Gone are the days when you must wait in a six-month queue or pay thousands of dollars for an ASIC miner. Nowadays, if you want an ASIC miner, you can grab one directly from Walmart (via Bitcoin Magazine). Admittedly, they aren't dirt cheap, but some have decreased in price.
Bitcoin has seen a downward trend over the last few months. The cryptocurrency started the year strong at around $47,000 in January but has since dropped to around the $20,000 mark in November. Despite Bitcoin's price reduction, optimistic miners continue diligently working the mines, but these are million-dollar companies with tons of mining equipment. Unfortunately, it's too late for the average Joe to jump on the mining bandwagon, given the difficulty of mining a bitcoin.
China's ban on cryptocurrency mining has forced many sellers to take refuge at Walmart to offload their ASIC miners. Walmart's marketplace has devices from all the big names, including Bitmain, Goldshell, and Canaan. Of course, it's not only ASIC miners, either. The third-party sellers also commercialize control boards, individual ASIC chips, cables, connectors, and other tidbits you may need to set up your mining operation.
The Walmart marketplace offers ASIC miners options at different price points. We see devices going from $2,500 up to $14,600. For example, Bitmain sells the AntMiner S19J Pro for $9,984 on its online store. The same AISC miner is available at Walmart for $6,000, 40% cheaper than buying it from the manufacturer. A seller also listed the AntMiner T19 for $199, but it's out of stock.
Bitcoin mining as an individual simply isn't profitable when you factor in the equipment and electricity costs. Coming back to our example, the AntMiner S19J Pro generates $1.26 daily, assuming you pay around 10 cents/kWh for electricity. It'll take roughly 13 years to recover your $6,000 investment. Electricity will probably cost more in that time, or your ASIC miner may bite the dust, meaning you'll never break even. So unless you already have a big mining outfit or live in a wonderland where electricity is almost free, you should stay away from these ASIC miners on Walmart's marketplace.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
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peachpuff "It'll take roughly 13 years to recover your $6,000 investment."Reply
Why even make these? Seems pointless. -
USAFRet Reply
When these were designed and built, it would not have taken that long.peachpuff said:"It'll take roughly 13 years to recover your $6,000 investment."
Why even make these? Seems pointless.
Degree of Difficulty has changed. -
BillyBuerger The last time bitcoin was tanking and things were cheap, I picked up a Bitmain APW3++ power supply for a decent price. Not for bitcoin mining but just as a general purpose 12V power source. I set it up in my garage to power some car audio amplifiers and such. Just checked ebay and some are going for < $50 again.Reply -
carljr77 Points that may be worth covering in the article:Reply
Miners produce a lot of heat, making them an interesting option for someone wanting a heater during the winter that can potentially pay for itself.
The price of Bitcoin has increased in halving cycles, where it typically strikes new highs, then drops back to the quarterly moving average(which we are currently on now). Most miners try to use these cycles to accrue BTC during bear markets and sell it off during bull runs. -
daworstplaya Hopefully nobody spends their real money, on these machine that add to the destruction of the climate, just to try to mint monopoly money.Reply -
Fair warning. Keep the politics and off topic bickering out of these threads. Some posts have already crossed the line and been removed. Any more of it and this thread will be closed and sanctions handed out. This is the only warning that will be issued.Reply
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Sippincider "It'll take roughly 13 years to recover your $6,000 investment."Reply
With that kind of outlook I'd rather get into real mining. Or maybe farming.