Bitmain reveals the true face of Ethereum mining machines. Why do “V Gods” strongly resist?

According to foreign media reports, Bitmain announced on Tuesday that it has developed a cryptocurrency mining machine called Antminer E3 specifically for Ethereum mining. Bitmain said that it will sell the mining machine to users in mid-to-late July, with each machine priced at $800 and each user is limited to one. Unfortunately, domestic users may have to wait a little longer because Antminer E3 does not support shipment to the Chinese market for the time being.

In fact, as early as two months ago in February, the media broke the news that Bitmain would launch mining products for Ethereum. A month later, Ethereum developer Piper Merriam published an “Ethereum Improvement Protocol” coded as “958” on Github.

Not only Ethereum, but also Bitmain’s new mining products, even Monero has promised to modify the PoW algorithm every 6 months to resist ASIC mining machines. Why are they so cautious about Bitmain’s move? This may be related to Bitmain’s direct control of more than 60% of the Bitcoin network’s computing power.

Bitmain is the world's largest mining machine manufacturer, which is beyond doubt. As Bitmain's power grows, its voice in the currency circle is getting more and more important, and it has even gradually affected the development path of Bitcoin. Previously, Bitmain and the Bitcoin maintenance team Core had several disputes over Bitcoin's expansion plan, and both sides refused to give in. As a result, a fork occurred.

However, unlike Satoshi Nakamoto who has "disappeared" from the world and has little influence on Bitcoin, Vitalik Buterin, the core figure of Ethereum, still plays a leading role in the Ethereum community, and he has long been vigilant about the problem of excessive concentration in the Bitcoin ecosystem. If Antminer E3 is a great success, it will undoubtedly greatly enhance Bitmain's control over the computing power on Ethereum, and even constitute a monopoly, which is obviously contrary to the decentralized spirit that Vitalik insists on.

“It is better to kill it in the cradle than to leave it for endless troubles”, which is probably the underlying logic of the Ethereum team’s resistance to this product from the beginning. Once the Ethereum algorithm is changed, Bitmain will be in trouble, as the ASIC mining machine it has invested a huge amount of money to develop will face the fate of being scrapped.

In fact, the launch of the Ethereum mining machine by Bitmain will not only bring major changes to the Ethereum ecosystem, but will also put tremendous pressure on graphics card manufacturers such as Nvidia and AMD.

As we all know, most of the Ethereum mining on the market is done with graphics card mining machines, which has caused a crazy increase in the price of graphics cards on the market, and they have been out of stock for a long time. Under this situation, graphics card manufacturers including NVIDIA and AMD have become the first to directly benefit, and the mining boom has allowed them to make huge profits through shipments.

However, the emergence of Ethereum mining machines may ruin their peaceful lives.

Earlier, Wall Street research firm Susquehanna International Group lowered its target share prices for Nvidia and AMD after learning that Bitmain had begun producing Ethereum ASIC mining machines.

Due to the existence of other cryptocurrencies, the mining market may not eliminate graphics card mining machines. However, in view of the current bear market, AMD has become alert and issued a warning in a recent annual report that the reduction in miners' desire to buy mining machines may have a "substantial negative impact" on the demand for graphics cards.