The Market Is Sluggish, ASIC Bitcoin Miners Cut the Price of Mining Machines

Bitcoin mining machine, Antminer S19 is now selling cheaply. (photo: twitter @MilitariacUK)

JAKARTA - ASIC Bitcoin miners, i.e. machines optimized solely for the purpose of mining Bitcoins, are currently selling at their lowest prices since 2020 and 2021. This sell-off is seen as another sign of the crypto bear market deepening.

According to the latest data from the Hashrate Index, the most efficient ASIC miners, which produce at least one terahash per 38 joules of energy, have seen their price drop by 86.82% from May. Even on December 7, 2021, it reached a peak of US$119.25 (Rp. 1.8 million) per terahash, dropping to USD 15.71 (IDR 245 thousand) as of December 25.

Cointelegraph reported that Miners in this category include Antminer S19 from Bitmain and Whatsminer M30s from MicroBTC.

The same statement applies to mid-range machines, with the average price now at USD 10.23 after a sharp 89.36% drop from its peak price of USD 96.24 on May 7, 2021.

However, the least efficient machine, which requires more than 68 Joules per terahash, is now priced at US$4.72, down 91% from its peak price of USD 52.85. The last time it was close to this price was around November 5, 2020.

The drop in price is largely due to the large Bitcoin mining companies which have struggled to stay profitable throughout the bear market, with many filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, taking on debt or selling their BTC holdings and equipment to stay afloat.

Among the companies that have done so include Core Scientific, Marathon Digital, Riot Blockchain, Bitfarms and Argo Blockchain.

But the sharp price drop has been met with some keen buyers. These include many mining facilities based in Russia such as BitRiver, which are able to take advantage of the relatively low cost of electricity, with some of the latest hardware capable of mining 1 BTC for around USD 0.07 per kilowatt-hour in the energy-rich country.

While it is difficult to predict the next direction of ASIC miner prices, Nico Smid of Digital Mining Solutions pointed out in a December 21 tweet that ASIC miner prices bottomed out during Bitcoin's last halving cycle on May 11, 2020, and rose aggressively shortly after. This is something that could happen in the next Bitcoin halving cycle which is expected to happen on April 20, 2024.