BT Daily News: What hardware do miners use? Where can I buy or sell ASICs?
1. What hardware do miners use?
Modern mining farms use application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), which are special-purpose chips customized to execute Bitcoin’s hashing algorithm. ASIC machines are designed for one type of work, unlike other general-purpose computing hardware used in earlier periods of the mining industry.Bitcoin mining was first performed with general-purpose computing hardware that was capable of multitasking, even though miners only completed one task: generating hashes.
For its first couple years, bitcoin mining was done with central processing units (CPUs). Later, graphics processing units (GPUs) – a more specialized processor – were introduced. The ASIC market debuted in 2012 and quickly industrialized Bitcoin mining.
Increasingly specialized mining hardware was used as a result of Bitcoin’s increasing mining difficulty, which required miners to optimize for the efficiency of their hardware and increase their overall hashrate. General purpose processors quickly became too slow and inefficient.
Bitcoin mining ASICs are priced significantly higher than CPUs or GPUs given high design and manufacturing costs. A bitcoin ASIC’s specifications typically include a hashrate (e.g., TH/s) and an efficiency rate (J/TH), which are best regarded as estimates instead of absolutes since they can vary depending on how the machine is operated and maintained over its lifetime.
Whether you’re looking to start mining or interested in selling machines to other miners, BT-Miners offers a marketplace for both types of miners.
2. Buying an ASIC
Under the Hardware tab on the BT-Miners homepage’s navigation bar, a variety of ASIC miners, including Whatsminers and Antminers, are available for purchase. Pricing, hashrate, efficiency, and order size limitations are listed.After buying a machine, BT miners have full control and ownership of their hardware. They can use third-party insurance, opt to join a mining pool, and select which facility they want their miner to operate in.