Digital currency mines around the world stop and start again. Like the crazy pace of this era, when the currency price is high, it surges up, and when the currency price falls, people go empty.
Today, the price of Bitcoin (calculated at $7,000) is 100,000 times higher than it was 8 years ago, and 70 times higher than it was 5 years ago. In 2010, 10,000 bitcoins could only buy a $25 pizza. Behind these astonishing increases, what has been ignored is the more terrifying increase in computing power.
Compared with 9 years ago, the computing power of Bitcoin's entire network has increased by one trillion times; compared with 5 years ago, it has increased by 260,000 times.In mid-June 2009, the computing power was only 3.6MH/s; in June 2013, this number became 140TH/s; this year, the computing power of the entire network is about 36EH/s.
History keeps repeating itself, and the grand occasion of the past two years is like the first skyrocketing scene of Bitcoin five years ago in the eyes of the elderly. The skyrocketing currency price has driven the "prosperity" of the entire industry, and the mining industry is the industry that responds the fastest to currency prices after speculation.
"As long as the currency price rises, many people will come in to mine." Sun Xiaoxiao, the former head of HAO BTC mining business, said, "They feel that buying coins is too empty, and mining can have machines. In fact, the income of mining also depends on Currency price."
Since last year, the price of currency has risen, the concept of blockchain has swept across, and the mining industry has been waiting for an opportunity.
Unlike the madness of 5 years ago,The coverage radius of the mining boom is no longer the same: big capital comes in, and so does Xiaobai.
In the past, bitcoin mining practitioners could only admire themselves. Mainstream capital doesn't like it, and ordinary people can't understand it.
Today, the threshold for mining is extremely high, and you need hundreds of millions of funds to be able to mine Bitcoin; today, the threshold for mining is low and extremely low, and you can mine coins even if you don’t know anything about the blockchain.
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1. War of Computing Power: The Industrial Revolution of Bitcoin Mining is gaining momentum
Mining started with the birth of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin mining can earn newly issued coins and bookkeeping fees. The Bitcoin network generates a random number every ten minutes, and whoever calculates the random number first can get this reward. This is a random collision process. In theory, the greater the computing power, the more bitcoins will be mined.
The godfather Xingkong (Wu Gang) in the circle is one of the first people in China to be exposed to Bitcoin. According to GQ reports, he dug up 7,000 bitcoins with a laptop in the year when bitcoin was created, and was attracted by the freedom, democracy and rigor of bitcoin. Unfortunately, at that time, he did not expect the popularity of Bitcoin. So another 7,000 coins were buried in the soil.
1. The launch of ASIC: overnight riches come true, the beginning of the computing power war
Mining became an industry, which originated from the introduction of ASIC mining machines 5 years ago.
Previously, Bitcoin has gone through CPU, GPU to FPGA mining.
These are the types of chips. CPUs and GPUs are good at linear logic operations and massively parallel computing respectively. FPGA has a programmable framework, which can be understood as a semi-custom circuit; ASIC is a highly customized integrated circuit, and the circuit cannot be changed once it leaves the factory, butHigh performance and low power consumption。
Bitcoin mining is simply colliding random numbers, so GPUs are more efficient than CPUs. And because only the SHA256 algorithm is used, if the chip is designed to only do this type of calculation, the efficiency will be greatly improved. The development of mining machine chips can be understood as the specialization of chip functions.
The American team Butterfly announced in 2012 that it would launch a Bitcoin ASIC mining machine. Pumpkin Zhang (formerly known as Zhang Nangeng), the founder of Avalon Mining Machine (Canaan Zhizhi), said that he smelled the danger of Bitcoin being monopolized, so he joined the team of developing ASIC mining machines "for the sake of world peace".
The revolutionaries ended up being what he was against.
In January 2013, the first Avalon mining machine was unboxed. Pumpkin Zhang developed an ASIC mining machine before Butterfly, starting the battle for Bitcoin computing power.
The "nano-level competition" has thus begun.
At that time, the mining circle was still a minority, and the birth of ASIC mining machines was not expected by everyone, but was born out of numerous controversies and doubts. Before the birth of the mining machine, there were still endless debates in the community on whether such a machine should and could be made. The first batch of ASIC mining machine pre-purchasers were ridiculed as lunatics, who actually spent tens of thousands of dollars to buy so many air manufacturing machines, and this machine may not be manufactured yet.
Founder of Xingkong and Aisike Technologyfat boyIt was the first lunatics. Fatty bought 18 units for about 170,000. Starry Sky bought 10 units.
Fat Boy was originally a Foxconn engineer, and he had been mining with a graphics card at home before. Xingkong is the investor of Avalon and Roasted Cat, the protagonists of the first generation of ASIC mining industry, and his experience is destined that he will not miss this opportunity. In 2011, he spent 300,000 yuan to buy a large amount of bitcoins. After making money, he began to throw money away. He is known as the "Gandalf" of the bitcoin world.
According to the terms at the time, there was no refund for pre-sale mining machines, no sales customer service, no change of delivery address, and almost no guarantee.
It looks quite "overlord" today, reflecting the incomprehensible beliefs of this group of initial investors.
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Fat Boy got the first batch of Avalon mining machines
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When Fat Boy used ASIC mining, his daily income was about 40 bitcoins
Before mass production, there were only 300 Avalon mining machines in the world. On the first day Fat Boy picked up the goods, a friend bought one from him for 250,000 yuan, which not only paid back the cost but also made a net profit of 80,000 yuan. Later, the Avalon mining machine was once fired to 400,000.
Roasted Cat’s angel investors were another bunch of lunatics of that era.
The genius teenager Roasted Cat (Jiang Xinyu) announced in August 2012 the development of ASIC mining machines and raised funds through the community's "virtual IPO". Wu Jihan, the founder of Ant Mining Machine, and Xiao Qiang (Xie Jian), the founder of Xiaoqiang Mining Machine, each spent 1,000 bitcoins to buy more than 10,000 shares. Sun Xiaoxiao bought all the movable money in coins, and then bought roasted cat stocks.
Roasted Cat’s mine in Shenzhen is located between a garment factory and an electronics factory, and passers-by don’t know anything about it.According to GQ, In July 2013, the mine was able to mine nearly 40,000 coins per month; the company's stock price also rose from 0.1 bitcoin to 5, with a market value of more than 130 million US dollars.
"I stand at the forefront of the world, in this seemingly inconspicuous place."Xiaoqiang described the experience of visiting the roasted cat mine in this way.
Pre-sale (crowdfunding) was a commonly used financing method in the mining industry at that time. Mining machine manufacturers such as Shenyu and Longkuang accept customer reservations, and then pre-order chips from chip manufacturers. This makes mining riskier. The computing power of the entire network is growing rapidly. Once chip or mining machine manufacturers skip tickets, it may mean that investors’ money is wasted.
Bounces are not uncommon. Avalondo was launched as futures, and investors suffered serious losses due to several bounced tickets; roasted cats were mainly spot products, and later they also failed in research and development, and the chip exploded.
No matter how high the risk is, under the huge profits, there are many entrants.
In May 2013, CCTV reported Bitcoin for the first time, and investors came after hearing the news. The currency price soared 4 times in November. Mining machines are in short supply.
The mining machine industry is full of flowers, including Roasted Cat Mining Machine, Pigeon Mining Machine, Biter Mining Machine, Rand Mining Bureau, Little Bee Mining Machine, Avalon Original Factory and various OEMs, Garden Mining Machine, Smart Mining Machine, etc.
The computing power war is heating up, Roasted Cat and Avalon are at the poles, and Antminer is still working hard on research and development.
2. The first cold winter of the mining industry: confusion, departure and persistence
The prosperity of the mining industry is the epitome of the first wave of entrepreneurship in the currency circle in 2013. Following the founding of Babbitt by Chang Jia (Liu Zhipeng) in 2011,Lao Mo (Mo Buyi) founded BTC123, Yang Linke founded the Bitcoin China trading platform,Bikan was established in 2013, Wu Jihan established Bitmain in May, Li Lin and Xu Mingxing respectively established Huobi and OKCoin in May and October...
The mining industry is the infrastructure of the digital currency industry, and most of the early entrants have set up their own mines.
Fat Boy later moved bricks and cement to build a mine in Huadu District, Guangzhou. Sanjin (Ye Hanxin, founder of Lianchi Technology), who was doing mining machine OEM at that time, also deployed thousands of mining machines.
The prosperity of the industry turned into nothing in the next year or so.
On December 5, 2013, five ministries and commissions including the People's Bank of China issued the "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks". The currency price that rose to the peak was quickly cut in half within 20 days. In the next year, it fluctuated and fell, and after the beginning of 2015, it was a 10-month sideways market.
The price of the currency plummeted, entrepreneurs found it hard to survive, and a large number of people left the market.
"There is no way to make money. Countless information and exchanges came out in 2014, and they all died." Sun Xiaoxiao recalled the situation at that time. The mining industry, which was once the most profitable in the industrial chain, was not spared. "In 2013, the currency price was several hundred to 8,000 (RMB), and everyone rushed in; in 2014, it was a bear market. Miners died miserably, and mining machines were not easy to sell. At the beginning of 2015, the currency price fell to More than RMB 900, many people are afraid of returning to zero, so many mine owners have started to clear their mining machines.” Once tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of mining machines were bought back, they were regarded as scrap iron and sold at a low price.
At this time,Roasted cat mining machine faces research and development bottleneck, The company's stock continued to plummet. In the end, Roasted Cat also disappeared mysteriously in this mine disaster, which became a big unsolved case in the currency circle.
The disappearance of the roasted cat also made Xiaoqiang completely disappointed. The mine continued to lose money, it was a bear market, and a child was added to the family. He decided to leave his job and return to his hometown.
Sun Xiaoxiao, who is all-in Roasted Cat stock, is experiencing a double plunge in the price of Bitcoin and Roasted Cat stock. In 2014, when the stock price was at a low point, he cleared his position and bought bitcoin, but then suffered a sharp drop in bitcoin, and at the same time, the A shares soared to 5,000 points. By the Spring Festival of 2015, he could barely afford the ticket to go home.
When Bitcoin was at 900, no one talked about Bitcoin anymore.
Entrepreneurs in the currency circle, hexadecimal, once described it like thisDuring the scene:
When the price of Bitcoin was 4500 (RMB), the entrepreneurs of Bitcoin gathered together to make strings.
When the market price of Bitcoin was 3500, you can find a group of people to gather in Beijing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou.
When Bitcoin was in the 2000s, many Bitcoin entrepreneurs began to sell coins for a living.
When Bitcoin was at 900, no one talked about Bitcoin anymore.
A minority of believers persisted.
When the market is in a downturn, it appearsThe largest mine in the world at the time(Inner Mongolia Yihang Cloud Computing Technology Co., Ltd.).
According to Odaily, the mine is located in Dalat Banner, Inner Mongolia, and is jointly invested by giants such as Avalon, Ant, and Huobi. Sanjin is one of the suppliers. According to GQ reports, the mine can produce 130,000 bitcoins a year and consumes 5 million kilowatts of electricity each year, which is equivalent to the electricity consumption of a medium-sized city for one month.
Now the project has been submerged in the dust of history, but it is quite historic.It originated in May 2014, when the currency price was around 2,000 yuan, Bao Erye organized a closed mining conference in Shenzhen. At that time, the market was very sluggish, and the meeting was held from morning to night. One of the most impressive topics was:Who will die first in this industry.
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Inner Mongolia Yihang Cloud Computing Mineinternal
There are clouds in the industry, but miners have no faith. If there is a chain of contempt in the Bitcoin industry, miners are the end of the chain of contempt. This "mining disaster" is like a test for miners. Some people are eager to clear their warehouses because they are afraid of going to zero.Sun Xiaoxiao, Fat Boy, and San Jin were all those who persevered at that time.
When the currency price is low, cost becomes the key to profitability.
Hydropower stations in Sichuan, Yunnan and other places have a large amount of excess hydropower. The mine cooperates privately with the hydropower station to get electricity as low as 25 cents, which is far lower than the normal price of 40 to 50 cents. After Sanjin cleaned up almost all of his inventory, he buried himself in mining Litecoin and Bitcoin for a year. With the help of friends in the mine, Fat Boy paid for the electricity bill for two years on credit. "This industry can no longer afford to support so many people." Sun Xiaoxiao recalled that he could not survive without Xingkong's "drawing swords to help". At the invitation of the latter, he joined HaoBTC as the sixth employee, and has since been in charge of the mining business.
Bitmain, which has not become a hegemony, just tasted a little sweetness in 2014, and also encountered the freezing point of the industry. In order to tide over the difficulties, Bitmain also sold some machines at that time.
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2. A Clash of Kings: Bitcoin Mining Enters the Era of Big Machine Production
The story that followed has been told many times.
In 2015, the price of the currency rose, and miners returned to the mine. Bitmain developed the ant mining machine S5, which was able to come back to life. According to Ketuan Zhan, the profit margin of the mining machine reaches 50%.
Bitmain not only survived, but also launched the ant mining machine S9 in 2016, which has occupied the mainstream until now.
The miners who persisted in the early years finally survived. The recovery of currency prices brought new leeks, and the mining and related industries began to recover.
On June 19, 2016, Bitcoin rose by nearly 80% in a single month, hitting a new high in the past two years, but there is still a certain distance from the historical high in November 2013.
"Bitcoin madness is back?"Du Jun, who was still working at Huobi at the time, lamented in the WeChat group.
The mine that came suddenly like a spring breeze overnight gave an affirmative answer to this question.
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thenA small mine by the Dadu RiverSource: Sina
Some people cooperate with the local government, or affiliate with state-owned enterprises, or enter in the name of cloud computing center as a channel to attract investment; some mines bypass the national grid,Directly negotiate low-cost electricity with power stations。
There are also people who directly use electricity illegally. "The end of 2015 and 2016 was the craziest time in China. Electricity theft was everywhere in Ma'anshan." Sun Xiaoxiao described a small factory that took risks in a major energy province. The simple board house is located in the mountains, the iron frame is full of mining machines with messy wires, connected to the transformer,Stealing electricity from high-voltage cables near oilfield mines。
Such chaos has existed for a long time, and the complex hardware equipment and profound cryptography knowledge fell to the ground, all of which have become the mixed desires of the gold diggers and the selfishness of the local government.
The mining machine that used to swagger in Shenzhen, but made people look at a loss, has finally been recognized by thieves for its value.
At the beginning of 2016, the thieves are getting ready to go home for the New Year.Ma On Shan OneMore than 130 bitcoin mining machines and power supplies in the factory were stolen, and the loss exceeded 1.6 million yuan.Such cases abounded at that time. Factory buildings built privately and illegally stealing electricity were seized, and a large number of Antminer S9s were seized. "The police didn't know it was worth the money at the beginning, and they could get the machine back for a little money; then, to make matters worse, they confiscated your S9, and when you asked for it, they returned a batch of S7 and S5, and took the S9 It's sold for money."
These anecdotes are full of recklessness.
All this is now becoming a thing of the past.
Against the background of a sharp increase in difficulty, weak currency prices, stricter domestic regulation, and higher electricity prices, Bitcoin mining has entered the era of mass production of machines, and the pursuit of scale effect with large capital investment.
The "industrial revolution" of the mining industry has entered another stage, and the bitcoin mining industry presents two major trends: one is scale, intensification and formalization; the other is internationalization.
1. Traditional capital enters the market with billions
If the "mining machine revolution" that began in 2013 has changed the productivity of the mining industry, today's large-scale operations have upgraded the management capabilities of the industry.
Dongyu's mine is a typical pioneer of the "industrial revolution" in mines. A mine in Xinjiang is equipped with 100,000 mining machines. Among them, more than 70,000 are Bitcoin ASIC mining machines, and more than 20,000 are graphics card mining machines for mining Ethereum.
A mine of this size eclipses the aforementioned guerrillas. Dong Yu said that those mine owners who had deployed thousands of mining machines were also very surprised to see their mines.
Even so, Dongyu dare not say that his mine is among the top three in terms of scale. "No matter how big a mine is, it is just a wallet on the Internet, and you don't know how many machines it has." The low profile of the mining industry makes it difficult to count the real boss. It is rumored that the world's largest mining farm is owned by Bitmain, with more than 200,000 machines deployed, but Bitmain has not publicly admitted it.
The astonishing installed capacity is the result of traditional industrial capital entering the market.
They changed the game of mining. In the past, most of the elders in the currency circle used their own funds to mine and gradually expand; now the industrial capital regards the mine as a factory, and once it enters, it will cost several billion. The high returns let them ignore the huge risks.
The current currency market is actually in a bear market, but traditional capital is never tired of it. "After the Spring Festival, traditional capital came in. They received projects, entered the mine, and scattered money wantonly." Dongyu said that their mine has received several large sums of money in recent years. "As far as I know, the consortia in Jiangsu and Zhejiang have invested 500 million to 1 billion in Xinjiang. For traditional businessmen, the rate of return of dozens of dollars is already very high." Odaily learned that there are several national character backgrounds The large funds intend to enter the mining industry. Its fund-raising cost has reached 5%, and the real economy can no longer satisfy this type of fund.
The traditional real economy is sluggish,Industrial return on investment slipped to 4% in 2016, The Shanghai Composite Index is hovering at 3,000 points, and the annualized rate of return of several hundred digital currencies is unimaginable for the real economy. "These traditional bosses are actually more capable of finding electricity than people in the currency circle. They know some places and some resources, and feel that they should do this by themselves."
"New big miners are coming in, and the small miners in the past are retreating. Bitcoin has entered the era of institutional scale."
The Xiaosan in his mouth are those mine owners who have dozens to thousands of machines, that is, the above-mentioned grasslands. Their electricity is irregular and unstable. "If the currency price drops a little bit, they can't hold it at all." The currency price is falling, the price of mining machines is reduced, and the low-cost electricity price is no longer. However, "the infrastructure of the plant and every machine is money."
Big capital has the capital and means to withstand the decline in currency prices. Everyone believes that this is just another low point. "As long as you can hold the currency, money is not a problem." Just like Bitmain, Avalon and a group of mine owners back then, it is actually hard to say what they did right, but they persisted.
One is bycapital volumetwo is
two istechnology intensiveFinally
Finallyfine management. Most miners can't hold coins, and someone digs out coins and sells them immediately to pay electricity bills or expand. A more sensible operation should be to use the wave band of the market for asset management. When the market is good, you can sell machines to make money. "We prepared six months of electricity bills during the Spring Festival."
"These are actually meaningless." If the price of Bitcoin remains flat for a few months, it will be difficult for anyone to sustain it. He told Odaily that looking at history, it will fall every Spring Festival, rise every November, and rise every spring and summer before halving. "It is reasonable to say that there is a bull market now, but it has not appeared."
According to him, the annualized rate of return of his mine was 400% last year, and the return could be made within three months; the rate of return in March this year was only 100%. For those who mine, it is already very unprofitable.
2. Transfer abroad and cooperate with the government
The scale of the mine also gave them the conditions and reasons to go to sea.
According to Caijing
according todaily economic news report, On January 2, 2018, the Mutual Finance Rectification Office issued a document requiring all localities to guide enterprises within their jurisdiction to withdraw from the "mining" business in an orderly manner.According to Caijing, The regulatory authorities have plans to gradually cancel preferential policies such as electricity prices, taxes, and land. Cao Yin, Chief Strategy Officer of the Energy Blockchain Lab, believes that this has no fundamental impact on the mining industry, but it is an increase in the cost of electricity, taxes, and land. In fact, a policy barrier has been established to benefit large mine owners.
But just in case, the mines still choose to go to sea.
In addition to the tightening of supervision, the increase in domestic electricity costs is also a major impetus for going overseas.
winter rain summaryLast year, it was generally 2.5 to 2.8 cents per degree, but now it is more than 4 cents, and the more expensive places may have reached 6 cents. With the escalation of supervision, the cost of the electricity provider is increasing, and they are unwilling to sell electricity when they panic.
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A Russian "miner" posted a Bitcoin "mine" on the InternetSource: Global Daily
The first advantage of setting up a site abroad is the low electricity bill. Ren Mingyue, the founder of Mining World Cloud, revealed that when they go abroad, the electricity price can be as low as 8 points, and the monthly salary of a local miner does not exceed 2,000 yuan. However, Dongyu said that it is possible to save a little electricity bills abroad, but there are still many hidden costs. Hydropower in Canada is cheap, but the costs of logistics, compliance and environmental impact assessment are high.
"The electricity in many places is actually not that reliable. The electricity bill is one or two cents cheaper, and its environmental protection cost is very high. It is necessary to specially pull the machine over, and even the shelves for the machine must be imported from China. As long as it is not smuggled, it will be Increase costs." Seventy to eighty percent of the world's mining machines are produced in China, and logistics and tariffs have become inevitable propositions. At present, there is already a special service provider to help the mine transfer the machines abroad. "A machine is about 80 dollars, and you don't need to worry about the others. Just tell the service provider how many machines you have, and they will help you do international logistics."
The reason for choosing neighboring countries is also because the operation and maintenance and circulation of mining machines are convenient. It is difficult to sell mining machines abroad, and there may not be professional repairers, so they can only be shipped back to China for processing.
Low labor costs may just look pretty. "No matter where you are, you need someone to operate. There may be no way to use local people. Russia does not work every 5 o'clock, and does not work for two months every year. It may be illegal to ask them to work overtime."
The low electricity price is just a Basic Line,Dongyu summed up the three major requirements of the mine for power resources:
First, the cost of electricity is low. This is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
Second, the electricity should be stable. The technical facilities for power supply must be sufficient, the number of repairs and overhauls should not be too many, the duration should not be too long, and the voltage and current should be relatively stable; in fact, this is difficult to achieve, especially in the southwest hydropower stations, which have dry seasons. There were not many people mining in the past, and they all migrated like migratory birds, but it is obviously unrealistic for large mines.
The third most important thing is safety. For example, no one can bother us, this is a very profitable business, and local local snakes can't come to rob us. Others know that you are mining. Every machine has a fan to dissipate heat, and there are fans around the entire factory for ventilation. A lot of equipment is densely arranged, and we have not yet attracted complaints from residents.
Once the above conditions are not met, mining disasters may come.The small and medium mines transferred to Southeast Asia are the victimsimage description
Mines in Southeast Asia are often "fancy reports"
Therefore, the owners of large mines that Odaily has contacted all have certain background support abroad.
"I found someone with a background in Russia through my classmates, which is equivalent to the second generation of officials in China. I found several places in Novosibirsk, and I had to explain all kinds of relationships with the local power supply department and gangs." Dongyu in Russia The mine is still doing the initial deployment, and plans to have an installed capacity of more than 100,000 units. "Russia is a bit of a mess. I bought a gun and put it in the car to be a little more at ease. More than 2,000 guns, plus 1,000 yuan, can be sold to people without a gun license..."
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Of course, retail investors have never had such a choice, and the cost and funds required to go overseas are out of reach.
3. A Feast for Crows: The New Currency Becomes an Opportunity for the New Reckless
Under the pressure of big funds, mainstream currencies such as Bitcoin have little chance for new miners.
Paradoxically, in 2017, under the bubble of classical Internet people who turned their backs and advocated blockchain, blockchain suddenly became a well-known word. Even people who know nothing, witnessing the madness of currency prices, want to come in and mine.
These new miners are really casual, just like the old miners 5 or 6 years ago, they bought less than ten or dozens of graphics card mining machines to mine at home. Sanjin, an old man in the mining circle, was even a little surprised: "I thought no one would dig like this anymore." The difference is that most of them don't have the belief in Bitcoin back then; Most of these people sell coins on a regular basis. According to a retail investor, "I earn a little every month, and I have to repay the loan, so I can't hold the coins."
1. High yield: new currency with small market and large fluctuation
They can't dig Bitcoin, and the smooth fluctuations can't stimulate Xiaosan. However, the second stage of blockchain development gives them new opportunities. In the previous stage, various forked coins appeared, and many people made money from mining. Now, all public chains are talking about the dream of becoming blockchain 3.0, and the speed at which new currencies emerge makes the forked currency sigh. These new currencies require less computing power, can be dug by graphics card mining machines, and have large fluctuations and high returns.
Xicheng from Hebei is an employee of a state-owned enterprise in Beijing. His job is stable but his income is meager. He feels that he is under great pressure in life and has been looking for ways to make money. In 2016, he came into contact with the blockchain. At first, he just speculated on coins, but felt that "the risk of speculating on coins is relatively high, so he started mining."
This kind of cognition is probably a kind of myth of Xiaosan who has just entered the pit. Regardless of his family's opposition, he spent 120,000 yuan to buy 6 graphics card mining machines and put them in his hometown in Hebei.
At the beginning, he "mined in a fool's way", mining Ethereum and Zcash. "After a long time, when you get in touch with a master of technology, you will be able to mine coins with higher returns. The coins you mine will also change accordingly."
XDAG is a small currency that has been sought after by small miners recently.XDAG BrowserIt shows that the current computing power of the entire network has reached 110TH/s. This is a currency with a circulation market value of only 100 million yuan. It was launched in January this year and onlyIn BBX, VB,Coinfly, FirefoxWait for a small number of exchanges to go online. It adopts the consensus mechanism of DAG+POW, known as high TPS, and supports mining, and the main network has been launched, and the TPS is about 2,000.At the same time, the public chain declaresimage description
XDAG currency price trendSource: AICoin
If calculated according to the current difficulty and electricity price of 5 cents, six 1070 graphics card machines can mine about 70 XDAGs per day, with a market price of 7 cents and a daily income of 50 yuan. If there are more machines, the monthly income can be 10,000-20,000. It doesn’t sound like much, but if you imagine that you don’t do anything, and a bunch of mining machines print money there every day, maybe you have a feeling of lying down and making money.
Xicheng hates himself for going into the wrong business. Now that he doesn't have enough knowledge to choose a currency, he can only follow people who know how to do it. "I know some people who write their own pools (mining pools) and find that technology is the primary productive force." After the new currency comes out, some people will pre-mine the mining pool and wait for the currency to be listed on the exchange to make a fortune.
Of course, there are many breaks, and the upfront cost will go down the drain. "Mainstream currencies are okay, and most of the small currencies are for gambling." Now Xicheng seems to have seen through the transactions he made. "Everyone in this circle knows it well. One coin a year is enough."
"This industry, to put it bluntly, is a gambler's industry." Just like a gambler can't guarantee that he can win every game, when asked about the profit of mining, no new miner can give you a fixed number, everything depends on the currency price related. "This year's market, if you can pay back your capital within half a year, it is already very good. Last April and May was the craziest time for ether, and you could pay back within 40 days."
2. The same crowded new currency mining industry
Mainstream currencies are chased by big capital, and new currencies have small players betting.
The "fool-style coin mining" and technology giants in Xicheng's mouth may give you a glimpse of such a scene-with the emergence of new currencies, miners, mining pools, and mining machine manufacturers are dizzying and flipping over the currency brands.
A mining industry chain followed, and it was still aimed at Xiaobai.
Even if you don't understand the principle of mining machines, the mechanism of tokens, or the basic system installation, you can mine.
Phantom Technology is a company that specializes in serving novice miners. CTO Kong Chan said: "We are just novice miners with little technology to mine other altcoins." They have developed a set of super stupid software that supports more than ten currencies. After the user accesses, select the mining pool and currency in the graphical interface, and the graphics card parameters will be automatically adjusted. Phantom draws 10% of the income of the day as a service fee, which is settled daily.
Phantom Technology provides one-stop service, with dedicated customer service and technical support throughout the process. As mentioned above, it doesn’t matter if you don’t even know how to install the software after buying the mining machine. Kong Chan explained, "Of course, after we draw, the income is still much higher than that of Ether, and the RMB is settled every day, and they don't have to toss and sell coins by themselves."
The actual threshold for such a service is not high, but the founder Phantom doesn't seem to care too much, after all, there are always small white miners. He lives in Jiangmen, like a young man in a small town in a corner of Pian'an. He is good at business with "low threshold and quick money". At present, he plans to make some money first and live a small life. "If one day the country does not allow us to do it, we will go out of business."
In addition to the Xiaobai service, the mining pool has also become a must for new currencies.
Shike is one of the "big bulls in the mining pool" that Xicheng called. But he was quite surprised to hear this "title". "The mining pool codes are all open source, without any threshold."
This can not only increase the probability of mining coins, but also stabilize the income of minersThis can not only increase the probability of mining coins, but also stabilize the income of miners。
Shi Ke is a programmer of an Internet company. He built an XDAG mining pool with his friends in February this year.fat pool. Fat Pool once occupied 70% of the computing power of the entire network. Entering the game gave them a first-mover advantage, and they also experienced early twists and turns. In early May, the XDAG network was attacked by DDos, causing the entire network to shut down. "We lost communication with the foreign network. The fund asked several mining pools to close the mining pool first, and we closed it. As a result, several of them were not contacted. They were digging crazily and became the longest chain. Our miners instead If we want to roll back, we still have to chase them. If I had known that I would not have closed it, then I would be the longest chain now." Shi Ke looked regretful.
The new currency brings countless opportunities. Some people are content with the status quo, while others dream of betting on the next Bitcoin. I only sigh that today is not what it used to be, and the currency circle is no longer the idealistic and little-known world like a peach blossom garden.
Feelings exit, speculation enters the stage.
In the past, miners would stick to their beliefs. Today's miners aim at profit and switch at any time, and don't care what they are digging at all.
As one of the two most profitable links (exchange and mining) in the industry chain, the mining industry is eye-catching, and the competition is unprecedentedly fierce.
There are more and more companies similar to Phantom Technology. Odaily came into contact with another software named Woyoubit, which supports mining XDAG without taking a commission. However, the former is a "customized tour" and the latter is "Ctrip". In the field of mining pools, XDAG has even been targeted by F2Pool, the earliest mining pool in China, and entered the innovation zone of F2Pool. Shi Ke said, “When we first entered, there were no more than 10 in the world, and now there areThere are 41. "Big factories have entered the game, and the rising channel for newcomers has become increasingly narrow.
3. The new currency is full of noobs, and "rights protection" is probably the only way to go
Maybe you will be curious, why don’t the big mines mine the new currency with such high income?
Simple, they can't dig. Small miners have lost the ability to mine Bitcoin, and large mines cannot join in the ultra-high-yield mining of new currencies.
The reason why traditional funds can come in to mine Bitcoin today is because the Bitcoin market is finally large enough to carry funds of this size.
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Source: BTC.comSource: BTC.com
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Bitcoin Hashrate GrowthSource: bitcoin.com
With this kind of computing power, even if 100,000 machines are added in an instant, it will not have much impact on the computing power of the entire Bitcoin network. The new currency is like the early Bitcoin. If this amount of funds comes in, you can "play to death" the currency and yourself.
"Your transaction volume is only a little, how can I cut it?" Dongyu, the owner of the big mine, lamented that the inability of small miners to mine bitcoins is a greedy decision of human nature; the same is true for the inability of large mines to mine small coins. Small currencies simply cannot carry the computing power of large mines. Imagine that as soon as they come in, the difficulty of the entire network will be increased, and the computing power of the entire network will be completely exploded. Otherwise, the currency of the whole network is mined, the currency holding is completely centralized, and there is no opponent in the exchange. "It is difficult for us to turn around. If we cut a little bit, the profit is not worthwhile; once it becomes unstable, it may stop for half an hour."
By this logic, the most recentAntminer B3Rights protection incidents seem to have become a matter of course.
The small currency with great volatility is Xiaosan's exclusive game.
This means that qualified investors are all in low-risk currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum; new currencies attract small investors. In the eyes of the old people in the currency circle and the owners of large mines I interviewed, the latter are "unqualified investors".
In terms of losses, the investors who pre-purchased the mining machine 5 years ago were the ones who lost the most money. Many investors lost the opportunity cost of thousands of bitcoins because of the skipped tickets of the mining machine, but they also considered themselves unlucky. "At least our mentality is that I made this decision, I sent the money, and no one will grab your hand and force you." Fat Boy got the first batch of mining machines under the condition of acknowledging the overlord clause. "In the past, no matter what kind of currency price, everyone was prepared, but I feel that those who invest in mining machines now, he did not expect the currency price to fall in the future."
"Sudden wealth has brought too many new leeks, and they are completely unwilling to do their homework." Sun Xiaoxiao, who has been in the mining industry for 6 years, said that these things actually happened in the early days, but the early miners at least did some work. homework. They understand that once ASIC mining machines appear and miners increase, the difficulty will inevitably rise in a short period of time. "The most precious thing about mining is time. Now many people don't understand this, and they don't consider the decline in currency prices and the increase in difficulty."
There is no business in this world that only makes money but does not lose money. But this is probably the special feature of Chinese leeks. The income is not enough, and rights protection comes to make up.
Perhaps this is the only way for the growth of China's digital currency financial market. Large institutional investors have come in, and so have small white leeks.
I am Lu Xiaoming, editor of Odaily. I am exploring the real blockchain. Please add WeChat lohiuming for breaking news and communication. Please note your name, unit, position and reason.
I am Lu Xiaoming, editor of Odaily. I am exploring the real blockchain. Please add WeChat lohiuming for breaking news and communication. Please note your name, unit, position and reason.
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