Bitmain Antminer HS3 Sold Out In Half a Minute

Demand for Bitcoin mining hardware is still high, as evidenced by the latest Bitmain unit, which has sold out in seconds.

On Dec. 21, Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain announced that its latest HNS HS3 unit had sold out in 27 seconds.

The Antminer retailed for $2,092 per unit, which is pretty cheap considering the price collapse of mining hardware this year. The HNS Blake2B+SHA3 air-cooling miners went on sale on Dec. 20 and were snapped up fast. Only five units were available per customer, the Bitmain website stated.

It offers a hash rate of 9 TH/s (terahashes per second) and a power rating of 2,079 watts. This translates to an energy rating of 231 joules per terahash.

Bitmain Miners Sold Out

Chinese mining giant Bitmain remains the market leader for Bitcoin mining hardware. The firm’s only available flagship model is the Antminer S19 XP boasting a hash rate of 134 TH/s and just 21.5 joules per terahash. However, it is three times the price at $6,164 per unit.

Furthermore, its 100 TH/s S19 Pro Antminer had also sold out, according to the company website. The Bitmain Antminer S19 XP Hydro, boasting hash rates over 200 TH/s, was also unavailable.

According to Hashrate Index, the ASIC price index tumbled in 2022 along with Bitcoin prices. Additionally, the declines were steeper with higher power efficiency miners. The ASIC Price Index reflects the current price per terahash of different BTC mining devices grouped by three efficiency tiers.

Mining profitability has tanked this year as BTC miners faced a triple whammy. High hash rates and difficulty, low Bitcoin prices, and escalating energy costs have hammered most of them.

As a result, hash price, or mining profitability, has slumped 75% since the beginning of the year. The metric, which measures the expected value of 1 TH/s of hashing power per day, is currently close to its lowest level at $0.061 TH/s/day, according to Hashrate Index.

Bitcoin Hash Rate Declines

The network hash rate has fallen 11% from its all-time high in early November to 243 TH/s today. It still remains too high for many miners to turn a profit, however.

Furthermore, fears of another Bitcoin miner selloff have been dispelled by industry experts. Even if miners sold 300% of their daily production of 2,700 BTC per day, “it would not amount to more than 0.6% of Bitcoin’s spot volume,” noted Jaran Mellerud.