"Knowledge Mining University Q&A" How to calculate the residual value of a mining machine? Where do scrapped mining machines go?

Answer from @JackyLHH, editor of Zhikuang University:

The most embarrassing thing in the current market is perhaps the Antminer S9. If the price of Bitcoin rises a little, most of the S9s can be turned on and continue to play a role; if the price continues to fall, most retail investors will have to shut down their S9s, except for large miners who fill in the load or build their own mines and have electricity price advantages (less than ¥0.25/kWh).

After the mining machine is shut down and taken off the shelves, if you want to sell the machine, how much can the mining machine be sold for? Where will the mining machine that has ended its economic life eventually go? Below, please listen to the editor's detailed explanation.

01
Residual value of ASIC mining machines

The chips of ASIC mining machines are customized and can only mine currencies with fixed algorithms. For example, SHA-256 mining machines can only mine BTC, BCH, and BSV.

The scrapping of ASIC mining machines is a long process. When the mining output cannot cover the electricity expenses, these mining machines will flow from small miners and retail miners to large miners with electricity cost advantages. Large miners still have profits because of the low electricity costs. At this time, the residual value of the mining machine is relatively high.

Taking the Ant S9 mining machine as an example, the residual value of the S9 is now about ¥100 to ¥250. The reason that supports this price is that some large miners who have electricity advantages are still willing to buy it, and they can also mine until the end of this year's flood season (assuming that the coin price does not rise and the mining difficulty remains stable).

When the electricity expenses of large miners far exceed the mining output of the mining machines, these mining machines can only be scrapped and sold as hardware.

Generally speaking, a scrapped ASIC mining machine hardware can be sold for about ¥30. After the mining machine is recycled, it will be disassembled and the precious metals in it can be extracted and reused.

02
Residual value of GPU mining machines

Although Bitcoin has entered the era of ASIC mining machines after going through CPU mining, graphics card (GPU) mining machines, and FPGA mining machines, the mainstream mining machines for some small currencies (such as the anonymous coin GRIN and Monero XMR) are still graphics card mining machines.

The residual value of a graphics card mining machine is mostly on the graphics card. The mainstream graphics card mining machines use A cards or N cards. A cards refer to graphics cards from AMD, and N cards refer to graphics cards from NVIDIA.

Typical A-card mining cards include AMD RX 460/470/480/570. After being eliminated from mining machines, these mining cards will enter the consumer field , such as being sold to Internet cafes, gamers, or companies that need to process a large number of graphics and images. After refurbishment, these mining cards can be sold at 60% to 70% of the price of new cards.

The most famous N card is P106-100, which has no hardware image output port, so it is called "pure mining card" by many people in the industry. After this graphics card is eliminated from the mining machine, its residual value is almost 0, but some unscrupulous merchants will refurbish the packaging and sell it to novice gamers. Because it has no image output port, the gamers cannot use it after buying it home. Other N cards with image output ports generally have a residual value of 60% to 70% of new cards.

Mainstream graphics card mining machines generally have 6 or 8 cards, so the majority of the residual value of graphics card mining machines lies in the graphics cards.

In addition to the graphics card, the remaining parts of the graphics card mining machine (mainboard, CPU, etc.) are called "platforms" in the industry. These "platforms" are universal. For example, if a graphics card mining machine equipped with an N card is scrapped, the platform can still be reused and can be reassembled with an A card or a new N card. The residual value of the "platform" is generally ¥500 to ¥1000.

In addition, let's talk about FPGA mining machines. FPGA mining machines can be regarded as a transitional product before the emergence of ASIC mining machines. It encapsulates a large number of logic devices in a box. How the logic elements in the box are connected is entirely determined by the user (writing the program). The residual value of FPGA mining machines is similar to that of ASIC mining machines. After recycling, only the precious metal materials in them can be refined.

03
summary

The economic life of a mining machine mainly depends on its mining output and electricity expenses . When the economic life of a mining machine comes to an end, the residual value of the mining machine can also bring part of the profit to the miner.

Generally speaking, the residual value of graphics card mining machines is higher than that of ASIC mining machines. The residual value of the former is mainly in the graphics card, followed by the "platform", while the residual value of the latter is mainly the precious metal materials in the hardware.

Risk Warning : The content of this article is only the author’s personal opinion and does not constitute any investment opinion or recommendation.