Bitmain, the world’s leading manufacturer of ASIC chips and mining equipment, has announced its plans to launch an upgraded version of its chip. The new chip, as claimed, will deliver enhanced performance at a lower power consumption.
Bitmain Dominant
The world’s largest manufacturer of ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Chip) chips and cryptocurrency mining equipment, China-based Bitmain announced the company’s plans to soon launch its next-generation ASIC chip named BM1391. The announcement was made by Jihan Wu, CEO and co-founder of Bitmain, during his keynote speech at the ongoing world Digital Mining Summit in Georgia earlier on Friday.
Bitmain also owns the largest mining farms and controls the most substantial chunk of the hashrate (close to 42%) in Bitcoin mining operations, making it a powerful and influential player in the blockchain/cryptocurrency industry. The company claims to control a whopping 70% market share in the mining machines industry. Bitmain, headquartered in Beijing and established in 2013, recently announced its plans to come up with an IPO (Initial Public Offering) to scale up its operations.
Antminer: Bitmain’s Hot-Selling Product
Wu also revealed plans for the upcoming launch of new mining machines equipped with the BM1391 chips. The current generation of mining devices from Bitmain, the Antminer S9, which use 16nm ASIC chips, is a hit in the mining industry and is always in high demand. ASIC-based mining machines are used for the mining of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and others which use the proof-of-work consensus algorithm. Mining companies use Bitmain’s machines for setting up their mining operations. Mining enthusiasts can also order the mining devices from the company’s official website.
These chips use the SHA256 algorithm for performing the number-crunching mathematical computations required for validation of transactions on the blockchain network. The new chip uses a state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing technology called 7nm Finfet. The chip integrates more than a billion transistors and is designed to consume less power while delivering high efficiency.
Impact on Crypto-Mining
Cryptocurrency mining witnessed enormous interest and growth since early 2017 when Bitcoin came into the limelight due to the increase in its price and popularity as an investment class. Riding on the increasing demand, many cloud-mining companies, including Bitmain’s in-house cloud mining operation Hashnest, saw massive growth. Mining is the process of validation of transactions by nodes on a blockchain for which the competing miners get rewarded in the native cryptocurrency.
Unlike last year, mining profitability levels have fallen considerably in 2018 because of the drop in the prices of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and the increased difficulty of mining. Bitmain has been innovating constantly to keep ahead of the competition in the fast-evolving blockchain industry. BM1391, with its cutting-edge technology, promises to take mining efficiency a few notches higher.
Do you think that Bitmain will continue to maintain its number one position and market share in the mining chip manufacturing industry? Let us know in the comments below.
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