With five –year development ,the first bitcoin industry chain appears –mining machines industry.It owns a complete industry chain even produces some matching enterprises .Producing a mining machine should be linked to some enterprises :chips design ,chips factories ,encapsulating factories ,mining machine design and processed factories .Their terminal customers are mining workers .Though virtual currency is popular in the global ,its area is difficult to supervise .Bitcoin mining machine industry developed well in 2013,while now is on low tide .So now I will introduce the industry chain and expect its development in the future .
Producing process
(1)chips design
Chips design process is similar to others .First ,provide hashrate for algorithm .To reach the function ,the design team may give out many solution ,and finally choose the most reasonable one .Then team will refine the solution and combo different parts ,and finish the design finally .
As I know, Chips design demands about tens person working 3~6months .It may cost about 1 million dollars on the design process .The figure is revealed by a designer ,so practical cost may be a bit lower .
(2)chips factories and encapsulating factories
The last step of chips design is tapeout ,it should be finished by chips factories .Attentionally ,tapeout is divided into two kinds ,one is Multi Project Wafer(MPW),another is Full Mask.
After finishing chips design ,nobody can prove whether it can run .So the first step is to test MPW then produce Full Mask .
Why chips tapeout and encapsulation are so expensive are because their making price is expensive .Meanwhile ,price is relevant to shipments .However ,because mining machine is a special pruducts with half a year life ,its chips amount is small .Though we can calculate specific price of chips production accurately ,we can estimate that signing a contract with chips factories need several million Dollars according to IPO amount and financial condition .
(3)design and processing
The design between mining machine and chips should carry on meanwhile ,also they can be finished by the same team .Generally speaking ,chips design team also may provide basic mining machine design program .Before getting samples ,the team can use chips emulation parameter to design .After getting samples ,mining machine should be tested .If samples have a big difference from estimation ,the team is supposed to give a new design program .
Though I know little about it , mining machine design and processing will not take a very high technological content .Last year ,when Avalon decided to only develop chips ,there were 7~8mining machine OEM (original equipment manufacturer )appearing .Thus ,the difficulty of mining machine design and processing is not high .
Industry chain composition
(1)chips factories and encapsulating factories
In fact ,chips factories and encapsulating factories don’t belong to bitcoin mining machine industry completely .Thus ,whether bitcoin develops ,its effect to chips factories is not big .As long as someone is willing to pay ,chips factories can make money .
(2)chips design enterprises
Chips design enterprises are responsible for chips research and development even mining machine design .Whether design chips successfully ,it depends on the experience to some extent . However ,chips design cost is not high ,10 person can finish the design with 3~6months .
But we should pay attention to control risk .If the design team announces to raise funds after ,it can use investors’ money to sign a contract with chips factories.And the risk may transfer to investors .If the design team sign a contract with chips factories with its money ,it may take on all risk itself .
(3)mining machine design and processing
Though mining machine design and processing are not difficult ,they demand a large amounts of funds .Buying chips and all accessories need funds .
But we atill should pay attention to control risk .If mining machine merchants sell in advance ,the risk may transfer to mining workers .Otherwise ,they may take on the risk themselves .
(4)mining workers
Mining workers are the terminal customers of mining machines .Their aim is to make money or gain bitcoin .Actually ,maintaining a mining machine is difficult ,so mining workers are difficult to gain high profit .
All in all ,chips factories and encapsulating factories make money absolutely .Chips design enterprises have risk ,but they can transfer risk to investors .Mining machine merchants can transfer risk to mining workers through advance sale .Mining workers can choose freely .
Mining machine future
With gaining profit every round ,I believe the industry enjoys a bright future .That day ,bitcoin price may be stable .Thousands of bitcoin stopes will distribute over the world .There are many mining workers on the global .
Bitcoin network produces the first industry chain –mining machine industry .Compared with bitcoin network ,mining machine industry develops shortly .On the whole chain ,only chips factories and encapsulating factories make money absolutely .The rest ,whether chips design enterprises ,mining machines merchants or mining workers ,they face up to risk partly .
Though facing up to risk ,bitcoin and mining machine industry future is bright .It’s excusable that each group on the industry chain wants to avoid risk with changeable bitcoin price .But the short –sighted behavior may damage the long-range profit.Industry future depends on bitcoin future , while bitcoin future depends on every node on the chain .
Remaks: Due to language difference, sometimes people out of China can’t know what happened in China quickly. so we are here to make effort to change little, we will translate 3-4 bitcoin news in China to English everyday to help people out of China know what happened and what people thinks about bitcoin in China, If somewhere translate not that good, pls PM us so that we can correct it.