Topic: Bitmain & Canaan To Release 5nm chip ASIC Miners in Q1 2020! (Read 1440 times)

we have

1 s15
1 s17
15 s17 pro

they are all nice choice of speeds when and if needed.

Yeah, that is understandable. If I were to start a big farm right now, I would rather have multiple speeds for a long run. However, a good pricing (of single speed miners) could change my mind.

Well it will make business for aftermarket firmware  you simply need to be able to dial gear back some times.

I so like the s17 pro  with 3 speed settings  and huge watt difference 1400/1500 on low vs 2700/2800 on high.

My Clifton farm is in an industrial area and I would consider it to be an industrial farm.  I would rather have all s17 pros over this unit if this is a one speed unit.

we use outside air.  so in the summer the air coming in is as high as 100f most often it is 90f intake in the summer.

These 1 speed units may all fail in the summer.

Yeah yeah, that is true, if their S19 Pro is same as their S17+, then it will pull about 300-400W more than advertised. However, I think it will not as it is a "Pro" version, and it might be a little bit more accurate than those ultra overclocked S17 (talking about their S17+).

Also, yeah, there was a thread which was talking about Bitmain leaving home miners and focusing on big industrial miners, and I've said it a few times already and I will say it again... Every year it is going to get worse and worse with Bitmain (home mining has been dying for quite some time); 12kW per miner (as you said) is probably unrealistic in next 3-5 years, but I can easily see 5.5kW miner in that same time period. However, as more electricity comes in, there will be one much larger problem... HEAT!

If S17+ are using 3.5kW and have 4 "good" fans, imagine what will we need for 5.5kW.

one speed for the unit is just plain stupid.

S17 pro 3 speed choices

S19 pro 1 speed choice  going backwards not forwards.

My s17 pro on low speed  does 36 watts a th

after market firmware you can get 34 maybe 33 watts a th on an s17 pro.

So s19 pro is going to need after market firmware to be worth buying.

I will be getting one of each ASAP

110 + 95 = 205 th at 6500 to 6600 watts

I will retire all 28  s9's  they do 308th at  27,000 to 28,000 watts.

Almost all new units are in the 3100 to 3400 watt range.
the whatsminers all do about 3200 to 3400
the antminers all do about 3200 to 3400

I prefer 2700 for top watts.

They did advertise it at first for 2900W, from that it's still a 12% increase, at least on paper.

Might not be that much compared to the hash gain but what I was trying to point out is that they went the way of industrial stuff, what goes beyond 3600W around here can't be considered home as probably less than 10% of the homes can accommodate it and after that, you're again limited to around 7.5 kw on the total power draw for your flat.

Tho, that is same power usage as my S17+ 76TH/s. So that is quite nice actually... Imagine what 3nm will bring! Even higher speed with same power usage. Also, I bet 150 TH/s or something like that with three power plugs is coming this year as well!

Well, I guess this will end the speculations about bitmain focusing on home miners or mining farms:

https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020200226232356122Y0FHc2rQ0657


A few years later, S35, 12 000W....

I talked to a contact last fall who does good business with Canaan - he runs an I believe multi-megawatt datacenter entirely full of Canaan gear. Told me they would sell chips and even offered design assistance, but the minimum buy-in was $10k, where I was only looking out lay out around $2k to get started with another outfit I'd been talking to for a while. I figured I'd keep Canaan as a backup plan.

I think Gekkoscience mining products powered by Canaan chips would be purely awesome!

I asked Canaan about this directly (4th Jan)

Steve's reply was that they wouldn't be making home miners but he hoped they would sell the chips to other manufacturers for that.

You should contact them directly and point out you already do make home miners with S9 chips but want recent chips to produce (better) home miners for others (and drop my name regarding having asked Steve about it)

Having used a ton of miners. More actually I can tell you the L3+ with voltage mod does 725 watts for 500mh.

It is a beast for home 🏡 mining. Never breaks and can be run on lower fan speeds with no issuse.

The r4 sucked they broke a lot.

The s7ln was good but is not efficient.

A modded s9 with one board is very efficient and can be very quiet doing 3300gh at 300watts

a modded m10 with one board can do 7000gh at 430watts

I have not reached the point of modding the s17pro

but I can tell you at low speed 42000gh and 1500watts stock settings is almost a home miner.

there is under clock firmware that can do 40000gh and 1400 watts.

Their last home friendly miner was the R4, unlike the S7LN this miner used a vertical airflow, where all the industrial miners use horizontal airflow. It does not sit well in a warehouse rack. And if you place it horizontal it will prematurely die due to insufficient airflow and or overstress one of the boards (upper half, or the one above depending). Of course it didn't help some batches had poor soldering...

To them, the home mining market is negligible, which is why they didn't bother anymore.

But at least there is an opportunity for modders or those brave souls that extract the chips and re-purpose the things for the home...

BTW a "home" miner should not go above 1600w @ 115v or 800w @ 230v. 2000w is definitely NOT home friendly

That was an internal problem, not by choice.

I don't know, even at 10k my selling crap out of the attic and keeping it all in Bitcoin and HODL mode, still seems more prudent at my view of all this.

coins beyond 8400.  maybe btc takes off goes over 10k be weeks end.

Carries us all up to the ½ ing and beyond.

It would get a lot of people to buy the newer 5nm gear on longer delays.

Mining gears will be worth a lot less then, but not to the extent of keeping industrial mining profitable, think about this way,  home miners have nothing to pay but their power bill, so they in the worst case have 15-30% less expenses than industrial mining, they also have a much better overall risk:reward ratio, if they don't roi, they only lose what they paid for miner, if at any point mining becomes unprofitable, they shut it down and wait for bitcoin price to go higher, wait for the winter to come by or simply do it for the "technology".

Industrial miners don't have all these privileges, so really if we take all of these factors into consideration, we can go to extent of saying home miners are two times more profitable.

therefore,I don't think the equation is (if home miners are making "decent" profits, industrial mining will have to be there)


True, 20 miners is not home mining IMO, but it's not always 2 big miners = 4 small miners, because you can easily run say 2000w in your house, but highly unlikely find a wire/mcb that can handle 4kw , so home miners would prefer 4*1000w to 1*4000w.


It is indeed, but once there is no other way around, it has to happen, it's not like they have another choice, you are also ignoring the fact that these home-friendly miners can sometimes perfectly work in industrial scale, this is one reason you don't see 5kw miners, take Whatsminer M20s 68 for an example, it's a 3.3kw miner that many people don't want to deal with due to the electricity infrastructure they have.


Sidehack has them, for hobby mining his stuff are perfect.

So a pump to 200 is short  but a pump to 1k gets us to 1.4mil x 5 = 7 mil a day in income .

Now 1k vs 45 dollars is 20x price jump.

but 3 billion to 65 billion  does seem like to big of a move to happen.

An interesting thing is BTC is now back over 8k.

Well, that's my point, remember we're talking about a scenario with no price increase and halving drop.

If home mining will be profitable with no (bulk equipment buys, preferential electricity rates, more efficient gear) I highly doubt you will ROI under 12 months. If you start making a profit without those advantages in six months you can surely bet industrial-scale mining won't be going down which...would keep home mining at bay...never-ending circle.

Second, what is home mining?
I stopped mining when the gear hit new levels of "efficiency" because of the noise and power, right now I could still probably run 3-4 s9 in my home but probably I would look every time at the breaker when both my electric oven and dishwasher are running during summertime along with the air conditioner as our circuits here won't be able to handle more than 7.5 kw.
Now I could use my parent's farm for mining as just one cereal grinder there is 30kw and is not used permanently but...
Would then I will still be a "home" miner?

And more important, those who buy these miners, as many as they would be, they would have to buy only a few 1,2 max 4 of those,?
Because the moment you buy 20 home miners... it makes no sense why you wouldn't buy 4 big ones that are 5 times more powerful, right?

This is the problem with targeting the so-called home miners, it's a very tight niche.

Hobby mining, that's something else, and this is why I would love a cheap silent miner that anyone could run just to support the network and that wouldn't make you raise an eyebrow when the bill comes. But that's wishful thinking and I know it.


At 200$ the daily reward for LTC mining is 1.4 mil.
With no price rise and drop in reward bitcoin would still generate around 7 mils a day.

After the BCH pumping loses probably they've stopped with the stupid plans...I hope....

bitmain dropped price under 800 for t17 not  subject to trump tax if you order 1 at a time

https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=00020200107142814172GxOYpK6s06B5

they are looking to clear gear out.

the t17 can do 45 watts with correct firmware.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/asicto-firmware-s17-95ths-t17-80ths-t17-40wt-s17t17-on-over-200k-asic-5208500

Antminer T17

"...Downvolts to 1900w at 42th/s - 45w/th..."

from topic page on the thread above.

bitmain has an issue of being oversold once 1/2 ing comes.

All of the above relates to the topic as they have to be afraid that btc price is not going to rise to meet miners needs.
So they are selling bigger and better gear real soon just around the corner.

I smell a big crash coming very soon.

No, I really don't. However, the 'economy of scale' for bitcoin to keep its factories and employees open with the added problem of R & D development for new ASIC's along with other supply chain issues, I do know they have to move a 'minimum' amount of product (ie toasters) or the whole thing will become unraveled. So PERHAPS they might offer a low-end model for the above reasons to just keep the frigging doors open. But this would only apply if they can't move huge units fast enough at inflated prices, which will always be what they prefer. But the 'Needs must when the Devil drives"....so they might have to get creative to keep the doors open with all the overhead they have, even with a 50% cut in the workforce. I myself don't understand how they are selling the units they are now at:

(1) IMHO the inflated prices up by 1/3 more than I find in any way reasonable for ROI.

(2) Why the hell they are not shipping EVERYTHING to the USA to get around USA Tariffs via Malaysia where some in the USA are getting the product from (if lucky).

(3) How you currently can sell (mostly sell out) of Bitmain units that ROI in more than 1 year with flat difficulty. I mean are we simply dealing with clueless very rich newbies?

(4) How you can even justify ANY of the equipment above when Bitmain and Innsilicon announced they will go from 7nm to 5nm chips in Q1 of 2020. (A 15% improvement)

(5) And IF they really can get 5nm Chips out in Q1, they obviously will go to Bitmain Data Halls first and any 'overage' of 7nm will be sold to the clueless in bulk!

So yeah, I'm befuddled, to say the least on all ASIC miner prices of ANY flavor of crypto! Even without the USA 27.6% Tariff with import fees and less shipping. The math is so ugly as to be obvious IMHO, or at least at my 10c kWh electric prices.

Brad

Well  from bitmain's viewpoint  isn't it easier

Pump the price of LTC  to 150-250 dollars

Then build L9 7nm or 5nm  LTC miners.

They are a business first  they have clearly shown they don't care that btc is the number one crypto-coin in the world.


From a value move boasting the price of LTC to sell newer LTC gear looks doable.

While pumping btc price to 15k  has to be harder to do

and the ½ ing cancels  the price pump to 15k.

While the price pump in ltc has a long time to be cut by the  next ½ ing

If bitmain does not do a ltc pump  canaan may do it (they have yet to do anything but sha 256)

But I feel someone (asic Builder)  will try this  switch to  LTC-Doge Idea.

Last I recall the L3+  was  a 28nm but Maybe it was a 45nm chip.

LTC- Doge are worth 2.8B + .3 b = 3.1b

BTC - NMC is worth 142.891b + .007b = 142.898b

certainly easy to pump ltc.


My fear is  rather then push  BTC/BCH/sha256 they move towards ltc/doge

with a block size of 6.25  btc will need to be 15,000 usd to stay even.

ltc has a block size of 12.5  for next 3 years. 

 If it boosts to 300 a coin  a 5nm  LTC miner  will look good to asic buyers.

To my knowledge, there was never a time where a mining gear took 20 months to ROI unless you plan on making it so by paying a fortune for a terrible mining gear at the worst time one can buy.

What about a little more reasonable numbers?

we know what the 5nm is capable of, and we know Bitmain can do.

S19- 52th at  2080w , say a home miner can manage 6kw of power, so they can buy 3 of these, using today's numbers at 6 cents kwh that gear makes about 140$ a month , so 3 of it make 420$ a month

at 1000$ per gear > 7 months to ROI
at 1200$ per gear > 8.5 months to ROI
at 1500$ per gear >10.7 months to ROI

It's highly unlikely that they will sell it for anything more than that judging by current gear prices, also for home miners it's more than just direct profit especially in the winter where they can use those miners for hear sources.


If mining becomes completely unprofitable for mining farms, all mining profits will move to home miners, things might be a lot more profitable than they are now, but certainly not as much as they sell now, which might also make production cost more expensive,thus makes the numbers above way off.


True, It's very unlikely that Bitmain will do something different from the rest, these drastic changes will have to be universal, they won't be an option, the market will force itself upon them.


Yup that's another possibility, I think even if everyone who is into bitcoin decided to buy a gear or two, they won't get close to the amount of mining gears that huge farms combined buy, once we reach to that point, many things will change, some ASIC's manufacturer might shut down.


There is only one thing that needs to happen to make this discussion/debate completely irrelevant for years to come which is price moving higher gradually.

There is one thing you must take into consideration...
Home miners not only will be hit less but they will also start to not look at mining as a revenue source....
Investing 10k in some mining gear (I consider 10k to be the maximum limit for calling it a home mining operation) to get what...500$ a month?

Note that I make a difference between home mining ( guys running gear not in data centers but with profit in mind) and hobbyists who would buy 1 or 2 small miners and run it just for the sake of having something to toy it every now and then.

How much can bitmain hope to sell to those guys? Especially since if you want something just fun you can grab an s9e for 140$ to play with?
And more important, let's say the rivals do the opposite, now you're in one not so comfy spot!
Rather than calling industrial mining dead if the price doesn't go at least to 10k this year I would look at mining gear manufacturing as a dead industry.

Remember Philipma1957 I said similar things in 2016 and Bitmain went with it.....be careful they likely may steal your ideas! (or in my case back way back a happy coincidence?)

Bitmain: Evil is as Evil does (tm: Bitmain)

If they were smart they would send out a 1000 watt  sLn17 miner  using:

1000 watt to do 25th   40 watts a gh
1400 watts to do 33th  42 watts a gh

do them from Malaysia market at home lower noise miners.

They can mark up  to 1000 usd

Just sell just to usa market.

I don't think so either...that they will build under 2000 watt miners again either, however, you COULD make a 'small' case that Bitmain is in trouble. They just laid off another 50% of their workforce on top of a previous 50% layoff of the workforce in 2019. So if you figure they have to have a 'certain' amount of Toaster's (miners) to get out the door with the economy of scale vs profits to keep the plants open/the designers of chips happy/the data halls/etc... and you'd probably have to have Bitcoin POP significantly to grease the wheels on the above. IT COULD happen? Nah? But playing contrary...the above would have to line up in the above for anything like that to happen.

Bitmain: Making ASIC Toasters in Amounts that allow us to stay at the leading edge of 'evil'! ) (tm Bitmain)

Brad

Do it all through Malaysia  tax drops to 2.6%.

Not likely that the big manufacturers will spend any resources to make a home-friendly miner. Just too small a percentage of their sales to make it worth it for them. Industrial miners will prefer the higher density even if the price/TH and efficiency is the same.

Maybe a 3rd party could make a chassis+power supply and buy controllers and hashboards from one of the big manufacturers. A miner with a single hashboard would be in the 1000W range. If you import hashboards and controllers into the USA, do you still get hit with the extra 25% tax? It would not be a huge business, but maybe a small operation could make a profit.

Yeah  putting in more chips  is better for them.

Well we  will get to see what happens as time moves on.

Would have been better for   longer ½ ing times say every 7 years ,  but who knows maybe someone figures out a way to scale this.

Yes they can go that law, but the lower they go the more expensive it gets, there is an intial cost for every miner they make, be it 1000w or 2000w, so they would of course try to maximize the amount of chips they can put in a single miner so that the intial cost spreads across them making cost per terahash as low as possible, while trying to maintain a low power consumption.

probably go back to 2 fans only design? Or even something similar to the R4? Except the latter does not fit well in data centers.

This could be way too early, 6.25btc a block is still somehow safe, but the following halvings will cause more damage, bitcoin price has to go to unbelievably high prices for indusrsial mining to still be a thing, and if that does not happen - bitmain has no choise but to focos on effienct home-friendly mining gears, we could see once that look like a real heater, some might have a pink color on them for the ladies  , anything that does not make a lot of noise, keeps the house a little warm and pays it's own bill.

or better yet drop to 1400 watts. or even 1000 watts.

L3+  are pretty much bullet proof running at 700 watts and doing 500mh.

I understand where you are coming from, but you are missing one key point, which is:

Home-friendly Miners > work just fine for industrial mining farms.
Industrial Miners > do not work for home.

Since efficiency is nearly 100% the same, what would stop Bitmain from reducing the risk of price collapsing prior/after the halving where only home miners might be able to survive the hit?

Let's assume you have an efficient chip and can build a miner that does 20w/th , you can make

3000 watts and get 150th miner

Or

2000 watts and get 100th miner

The latter could be sold to both home and industrial miners, it will of course be a little bit more expensive as in price per terahash since the cost of the frame, fans and wires will be nearly the same for both gears, but the first option limits your potential clients.

I don't know what I don't know, but if Bitmain thinks that there is a 30% chance the following halving will bring industrial mining down, they would really start focusing on home-friendly mining gears.

Wishful thinking...
I will side with philipma1957 and say this is a desperate move to unload as much gear as they can if the halving price screws mining gear sales for a year or two.
And if you want to unload a ton of miners as fast as you can before the shit hits the fan you can't rely on home miners, you will have to force the hand of industrial-size business that will either upgrade to stay in the game or choose to close, which would be also a win since they will get more % with their own farms.

As much as I would really love to buy a home miner that would be tolerable if put in a good case in one of my storage closets (no wood, we're all concrete here in central Europe) I doubt we will get anything this year.
An S19 hydro at 900W so I could enjoy a toast without toasting my breaker not have the feeling I'm eating it near a damn J9 turbofan? ...

Crap! Did the math on my above on having too much equipment depreciation and mining died on me this year and likely next year. Damn you IRS!
 
Anyway, from what I can tell I need to make $13.5k or so a year in ADJUSTED gross income for the next say 3 years counting this year in Home Business Mining or whatever to keep this 'bug a boo' at bay. Ok, this year I have it covered ...barely I think and will show a profit. I showed a loss in 2016. Will beat the 13.5K equip deduction hard floor in 2019. Whew! So I really, really kinda have to show a profit in 2020 via (1) eBay sales of crap in attic maybe $5k worth?  (2) mining (3) crypto trading (un-frigging-likely) (4) build a data hall someplace (but it would also have to make income and then I'd have more equipment/building depreciation) Ack! I suppose a person could (5) consult as a BTC expert *but hell, I don' listen to myself most times with crypto*

So thinking I may have to get equipment in 2020, and just NOT take the 25% equipment deduction, maybe not even take off electric. Just so I can show an adjusted Net Income from the business (with equipment deductions on the books till probably thru 2021) or I will be slapped into 'hobby mode' so fast by IRS it will make my 'head spin'. The IRS, alas, will not take an attic full of obsolete ASIC equipment from 2013 onward in my attic, by that point in time, as 'proof', it was not a hobby. If you read the IRS rules they also can say you are a 'hobby' if your business skills are 'unrealistic' and/or bad, or the business itself is 'dubious' at best. Ack! As far as I can tell it is NOT illegal for me to screw myself and not take deductions I'm entitled to, on electric from mining and/or equipment.

However, there is a fine line between, say 13.5K not used and exposing myself to IRS as a hobby, when and if I fall off the profit cart in 2020. I will have to do the math, however. It is not the first time, I've gotten equipment rather than more to IRS (how I got in this mess with the 70% or more BTC/Crypto crash in the frigging first place!) (Bitcoin: You merciless bitch!)

But again, probably gonna have to do something like this, very carefully, after halving, at the end of 2020, and used equipment maybe. It is all very dubious if this is gonna work or not. But at least I'm clear for 2019. But have no frigging idea yet besides eBay store sales on how the f*ck I can pull the same out in 2020. Anyway, advice welcome via PM or whatever. (I'm probably off-topic ..kinda sorta....but sh*t 5nm chips in Q1 has got to put a lot of us on Bitcointalk here in the same frigging boat as myself!) whatever, bitcoin always drama!

Brad

Focus on home-friendly miners, you say? That sounds familiar.

Not exactly under 2000w , but most likely nothing above 3kw , current list is a follows:


20% power reduction without increasing frequency  ( the way I imagine it)


Bitmain might have a different way of looking at things, but the way I see it is that there is not much time left for industrial mining gears, based on my thoughts and other's mentioned here >https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/for-how-long-can-we-actually-mine-5208911 , mining farms' days are going to be over soon.

As a result of the above theory, It makes sense that Bitmain should start focusing on home-friendly mining gears, those gears need to draw as less power as possible and be as quite as possible, if they don't do that post halving, they will have to do it close to the 2024 halving.

Again I am just speculating on what I would do if I was Jihan wu, obviously, i am more likely to be wrong than right when i speculate

I still run my S3'+s.  Some of the toughest miners they made in my view I still have around 10 of them with not one chip down.

It would be very nice to see bitmain give us a miner with less draw but I cannot see this being the case from what I have been reading it's going to be a trade off between better hashing power or better efficiency.

Do we know any more info on this or a rough date they may be hitting the store?

So you think they're gonna start building miners with under 2000W power draw again? Have they ever gone backward in power draw, since the S3?

I think Bitmain will focus on lowering the power, assuming it's 20% power reduction vs 15% frequency increment. after the halving a ton of hash power will leave the network, there will be no need for 100th miners, just a 50th miner that does say 35w per th as oppose to the current S17 that does 45w per th will be just fine for post halving.

Having said that, I still think it's better to buy current 7nm gears before halving than waiting for the new gen to be released, it's highly unlikely that bitcoin price will have any major spikes in price, it's safe to assume that profitability as in profit per $ invested in mining will drop at least 30-40% and that relativity small improvement in gear efficiency won't help much in terms of hitting ROI.

Are they using silicon or a hybrid of gallium/silicon for the wafer?

I think they want to break 100th   so maybe 100-102th at 2800-3000 watts is their goal.

This announcement has stopped my ramp up for sure.

We have space for 20 x 3000 watts  we will be on a holding pattern for sure.

In the article about the 5nm dev tools, they say:


Since they will be essentially using the same logical chip designs their current chips use (same complexity) it will be interesting to see what direction BM & Canaan take: Higher speed at same power or same speed at lower power.

As for the cost of the 1st 5nm miners out-the-door: no doubt cost will be insane $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

That only works if the price is not silly.
Currently, S17/T17 prices ARE too high, considering halving.
It only makes sense if numbers make sense.
However, i expect that next gen would last a while, just like S9 gen did.
Maybe not 3 years longevity, but at least 2.

I have to say  this is very interesting if they release a  25-28 watt a th s19 in May just in time for the ½ ing.

In a way I am glad I have not ramped up  fully.

I have 24-26 s9's  I can scrap  and get all 5nm gear.

Frankly,  thanks to their experience on the 7nm node TSMC's progress on the 5nm node is rather astounding. ref https://www.anandtech.com/show/15016/tsmc-5nm-on-track-for-q2-2020-hvm-will-ramp-faster-than-7nm

They have had 5nm design libs out since April so it is a safe bet that Bitmain, Canaan, and a select few other alpha customers doing full custom chips have been toying with the node for at least a couple months.

I'm just astonished that despite being still in Risk-production status TSMC is claiming over 80% yields. Hitting that good of a yield so soon after releasing a new node is simply unheard of!

I think I can show a profit this year if I count my eBay sales (gasp!) and Signature Campaign BTC stuff  (gasp!) and the obelisk sale of equipment for exactly what I had in it and 1.25 million (dubious) SiaCoin. (meh!) Some other dust BTC from helping/fixing/consulting. Thus only 'costs' in that none of that is 'mining' would be maybe my Inet feed to the house... Thus MAYBE I could show something like $16k of Income - $1k or inet to the house or 15k income and thus kick my 67,500 equip costs down the road a bit maybe bleed ..what another 12.5% off of that this year...but EVENTUALLY I'm probably gonna show NO income and a loss within 5 years 2x ..thus I figgure if lucky I'm on the hook wrapping this up at say $15k or so when the IRS if that happens as a 'worse' case in say 2021, 2020 sure  did not look like a miners dream either. So I suppose the only thing I could maybe also knock out say 5-10k would be to sell 'self-employed" crap on eBay..to show income in 2020 as well.. but hell ..that is so boring I'd probably just pay the $15k to wrap up mining in say 2021 rather than that ..yech!

Also, REMEMBER to keep all your mining equipment you have slated for 5 years of depreciation ....you can't depreciate the tractor as a farmer don't ya know by selling the tractor the last 2 years of farming, because you guit and expect that to work out well with the IRS. If you are in our ASIC miner Kinda hole... Thus the attic is gonna be crowded with PSU's and bitmain and knc titans and the rest till ..what maybe 2021 at best or 2022? yech. Not sure why I'm bothering...if I was ever audited by the IRS I've done it by hand with paper since 2013...I was recently told by someone that was audited that they expect it in CVS format and excel and equipment invoices scanned and sent to them etc, etc. So the conversation of 'why' in 2017 you grossed over $100k and took equipment off and why I was too cheap to hire an accountant for your over 100k business...It would be quite the cluster explaining that the miner biz it not start out that way that year at $3.80 Litecoin, if I remember right. 20/20 hindsight by the IRS would be interesting in that on some years the tools they want a person to use in 2019 on a computer for keeping track did not exist before 2017 or 2018. Very likely I would pay a fine anyway for 'incomplete' records with yechy paper....and inconvenience to the IRS person anyway...

Well, anyway, unless something changes to make me some miner income in 2020 and/or 2021..I'll set that $15k aside for the day I have to wrap all this 'mining' up in a bow. I don't expect to see any redress in 2020 for mining that is for sure! Also, it would just ADD to my equipment deductions anyway ...if they never made bank...so better to just buy coin/start an ebay store/and/or just set aside for that day in the future..when the self-employed business is no more.

I broke even in 2018 but I had a capital.gain carryover loss of 2300.

In 2019 I purchased a lot of gear and shifted from sales of gear with some mining. To mining with some gear sales.

I had a very small 2019 profit.

Hmmm...what I suspected....but again if you are correct....last year was a loss...and thus this year will be a loss...so say I have like $20k left in equipment depreciation and no income...I am guessing I'd simply owe income tax on that $20k of equipment depreciation left at that point in time (guessing and assuming I have that much left?) Thus what with state taxes and fed..I'd be down $5k? On the other hand, again retired..so that 20k would be my only income...so if I remember 9K or some such off that would be say, more or less 12k income or I'd owe 3k ...anyway off-topic you get my drift?

But yeah, it seemed like I had to be caught on the ass end of this in some manner..if my only income mining has died..or else you could just start a business...kick-ass like heck the first 3 years say and then walk away from the last year or so of equipment depreciation. I too think this is unlikely. Likely as that my income is probably going to be soc sec at best on the year after (2021) this stuff shows up. I have to fess up (2020?) it likely won't amount to much as compared to buying miners (with all the risk) and showing income as a risk I guess Again, if as I assume..whatever you got off of gross income for equipment, (25%) is now suddenly taxed as income past the 2 years of losses (which is as it is now I guess). So my worst case is likely having to pay about $5k in taxes on that hobby unused equipment that I took as depreciation. fun times.

As to Mimblewimble ...with say GRIN...that is a wild ass big gamble on the Innsolicon Grin Machines...not a bet I'd take willingly...unless it meant just giving equivalent $$$ to the IRS.

Brad

p.s. I can't be the only one in this boat from last year and this year (2019) and looking into 3rd year of loss in 2020? Anyone?

AFAIK, you can only show 2 out of 5 years in "loss". On a third year (after two consequent losses) you can only have a loss equal to earned income as business would be considered not "business", but "hobby". Ask your CPA if this is true, but this is what I gather.

Re mimblewible-too new. It's GPU fun, mostly. No gains, but small losses with a few GPUs. I see no use for this token until a decade later if ever.

7nm -> 5nm is... theoretical 15% increase in performance per watt? Seems reasonably priced s17/s17 pro wouldnt be too bad, depending on how long 5nm is projected to be dominant node. anything unable to really push underclocking will be dumped for the halving

Well, I MAY have to get miners someday in 2020 ..probably at the end of 2020 for 'peace of mind' for crypto business (since 2013) tax purposes. I show NO income (retired) from the crypto business anymore. So as the self-employed on such, unless I want to show income, I have 3 choices. (1) I could speculate/trade (don't know a lot of people that have those skills (2) I can get equipment and mine again in 2020 or (3) I could put up some kinda hosting place.

My reasoning is I am showing like 40k to 60k of equipment depreciation for the next 2 years for a business that has no income. The CPA says it is money lost and 'kosher'. I myself see it as "kinda iffy at best" if the IRS ever looked me over....so for peace of mind I need to show some kinda TRY at income, with mining, even at a modest/more LOSS, if that is what it takes. Just to show IRS or whomever, I'm in there swinging to wrap up the crypto business. So with that as an aside, I guess it will be 'used' equipment or new at the end of 2020..depending on the above 'peace of mind' position I'm taking. So not optimal...but I can't see the IRS being all that happy with me with 40k to 60k of already deducted equipment depreciation these last 2 years or so, without me in there 'swinging' as a miner in some manner. Selling BTC/Crypto with cap gains does NOT count as income from the business. Anyway, my thinking on this maybe.

BUT in my own view, it makes very little sense (If the above was not true) to get ANY MINER of any kind, before the halving. You are way, way better to sell crap out of your attic on eBay and buy BTC/Crypto or use the ASIC equipment $$$$ to get more 'bang' for your buck with 2x the Bitcoin now..rather than miners, even at 7nm on a pre-order in the future, as Phlipma says ..probably arriving AFTER the halving. So Craig Wright/Youtube Killing BTC/Crypto Videos/Doom and Gloom on 'evil' BTC/Crypto/China still saying it is gonna 'ban' and/or limit mining in 2020/FUD/FUD/FUD aside in 2020. Gonna just go for it!

(1) keep the hoard in HODL mode. Boom or Doom!

(2) get miners for peace of mind at end of 2020 if I feel it prudent (even if I only break even or lose 1/3 on the process..guess HODL that mining income, in that case also and eat the loss)

(3) sell a LOT of crap I have around here on eBay and call it a 2 for 1 sale. For every $1 to BTC I put away before halving is 'supposedly' $2 in BTC after halving.

Balls to the wall boys and girls...Moon or Doom! Beanie Babies be damned!

So I have to admire the big players like Canaan and Bitmain, thinking the pump is coming and putting it all out there (evil though Bitmain is!)...If the above does not work in my case on above....we all will be 'wrek'd' indeed! The big players like Bitmain/Hosting/etc, etc. We will all implode together. What the heck is is only money right?

Bitcoin: Always Drama!

Brad


Yeah, indeed. What are we gonna wish for then? Litecoin with Mimblewimble saving L3+'s and such in some manner...the odds are indeed long on current equipment of any ASIC type.

Well this makes it very hard to buy any gear.
If this is a 20 watt miner there is zero need for any gear until it comes out.
So the game is mine and hodl for at least 120 days.

It also smacks of desperation on asic builders part.

They must really fear the ½ ing.

S-9 ran from May 2016 to Sept 2018 before the s11 showed up  that was 29 months.

S-17  runs from April 2019 to June 2020  that is  14 months.

It indicates both companies really fear the 2020 ½ ing

BTW

september 21 2019 the s15 announcement BM1391
https://blog.bitmain.com/en/bitmain-announces-next-generation-7nm-asic-chip/
Nov 8 , 2018  s15 for sale
https://blog.bitmain.com/en/the-7nm-antminer-s15-and-t15-are-now-available-for-purchase/

feb 18 2019 the s17 chip announcement  BM1397
https://blog.bitmain.com/en/bitmain-announces-next-generation-7nm-asic-chip-for-sha256-mining-delivering-breakthrough-energy-efficiency/

april 8 2019 s17  pro for sale
https://blog.bitmain.com/en/bitmain-announces-specs-and-release-times-for-its-latest-7nm-antminer-17-series-miners/

so

a dec 26 2019 could mean  they can be purchased by 60-120 days

which is faster then I believe they will show up.

risk production for 5nm at TSMC is early Q1.... probably Q2 unless they negotiated something earlier?

I think Bitmain could make Q1 deadline but not Canaan. The S15 was supposed to be their future proof 7nm miner and they dropped the S17 a few months later at almost the same price, so it will be no different. That was 9 months ago and all the + and e models are still slightly less efficient than the initial S17 Pro 53TH. Most of the T17 series is still less efficient than S15. Current 17 series pricing has been at dump level for quite some time IMO.

Both will miss Q2 deadline...or we are all f-ed.

I voted they both miss q2.

which mean no gear ⚙️ until july 1.

I also doubt i get a s19 5nm in july.

Reserved.

Well, it looks like my (ONE) Bitmain's S9i's days are numbered.

https://news.bitcoin.com/bitmain-and-canaan-to-reveal-5nm-bitcoin-mining-chips-in-2020/

https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/canaan-to-introduce-5nm-asic-miners-in-q1-2020/

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitmain-canaan-launch-new-miners-in-preparation-for-the-bitcoin-halving

What do you all think?

Brad