Bitmain works on new R4 device for Hobbyminer

The mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain wants to set new standards in Bitcoin Mining. With a new Bitcoin miner, the manufacturer wants to explicitly address hobby miners who use it to feed their computing power into the Bitcoin network.

Bitcoin revolution: No longer profitable?

Mining is an essential component of the Bitcoin system and onlinebetrug found out that it is necessary to keep it alive. Anyone who already fed computing power into the system in 2009 was even able to earn money with a computer from home. Especially when he held back the earned Bitcoin revolution for a while and then sold them for several hundred euros.

Not long ago it was also a realistic scenario for private users to mine Bitcoins with USB miners or small rigs from home. Gradually, however, larger companies have concentrated and economies of scale have worsened, if not eradicated, the profitability of small private subscribers. Mining Bitcoins as a private individual with small devices from home is no longer as profitable as it was three years ago. Some private users therefore rely on other ways of earning money with cloudmining, for example.

Bitcoin revolution would like to bring the mining back into the living room

In an e-mail to CoinDesk, the manufacturer promised that the new R4 rig would be the second strongest miner in the world. For private individuals it should be possible again by an optimized current consumption to earn profits with the Mining from at home. A new power supply has also been developed for this Bitcoin revolution purpose to support efficiency.

Recently, the Antminer S9 achieved great popularity. Although it had the same efficiency, it brought with it some problems: As some users report, the device’s fans became so noisy when running at full power that operation in the home was impossible and some customers used the garage as their location. The R4 Mining Rig is therefore equipped with a new fan that is supposed to be as quiet as a split air conditioning system, explains Bitmain. A maximum volume of 52dB is to be produced, roughly comparable to a normal conversation between two people.

Dates and prices of the device
With the help of 16nm chips, the R4 is supposed to deliver an output of 8.6 TH/s. According to the manufacturer, it consumes 845W at an efficiency of 0.1 J/GH.

Bitmain will probably hold back with the prices until the sales start of the device on Monday. Screenshots that have appeared on the net and show the Miner on the Bitmain website with a price are estimated at 1000 dollars. For the APW5 power supply, another $300 would go to customers.

Opinion of the author (Max):

While a few years ago the calculation could be carried out very generously and changes with regard to the Mining Difficulty could be estimated relatively accurately, Mining has developed into a business with a tough calculation. Lower margins make it more and more unattractive for private users to take the risk and hope for a break-even, which is usually predicted to be reached in more than a year. For Bitcoin users, this is a perceived decade, so to speak.

(In an example calculation with an electricity price of $0.12 per kilowatt hour and hardware costs of 1300USD the magazine CoinDesk comes to a forecasted break-even point in 391 days with unchanged Bitcoin price and without considering the mining pool fees. It remains to be considered therefore still whether the enterprise of the R4 is worthwhile itself above all for German-speaking users, because the energy prices are here in Germany clearly higher.