Ever since the interview with Lukas Seyfrid (CZ), the chief of the hardware team, it was clear that Braiins is pivoting from the development of mining software, to building their own hardware.
This, I believe, is the first iteration of their effort in form of a consumer product, and while it is unlikely to make you a financial return on the investment, it's small form factor and nice anodized aluminum case can allow pretty much anyone to become familiar with the process of bitcoin mining. Or terrorize the testnet. The choice is yours.
I think I might buy one, just to try the viability of a pure solar setup.
HW specifications:
| Price (pre-order) | $199.00 |
| Hashrate | ~1Th/s |
| Power Consumption | 40W - 55W |
| Number of hashboards | 1 |
| Number of ASIC chips | 4 |
| Cooling Type | Active |
| Noise | 40 dB |
| Air outlet temperature | 40-50 °C |
But really, how much would it make in a year?
If we assume the current price and difficulty stays the same, the block subsidy is 3.125 BTC, median fees around 0.2212 BTC, free electricity, you'd get 0.001 BTC per 12 months, which is roughly 65 USD. A little more than 3 years to break even.
It's not going to break any records, but I'm still excited for what's to come next.
I'm not a big bitcoin person, as I personally prefer Monero, but this might be something worth getting. Just for the hell of it. What I think these mining companies are really missing is they need to make something that draws about 700 to 1000 watts and make it into the form of a consumer space heater. Because let's face it, a lot of people need a space heater during the winter.
Since they are just chips on a board, in order to turn up or down the wattage, you could just turn on or off chips until you got to the desired heat level. So say I didn't want 700 watts, I only wanted 400, I could take my chips and just turn off the ones that would increase the power more than 400 watts.
What I would honestly like to see, and I'm not sure if we will or not, is more decentralization of Bitcoin mining. Back in the beginning of Bitcoin, people could mine it with home hardware, and now that is no longer the case. However, with the block reward falling, it might drive companies out of business and return home miners.
Love the idea, but I somehow doubt it will happen.
In the past, the useful lifetime of the asics themselves was the main problem. Each generation made using smaller and smaller manufacturing process. Now that we're pushing the limits of what's even possible with EUV, the chips might last longer. However, the supporting infrastructure is still not fit to be operated by just anybody.
Making the whole system consumer friendly and reliable increases the cost, which puts any user in disadvantage compared to an industrial operation.
The economy of scale would normally take care of that, but mass adoption of mining heaters would probably make the difficulty shoot through the roof, negating any possible saving on heating, at least compared to other alternatives like heat pumps.
edit:
Brains OS can already fine tune individual chips according to your preferences on some bitmain machines.
Well, see, my thought is these miners would join into a pool that's decentralized. Kind of like how P2 pool is on Monero. I think you guys have F2 pool, which is the same thing i think. The goal with a consumer space heater product wouldn't necessarily be to make money with it but more just to subsidize your electricity bill during the winter. I mean if you've got to generate the heat anyway it might as well be doing something productive and giving you at least some bitcoin.
A lot of people already do this with [email protected] for free. They use their computers to help scientists do medical, space, and other forms of research. There are cryptos which reward this work as well, though it is far from profitable. That being said, I'd rather heat my house curing cancer (or hashing for Bitcoin) than with space heaters or electrical heat. For people with electrical heat who don't have heat pumps, it literally costs the same. I think there is absolutely a market for this. Maybe not a massive one, but I for one would be interested.