybe there are better rates out there, but I don't know what else to try. Unless you're OK paying a premium for shipping, it's probably better for me to sell to someone in the US.

If you don't dual mine them (script and SHA256 at the same time) you don't need the fans, so the Gridseeds themselves can be silent. The PSUs have small fans. I think that one of them might be noisy, but it's hard to tell because I'm running these in a data center that's already very noisy.

They're powered by the 12 volt power supplies. You can use any USB 2 hub (even unpowered), but I'm offering my ORICO powered hubs.

Currently I'm using a RPi and Minera to control these, but I want to keep the RPi. As mentioned, I don't know anything about the other controller, so it's as-is. It was sent to me by accident and the sender didn't want it back.

I think I would recommend that you get an RPi and Minera, like I'm using.

As far as shipping to France is concerned, I have no idea what it would be. I can do some weighing today and come up with an estimate.

Great news everybody!

I'm selling my modded Zeus Thunder X3 scrypt miner!

It has a PSU included (built into the case) and three custom fans making it extremely quiet without overheating. Super stable and reliable. The sound level is similar to an S3.

This unit has been run in a dust free, air conditioned data center environment for the entire time I've owned it.

Gets between 25 and 28 MHs, depending on the frequency you select.

The sale includes:

• Zeus Thunder X3 scrypt miner
• A Cougar GX 1050w PSU built into the case
• 2 LED lit Corsair anti static fans plus a Cougar 80 cfm quiet fan in the center
• USB and power cables

All you need is a controller (like a RPi running Minera).

Here's a picture:



Buyer pays shipping. I prefer US sales.

Escrow with OgNasty or philipma1957 is fine by me, buyer pays the fee.

Looking for $100. Make me an offer.

It's your lucky day because I'm selling my Gridseed mini (5 chip) micro farm! Own a piece of history!

The sale includes:

• 13 x Gridseed 5 chip mini's
• 3 x 12 volt power supplies
• 2 x ORICO P10-U2 10 port USB hubs
• All the USB and 12 volt connectors for each unit
• A controller that I never used (I have no idea if it works or not)
• A whole mess of brass stand offs (not sure how many)

Here's some pictures:




All the Gridseeds work. I've only mined Scrypt with them, never SHA256.

All the equipment has been pampered in a dust free, air conditioned data center environment.

I removed some of the fans in order to work the units into the physical configuration I was after. I'll give you all the fans, but it's up to you if you want to reattach them. You don't need them if you're mining scrypt.

One of the units has a bad hashing LED that won't light, but it's always submitted shares nonetheless.

Edit: Two of the PSUs have bad fans. I didn't notice because these were running in a data center. Lack of fans doesn't seem to matter, at least when running in a cold environment. The PSUs with bad fans are not even warm to the touch. If you care about this, replacement fans can be found online for a few dollars.

Buyer pays shipping. I prefer US sales.

Escrow with OgNasty or philipma1957 is fine by me, buyer pays the fee.

Looking for $250. Make me an offer.