Cryptocurrency mining is a very popular activity right now. It has led to GPU shortages in a lot of countries. Consumers are buying up graphics cards to mine popular currencies such as Ethereum, Dash, ZCash, and a few others. Bitmain apparently wants to capitalize on the Dash hype train by releasing Antminer D3. Let’s look at what this device has to offer and why miners should be interested.
The Antminer D3 Will Mine Dash Faster
Bitmain has built up a solid reputation when it comes to cryptocurrency mining equipment. Not everyone wants to put together a small computer with multiple graphics cards to mine their favorite cryptocurrency. This is why the company sometimes releases powerful ASIC miners for different altcoins, including Litecoin and Dash. In fact, the company’s newest miner is designed to mine Dash at a rate of 15 GH/s.
The Antminer D3 will come at a price tag of $2,699, which is rather steep for most people. Keep in mind that this is the pre-order price for the time being, and there are still shipping costs to take into account as well. The Antminer D3 hashes away at 15 GH/s, which is incredibly fast for Dash. According to Coinwarz, Dash currently has over 11.25 TH/s of hashing power. Even 15 GH/s will not make that much of a difference, though it is much more than what most people can squeeze out of a set of graphics cards these days.
Additionally, the Antminer D3 will consume around 1,200 watts, which makes it a rather power-hungry device. However, when comparing the hashrate that one gets in return for this power consumption, it is still a fairly efficient device. Unfortunately, it can only mine X11 coins, of which there are not too many around these days. The number of profitable X11 coins in high demand is effectively limited to Dash right now, although that situation may change over time.
Bitmain will accept both Bitcoin and Litecoin payments for this product. Though one would expect it to accept Dash as a payment method for a Dash ASIC miner, that does not appear to be the case. Customers can also make a purchase in U.S. dollars, although paying with cryptocurrency will probably be the more popular solution. Every USD transaction can be completed through an international wire transfer, which requires high fees for sending money to China.
There will be a 180-day warranty for every Antminer D3, which goes into effect on the shipping date. Even if a customer only receives their hardware four weeks after the shipping date, they will have lost 28 warranty days already. This small warranty period is not entirely uncommon for ASIC miners since users are expected to take great care of their machines. Even if the miner is under warranty, returning the device to Bitmain must be done at the user’s own expense.
Given the recent popularity of Dash, it will be quite interesting to see how much demand there is for the Antminer D3. For the time being, there is no official shipment ETA yet, other than that a “new batch will be available soon.” At the current Dash price and the costs involved in purchasing this miner and having it shipped to your home, it would take under three weeks to break even, according to Coinwarz. Keep in mind that when these miners ship those numbers will have changed quite a bit.
