Leading cryptocurrency mining application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) producer Bitmain announced the intention to grant a partial refund to the customers that bought its AntMiner S17+ and T17+ before the price cuts. A post published by Bitmain on April 14 announced that customers who purchased AntMiner S17+ and T17+ machines from mid-February to the end of April will receive compensation coupons. Who gets refunds and where can they use them? If the machines shipped after April 13 but the customer paid the original, higher, price, then the buyer will receive a coupon after the shipment. Bitmain says to expect the …

The quadrennial block reward halving for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has come and gone, with miner rewards dropping from 12.5 BCH to 6.25 BCH. The event marked a pivotal moment for the fifth-ranked cryptocurrency by market capitalization, as it was its first 50% block reward reduction since emerging as a hard fork of Bitcoin (BTC) back in 2017. The Bitcoin Cash chain experienced another split that led to the creation of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) in late 2018. The chain of events leading to the BCH blockchain split caused a cascade of network issues, as the hash war between both factions …

While some cryptocurrency miners are purportedly shutting down due to unprofitability, Chinese mining giant Bitmain continues to not only see its new products sold out but is also improving some of its older flagship devices. Bitmain’s Antminer E3, a popular ASIC miner was suspected to become obsolete by April 2020, will continue mining Ether (ETH) at least till October 2020. Bitmain previously confirmed that Antminer E3 would stop mining Ether According to a March 30 blog post, Antminer E3’s lifespan is prolonged with specifically designed firmware launched by Bitmain. According to the announcement, the new firmware was developed to allow …

The world’s largest manufacturer Bitcoin ASIC miners, Bitmain, has sold out its first round of domestic Antminer S19 sales within 24 hours of accepting orders. On March 23, Bitmain tweeted that it opened up its first phase of domestic sales for its long-await Antminer S19s — before selling out on the same day. Antminer S19s will ship from March 11 The first version of the Antminer S19 will have a hashrate of 95 terahashes per second (TH/s) and an energy efficiency of 4.5±5% joules per terahash (J/TH), while the Antminer S19 Pro boasts a hash rate of 110 TH/s and …

Bitcoin (BTC) miners openly using AsicBoost are now comprising 63% of its network hashrate. This vindicates community concerns from 2017 that accused Bitmain of using the “covert” version of AsicBoost. The statistic was highlighted on March 9 by Bitmex Research, building on a similar report from December 2018. Though the overt AsicBoost was only used by 30% of miners at the time, the analysts argued that the 2017 controversy was largely settled. They wrote: “If covert AsicBoost was used by some miners to obtain a secret advantage, with significant adverse effects on Bitcoin, this problem now appears mostly solved.” Bitmain …

Micree Ketuan Zhan, the co-founder of leading mining hardware producer Bitmain launched another lawsuit in an attempt to regain his position as the CEO of the firm. According to a court filing in Fujan province, Zhan initiated a lawsuit against Bitmain’s subsidiary Fujian Zhanhua Intelligence Technologies and Beijing Bitmain Technologies. A hearing on the case was initially scheduled for Feb. 11. Fujian Zhanhua Intelligence Technologies still list Zhan as its legal representative and is one of the four principal subordinate entities that made a material contribution to Bitmain’s financial results in its 2018 Hong Kong IPO filing. As Cointelegraph reported …

Alex de Vries, the founder of the Digiconomist, has given a damning assessment of the electricity consumed by Bitcoin (BTC) mining in an interview with British media outlet, The Telegraph. According to de Vries, a single Bitcoin transaction expends the same quantity of electricity needed to power a British household for 59 days, 780,650 Visa transactions, or 52,043 hours of video streaming on Youtube. The article asserts that the annual returns generated from Bitcoin mining are nearly $5.9 billion — with approximately 4 billion mining units competing for a share of the bounty worldwide. At the end of August 2019, …

Alex Liegl, CEO of Layer1 Technologies, a US-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining company that recently announced its intention to repatriate 30% of Bitcoin’s hash power by 2022, has described Texas as offering miners the “cheapest power in the world, at scale.” Less than two weeks ago, Layer1 commenced mining operations at its facility in western Texas, bringing multiple 2.5-megawatt container rigs online. Texas is the largest producer of wind power in the United States, outproducing the second, third, and fourth-largest producers combined. If Texas were an independent nation, it would be the world’s fifth-largest generator of wind power worldwide. Despite the …

Leading mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain has announced two new upcoming miners — the Antminer S19 and the Antminer S19 Pro. According to a press release on Feb. 27, the Antminer S19 will boast a hash rate of 95 terahashes per second (TH/s), and the Pro will offer 90 TH/s. However, Bitmain’s website claims that the Pro model can produce 110 TH/s. Both miners will have a power efficiency of 34.5+/-%5 joules per terahash. No release date or price information has been announced for either model. The S19 series will replace the Antminer S17 67 TH/s and the T17 55 TH/s …

While China now has more billionaires than the United States and India combined, Binance CEO might have more money than any crypto person, a new report says. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has overtaken a co-founder of cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain in the latest Hurun Global Rich List, an annual ranking of the world's biggest billionaires published Chinese media Hurun Report. Issued on Feb. 26, the new Hurun Report’s list of 2,816 global billionaires includes six individuals who made their fortune from blockchain and crypto industry. Bitmain’s ousted co-founder lost over one billion dollars in a year Similarly to previous compilations …

While the Ethereum network is preparing to start shifting to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus, some mining devices might soon stop supporting ETH mining at all. Bitmain’s Antminer E3, once the “world's most powerful” hardware for mining Ether (ETH), will allegedly stop Ethereum mining in April 2020, according to a Feb. 24 report by altcoin mining pool 2Miners. Users started reporting a sixfold hashrate drop on Antminer E3 mining rigs on ETC pool last week 2Miners revealed the news after its team requested Bitmain to comment on the recent issues with Antminer E3 performance involving Ethereum Classic (ETC) — an open-sourced blockchain …

Today is Saint Valentine’s Day, and in honor of this most romantic of holidays, Cointelegraph presents five of the crypto community’s most notable unions and breakups of the past 12 months. Kelly Lynn Loeffler and Bakkt Kelly Lynn Loeffler split from the crypto world in 2019, but can you blame her? Loeffler left Bitcoin futures exchange Bakkt, where she was CEO, for a place with a slightly bigger cloakroom: the United States Senate. Loeffler was named to replace Georgia’s Republican senator Johnny Isakson, who retired for health reasons. She will reportedly help oversee the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a …