Asic mining machines are "coming in droves", will Grin give birth to a "star mining machine" in 2019?

With no ICO, no pre-mining, and no investors, Grin, affectionately called Bitcoin 2.0, was undoubtedly like a flash of lightning that suddenly illuminated the entire cryptocurrency market in early 2019.

A friend of mine once lamented that he had no chance to mine Bitcoin. As soon as Grin came out, he immediately set up his computer and started mining. When the Grin mainnet was first launched, a mining machine equipped with an NVIDIA 1080Ti graphics card could mine an average of 1 Grin per day. He enjoyed it and regarded it as a treasure.

In mid-March, a Hangzhou company called VIDTOO announced on Twitter that its Grin ASIC mining machine project has started pre-sale and will be available as early as this summer. The mining machine has a computing power more than 50 times higher than the current GPU mining machine, has low energy consumption, and electricity costs only account for 1% of mining business revenue.

Previously, Innosilicon and Oblisk have announced plans for Grin ASIC mining machines, and the launch time nodes are almost concentrated in this summer. So, as Grin's influence in the community continues to ferment, in this post-Bitcoin era, will Grin, born with a crown, set off a mining machine competition?

You know, Grin is really a hot topic, just like dry firewood, it will catch fire at any time .

Grin, daily mining output reaches 20%-25% of Ethereum

At the beginning of 2019, Ethereum completed the Constantinople upgrade, and the miner reward was reduced by one third. As the largest graphics card mining currency, this was undoubtedly a blow to the miners, and the star currency Grin undoubtedly became a way out for graphics card miners.

On the evening of January 15, the Grin mainnet was launched, and several major mining pools such as F2Pool and SparkPool quickly announced their support for Grin mining and provided detailed mining tutorials. During that time, everyone could feel the excitement that Grin brought to the mining and even cryptocurrency circles.

As a phenomenal currency, Grin's price was as high as 1 BTC when it was first launched, but there was no market for it. Most exchanges that were busy listing the currency were futures, and it was impossible to withdraw the currency. Bixin COO Xiong Yue believed that the price at that time was meaningless and Grin was in the price discovery stage. The subsequent market also verified this statement. According to QKL123 data, on January 21, the price of Grin fell to US$2.4, climbed to US$13.4 on January 28, and then fell all the way to US$2.6 today.

At present, the data from the FishPool shows that the total network computing power is about 1652Kg/s, a 30% drop compared to a month ago. Even so, Shenyu, the founder of FishPool, still believes in an interview with Babbitt that Grin is a new currency that performs well in the current bear market.

"The daily output is hundreds of thousands of US dollars, which is about one-fifth to one-quarter of Ethereum's daily output. So the miners are very motivated, especially N card miners." He believes that the migration of computing power is a normal phenomenon under market fluctuations.

Is the era of Grin's high computing power coming?

Grin is an interesting currency. It uses the Cuckoo Cycle algorithm in the POW consensus mechanism. It has both C29 for GPU mining and C31 for ASIC mining. In the early days of its launch, its block ratio was set to 90% of the blocks mined by the C29 algorithm for GPU and 10% of the blocks mined by the C31 algorithm for ASIC. In the next two years, GPU mining will be gradually reduced and completely switched to ASIC mining. At present, the total network computing power of C29 is about 1652Kg/s, and that of C31 is 67.8Kg/s.

Therefore, Grin is a currency that welcomes ASIC mining machines. The purpose of its early GPU mining is to expand the group of participants by utilizing the decentralization of graphics card mining, while later ASIC mining will provide security and ecological guarantees including mining stability.

On March 15, a Hangzhou company called VIDTOO posted on its official Twitter that its Grin ASIC mining machine G1 is now available for pre-order. Its computing power is more than 50 times higher than that of current GPU mining machines, but the electricity cost is only 1% of the mining income. The specific specifications of the mining machine will be officially released in April.

This information can be said to have whetted the market's appetite. What does VIDTOO do? How is the performance of the Grin mining machine? With these confusions, Babbitt exclusively interviewed VIDTOO CEO Thomas. According to him, VIDTOO will announce detailed mining machine specifications in April, and it will be available in June at the earliest. "It has not been publicly issued yet. The official release time and price will be determined according to market conditions. When it is listed, it will undoubtedly be the fastest and most cost-effective ASIC mining machine." Thomas said, "G1 will bring significant user growth to Grin. In the long run, the growth of computing power is conducive to the healthy and sustainable development of the currency price."

VIDTOO is undoubtedly a new face in the mining circle. Thomas said that the team has been working in the field of semiconductor chips for a long time. High-bandwidth technology and comprehensive deep customized chip technology are applied to high-performance edge computing, naked-eye 3D stereoscopic image computing, 5G security gateway, 8K video and other industry solutions. The Grin ASIC mining machine was launched because of mature technology and based on Grin's technical characteristics, reward mechanism, currency concept, etc., it is judged that it will have a place in the future. The G1 mining machine is also the result of the company's internal team's entrepreneurship.

“I think blockchain is not just about mining. It can also be derived into dedicated network equipment in IDC computer rooms that serve blockchain. It is still an important area of ​​semiconductor development. Mining machines are an attempt and exploration for us, but it is only one direction.”

The ASIC mining market and Grin’s imagination

If you search the entire network, you can find that before, brands such as Innominator and Obelisk have announced Grin ASIC mining machine plans, but the relevant information is relatively vague, and the release channels are mostly Twitter. But from the statements of all parties, first of all, this summer may be a key time point for the confrontation between Grin ASIC mining machines. Secondly, entering the Grin ASIC mining machine market is undoubtedly a game of challenges and opportunities.

Shenyu analyzed that Grin's daily output has reached 20% to 25% of Ethereum's. Therefore, if the price does not change significantly, it can support 1-2 ASIC mining machine manufacturers. In addition, the Grin development community's open attitude towards ASICs has also given mining machine manufacturers a reassurance. And this is still the case when the coin price remains stable. If the market gradually recovers, as a highly topical coin, the expectation of Grin's market performance can still be a reason for entrepreneurs to boldly enter the market.

Previously, Tokengazer CEO Fan Hongda said that according to his calculation model, Grin's market value is expected to rank in the top 40 by the end of 2019 with a 97.5% probability of about 150 million US dollars. One year later, the unit price of Grin will be between 4.4 and 12.5 US dollars.

Comparing the current prices, it can be found that using existing graphics cards for mining requires little investment and has great imagination, but if you buy a new mining machine, the uncertainty of input and output will be greatly increased. Moreover, although the price of Bitcoin has fallen back to around $4,000 from its low point, this does not mean that the market has completed the bull-bear transition. Whether Grin's ASIC mining machine can become a hit in 2019 remains to be verified by time. In addition, the most difficult thing to grasp may be whether Bitmain, Canaan Creative and Shenma will quickly enter the market when they see favorable signs.