Chinese company Bitmain has announced an asic for mining ether under the name Antminer E3. It is the first specialized miner for Ethereum’s Ethash proof-of-work algorithm.
Bitmain states on its website that the Antminer E3 will cost $800. Initially, the company said there was a limit of a copy per customer, but that has now been increased to five. The device will not be sold in China and the first batch will be available between July 16 and 31. According to a ‘cautious estimate’ by Bitmain, the E3 miner delivers a hashrate of 180MH/s, or 180 million hashes per second, with a power of 800 watts. Bitmain expects performance to eventually be higher by the time deliveries begin.
The company does not share additional details. The miner is an alternative for people who now use a gpu for mining ether. Separate GPUs usually deliver a significantly lower hashrate. For example, an AMD RX 580 or a GTX 1070 Ti from Nvidia have hashrates of around 30MH/s and a TDP of around 180W.
It remains to be seen whether the introduction of the E3-asic will have an effect on the price and availability of GPUs, which came under pressure partly due to the popularity of mining. That’s because the Ethash algorithm that underlies Ethereum is designed to complicate the use of asics.
GitHub is currently discussing whether it is necessary to fork to improve resistance, following the news about the availability of the specialized miner. Following the introduction of a Monero asic by Bitmain, the community recently took action to curb its use.