Bitmain rolled out its next-generation Antminer S21 and S21 Hydro ASIC miners at the World Digital Mining Summit (WDMS) in Hong Kong on Sept. 22, revealing the essential efficiency stats the whole business has been ready for. The S21 has a hash charge of 200 terahashes per second (TH/s) and an efficiency of 17.5 joules per terahash (J/T), whereas the S21 hydro hashes at 335 TH/s and 16 J/T, which is notable on condition that till just lately, most Bitcoin ASICS had been working above the 20 J/T stage.
With electrical energy prices persevering with to rise year-over-year and the Bitcoin halving projected to happen in April 2024, ASIC efficiency is shortly turning into the paramount focus of miners, and many are additionally pivoting towards folding in renewable energy sources as a core part of their operations.
Bitcoin miners focus on efficiency and renewable energy
Sustainable development in the mining industry was a core theme mentioned in a majority of the panels at the WDMS. In the opening roundtable, group members from Terrawulf, Core Scientific, CleanSpark and Iris Energy shared their views on how additional integration of renewable energy sources will grow to be a crucial technique to implement for a lot of miners after the April 2024 Bitcoin provide halving.
According to Nazar Khan, Terrawulf’s chief working officer:
“There’s a significant transition going on in the supply side of the generation process; there’s a concerted effort to decarbonize the entire supply stack, and so when we talk about Bitcoin miners consuming more renewable energy, that’s part of a broader theme that’s happening across the United States without Bitcoin mining as well. The role that we play is locating our Bitcoin mining loads in places where that’s happening and how do we facilitate that decarbonization process.“
One impact of the upcoming supply halving is that miners will maintain the same capital and operational costs, plus the need to pay down any revolving debts, while essentially seeing their block reward distribution cut in half.
For this reason, miners will either need to increase the percentage of their hash rate derived from sustainable energy sources or make efficiency adjustments to their ASIC fleet to maintain or increase their profitability.
Regarding the rollout of the Antminer S21 and its potential impact on the mining industry, BMC founder Justin Kramer said:
“The S21, if reliable, fairly priced and readily available — and yes, that’s a lot of ifs with Bitmain’s history — could revolutionize the crypto mining landscape with its efficiency. It is basically packing the power of two S19 100T miners into one unit. Despite this, the burgeoning aftermarket firmware market, coupled with hydro/immersion systems, give miners more tools to keep older generation miners, such as the S19, profitable also. Thus, while the S21 represents a notable advancement, it may not render sub 110 TH/s miners entirely obsolete.”
When requested about what else caught this eye from the S21 launch, Kramer famous that:
“I like that Bitmain is rewarding environmentally friendly mining farms with better pricing and advanced delivery with their new Carbon Neutral Certificate. But, I’ll add that, it was a little surprising when I noticed that both new S21 models offer 33% more hash rate (S21 200T versus 151T on S19j XP; S21 hydro is 335T versus the S19 XP Hydro at 257T). Is this a coincidence? I’m doubtful, and it likely signals more of the same systematic model releases from Bitmain where a slight tweak to the firmware and maybe a few other items that are adjusted results in a moderate increase in hash rate and a brand-new miner.”
Bitcoin is en path to turning into an ESG asset
A theme of the previous few years has been a rise in Bitcoin miners and BTC advocates pushing again in opposition to the assertion that Bitcoin mining is dangerous for the atmosphere, and that the business’s reliance on carbon-based energy manufacturing accelerates emissions.
Countering this attitude, Hong Kong Sustaintech Foundation professor in accounting and finance, Haitian Lu, bluntly introduced that:
“Bitcoin mining is promoting renewable energy adoption in many areas.”
Lu defined that “over the years, Bitcoin mining has become more efficient and is also using cleaner energy. History tells us that human development from an agricultural society to industrialization to the future of a digitalized economy goes with every increasing energy consumption per capita. What makes the difference is human’s ability to use renewable energy increases, thus achieving sustainable development.”
Like the views shared by different panelists, Lu stated that Bitcoin miners’ participation in demand response agreements with energy producers and distributors results in energy grid efficiency, and they “provide an economic incentive for the development of renewable energy “promotion and development of renewable energy projects.”
In addition to Bitcoin mining tapping into stranded energy, encouraging the improvement of renewable energy tasks and serving to to steadiness electrical grids, the efficiency developments of next-generation ASICs like the Antminer S21 scale back miners’ energy consumption whereas additionally permitting them to spice up their income.
